The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91

  Eagles lower than hens can fly

  But hens will ne’er soar into the sky.24

  What’s most annoying is that ‘hen-Gnekker’ turns out to be far cleverer than ‘eagle-professor’. Knowing that my wife and daughter are on his side he adopts the tactic of answering my caustic sallies with a condescending silence. ‘The old boy’s off his rocker,’ he must be thinking, ‘so why talk to him?’ Or he good-humouredly pulls my leg. It’s quite amazing how low a man can sink. I’m capable of spending the entire meal dreaming that one day Gnekker will turn out a confidence trickster, that Liza and my wife will see the error of their ways and that I’ll tease them – and similar ridiculous fantasies when I already have one foot in the grave!

  And now there are misunderstandings of which I previously became aware only by hearsay. However ashamed it makes me feel, I shall describe one of them that happened the other day after dinner.

  I am sitting in my room smoking my pipe. In comes my wife. She sits down and starts talking about how nice it would be if I went to Kharkov – now that the weather’s warm and I have the time to spare – to find out what kind of man this Gnekker is.

  ‘All right, I’ll go,’ I agree.

  Pleased with me, my wife gets up and goes to the door, but immediately she turns back.

  ‘By the way, I have one more request. I know you’ll be angry, but it’s my duty to warn you… I’m sorry I have to say this, Nikolay, but all your friends and neighbours have started talking about your being at Katya’s so much. She’s clever and educated – that I don’t dispute – and it must be pleasant spending time with her, but at your age and for someone in your social position it’s a bit odd that you should find pleasure in her company… Besides, she has such a reputation that…’

  The blood suddenly drains from my head, my eyes flash. I leap up, clutch my head and stamp my feet.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ I shout in a voice that isn’t mine. ‘Leave me alone! Leave me!’

  I probably look terrible and my voice must sound strange in the extreme, since my wife suddenly goes pale and shrieks – also in a frantic voice which isn’t hers. Hearing our cries in rushes Liza, then Gnekker, followed by Yegor…

  ‘Leave me alone!’ I shout. ‘Get out! Leave me!’

  There’s no feeling in my legs, as if they aren’t there at all, and I feel that I am falling into someone’s arms. Then, briefly, I can hear someone weeping and I sink into a faint which lasts two or three hours.

  And now about Katya. She arrives every day in the late afternoon and this of course cannot fail to go unnoticed by neighbours or friends. She comes in for a few minutes and then takes me for a drive. She keeps her own horses and a new chaise which she bought this summer. On the whole she lives quite lavishly: she has rented an expensive detached villa with a large garden in the country and moved all her furniture there from town. She keeps two maids and a coachman. I often ask her, ‘Katya, what will you live on once you’ve squandered all your father’s money?’

  ‘We’ll see…,’ she replies.

  ‘That money deserves to be treated more seriously, my dear. It was earned by a good man, by honest labour.’

  ‘I know – you’ve already told me.’

  At first we drive through open country, then through the pine wood which is visible from my window. Nature looks as beautiful as ever, although the devil whispers that when I’m dead in three or four months those pines and firs, those birds and white clouds in the sky won’t notice I’ve gone. Katya likes driving and finds it pleasant to have me sitting next to her – and in such fine weather. She’s in a good mood and doesn’t say any of those nasty things.

  ‘You’re a very good man, Nikolay Stepanovich,’ she says. ‘You are a rare specimen and no actor could portray you. As for myself or Mikhail Fyodorovich – even a bad actor could manage us, but no one could manage you. And I envy you – I envy you terribly! After all, what am I, all said and done? What?’

  She reflects for a moment and then she asks, ‘Nikolay Stepanovich, I’m a negative phenomenon, aren’t I? Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘Hm… what am I to do then?’

  What can I tell her? It’s easy enough to say, ‘Work!’, ‘Give all you have to the poor’, ‘Know thyself’ – and because it’s so easy to say I’m lost for a reply.

  When my colleagues from the therapy department are teaching the art of healing they advise their students to ‘individualize each separate case’. You only need to follow this advice to see that the techniques recommended in textbooks as the very best and most applicable to routine cases turn out completely unsuitable in individual cases. It’s the same with moral ailments.

  But I have to give some reply.

  ‘My dear, you have too much time on your hands,’ I tell her. ‘You must find something to do. In fact, why don’t you go on the stage again, if that’s your real vocation?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Your tone and manner seem to imply you’re a victim. I don’t like that, my dear. It’s your own fault. Remember how at first you got angry with people and the way things were, but you did nothing to improve one or the other. You didn’t combat evil, but simply crumpled up and so you’re a victim of your own feebleness – not of the struggle. Of course, you were young then and inexperienced, but now everything can be different. Yes, go ahead! You will toil, you will serve sacred art…’

  ‘Don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes, Nikolay Stepanovich,’ Katya interrupts. ‘Let’s agree once and for all – we’ll talk about actors, actresses and writers, but let’s leave art in peace. You’re a fine, rare person, but I don’t think you understand enough about art to call it sacred, in all honesty. You have no instinct for art, no ear. All your life you’ve been too busy, so you never had time to acquire that feeling. In general I don’t like all this talk about art,’ she continues nervously. ‘I don’t like it! It’s been vulgarized enough already, thank you very much!’

  ‘Who’s vulgarized it?’

  ‘Some people by drunkenness, newspapers by their condescending attitude, clever people by their philosophy.’

  ‘Philosophy’s got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Yes it has. When someone philosophizes it shows he doesn’t understand.’

  To avoid a possible flare-up I hasten to change the subject and then say nothing for a long time. Only when we are driving out of the wood and approaching Katya’s village do I return to the earlier topic.

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question: why don’t you want to go back to the stage?’

  ‘Really, Nikolay Stepanovich, that’s cruel of you!’ she cries and suddenly blushes furiously. ‘Do you want me to spell the truth out loud? Very well, if that’s what you want! I’ve no talent! No talent and a great deal of vanity. So there you are!’

  Having made this confession she turns her face away and tugs violently on the reins to hide the trembling in her hands.

  As we drive up to the villa we can see from the distance Mikhail Fyodorovich strolling by the gates and impatiently awaiting us.

  ‘It’s that Mikhail Fyodorovich again!’ says Katya in exasperation. ‘Take him away from me – please! I’m sick and tired of him… he’s all washed up. Blow him!’

  Mikhail Fyodorovich ought to have gone abroad long ago, but every week he keeps postponing his departure. A few changes have come over him lately: now he has a somewhat pinched look, wine goes to his head, which it never used to before, his black eyebrows are turning grey. When our chaise draws up at the gates he can’t hide his delight and impatience. Fussily he helps Katya and myself down, fires questions at us, laughs and rubs his hands. The gentle, imploring expression I’d noticed only in his eyes before now suffuses his whole face. He is happy, yet he’s ashamed of his joy, ashamed of his habit of visiting Katya every evening and he feels he must justify his appearance with some patent absurdity such as: ‘I happened to be driving past on some business, so I thought I’d drop in for a moment.’
br />   The three of us go inside. First we have tea, then those long-familiar two packs of cards, the large piece of cheese, the fruit, the bottle of Crimean champagne, make their appearance on the table. Our topics of conversation aren’t new – they’re exactly the same as during the winter. University students, literature and the theatre all come in for abuse. The air grows thicker, stuffier from all that spiteful gossip and no longer two toads as in winter but a trio of them poison it with their exhalations. Besides the velvety baritone laughter and loud guffaws that put me in mind of an accordion the maid who is serving us can also hear an unpleasant grating laugh, like a general’s chuckle in a cheap stage farce.

  V

  There are terrifying nights, with thunder, lightning, rain and wind – they are called ‘sparrow nights’ by country folk. One such sparrow night took place in my personal life…

  I wake up after midnight and suddenly jump out of bed. For some reason I feel I’m suddenly going to die. Why do I feel this? In my body there is not one sensation that would seem to indicate an early demise, but my heart is assailed with such horror it’s as though I’d suddenly seen the sinister glow of some vast conflagration.

  I quickly strike a light and drink some water straight from the carafe. Then I rush to the open window. The night is magnificent, with a scent of hay and some other delightful smell. I can see the spikes of my garden fence, the gaunt sleepy trees by the window, the road, the dark strip of the wood. There’s a tranquil, very bright moon in the sky and not one cloud. All is quiet, not a leaf stirs. I feel that everything is looking at me and trying to hear how I’m going to die.

  I’m terrified. I close the window and run back to bed. After feeling for my pulse and not finding it in my wrist, I start looking for it in my temples, my chin, then again in my wrist. Everything I touch is cold and clammy with sweat. I breathe faster and faster, my body trembles, all my inside is in turmoil and it feels as if my face and bald patch are covered with a cobweb.

  What shall I do? Call my family? No, there’s no point in that – I don’t know what my wife and Liza would do if they came in.

  I hide my head under the pillow, close my eyes and wait… and wait. My back is cold and it seems as if it’s being drawn into me, and I have the feeling that death is bound to creep up on me from behind…

  ‘Kee-vee, kee-vee!’ something shrieks in the silence of the night and there’s no telling where it’s coming from – my chest or the street?

  ‘Kee-vee, kee-vee!’

  God, how frightening! I would have drunk some more water but I’m too scared to open my eyes and afraid to raise my head. This fear of mine is unaccountable, animal-like – why I’m feeling so frightened is quite beyond me. Is it because I want to live or because some new, as yet unknown pain is in store for me?

  In the room above someone groans or laughs. I listen hard. Soon afterwards I can hear footsteps on the stairs. Someone hurries down and then up again. A minute later I can again hear footsteps downstairs: someone stops outside my door and listens.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I shout.

  The door opens and I boldly open my eyes and see my wife. Her face is pale and her eyes tear-stained.

  ‘Can’t you sleep, Nikolay?’ she asks.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘For God’s sake go and see Liza. There’s something the matter with her.’

  ‘All right… with pleasure,’ I mutter, delighted that I’m no longer alone. ‘All right… straight away.’

  I follow my wife and listen to her, but I’m too agitated to take in anything. The patches of light from her candle dance on the stairs, our long shadows quiver, my feet become entangled in the skirts of my dressing-gown. I gasp for breath and I sense that something is chasing me and wants to grab my back. ‘I’m going to die now, right here, on these stairs,’ I think. ‘Now…’ But we’ve gone up the stairs, along the dark corridor with the Italian window and we enter Liza’s room. She’s sitting on the bed in her nightdress, her bare feet dangling; she’s groaning.

  ‘Oh God!’ she mutters, screwing up her eyes at our candle. ‘I can’t bear it any more!’

  ‘Liza, my child,’ I say. “What’s wrong?’

  Seeing me, she shrieks and flings her arms around my neck.

  ‘My kind Papa,’ she sobs. ‘Good kind Papa… my darling sweet pet… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel awful!’

  She hugs and kisses me and babbles those fond words that I used to hear from her when she was a little child.

  ‘Calm yourself, my child – please!’ I say. ‘You mustn’t cry. I feel awful too.’

  I try to tuck her in, my wife gives her some water and the two of us jostle each other around the bed in confusion. I jog my wife’s shoulder with mine and this reminds me of how once we used to bathe our children together.

  ‘Help her, won’t you!’ begs my wife. ‘Do something!’

  But what can I do? Nothing. That girl is depressed about something but I understand nothing, know nothing and can only mutter, ‘It’s all right… it will pass… Now, go to sleep… sleep.’

  To make matters worse a dog suddenly starts barking in the yard, quietly and hesitantly at first, then followed by a noisy duet. I’ve never attached much significance to omens such as dogs howling or owls hooting, but now my heart sinks and I hurry to find an explanation for that howling.

  ‘It’s all nonsense,’ I think. ‘It’s just how one organism influences another. My extreme nervous tension has infected my wife, Liza, the dog – that’s all… This transmission explains presentiments, forebodings.’

  After returning to my room a little later to write Liza a prescription I no longer think about imminent death, but I feel so wretched and miserable that I actually regret not having died suddenly. For a long while I stand motionless in the middle of the room, wondering what to prescribe for Liza. But the groans above the ceiling die away and I decide not to prescribe anything. But still I stand there…

  There’s a deathly silence that rings even in the ears, as some writer put it. Time passes slowly, the streaks of moonlight on the windowsill stay quite still and seem frozen. Dawn is a long time away.

  But then the garden gate creaks, someone creeps in, breaks a twig off one of the spindly trees and cautiously taps on the window.

  ‘Nikolay Stepanovich!’ I hear someone whisper. ‘Nikolay Stepanovich!’

  I open the window and fancy I’m dreaming. Beneath the window, huddled close to the wall, stands a woman in a black dress, brightly lit by the moon and looking at me with big eyes. Her face is pale, stern, weird in the moonlight, just like marble; her chin is trembling.

  ‘It’s me!’ she says. ‘It’s me – Katya!’

  In the moonlight all women’s eyes look large and black, people seem taller and paler – this was probably why I didn’t recognize her right away.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Forgive me,’ she says, ‘but for some reason I suddenly felt so incredibly miserable that I could bear it no longer. So I came here. There was a light in your window… and… I decided to knock… Forgive me… Oh, if only you knew how depressed I was feeling! What are you doing now?’

  ‘Nothing… can’t sleep.’

  ‘I had a kind of premonition. Still, that’s all nonsense.’

  She raises her eyebrows, tears shine in her eyes and her whole face is illumined with that familiar, trusting look I hadn’t seen for so long.

  ‘Nikolay Stepanovich!’ she pleads, holding out both arms to me. ‘My dear friend, I beg you… I implore you… If you don’t despise my friendship and respect for you, please grant my request!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Take my money!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! What do I want with your money?’

  ‘You could go away somewhere for your health. You need treatment. You will take it, won’t you, dear? Yes?’

  She eagerly looks into my face.

  ‘You will take it? Yes?’ she repeats.

&nbs
p; ‘No, my dear, I won’t…’ I say. ‘But thank you…’

  She turns her back to me and lowers her head. Probably the tone of my refusal made any further discussion of financial matters impossible.

  ‘Go home and sleep,’ I say. ‘We’ll see each other tomorrow.’

  ‘Does this mean you don’t consider me your friend?’ she asks dejectedly.

  ‘I’m not saying that. But your money is useless to me now.’

  ‘I’m sorry…’ she says, lowering her voice a whole octave.

  ‘I understand you… To be indebted to a person like me… a retired actress… Oh well, goodbye…’

  And she leaves so quickly that I don’t even manage to say goodbye.

  VI

  I’m in Kharkov.

  Since it would be fruitless and beyond my powers to struggle against my present mood, I’ve decided that the last days of my life will be irreproachable – at least in a formal sense. If I’m being unfair to my family, as I fully realize, I’ll try my very best to do what they want. If I really have to go to Kharkov – then to Kharkov I shall go. Besides, I’ve become so indifferent to everything lately that it’s really all the same to me where I go – Kharkov, Paris or Berdichev.25

  I arrived in Kharkov at about noon and put up at a hotel not far from the cathedral. The jolting of the train made me feel sick, the draughts went right through me and now here I am sitting on my bed, clutching my head and waiting for the nervous tic to start. Today I really ought to go and see some professor friends, but I’ve neither the inclination nor the strength.

  The old hotel waiter comes in and asks if I have bed linen. I keep him for about five minutes and question him about Gnekker – the object of my journey. The waiter turns out to be a native of Kharkov, who knows the city like the back of his hand, but he doesn’t know of any house owned by a Gnekker. I ask him about estates in the country – I get the same reply.