Anna Akimovna was glad that she had spoken her mind and she cheered up. She was pleased to have spoken so eloquently and now she was convinced that if Pimenov, for example, were to fall in love with her she would be delighted to marry him.
Misha poured some champagne.
‘You irritate me, Viktor Nikolaich’, she said, clinking glasses with the lawyer. ‘It annoys me that you can offer advice when you have no knowledge of life at all. You seem to think that mechanics or draughtsmen are ignorant peasants. But they’re terribly clever, they’re really remarkable!’
‘I knew your father and uncle… and I respected them’, Krylin said with slow deliberation. He was sitting as rigid as a statue and had been eating non-stop the whole time. ‘They were people of the highest intellect and… the loftiest moral qualities.’
‘All right, we know all about those qualities’, the lawyer muttered and asked permission to smoke.
When dinner was over, Krylin was led off to sleep. Lysevich finished his cigar and followed Anna Akimovna into her study, walking unsteadily after all the food he had eaten. He had no love for cosy nooks with photographs, fans on the walls, the inevitable pink or light-blue lamp in the middle of the ceiling, considering them the expression of a dull, unoriginal kind of personality. Furthermore, memories of certain previous affairs, of which he was now ashamed, were bound up with that type of lamp. But he did like Anna Akimovna’s study with its bare walls and tasteless furniture. It was soft and comfortable sitting there on the sofa, looking at Anna Akimovna, who usually sat on the carpet in front of the hearth, her knees clasped in her hands as she pensively stared into the fire. At that moment he felt that her peasant, Old Believer’s blood9 was throbbing in her veins now.
After dinner, when coffee and liqueurs were served, he would always liven up and tell her various bits of literary news. He used the florid, inspired style of someone carried away by his own oratory as she listened and – as always – concluded that she would pay him not twenty thousand but three times as much for the entertainment. And she would forgive him for everything she found unlikeable in him. At times he told her the plots of short stories, even novels, and on those occasions two or three hours would pass like minutes without them noticing. Now he began in a somewhat listless, feeble voice, his eyes closed.
‘It’s a long time since I read anything, my dear,’ he said when she asked him to tell her some story. ‘However, I sometimes read Jules Verne.’10
‘And I thought you had something new to tell me.’
‘Hm… new,’ Lysevich murmured sleepily and sank even further into the corner of the sofa. ‘None of modern literature is for you or me, dear lady. Of course, it is what it is and can’t be anything else. Not to accept it would be the same as rejecting the natural order of things, and I do accept it, but…’
Lysevich seemed to have fallen asleep, but soon his voice was heard again: ‘The whole of modern literature is like the autumn wind in the chimney, moaning and groaning: “Oh, you’re so unhappy! Oh, your life is a prison. Oh, how dark and damp for you there! Oh, you are doomed, there’s no escape!” That’s all very nice, but I would prefer a literature that teaches you how to escape from prison. The only contemporary writer I read now and then is Maupassant.’11 Lysevich opened his eyes. ‘A good writer, an excellent writer!’ Lysevich slid forward a little on the sofa. ‘A remarkable artist! A terrifying, monstrous, supernatural artist!’ Lysevich got up from the sofa and raised his right arm. ‘Maupassant!’ he exclaimed rapturously. ‘Read Maupassant, my dear! One page of his will give you more than all the world’s riches. Every line is a new horizon! The most subtle, tender movements of the soul alternate with violent, tempestuous sensations, as if a forty-thousand-fold atmospheric pressure had been brought to bear on it, turning it into an insignificant particle of some indeterminate pinkish matter which might taste sharp and sensuous if you could put it on the tongue. Such frenzied transitions, motifs, melodies! You are resting on a bed of lilies and roses when suddenly a terrifying, beautiful, irresistible thought descends on you out of the blue, like a locomotive enveloping you in hot steam and deafening you with its whistle. Read, read Maupassant! My dear, I insist!’
Lysevich waved his arms and walked up and down in great agitation. ‘No, it’s not possible,’ he said, as if in desperation. ‘His last work exhausted, intoxicated me!12 But I’m afraid you’ll be indifferent to it. In order to be carried away you have to savour it, slowly squeeze the juice from each line, drink. Yes, you must drink it!’
After a long preamble full of many phrases like ‘demoniac sensuality,’ ‘network of the most delicate nerves,’ ‘simoom,’13 ‘crystal’ and so on, he finally began to tell her the novel’s plot. He no longer indulged in flowery language and he went into great detail, quoting entire descriptive passages and conversations. He was enchanted by the characters and assumed different poses as he described them, altering his voice or facial expression, like a true actor. In his delight he would laugh out loud, first in a low-pitched voice, then very shrilly, clasping his hands or clutching his head as if he expected it to burst any minute. Although she had read the book, she listened enchanted, finding the lawyer’s rendering far more beautiful and complex than the novel itself. He directed her attention to various fine points and emphasized exquisitely turned expressions and profound thoughts. But she could only see real life itself there, and herself, as if she were one of the characters in the book. She cheered up, laughed out loud and clasped her hands like him, thinking it was impossible to go on with the life she had been leading, that there was no need to lead a wretched existence when one could live beautifully. She remembered what she had said and thought during dinner and she was proud of it. When the figure of Pimenov suddenly loomed large in her mind, she felt gay and wanted him to love her.
When he had finished his exposition, Lysevich sank back exhausted on the sofa.
‘What a wonderful, beautiful person you are!’ he began a little later, in a feeble, ailing voice. ‘I’m happy when I’m near you, my dear. But why am I forty-two and not thirty? Your tastes and mine don’t coincide. You should be dissipated, but I’ve long outlived that phase and I desire the most refined kind of love, as insubstantial as a sunbeam. I mean to say, I’m no damned good to a woman of your age.’
He said that he liked Turgenev, the bard of virginal love, youth and the melancholy Russian countryside. But his fondness for this ‘virginal love’ was not something directly experienced, but only something he had heard speak of, abstract, beyond the bounds of reality. Now he was trying to convince himself that his love for Anna Akimovna was platonic, idealistic, although he didn’t know the meaning of the words. He felt comfortable, warm and at ease, though, and Anna Akimovna seemed enchanting in her eccentricity. He thought that this pleasant feeling of wellbeing generated by his surroundings was identical with that so-called ‘platonic love’.
He pressed his cheek to her hand and asked in the kind of voice usually resorted to in order to win over young children, ‘Why have I been punished, my dear?’
‘How? When?’
‘I didn’t receive my Christmas bonus.’
Anna Akimovna had never heard of lawyers receiving Christmas bonuses and now she felt awkward, not knowing how much to give him. But give she must, as he was expecting it, even as he looked at her with loving eyes.
‘Nazarych must have forgotten’, she said. ‘But it’s not too late to rectify matters.’
Suddenly she remembered yesterday’s fifteen hundred roubles that were lying on her bedroom dressing-table. When she brought down that loathsome money and handed it to the lawyer, who stuffed it into a side pocket, with effortless grace, it was all so charming and natural. That unexpected reminder of the bonus, the fifteen hundred roubles – all this seemed so right for Lysevich.
‘Merci’, he said, kissing her finger.
Krylin entered with a blissful, sleepy look, and without his ribbons. He and Lysevich sat for a little longer, drank a glass of tea
each and prepared to leave. Anna Akimovna was in something of a quandary: she had completely forgotten where Krylin worked and she wondered if she should give him money as well. If so, should she give it him there and then, or send it in an envelope?
‘Where does he work?’ she whispered to Lysevich.
‘Damned if I know’, the lawyer muttered, yawning.
Anna Akimovna concluded that if Krylin had visited her uncle and father to pay his respects, it would not have been for nothing. Obviously he had acted for them in performing good deeds, having been employed by some charitable institution. As she said goodbye, she thrust three hundred roubles into his hand. He seemed amazed at this and stood looking at her for a short while in silence, with lustreless eyes. But then he seemed to cotton on.
‘But, my dear Anna Akimovna, I can’t give you a receipt before the New Year.’
Lysevich had grown quite limp and he staggered as Misha helped him into his fur coat. As he went downstairs he looked completely enervated and it was plain that he would fall asleep the moment he was in his sledge.
‘My dear sir’, he asked Krylin languidly, stopping halfway down, ‘have you ever had the feeling that some invisible power was stretching you out, making you longer and longer until you finally turned into the finest wire? Subjectively speaking it’s a special, voluptuous sensation that you can’t compare with anything else.’
Anna Akimovna could see them both hand Misha a banknote.
‘Now don’t forget me! Goodbye!’ she shouted after them and ran into her bedroom.
Quickly she threw off that dress which she was now tired of, put on her house-coat. Like a child she made her feet clatter as she ran downstairs. She desperately wanted some fun and games.
IV
EVENING
Auntie, in a loose cotton-print dress, Barbara and two old women were having supper in the dining-room. On the table in front of them was a large chunk of salt-beef, a ham, and various other salted delicacies. Steam rose to the ceiling from the very fat, tasty-looking salt-beef. Downstairs they did not drink wine, but there was a large assortment of spirits and fruit liqueurs. Agafya the cook, a plump, fair-haired, well-fed woman, was standing at the door with her arms crossed, talking to the old women, while ‘downstairs Masha’ – a brunette with a crimson ribbon in her hair – took the dishes round and served. The old women had been gorging themselves since morning, and an hour before supper had eaten a sweet, rich pie with their tea, so that now they were forcing themselves to eat, as if it were their duty.
‘Oh, dear me!’ Auntie sighed when Anna Akimovna suddenly dashed into the dining-room and sat on the chair next to her. ‘You nearly frightened the life out of me!’
The whole household was pleased when Anna Akimovna was in good spirits and started playing the fool, which never failed to remind them that the old men were dead, that the old women no longer held power in that house and that they could all do as they liked without fear of being mercilessly made to answer for it. Only the two old women whom Anna Akimovna didn’t know squinted at her in amazement: she was singing – and singing at table was a sin.
‘Our mistress is as pretty as a picture’, Agafya droned in a sugary voice. ‘Our precious jewel! So many came to see our princess today, Lord be praised! Generals, and officers, and gentlemen… I kept looking through the window, trying to count them all I was, but I couldn’t keep up, so I stopped.’
‘I’d rather those rogues had stayed at home’, Auntie said. She gazed sadly at her niece and added, ‘All they’ve done is waste the poor girl’s time.’
Anna Akimovna was starving, having eaten nothing since the morning. They poured her a very bitter-tasting fruit cordial, which she drank; and she ate some salt-beef with mustard and found it exceptionally tasty. Then ‘downstairs Masha’ served turkey, soused apples and gooseberries. This she liked too. What was unpleasant was the heat pouring out of the tiled stove in waves, which made the room stuffy, and everyone’s cheeks were burning. After supper they took the cloth away and put dishes of mint cakes, nuts and raisins on the table.
‘Come on, sit down with us!’ Auntie told the cook.
Agafya sighed and sat down at the table. Masha stood a cordial glass in front of her too and Anna Akimovna had the impression that as much heat was coming from Agafya’s white neck as from the stove. Everyone said how difficult it was to marry these days, and that at one time men had at least been tempted by money; now it was hard to tell what they wanted. At one time only hunchbacks and cripples had been left on the shelf; nowadays even the rich and beautiful were ignored. Auntie began by saying that this immoral situation arose from people not fearing God, but then she suddenly remembered that her brother Ivan and Barbara had both led devout lives and both believed in God. For all that they had had children from illicit unions and packed them off to a home. Then she suddenly pulled herself up and changed the subject to someone who had once courted her, a factory worker, and how she had loved him. But her brothers had forced her to marry a widowed icon-painter, who died two years later, thank God. ‘Downstairs Masha’ also took a seat at the table and told them, with a very mysterious look, that a black-moustached stranger in a black coat with a lambskin collar had started appearing in their yard every morning for the past week. He would come into the yard, look at the windows of the big house, and then go on to the factory blocks. He was a fine figure of a man, quite handsome, in fact…
All this talk gave Anna Akimovna a sudden urge to get married – so strong it was quite painful. She felt that she would give half her life and all her wealth just to know that there was a man upstairs closer to her than anyone in the world, who loved her deeply and who yearned for her. The thought of such an enchanting intimacy, so impossible to put into words, excited her. And the healthy instincts of a young woman flattered her with the false message that the true poetry of life had not yet arrived, but lay ahead, and she believed it. She leant back in her chair so that her hair hung loose and she started laughing, which made the others follow suit. For a long time the dining-room was filled with inconsequential laughter.
Someone then announced that ‘Beetle’ had come to spend the night. With Pasha or Spiridonovna as her real names, this small, pious lady of about fifty, in her black dress and white shawl, was sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed and sharp-chinned. She had cunning, spiteful eyes and seemed to look right through people. Her lips were pursed. Because she was so spiteful and hateful she was known as ‘Beetle’ in merchants’ houses.
After she came into the dining-room she went straight over to the icons without so much as a glance at anyone and sang in an alto voice ‘Thy Nativity,’ then ‘Virgin this Day’ and ‘Christ Is Born,’ after which she turned around and gave everyone a piercing look.
‘Happy Christmas!’ she said, kissing Anna Akimovna on the shoulder. ‘It was an awful job, really awful, getting here, my ladies of charity.’ She kissed Auntie on the shoulder. ‘I set off this morning, but on my way I stopped at some kind people’s house for a little rest. “Please stay,” they said. It was evening before I noticed it.’
As she didn’t eat meat she was served caviare and salmon. She scowled at everyone as she ate, and she drank three glasses of vodka. When she had finished she said a little prayer and bowed low to Anna Akimovna. They started playing Kings, as they had done the previous year and the year before that. Every single servant from the two floors crowded at the door to watch the game. Anna Akimovna thought that she twice glimpsed Misha, with that condescending smile of his, in the crowd of common peasant men and women. First to be king was ‘Beetle’. Anna Akimovna, a soldier, had to pay her a forfeit. Then Auntie became king and Anna Akimovna was a peasant or ‘yokel,’ which delighted everyone, while Agafya became a prince and was embarrassed at feeling so pleased. Another card game started at the far end of the table: both Mashas, Barbara and Martha the seamstress (whom they specially woke up to play Kings and who looked sleepy and irritable).
During the game the conversation turned to men, to how
difficult it was to find a good man nowadays, whether a spinster was better off than a widow.
‘You’re a pretty, healthy, strong lass’, Beetle told Anna Akimovna. ‘Only I just don’t understand who you’re saving yourself for, my girl.’
‘What can I do if no one will have me?’
‘Perhaps you made a vow never to marry’, Beetle continued as if she had not heard. ‘All right, that’s fine, don’t marry…’ she repeated, eyeing her cards attentively, viciously. ‘Stay as you are… yes… But spinsters, bless their hearts, come in all shapes and sizes’, she sighed, dealing a king. ‘Oh, all shapes and sizes, my dear! There’s some what live like nuns, pure as angels they are. But if one of them happens to sin, the poor girl goes through such torments you just couldn’t bring yourself to tell her off. And there’s others as wear black and make their own shrouds, while they love rich old men on the sly. Yes, my little songbirds, there’s witches who’ll put spells on an old man and keep him under their thumbs. Oh, yes, my dears, they’ll call the tune, do what they like with him and as soon as they’ve pinched his money and lottery tickets they’ll bewitch him, so he dies.’
All Barbara did was sigh in reply to these remarks and look at the icon. Her face was filled with Christian humility.
‘There’s a girl I know, my fierce enemy’, Beetle went on, surveying everyone triumphantly. ‘She’s always sighing away and looking at the icons, the she-devil. When she had an old man under her thumb and you went to see her, she’d give you a little something to eat and order you to bow down to the ground while she read out loud “A Virgin brought forth”. On holidays she’d give you a morsel to eat, but on ordinary days she’d tell you off. So, now I’m off to have a good laugh at her, my little pets!’