The Shooting Party

  The following evening I was once again at the Count’s estate. On this occasion I didn’t chat with Sasha, but with her schoolboy brother, who led me into the garden and poured out his soul to me. These outpourings were provoked by my questions about life with his ‘new mama’.

  ‘She’s a very good friend of yours,’ he said, nervously unbuttoning his uniform. ‘I know you’ll go and tell her, but I’m not afraid. Go ahead, tell her whatever you like. She’s wicked, vile!’

  And he told me that Olga had taken his room from him, had dismissed the old nanny who had been with the Urbenins for ten years and that she was constantly in a bad temper, always shouting.

  ‘Yesterday you praised my sister Sasha’s hair. Yes, it’s really beautiful! Just like flax! But this morning Olga went and cut it all off!’

  It’s sheer jealousy! I explained to myself Olga’s excursion into the unfamiliar realm of hairdressing.

  ‘It seems she was jealous because you praised Sasha’s hair and not hers,’ the boy said, confirming my thoughts. ‘And she’s tormented the life out of Papa. He keeps spending an awful lot on her, he’s neglecting his work and he’s started drinking again. Again! She’s a stupid woman… all day long she cries because she has to live in poor surroundings, in such a small house. Is it Papa’s fault that he doesn’t have much money?’

  The boy related many sad things. He could see what his blinded father could not or did not want to see. That poor boy’s father had been wronged – and his sister and his old nanny too. He had been robbed of his little sanctuary, where he was accustomed to busy himself keeping his books in order and feeding the goldfinches he’d caught. Everyone had been wronged and that stupid and omnipotent stepmother was making a mockery of everything! But the poor boy could never have dreamt of the terrible insult that was inflicted on his family by that young stepmother and which I witnessed that very same evening after my conversation with him. Everything paled into insignificance before that outrage and Sasha’s cropped hair seemed a mere trifle by comparison.

  XV

  Late that evening I was sitting at the Count’s. As usual, we were drinking. The Count was completely drunk, myself only slightly.

  ‘This morning Olga let me touch her waist “accidentally”,’ he muttered. ‘That means we can take things a bit further tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, what about Nadya? How’s things with her?’

  ‘I’m making progress! With her it’s only just the start! So far it’s only a period of eye contact. I love reading her mournful black eyes, old chap. Something that words cannot convey is written in them, something only the soul can understand… Another drink?’

  ‘So, she must like you if she has the patience to talk to you for hours on end. Her Papa likes you too.’

  ‘Her Papa? You mean that blockhead! Ha ha! That moron suspects I have honourable intentions!’

  The Count had a coughing fit and took a drink.

  ‘He thinks I’m going to marry her! Apart from the fact that I can’t get married, it would be more honourable on my part – looking at things from an honourable viewpoint – to seduce the girl rather than marry her… Stuck for life with a drunken middle-aged sot who’s always coughing?! Brrr! Any wife would wither away or clear out the next day. What’s that noise?’

  The Count and I leapt up. Several doors slammed almost simultaneously and Olga ran into the room. She was as white as a sheet and trembling like a violently plucked violin string. Her hair was dishevelled, the pupils of her eyes dilated. She was gasping for breath and kept crumpling the front of her nightdress with her fingers.

  ‘Olga, what’s wrong, dear?’ I asked, grasping her arm and turning pale.

  The Count ought to have been startled by my accidental use of ‘dear’, but he didn’t hear. Transformed into one huge question mark, his mouth wide open and his eyes goggling, he stared at Olga as if she were a ghost.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  ‘He keeps beating me,’ Olga said and slumped sobbing into an armchair. ‘He keeps beating me!’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘My husband, of course! I just cannot live with him. I’ve left him!’

  ‘That’s outrageous!’ the Count exclaimed, banging his fist on the table. ‘What right does he have? This is sheer tyranny… it’s… it’s the devil only knows what! Beating his wife! Beating her! Why does he do that to you?’

  ‘For no reason at all,’ Olga replied, wiping away the tears. ‘I simply took my handkerchief from my pocket and out fell the letter you sent me yesterday. He leapt up, read it and started hitting me. He grabbed my hand and crushed it – just look, there’s still red blotches on it – and he demanded an explanation. Instead of giving him an explanation I rushed over here… If only you would take my side! He has no right to treat his wife so roughly. I’m not a cook, I’m a gentlewoman!’

  The Count paced from corner to corner and with his drunken, muddled tongue started jabbering some nonsense which, when translated into sober language, must have meant: ‘On the position of women in Russia.’

  ‘This is sheer barbarity! This is New Zealand! Does that peasant also think that his wife will have her throat cut at his funeral? As you know, when savages go to the next world they take their wives with them!’

  I just couldn’t come to my senses. How was I to interpret Olga’s sudden visit in her nightdress? What should I think, what should I decide to do? If she had been beaten, if her dignity had been insulted, then why hadn’t she run to her father or the housekeeper? Finally, why not to me, who despite everything, was still close to her? And had she really been insulted? My heart spoke to me of that simple-minded Urbenin’s innocence: sensing the truth, it was afflicted with the same pain that the stunned husband must have been feeling now. Without asking questions and without knowing where to begin, I started calming Olga down and offered her some wine.

  ‘What a mistake I made! What an awful mistake!’ she sighed through her tears, raising the wine glass to her lips. ‘And the look on his face when he was courting me – it was as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I thought that this was no man, but an angel!’

  ‘Did you expect him to be pleased about that letter which fell from your pocket?’ I asked. ‘Did you want him to have a good laugh about it?’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ the Count interrupted. ‘Whatever happened, he behaved like a cad! That’s no way to treat a woman! I shall challenge him to a duel. I’ll show him! Believe me, Olga Nikolayevna, he won’t get away with it!’

  The Count puffed himself out like a young turkey, although no one had authorized him to come between husband and wife. I said nothing and didn’t contradict him, because I knew that his taking revenge on behalf of someone else’s wife would be limited to a drunken torrent of words within those four walls and that the duel would be completely forgotten by the morning. But why did Olga remain silent? I was reluctant to think that she wouldn’t object to any services that the Count might offer her, I didn’t want to believe that this silly, beautiful cat had so little pride that she would willingly agree for the drunken Count to be judge of man and wife…

  ‘I’ll rub his nose in the mud!’ screeched this newly fledged knight in shining armour. ‘And to finish with – a slap in the face! Yes, tomorrow!’

  And she didn’t succeed in silencing that scoundrel who in a drunken fit had insulted a man guilty only of making a mistake and being deceived himself. Urbenin had violently squeezed her hand – this was the reason for that scandalous flight to the Count’s house. But now, right in front of her, that drunken reprobate was trampling a good name and emptying filthy slops over a man who must now be eating his heart out with anguish and uncertainty, who must have now come to realize that he had been deceived. But she didn’t turn a hair!

  While the Count was venting his anger and Olga was wiping away the tears, a manservant served some roast partridge. The Count offered his lady guest half a partridge. She refused with a shake of the head but then, like an
automaton, took her knife and fork and started eating. The partridge was followed by a large glass of wine, and soon there were no more signs of tears – except for a few pink spots near the eyes and some isolated, deep sighs.

  Soon we could hear laughter… Olga was laughing like a comforted child that had forgotten the injury done to it. The Count laughed too as he looked at her.

  ‘Do you know – I’ve had an idea!’ he began, moving closer to her. ‘I’m thinking of organizing some amateur dramatics at my place. We’ll put on a play with excellent parts for women. Eh? What do you think?’

  They started discussing amateur dramatics. How violently this idle chatter clashed with the horror that had been written all over Olga’s face when she had rushed weeping into the room only an hour before, her hair hanging loose. How cheap that horror, those tears!

  Meanwhile, time passed. The clock struck twelve. At this respectable hour women usually go to bed. Olga should have already left, but half past struck, one o’clock and still she was sitting there chatting with the Count.

  ‘Time for bed,’ I said, looking at my watch. ‘I’m off! May I see you home, Olga Nikolayevna?’

  Olga glanced at me and then at the Count.

  ‘Where can I go?’ she whispered. ‘I can’t go back to him.’

  ‘No, of course you can’t go back to him,’ the Count said. ‘Who’ll guarantee that he won’t start beating you again? No, no!’

  I walked up and down the room. All became silent. I paced from corner to corner, while my friend and my mistress followed my footsteps with their eyes. I felt that I understood both that silence and those looks – there was something impatient in them, something expectant. I put my hat down and sat on the couch.

  ‘Well now,’ mumbled the Count, impatiently rubbing his hands. ‘Well now… that’s what things have come to…’

  Half-past one struck. The Count swiftly glanced at the clock, frowned and started walking up and down. From the looks he gave me it was obvious he wanted to tell me something important, but rather delicate and unpleasant.

  ‘Listen, Seryozha,’ he finally brought himself to say, seating himself next to me and whispering in my ear. ‘My dear chap, don’t take offence. Of course, you’ll understand my position and my request won’t strike you as strange or impudent.’

  ‘Out with it! Don’t beat about the bush!’

  ‘Can’t you see what’s… going on? Please leave, my dear chap. You’re cramping our style! She’s staying here with me. Please forgive me for throwing you out but… you’ll understand my impatience.’

  ‘All right.’

  My friend was loathsome. If I hadn’t been so squeamish I might have squashed him like a beetle when, feverishly trembling, he asked me to leave him alone with Urbenin’s wife. That sickly, effete anchorite, completely saturated with alcohol, wanted to take to himself that ‘poetic’ girl in red, who had been nurtured by forests and a turbulent lake, who had dreams of a dramatic death! No, she wasn’t safe even within half a mile of him.

  I went up to her and told her I was going. She nodded.

  ‘Must I take my leave? Yes?’ I asked, trying to read the truth on her pretty, flushed face. ‘Yes?’

  She turned away from me as one turns away from a tiresome wind. She didn’t feel like talking. And why should she? It was impossible to reply in brief to such a prolix matter – and this was neither the time nor the place for long speeches.

  I took my hat and left without saying goodbye. Subsequently, Olga told me that the moment I left, the moment the sound of my footsteps had mingled with the noise of the wind in the garden, the drunken Count was pressing her in his embrace. Closing her eyes and stopping her mouth and nostrils, she could barely stay on her feet from the revulsion she felt. There was even a moment when she very nearly broke loose from his clutches and ran into the lake. There were moments when she tore her hair and sobbed. Selling oneself is not easy!

  When I left the house and went towards the stables where my Zorka was waiting, I had to pass the manager’s house. I peered through the window. Pyotr Yegorych was sitting at a table in the dim light of a smoking lamp that had been turned up extremely high. I could not see his face, as it was buried in his hands, but his whole fat, clumsy figure betrayed so much grief, anguish and despair that there was no need to see his face in order to understand his state of mind. Two bottles were standing before him. One was empty, the other had only just been opened. Both were vodka bottles. The poor devil was seeking peace neither in himself nor in the company of others, but in alcohol.

  Five minutes later I was riding home. It was terribly dark. The lake seethed angrily and seemed to be furious that a sinner like me, who had just witnessed a sinful deed, dared disturb its austere repose. It was too dark to see the lake and it was as if an invisible monster were roaring away and the enveloping darkness seemed to be roaring too. I reined in Zorka, closed my eyes and became lost in thought as I listened to the sound of the roaring monster.

  What if I went back now and destroyed them? I thought. Terrible anger raged within me. That small measure of goodness and decency that remained within me after lifelong dissipation, all that had survived decay, all that I had cherished, nurtured, prided myself upon, had been outraged, spat upon, besmirched!

  I had known earlier of venal women, I had bought them, studied them, but they did not possess that blush of innocence or those sincere blue eyes that I saw that May morning when I went through the forest to the fair at Tenevo. I, who was corrupt to the core, could forgive, preach tolerance for everything that was depraved, could be lenient towards frailty… I was convinced that one could never ask of filth that it should cease to be so, and I couldn’t blame those gold coins that fall into filth by force of circumstance. But I hadn’t known before that gold coins can dissolve in filth and merge with it into one single solid mass. That meant solid gold could dissolve too!

  A strong gust of wind tore my hat off and bore it away into the surrounding gloom. As it flew through the air it brushed Zorka’s muzzle and she took fright, reared and careered off down the familiar road.

  When I was home I slumped onto the bed and when Polikarp suggested I take my clothes off he was called an old devil for no reason at all.

  ‘Devil yourself,’ growled Polikarp, stepping away from the bed.

  ‘What did you say? What did you say?’ I shouted, leaping up.

  ‘There’s none so deaf as those who won’t hear!’

  ‘Aaaah! How dare you be so impertinent again!’ I cried, trembling as I vented my spleen on my poor lackey. ‘Get out! Out of my sight, you scoundrel! Get out!’

  Without waiting for my man to leave the room, I collapsed onto the bed and started sobbing like a child. My overtaxed nerves could take no more. My impotent rage, wounded feelings, jealousy – all this had to find some kind of outlet, one way or the other.

  ‘A husband murdered his wife!’ squawked my parrot, ruffling its thin feathers.

  Prompted by this cry, the thought occurred to me that Urbenin might kill his wife…

  When I fell asleep, I dreamt of that murder – it was an agonizing, suffocating nightmare. It seemed that my hands were stroking some cold object and that I only had to open my eyes to see a corpse. I dreamt that Urbenin was standing at the head of my bed and looking at me with pleading eyes.

  After the night I have just described, a period of calm set in.

  XVI

  I settled down at home, allowing myself to leave the house and drive around on business only. A mass of work had accumulated, so there was no danger of my getting bored. From morning to night I sat at my desk, diligently scribbling away or cross-examining people who had fallen into my investigatory clutches. I had no inclination at all to go to Karneyevka, the Count’s estate.

  I dismissed Olga from my mind. What’s lost is lost and she was precisely what I had lost – lost for ever, so it seemed. I thought no more about her, nor did I want to.

  ‘Stupid, dissolute trash!’ I invariably call
ed her whenever she loomed in my imagination during my intensive labours.

  But sometimes, when I went to bed and woke up the next morning, I recalled different moments during my acquaintance and shortlived affair with Olga. I remembered Stone Grave, the cottage in the forest where the ‘girl in red’ lived, the road to Tenevo, the meeting in the grotto – and my heart began to pound. I felt a nagging pain… But none of this lasted very long. Those bright memories soon faded under the pressure of unpleasant ones. What poetry from the past could withstand the filth of the present? And now that I had finished with Olga I viewed that ‘poetry’ differently. Now I saw it as an optical illusion, as a lie, as hypocrisy – and in my eyes it lost half its charm.

  The Count had now become utterly repulsive to me. I was glad that I wasn’t seeing him and I always grew angry when his mustachioed face timidly appeared in my imagination.

  Every day he sent me letters in which he implored me to stop moping and to visit someone who was no longer a ‘solitary hermit’. Obeying his letters would have made things very unpleasant for myself.

  ‘It’s all over!’ I thought. ‘Thank God… I’m sick and tired of it.’

  I decided to break off all relations with the Count and this determination didn’t cost me the slightest effort. Now I was no longer the person of three weeks earlier who could barely stay at home after the quarrel over Pshekhotsky – there was nothing to entice me to the Count’s any more.