‘I’ll see you tomorrow!’ she whispered, putting her arms around me carefully, as if she was afraid of disturbing the night’s silence. ‘We don’t keep secrets from each other, so I’ll have to tell Mama and my sister everything now… I’m scared! Mama will be all right, because she is very fond of you, but think about Lida!’
She ran off back towards the gates.
I could hear her running for a few minutes. I did not feel like going home, and there was not much reason to go back anyway. I stood for a while thinking, then quietly sauntered back once more to look at the house she lived in. That charming, naive old house seemed to be peering at me through the windows of its mezzanine, which were like eyes, comprehending all. I walked past the veranda, sat on the bench near the tennis-court in the darkness, beneath the old elm, and gazed at the house from there. A bright light was shining in the windows of the mezzanine, where Zhenya slept, which then turned to a subdued green as the lamp was covered with a shade. The shadows moved… I was brimming with tender feelings, and felt serene and content with myself for once because I had succeeded in becoming attracted to someone and had fallen in love. At the same time I felt uneasy, since Lida, who did not love me, and maybe even hated me, was also in one of the rooms of the house, just a few feet away. I sat waiting to see if Zhenya would come outside, and when I listened I thought I could hear the sound of people talking in the mezzanine.
About an hour went by. The green light went out and the shadows disappeared. The moon was already high above the house and lit up the sleeping garden and the paths. The dahlias and roses in the flower-bed in front of the house were very distinct, and they seemed to be all the same colour. It had become very cold, so I left the garden, picked up my coat from the road, and trudged off home.
When I turned up at the Volchaninovs after lunch the next day, the glass door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the veranda, expecting Zhenya to appear any minute on the patio behind the flower-bed, or on one of the paths, or for her voice to be heard in one of the rooms of the house. I went into the sitting room and the dining room. There was no one about. From the dining room I walked down the long passageway to the hall, and then back again. Several doors opened off the passageway, and Lida’s voice could be heard emanating from behind one of them.
‘God sent the crow…’, she said loudly in a lilting voice, probably dictating a Krylov fable. * ‘Sent-the-crow… A piece of cheese… God… sent… Who is there?’ she then suddenly called out, hearing my footsteps.
‘It’s me.’
‘Oh! I’m afraid I can’t come out just now as I am in the middle of teaching Dasha.’
‘Is Yekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?’
‘No, she and my sister left this morning to visit my aunt near Penza. * And they will probably go abroad in the winter…’, she added after a pause. ‘God sent the crow… a piece… of cheese. Have you written that?’
I went to the front door and stood there, my mind empty of thoughts. As I looked across to the pond and the village, I could hear behind me:
‘God sent the crow… a piece… of cheese…’
I left the estate by the same path I had followed the first time, but in the opposite direction. From the courtyard to the garden first, past the house, then along the linden avenue… A little boy caught up with me just then and handed me a note: ‘I told my sister everything and she insists that I have to part from you,’ I read. ‘I don’t feel I can let her down by being disobedient. May God grant you happiness. Forgive me. If you only knew how much Mama and I have been crying!’
Then the dark avenue of fir trees, the rickety fence… In the field where the rye had bloomed, and quails had cried, there were now cows, and horses wearing halters. Bright, green winter crops were sprouting here and there on the hills. A sober, weekday kind of mood descended on me and I became ashamed of everything I had said at the Volchaninovs. My life became boring again, like it had been before. When I got home, I packed and left that evening for Petersburg.
I never saw the Volchaninovs again. I met Belokurov recently in a train when I was travelling down to the Crimea. He was dressed in his traditional Russian coat and embroidered shirt as usual, and when I asked him how he was, he replied that he was in fine fettle. We fell into conversation. He had sold his estate and had bought a smaller one somewhere else in Lyubov Ivanovna’s name. He had little to report on the Volchaninovs. According to him, Lida was still living in Shelkovka and teaching children at the school. She had gradually managed to establish a circle of like-minded people around her. They had joined forces, and at the last zemstvo elections they had managed to do something about Balagin, the man who had the whole district under his thumb–he had finally been ‘sent packing’. All that Belokurov could say about Zhenya was that she was not living at home, but he did not know where she was.
I am already beginning to forget about the house with the mezzanine, but just once in a while while I am painting or reading, for no particular reason I will suddenly remember the green light in the window, or the sound of my steps in the field when I returned home that night in love, rubbing my hands together from the cold. Even more occasionally, when I am feeling lonely and sad, dim memories will resurrect themselves, and for some reason I will begin to imagine that there is someone out there also remembering me– waiting for me, believing that we will meet again…
Missius, where are you?
IN THE CART
They left town at half past eight in the morning.
The road was dry and the beautiful April sun was very warm, but there was still snow lying in the ditches and in the forest. The long, dark, mean winter was not long past, and spring had arrived suddenly, but neither the sunshine, nor the thin listless forests warmed by the breath of spring, nor the black flocks flying over enormous puddles which were like lakes in the fields, nor the glorious sky into whose boundless expanses one could have joyously disappeared seemed new or interesting to Marya Vasilievna sitting there in the cart. She had been a teacher for thirteen years and had lost count of the number of times she had travelled to town for her wages; whether it was spring, like now, or a rainy autumn evening, or winter–it was all the same to her, and each time she only ever wanted one thing: to get the trip over as quickly as possible.
She felt as if she had been living in these parts for ages and ages, a hundred years at least, and it seemed as if she knew every single stone and every single tree on the road from the town to her school. Here was her past and her present and she could imagine no other future than school, the journey to town and back, more school, the journey again…
She had already got out of the habit of recalling her life before she became a schoolteacher, and had forgotten almost everything about it. At one point she had a father and mother; they lived in Moscow near the Red Gates, in a large apartment, but all that was left of that life was a dim, blurred memory like a dream. Her father had died when she was ten years old, and her mother had died soon after… Her brother was an officer and they had corresponded at first, but then he got out of the habit of writing and stopped answering her letters. All she had left from her former possessions was a photograph of her mother, but it had faded because the school was so damp, and now all you could see was her hair and her eyebrows.
When they had travelled a few miles, old Semyon, who was holding the reins, turned round and said:
‘They’ve arrested an official in town. Sent him off to jail. People are saying apparently he and some Germans killed Mayor Alekseyev in Moscow.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘People were reading about it in the newspaper at Ivan Ionov’s inn.’
They were silent again for a long time. Marya Vasilievna was thinking about her school and about the exam coming up at which she would be presenting four boys and one girl. And just as she was thinking about exams, Khanov the landowner overtook her in his four-horse carriage–the same man who had examined at her school the year before. As he drew level he recognized he
r and nodded his head in greeting.
‘Hello there!’ he said. ‘You homeward bound?’
This man Khanov, who was about forty and had a haggard face and a sluggish expression, had already begun to age noticeably, but he was still handsome and attractive to women. He lived by himself on his large estate and did not have a job; people said that he did nothing at home except play chess with his old servant and walk around whistling. People also said that he drank a lot. In fact, at the exams last year even the papers he brought with him stank of wine and cologne. Everything he had worn then was brand new and Marya Vasilievna had been very attracted to him; she had felt completely tongue-tied while she was sitting next to him. She had grown used to cold and formal examiners at her school, but this one could not remember a single prayer and did not know what questions to ask; he was exceptionally polite and considerate and gave everyone top marks.
‘I’m on my way to see Bakvist,’ he continued, turning to Marya Vasilievna, ‘but I’ve heard he is not at home!’
They turned off the highway onto the road leading to the village, Khanov in front and Semyon following behind. Khanov’s four horses plodded along the road, straining to drag the heavy carriage through the mud. Semyon, meanwhile, was weaving about, going over hillocks and through the meadows in order to avoid the road, and he kept having to get off the cart to help the horses. Marya Vasilievna was still thinking about school and whether the exam would be difficult or easy. And she was feeling annoyed with the local zemstvo * because there had been no one in the office when she stopped by the day before. What disorder! She had been asking them for two years now to dismiss the caretaker, who did not do his job, was rude to her, and beat the schoolchildren, but no one ever listened to her. It was difficult to get hold of the head of the zemstvo when he was at work, and even when you did, he would just tell you with tears in his eyes that he was too busy; the school inspector only came once every three years, and did not understand anything because he had worked in excise before and had got the job through the back door; the board of governors met very infrequently and no one knew where they met; the school’s trustee was an uneducated peasant who ran a tanning business and was rude, slow-witted, and in cahoots with the caretaker, so goodness knows to whom she was supposed to address complaints and enquiries…
‘He really is good-looking,’ she thought, glancing at Khanov.
The road was getting worse and worse… They had entered a forest. There was nowhere to turn off here; the ruts were very deep, and there was gurgling water streaming along them. Prickly branches were hitting her face.
‘How do you like the road?’ asked Khanov with a laugh.
The teacher looked at him and could not understand why this odd person lived here. What possible use was there for his money, his interesting appearance, and his fine manners in this boring, muddy place in the middle of nowhere? He was not getting anything out of life, and here he was just like Semyon, having to plod along this frightful road and put up with the same discomforts. Why did he live here when he could live in Petersburg or abroad? And you would have thought a rich man like him might have considered it worth improving this dreadful road so as not to have to put up with this nightmare, and not have to see the despair etched on the faces of his coachman and Semyon; but he just laughed; he clearly could not care less and had no interest in living better. He was a gentle, naive, and kind man who did not understand this crude life, and his knowledge of it was as poor as his knowledge of the prayers they said at exams. All he gave the school were globes of the world, and he genuinely thought he was being useful and doing a lot to improve national education. But what use were his globes here!
‘Hold tight, Vasilievna!’ said Semyon.
The cart tilted heavily and almost keeled over; something heavy fell onto Marya Vasilievna’s feet–it was her shopping. Now there was a steep climb up the hill through mud as thick as clay; noisy streams were running down the winding ditches, and it was as if the water had been eating away at the road–travelling here was dreadful! The horses were snorting. Khanov climbed out of his carriage and started walking along the edge of the road. He was hot.
‘How do you like the road?’ Khanov asked again with a laugh. ‘My carriage is going to be wrecked at this rate.’
‘No one is making you travel in weather like this, are they?’ said Semyon severely. ‘You should have stayed at home.’
‘It’s boring at home, old man. I don’t like staying at home.’
He seemed slim and sprightly next to old Semyon, but there was something in his bearing, barely noticeable, which gave him away as a person who was already done for, weak and close to ruin. And just then the forest suddenly started smelling of wine. Marya Vasilievna started to feel afraid and sorry for this person who was going into decline for no apparent reason, and it occurred to her that if she was his wife or his sister, she would probably devote her whole life to saving him from ruin. If she was his wife? Life had ordained that he should live on his own on his large estate and she should live on her own in a remote village, but even just the thought that she and he could be equals and intimate with each other seemed impossible and ridiculous for some reason. Life was generally arranged in such an incomprehensible way and relationships with people were so complicated that you ended up feeling terrified, with your heart sinking, however you looked at it.
‘And it’s impossible to understand,’ she thought, ‘why God gives beauty and charm and such sweet, sad eyes to such useless, weak, and unhappy people, and why they are so attractive.’
‘We’re turning to the right here,’ said Khanov as he got into his carriage. ‘Goodbye then! All the best!’
And again she started thinking about her pupils, about the exam, about the caretaker and the board of governors; and when the wind brought the sound of the receding carriage over from the right, these thoughts started mingling with the previous ones. She wanted to think about beautiful eyes, about love, about the happiness she would never have…
Be a wife? It was cold in the morning, there was no one to light the stove, the caretaker was never there; the schoolchildren would start arriving at first light, bringing snow and mud and noise; everything was so uninviting and cheerless. Her home was just one room with a kitchen in it. Her head ached every day after classes, and after dinner she felt a burning sensation in her chest. She had to collect money from her pupils to pay for firewood and for the caretaker, take it to the school trustee, and then beg that self-satisfied, brazen peasant to be so kind as to deliver the firewood. Then at night she would dream of exams, peasants, and snowdrifts. And this life had aged her and made her coarse and unattractive; she had become awkward and clumsy, as if she were filled with lead; she was afraid of everything, and in the presence of a councillor or the school trustee she would stand up, not daring to sit down again, and when she referred to them in conversation she would be needlessly deferential. No one liked her, and her life was passing by miserably, without affection, without the sympathy of friends, and without any interesting acquaintances. What a terrible thing it would be if she fell in love in her position!
‘Hold on tight, Vasilievna!’
Another steep climb up a hill…
She had trained as a teacher out of necessity rather than any sense of vocation; she had never actually thought about a vocation, or the benefits of learning; it always seemed to her that the most important thing in her job was not pupils or education but exams. And anyway, when did she have the time to think about a vocation or the benefits of learning? With all the work they have to do, teachers, hard-up doctors, and medical assistants never even have the consolation of thinking that they are devoting themselves to an ideal or helping the people, because their heads are always full of thoughts about firewood, getting enough to eat, bad roads, and illnesses. Life is difficult and uninteresting, and only docile carthorses like Marya Vasilievna put up with it for long; lively, sensitive, impressionable people who talk about their vocation and dedication to ideals s
oon become worn out and give up.
Semyon was doing his best to drive on ground that was dryer, taking short cuts through the fields and back ways; but either the peasants did not always let them through, or there was the priest’s land and that was no thoroughfare, or there was the land that Ivan Ionov had bought from the landowner and dug a trench around. Sometimes they had to turn back.
They arrived at the little town of Lower Gorodishche. * Near the inn, on ground strewn with manure underneath which there was still snow, stood carts which had been transporting large drums of oil of vitriol. There were a lot of people in the inn, all drivers, and it smelt of vodka, tobacco, and sheepskin. The conversation was loud and the weighted door kept slamming. Behind the partition in the shop someone was playing an accordion continually. Marya Vasilievna sat drinking tea, while at the next table some peasants were drinking vodka and beer, red-faced from all the tea they had drunk and the stuffiness in the inn.
‘Hey, Kuzma!’ some unruly voices shouted out. ‘What’s going on? God save us! Ivan Dementich, I can sort things! You watch!’
A small peasant with a short black beard and a pitted face, long drunk, was suddenly taken off guard by something; he let out a string of curses.
‘What’s all that swearing for? Hey, you!’ Semyon called out angrily from the far corner where he was sitting. ‘Surely you can see there’s a lady here!’
‘A lady…’ mimicked someone in the opposite corner.
‘You swine!’
‘Look, we didn’t mean any harm,’ said the small peasant in embarrassment. ‘Sorry. We’ll keep to our patch, and let the lady do the same… Good morning to you!’
‘Hello,’ said the teacher.