The Beauties: Essential Stories Page 11

  He left his daughter at her school and set off for the Slavonic Bazaar. He took off his greatcoat downstairs, went up and knocked quietly at a door. Anna Sergeyevna, wearing the grey dress he loved so much, was worn out by her journey and her wait; she had been expecting him ever since the evening before. She was pale, looked at him without smiling, and as soon as he entered the room she fell on his chest. Their kiss was a long, protracted one, as if they hadn’t seen each other for two years or more.

  “Well, how’s life?” he asked. “What’s new?”

  “Wait… I’ll tell you in a minute… I can’t.”

  She could not talk because she was weeping. Turning away from him, she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.

  “Well, let her cry a bit; I’ll wait,” he thought, and sat down in an armchair.

  Then he rang for some tea; and later, when he was drinking his tea, she was still standing by the window with her back to him. She was weeping with agitation, with the bitter realization that their lives had turned out so tragically: only seeing each other in secret, hiding from other people like thieves! Hadn’t their lives been ruined?

  “Come on, do stop!” he said.

  It was obvious to him that this love of theirs was not going to end soon – who knew when? Anna Sergeyevna was becoming ever more attached to him, she adored him, and it would be unthinkable to tell her that all this would end one day. Nor would she have believed it.

  He went up to her and put his hands on her shoulders to caress her, and make light of things, and at that moment he saw himself in the mirror.

  His hair was already turning grey. He found it strange that he had aged so much in recent years, and lost his looks. The shoulders on which his hands rested were warm and quivering. He felt compassion for this life, still so warm and beautiful, but probably close to the time when it would start to fade and wilt like his own. Why did she love him so much? He always appeared to women not as what he really was, and what they loved in him was not himself but the man created by their imagination, the man they had been desperately seeking all their life. And then when they realized their mistake, they went on loving him just the same. But not one of them had been happy with him. Time passed, he met a person, they became close, and then parted; but he had never been in love. There had been anything you like, but not love.

  And only now, when his hair had turned grey, had he fallen in love, properly, genuinely – for the first time in his life.

  He and Anna Sergeyevna loved each other like people very close and dear to one another, like husband and wife, like dearest friends; they felt that fate itself had marked them out for each other, and it was impossible to understand why he had a wife and she a husband. It was as if they were a pair of birds of passage, male and female, who had been caught and forced to live in separate cages. They had forgiven each other for what they were ashamed of in their own past, they forgave everything in the present, and felt that this love of theirs had brought about a change in each of them.

  In the past, in moments of sadness, he had consoled himself with all kinds of arguments, anything that came into his head; but now he had no use for arguments, he felt profound compassion, and wanted to be sincere and tender…

  “That’s enough, my darling,” he said. “You’ve had a cry, and that’ll do… Now let’s talk – we’ll think of something.”

  Then they had a long discussion, talking about how to escape from the need for concealment, and deceit, and living in different towns, and not seeing one another for long periods. How could they break free from this unbearable bondage?

  “But how? How?” he asked, holding his head in his hands. “How?”

  And they felt that before long there would be a solution, and then they would enter on a new and wonderful life. But they could both see clearly that the end was a long, long way off, and the most difficult and complicated part was only just beginning.

  THE HUNTSMAN

  A STIFLING, SULTRY NOONDAY. Not a wisp of cloud in the sky… The sun-scorched grass has a sad, hopeless look: though rain will come, this grass will never be green again… The forest stands still and silent, as if the treetops were staring out at something, or waiting in expectation.

  Along the edge of the clearing comes a tall, narrow-shouldered man of forty-odd years, in a red shirt, patched trousers from some gentleman’s wardrobe and high boots, trudging along the path with a lazy, shambling, slouching gait. To his right is a green glade; to his left, a golden sea of ripe rye stretches to the far horizon. He is red-faced and sweating. On his handsome blond head he wears a jaunty-looking white cap with a straight peak like a jockey’s: evidently a gift from an open-handed young gentleman. Over his shoulder hangs his game bag, with a mangled blackcock in it. He is carrying a double-barrelled shotgun, both triggers cocked, and squinting at his scrawny old dog as it runs ahead of him sniffing at the bushes. All around is quiet, not a sound is heard… Everything living has taken shelter from the heat.

  “Yegor Vlasych!” The hunter suddenly hears a quiet voice.

  He starts, looks round, and frowns. Beside him, as though she had risen up through the ground, stands a pale peasant woman of thirty or so, carrying a sickle. She tries to look into his face, and gives a shy smile.

  “Oh, it’s you, Pelageya!” says the huntsman, stopping and slowly uncocking the gun. “Hmm!… How did you get here?”

  “Women from our village are working here, so I came with them… I’m a labourer, Yegor Vlasych.”

  “Uh-huh…” mumbles Yegor Vlasych, and he walks slowly on.

  Pelageya follows him. They walk twenty steps or so in silence.

  “It’s a long time since I saw you last, Yegor Vlasych…” says Pelageya, gazing tenderly at the huntsman’s shoulders as he moves. “Ever since Holy Week, when you looked into our hut for a minute and had a drink of water – we haven’t seen you since then… Dropped in for a minute in Holy Week, and God knows what a state you were in then… drunk and all… swore at me, beat me up, and walked out… and I’ve been waiting, and waiting… worn my eyes out with watching for you… Oh, Yegor Vlasych, Yegor Vlasych! If only you’d come by sometime!”

  “What am I supposed to do at your place?”

  “Well, there’s nothing for you to do, of course, but still… there’s the household… you could look and see how things are going… You’re the master… Look at that, you’ve shot a blackcock, Yegor Vlasych! Look, why don’t you sit down, have a rest?”

  All this time as she is talking, Pelageya giggles like a silly girl, and gazes up into Yegor’s face… Her own face is just radiant with joy…

  “Sit down? Why not…” says Yegor indifferently, and picks a spot between two fir trees growing side by side. “What are you standing for? Sit down yourself!”

  Pelageya sits down a little way off, in the full glare of the sunlight. She’s ashamed of her happiness, and hides her smile behind her hand. A couple of minutes pass in silence.

  “You might drop in just once,” says Pelageya softly.

  “What for?” sighs Yegor, taking off his little cap and wiping his flushed forehead with a sleeve. “There’s no point. If I drop in for a couple of hours, it just creates a fuss and gets you all worked up; and living in the village the whole time – I couldn’t stand that… You know yourself, I’m spoilt… I need a proper bed, and decent tea, and refined conversation… and for everything to be nice around me; but back in your village there’s nothing but poverty and squalor… I wouldn’t last a day there. If there was a decree, say, ordering me to live with you, then I’d either set fire to the hut, or do away with myself. I’ve been pampered like that ever since I was a child – I can’t help it.”

  “So where are you living now?”

  “At Dmitry Ivanich the landowner’s place – I’m his huntsman. I supply him with game for his table, but actually… he keeps me because he likes to have me there.”

  “That’s not a proper job, Yegor Vlasych… Other people do it for fun, but for you it’
s like your trade… your real occupation.”

  “You don’t understand, stupid,” says Yegor, gazing thoughtfully up at the sky. “You’ve never in your life understood me, and you never will understand the kind of man I am… You think I’m no good, I’ve lost my way in life; but anybody with a bit of understanding can see that I’m the best shot in the whole district. The gentry can see that – I’ve even been written about in the paper. There’s not one man my equal as a sportsman… And if I despise your rustic life, that doesn’t mean I’m too proud or too pampered. Ever since I was a little boy, you see, I’ve never known any occupation outside my gun and my dogs. If they took my gun away I’d get out my fishing line; if they took that away I’d get by with my bare hands. Horses, too – I’ve made money that way, scouting round markets when I had the cash. And you know yourself that when a peasant goes to work as a huntsman or a horse dealer, that’s goodbye to his plough. If a man gets a taste for freedom, you’ll never root it out of him. Just like your gentleman: if he goes off to be an actor or some other sort of artist, he’ll never make an official or a landowner. You’re a woman, you don’t understand – but you need to understand.”

  “I do understand, Yegor Vlasych.”

  “Well, you obviously don’t understand, if you’re starting to cry.”

  “I’m… I’m not crying…” says Pelageya, looking away. “It’s a sin, Yegor Vlasych! You might come and live with me, just for one day – I’m so unhappy. It’s been twelve years since I married you, and… we’ve never once made love! I’m not… not crying…”

  “Love…” mutters Yegor, scratching his arm. “There can’t be any love. It’s nothing but words, you and me being husband and wife – is that what we really are? For you I’m a wild man, and for me you’re nothing but a simple peasant woman who doesn’t understand a thing. What kind of a match are we for one another? I’m a free spirit, pampered, loose-living, and you’re a working woman, you go around in bark shoes, you live in the dirt and never straighten your back. I see myself as a first-rate hunter, but you look at me and feel sorry for me. What kind of a couple do we make?”

  “But we’re married, Yegor Vlasych!” sobs Pelageya.

  “Not married of our own free will… Have you forgotten? You can thank Count Sergey Pavlich… and yourself. The Count was so jealous because I was a better shot than him, he filled me up with vodka for a month on end. When a person’s that drunk, you could make a heathen of him, never mind marrying him off. He took me when I was drunk and married me off to you for revenge… Married a huntsman to a cowherd girl! You could see I was drunk – why did you take me? You weren’t a serf, you could have said no! Of course it’s a piece of luck for a cowherd girl to marry a huntsman, but you ought to have thought it through. So now you have to suffer and cry. The Count’s had his laugh, and you’re left to cry… and bang your head against the wall…”

  There is a silence. Three wild ducks fly over the clearing. Yegor looks up at them and follows them with his eyes until they are no more than three barely visible dots, flying down to land somewhere far beyond the forest.

  “What do you live on?” he asks, turning from the ducks to look at Pelageya.

  “At the moment I’m going out to work, and in the winter I take in a baby from the orphanage and bottle-feed it. They pay me a rouble and a half a month.”

  “Uh-huh…”

  Another silence. A quiet song rises up from the harvested strip of the rye field, but breaks off as soon as it has started. It’s too hot to sing…

  “They say you’ve built Akulina a new hut,” says Pelageya.

  Yegor says nothing.

  “So you must fancy her…”

  “That’s how your life’s turned out, can’t be helped!” says the hunter, stretching himself. “You have to put up with it, poor thing. Anyway, I must go, I’ve been talking too long… I have to get to Boltovo by evening…”

  Yegor stands up, stretches and slings the gun over his shoulder. Pelageya gets up too.

  “So when are you coming to the village?” she asks softly.

  “No point. I’ll never come when I’m sober, and I’m not much use to you drunk. I get nasty then… Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Yegor Vlasych…”

  Yegor perches his cap on the back of his head, clicks his tongue at the dog, and walks off. Pelageya stands still and watches him go… She sees his shoulders swinging, his rakish head, his careless, lazy gait, and her eyes fill with sadness and loving tenderness… She rests her glance on her husband’s tall, slender form, caressing him, fondling him… As if he can feel that look, he stops and turns his head… He says nothing, but his face and his raised shoulders tell Pelageya that he wants to say something. Timidly she walks up to him and gazes at him with imploring eyes.

  “Here!” he says, looking away.

  He hands her a tattered rouble note, and quickly walks off.

  “Goodbye, Yegor Vlasych…” she says, mechanically taking the rouble.

  He follows the long pathway, straight as a taut strap… Pale and motionless as a statue, she stands there, hungrily watching every step he takes. But now the red of his shirt merges with the dark colour of his trousers, she can’t make out his footsteps, she can’t distinguish his dog from his boots. All she can see is his little cap – but suddenly Yegor turns sharply into a clearing on the right, and the little cap vanishes into the greenery.

  “Goodbye, Yegor Vlasych…” whispers Pelageya, standing on tiptoe to catch a last glimpse of his little white cap.

  THE PRIVY COUNCILLOR

  IN EARLY APRIL 1870 my mother Klavdia Arkhipovna, a lieutenant’s widow, received a letter from Petersburg from her brother Ivan, who was a privy councillor. Among other things, this letter said: “My liver disease obliges me to live abroad every summer; but as I have no spare money at present for a journey to Marienbad, it’s quite possible, dear sister, that I shall spend this summer with you at your house at Kochuyevka…”

  On reading this letter, my mother grew pale and trembled all over; then her face took on an expression of mingled joy and sadness. She started crying and laughing. This battle between tears and laughter always reminds me of a hot candle flickering and crackling when water is splashed on it. Mother read the letter through once more, then summoned the whole household and explained to us all, in a voice shaking with agitation, that there had been four Gundasov brothers in all: one of the Gundasovs had died in infancy, a second entered the army and also died, the third – not wishing to speak ill of him – was an actor, while the fourth…

  “The fourth has left us all far behind,” sobbed Mother. “He’s my own brother, we grew up together, but now I’m all of a tremble… A privy councillor, he is, a general! How am I going to welcome him, my angel brother? What shall I talk to him about, ignorant fool that I am? Fifteen years I haven’t seen him! Andryushenka,” Mother said to me, “be happy, you little silly! What a stroke of luck for you that God is sending him to us!”

  After we had heard every detail of the history of the Gundasovs, the whole estate was plunged into such turmoil as I’d only been used to seeing in the days coming up to Christmas. Nothing was spared but the sky above and the water in the river; everything else was cleaned, washed down and repainted. If the sky had been lower and smaller, and the river hadn’t flowed so fast, they too would have been scoured with brick dust and scrubbed with a cloth. Our walls were white as snow, but they were whitewashed anew; the floors were bright and shining, but they were washed every day. Our cat Bobtail (as a child I had cut off a good quarter of his tail with the knife meant for splitting the sugarloaf, hence his nickname of Bobtail) was carried out of our rooms to the kitchen and handed over to Anisya’s care; and Fedka was warned that if the dogs came anywhere near the porch, then “God would punish him”. But nobody was punished as hard as the poor divans, armchairs and carpets! Never before had they been thrashed so soundly with sticks as now, in readiness for our guest. My pigeons took fright at the thumping of the sticks
, and kept flying up into the sky.

  Spiridon the tailor at Novostroyevka, the only tailor in the whole district brave enough to sew for the gentry, used to come over to us; he was a teetotaller, hard-working, good at his job, and not without some imagination and a feeling for form; but for all that, his tailoring was appalling. It was his anxiety that spoiled everything… The fear that his work wasn’t sufficiently modish made him alter everything five times over, going off to town on foot just to study the dandies, and finally dressing us in outfits that even a cartoonist would have considered overdone caricatures. We paraded around in impossibly tight trousers, and jackets so short that we always felt embarrassed when young ladies were present.

  This Spiridon spent ages taking my measurements. He measured all of me, up, down and sideways, as if preparing to fit barrel hoops around me, then he took ages making notes in thick pencil on a piece of paper, and marked up all his measurements with triangular signs. When he had finished with me, he went on to my tutor Yegor Alexeyevich Pobedimsky. This unforgettable tutor of mine was just then passing through the stage where men check how their moustaches are growing, and adopt a critical attitude towards clothing, so you can imagine the holy terror that gripped Spiridon when he took on my tutor! Yegor Alexeyevich was made to throw back his head, part his legs in an inverted Y, and alternately raise and lower his arms. Spiridon measured him several times over, stepping round him like a lovelorn pigeon around his mate, getting down on one knee, bending over double… My exhausted mother, worn out by all the fuss and red in the face from the hot flat irons, gazed at all this long rigmarole and said:

  “You watch out, Spiridon, God will punish you if you spoil the cloth. You’ll never know happiness again if you don’t get this right!”