The Beauties: Essential Stories Read online

  “Both of them, husband and wife, tried to get me to eat and drink all they could. There were various little details – they way they brewed up the coffee together, for instance, or the fact that they understood one another almost without saying a word – which led me to conclude that they lived a peaceful and happy life together, and were pleased to have me as their guest. After dinner we played duets on the piano, then it grew dark and I went home. That was in early spring. After that I spent the whole summer at Sofyino without leaving, and I had no time to think about town; but the memory of that graceful fair-haired woman stayed with me day after day. I didn’t think about her, but the light shadow of her seemed to rest on my heart.

  “Late that autumn there was a charity performance of a play in town. I went up to the Governor’s box (I’d been invited there in the interval) – and there was Anna Alexeyevna sitting next to the Governor’s wife; and once again, that same irresistible, thrilling impression of her beauty and her lovely, gentle eyes, and again that same feeling of closeness.

  “We sat side by side, and then walked about in the foyer.

  “‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said. ‘Have you been ill?’

  “‘Yes. I’ve got a frozen shoulder, and in wet weather I don’t sleep well.’

  “‘You look out of sorts. Back in the springtime, when you came to dinner, you seemed younger and brighter. You got quite animated and talked a lot, very interestingly, and I must confess I was a bit carried away by you. During the summer, for some reason, you often came to my mind, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today, I had the feeling that I’d see you.’

  “She laughed.

  “‘But today you’re looking out of sorts,’ she said again. ‘That ages you.’

  “Next day I had lunch with the Luganoviches. After lunch they set off for their house in the country, to get the place ready for winter, and I went with them. Then I came back to town with them, and at midnight we were drinking tea in a quiet family atmosphere by the fireside, while the young mother kept going out to see if her baby girl was asleep. After that, whenever I came to town, I always visited the Luganoviches. They got used to me, and I got used to going there. Generally I’d come in unannounced, like one of the family.

  “‘Who’s there?’ The words would come from a distant room, in the drawn-out voice I found so charming.

  “‘It’s Pavel Konstantinich,’ the maid or nursemaid would reply.

  “Anna Alexeyevna would come out to greet me with an anxious face, and always asked me:

  “‘Why haven’t you been for so long? Has anything happened?’

  “The look she gave me, the refined, elegant hand she offered me, her indoor dress, her hairdo, her voice and her steps, always gave me the same feeling of something new, important and unusual in my life. We spent a long time talking and a long time saying nothing, each thinking their own thoughts, or else she might play the piano for me. If there was no one at home, I would wait and talk to the nurse, or play with the baby, or stretch out on the Turkish divan in the study to read the paper; and when Anna Alexeyevna came in, I would meet her in the hall and take all her parcels from her, and for some reason I always carried those parcels as solemnly and lovingly as if I were a little boy.

  “As the proverb has it – the peasant’s wife had no troubles in her life, so she bought herself a pig. The Luganoviches had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I stayed away from town for a long while, that meant I was ill or something had happened to me, and they both got very anxious. They worried because I, an educated man who knew foreign languages and ought to have been occupying himself with science or literature, was living in the country, running round in circles like a squirrel on a wheel, working hard, and never having a penny. They thought that I was suffering; and that if I talked, laughed and ate, that was just to hide my suffering. Even at cheerful moments when I was happy, I could feel their questioning eyes on me. They were particularly touching when I really did pass through difficult times, when some creditor was pressing me or I didn’t have enough money for an urgent payment. Then husband and wife would both go and whisper together by the window, and he would come to me with a serious expression and say:

  “‘Pavel Konstantinich, if you’re short of money right now, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow some from us.’

  “And his ears would blush red with emotion. Sometimes it happened that they would whisper together by the window like that, and then he would come to me, ears blushing red, and say:

  “‘My wife and I would be so glad if you’d accept this present from us.’

  “And he’d give me a pair of cufflinks, or a cigarette case, or a lamp; and in return I’d send them a game bird, or butter, or flowers from the country. Incidentally, they were both very well off. Formerly I often used to borrow money, without being too particular about it – I’d get it wherever I could; but nothing on earth could ever have made me borrow from the Luganoviches. The very idea was out of the question.

  “I was unhappy. In my house, in the fields, in the barn, I thought about her and tried to understand the mystery of a young, beautiful, intelligent woman who married a boring man, almost an old man (he was over forty), and had children by him – and to understand the mystery of that boring man, a good-hearted, simple fellow, who argued in such a boring, right-thinking way, and always stayed close to the solid people at balls and receptions; listless, useless, with a docile, detached expression, as if he’d been brought along for sale; but who still believed in his right to be happy, and to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had to have met him first, instead of me, and why this dreadful mistake had to happen in our lives.

  “When I came to town, I could always tell from her eyes that she’d been expecting me; and she herself would confess that right from early morning she’d had a sort of special feeling, and guessed that I would come. We spent a long time talking or saying nothing, but we didn’t admit that we loved one another – timidly, jealously, we kept that secret. We were afraid of anything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I thought about it, and wondered where our love could lead us if we didn’t have the strength to fight it. I couldn’t believe that this quiet, sad love of mine could suddenly destroy the happy lives of her husband, her children, and all that household where I was so much loved and trusted. Would that have been honourable? She would have gone away with me, but where to? Where could I have taken her? It would have been different if I had led a beautiful, interesting life, if I had been fighting for my country’s freedom, say, or been a famous scientist, or performer, or artist – but as it was, I’d have been taking her from one ordinary, everyday way of life and leading her to another that was just the same, or even more ordinary. And how long would we have gone on being happy? What would happen to her if I fell ill, or died, or even if we just fell out of love?

  “And she seemed to think the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, her mother who loved the husband like a son. If she had given way to her feelings, she would either have had to lie, or to tell the truth; and in her situation both would be equally terrible and awkward. She was tormented by the question of whether her love would bring me happiness, or would complicate my life which was difficult enough without that, and full of all sorts of troubles. She thought that she was no longer young enough for me, not hard-working or energetic enough to start a new life, and she often talked to her husband about how I needed to marry an intelligent, worthy girl who would be a good housewife and helper to me – and she’d immediately add that one could probably never find a girl like that in the whole town.

  “Meanwhile the years passed. Anna Alexeyevna already had two children. When I visited the Luganoviches, the servants would give me welcoming smiles, the children would shout that Uncle Pavel Konstantinich had arrived, and hang about my neck – everybody was pleased. They had no idea what was going on in my heart, and thought that I was pleased too. Everyb
ody regarded me as a man of honour. Adults and children all felt that this was a man of honour walking about the room, and that gave a special sort of charm to their relations with me, as if their lives too were made purer and finer by my presence. Anna Alexeyevna and I would go to the theatre together, always on foot; we would sit side by side in the stalls, shoulders touching; I would silently take the opera glasses from her hands, and at that point I would feel that she was close to me, that she was mine, that we couldn’t live without one another; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we left the theatre we would say goodbye and part like strangers. Heaven knows what stories were being spread about us in town by that time, but there wasn’t a word of truth in any of them.

  “In later years Anna Alexeyevna took to going away more often, to visit her mother or sister; she became moody, often feeling that her life was blighted and unfulfilled, and that she didn’t want to see her husband or children. She was already being treated for a nervous disorder.

  “We kept not talking to one another, and when other people were around she felt a strange sort of irritation with me – no matter what I talked about, she’d disagree with me, and if I got into an argument, she’d side with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she’d say coldly:

  “‘Congratulations.’

  “If I forgot the opera glasses when I took her to the theatre, later on she’d say:

  “‘I just knew you’d forget.’

  “Fortunately or unfortunately, there’s nothing in our lives that doesn’t come to an end sooner or later. The time came when we had to part, because Luganovich was appointed chairman of the court in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses and their house in the country. When they went there, and then looked around before returning home, so as to get a last glimpse of the garden and the green roof, everyone felt sad, and I realized that the time had come to say farewell to more than just that house. It was decided that at the end of August we would see Anna Alexeyevna off on her way to the Crimea, where her doctors were sending her, and a short while after that Luganovich and the children would set out for his western province.

  “A great crowd of us came to see Anna Alexeyevna off. After she had said goodbye to her husband and children, and there was only a moment left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put one of her baskets up onto the rack – she had almost forgotten it; and we had to part. When our eyes met, there in the railway compartment, our spiritual strength failed us both. I embraced her, she pressed her face against my breast, and our eyes filled with tears; as I kissed her face, shoulders and arms, wet with tears – oh, how unhappy we both were! – I told her I loved her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, trivial and false everything had been that prevented us from loving one another. I realized that when you are in love, you must start your reflections about your love with what is highest, what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, or sin or virtue in their accepted senses – or you shouldn’t reflect at all.

  “I kissed her for the last time, squeezed her hand, and we parted for ever. The train had already started. I sat down in the next compartment – it was empty – and remained sitting there and weeping until the next station. Then I made my way back home to Sofyino on foot…”

  While Aliokhin was telling his story, the rain had stopped and the sun had peeped through. Burkin and Ivan Ivanich stepped out onto the veranda, which had a beautiful view over the garden and a stretch of river, now gleaming like a mirror in the sunlight. They admired the view and felt sorry for this man with his kind, intelligent eyes, who had told them his story so openheartedly, and who really was running round and round like a squirrel on a wheel, on this huge estate, instead of devoting himself to science or something else that could have brightened his life. And they thought how grief-stricken that young woman must have looked, when he parted from her in the railway compartment and kissed her face and shoulders. They had both met her in town, and Burkin actually knew her and found her beautiful.

  GRIEF

  GRIGORY PETROV the turner, long known as an outstanding master of his trade, and also as the most feckless peasant in the whole of Galchino district, is driving his sick old woman to the hospital. He has to cover over twenty miles, along a dreadful road – a government post driver could never have managed it, let alone a layabout like Grigory the turner. There’s a biting cold wind blowing in his face. Wherever he looks, great clouds of snowflakes are eddying about, so that there’s no telling whether it’s snowing from the sky or the ground. The driving snow makes it impossible to see the fields, or the telegraph poles, or the forest, and when a particularly strong gust of wind blows in his face, he can’t even make out the yoke over the horse’s neck. The feeble, worn-out little mare can barely manage to drag herself along. All her energy is used up in pulling her hooves out of the deep snow, and tugging with her head. The turner is in a hurry, bouncing restlessly up and down on the front seat and continually whipping his horse on the back.

  “Don’t you worry, Matryona…” he mumbles. “Put up with it for a bit. We’ll get to the hospital, God willing, and you’ll be all right in a jiffy… Pavel Ivanich will give you some drops, or he’ll have you bled, or maybe his Honour will want you rubbed down with spirit or something, and that’ll be… it’ll draw it out of your side. Pavel Ivanich will do his best… He’ll shout at you, and stamp his feet a bit, but he’ll do what he can… A lovely man, so caring, God grant him health… In a minute, when we get there, the first thing he’ll do, he’ll come running out of his quarters and start calling down all the devils. ‘What’s this? What’s the meaning of it?’ he’ll shout. ‘Why didn’t you get here in time? What am I, a dog or something, wasting my time fussing over you devils all day? Why didn’t you come this morning? Get out! Out of here this instant! Come back tomorrow!’ – And I’ll say: ‘Mr Doctor, sir! Pavel Ivanich! Your Excellency!’ Will you get on, confound you, you devil! Giddy-up!”

  The turner whips up his little mare, and without looking at his old woman, goes on muttering to himself:

  “‘Your Excellency! As true as God’s my witness… see this cross… I left as soon as it was light. How could I have got here in time, if the Lord… Mother of God… in his anger, sent down a blizzard like this? You can see for yourself… Even the best horse couldn’t have got through, and mine, see for yourself, she isn’t a horse but a disgrace!’ – And Pavel Ivanich will give a scowl and shout ‘I know your sort! Always ready with an excuse! Specially you, Grishka! I’ve known you a long time! You’ll have stopped at a tavern half a dozen times on your way!’ – And I’ll tell him, ‘Your Excellency! What do you take me for? A wicked man, or a heathen? Here’s my old woman giving up her soul to God, she’s dying, and I’m supposed to be going to taverns! Do you mind! To hell with all those taverns!’ – And then Pavel Ivanich will get you carried down to the hospital. And I’ll fall down at his feet: ‘Pavel Ivanich! Your Excellency! Thank you most humbly! Forgive us in our ignorance, cursed sinners that we are, don’t blame us simple peasants! We deserve to be thrown out on our ears, but you’re being kind enough to help us, and getting your feet wet in the snow!’ – And Pavel Ivanich will give me a look, as if he was going to hit me, and he’ll say, ‘Instead of flopping down at my feet, you fool, you’d do better to give up swilling vodka and look after your old lady. You deserve a good thrashing!’ – ‘Yes indeed, a thrashing, Pavel Ivanich, God strike me, a thrashing! But how can I help bowing down to your feet, when you’re our benefactor, our own father? Your Excellency! I tell you honestly… before God… spit in my eyes if I’m telling a lie: just as soon as my Matryona, that’s it… as soon as she’s well again, and back in her rightful place, then I’ll do anything for your Honour, anything you ask! A little cigar box, if you want, from Karelian birch… croquet balls… I could turn you some skittles, just like the foreign kind… I’ll do anything for you! I won’t take a kopek off you! A cigar box like that would set you back four ro
ubles in Moscow, but I won’t take a kopek!’ – And the doctor will laugh, and say ‘That’ll do, that’ll do… I’m sorry for you! Only it’s a shame you’re a drunkard…’ – You see, old woman, I know how to talk to gentry folk. There isn’t a gentleman alive that I wouldn’t know how to talk to. If only God doesn’t let us lose the road. What a snowstorm! I can’t see a thing any more.”

  The turner goes on chattering non-stop. It’s his tongue that’s chattering mechanically, just to blank out his misery a little. He has plenty of words on his tongue, and even more thoughts and questions in his head. Grief has come upon him without any warning, unexpected and unsuspected, and now he’s trying in vain to pull himself together, recover himself, make sense of it all. Up till now he’s lived a calm, untroubled life, in a drunken semi-oblivion, knowing neither grief nor joy; and now suddenly a terrible pain has entered his soul. This carefree layabout and small-time drunkard now finds himself suddenly a busy man, full of anxieties, racing against time and even battling with the forces of nature.

  The turner remembers that all this trouble began the evening before. When he returned home last night, tipsy as always, and started cursing and flailing his fists about as he usually did, the old woman had looked at her ruffian in a way she had never done before. Usually her eyes would have had the look of a martyr – the meek look of a dog used to being beaten regularly and half-starved; but now her look was stern and fixed, like a painted saint on an icon, or a dying person. All his grief had come from those strange, unfriendly eyes. The stupefied turner had begged his neighbour for his little mare, and now he was driving the old woman to hospital in the hope that Pavel Ivanich and his powders and ointments would give his wife her old look again.

  “Look here, Matryona, I mean…” he mumbles. “If Pavel Ivanich asks you whether I used to beat you or not, you tell him I never did! And I won’t beat you any more. I swear on the cross. Anyway, did I ever beat you because I was angry? I just beat you like that, for no reason. I’m fond of you. Another man wouldn’t care, but here I am, driving you… doing my best. But what a blizzard! Lord, Thy will be done! So long as God doesn’t let us lose our way… Is your side hurting you, then? Matryona, why don’t you say anything? I’m asking you, is your side hurting you?”