The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories
"I must go away, though," said Nyuta, looking at Volodya with disgust.
"What a wretched, ugly ... fie, ugly duckling!"
How unseemly her long hair, her loose wrap, her steps, her voice seemed
to Volodya now!...
"'Ugly duckling' ..." he thought after she had gone away. "I really am
ugly ... everything is ugly."
The sun was rising, the birds were singing loudly; he could hear the
gardener walking in the garden and the creaking of his wheelbarrow ...
and soon afterwards he heard the lowing of the cows and the sounds of
the shepherd's pipe. The sunlight and the sounds told him that somewhere
in this world there is a pure, refined, poetical life. But where was it?
Volodya had never heard a word of it from his _maman_ or any of the
people round about him.
When the footman came to wake him for the morning train, he pretended to
be asleep....
"Bother it! Damn it all!" he thought.
He got up between ten and eleven.
Combing his hair before the looking-glass, and looking at his ugly face,
pale from his sleepless night, he thought:
"It's perfectly true ... an ugly duckling!"
When _maman_ saw him and was horrified that he was not at his
examination, Volodya said:
"I overslept myself, _maman_.... But don't worry, I will get a medical
certificate."
Madame Shumihin and Nyuta waked up at one o'clock. Volodya heard Madame
Shumihin open her window with a bang, heard Nyuta go off into a peal of
laughter in reply to her coarse voice. He saw the door open and a string
of nieces and other toadies (among the latter was his _maman_) file into
lunch, caught a glimpse of Nyuta's freshly washed laughing face, and,
beside her, the black brows and beard of her husband the architect, who
had just arrived.
Nyuta was wearing a Little Russian dress which did not suit her at all,
and made her look clumsy; the architect was making dull and vulgar
jokes. The rissoles served at lunch had too much onion in them--so it
seemed to Volodya. It also seemed to him that Nyuta laughed loudly on
purpose, and kept glancing in his direction to give him to understand
that the memory of the night did not trouble her in the least, and that
she was not aware of the presence at table of the "ugly duckling."
At four o'clock Volodya drove to the station with his _maman_. Foul
memories, the sleepless night, the prospect of expulsion from school,
the stings of conscience--all roused in him now an oppressive, gloomy
anger. He looked at _maman_'s sharp profile, at her little nose, and at
the raincoat which was a present from Nyuta, and muttered:
"Why do you powder? It's not becoming at your age! You make yourself up,
don't pay your debts at cards, smoke other people's tobacco.... It's
hateful! I don't love you ... I don't love you!"
He was insulting her, and she moved her little eyes about in alarm,
flung up her hands, and whispered in horror:
"What are you saying, my dear! Good gracious! the coachman will hear! Be
quiet or the coachman will hear! He can overhear everything."
"I don't love you ... I don't love you!" he went on breathlessly.
"You've no soul and no morals.... Don't dare to wear that raincoat! Do
you hear? Or else I will tear it into rags...."
"Control yourself, my child," _maman_ wept; "the coachman can hear!"
"And where is my father's fortune? Where is your money? You have wasted
it all. I am not ashamed of being poor, but I am ashamed of having such
a mother.... When my schoolfellows ask questions about you, I always
blush."
In the train they had to pass two stations before they reached the town.
Volodya spent all the time on the little platform between two carriages
and shivered all over. He did not want to go into the compartment
because there the mother he hated was sitting. He hated himself, hated
the ticket collectors, the smoke from the engine, the cold to which he
attributed his shivering. And the heavier the weight on his heart, the
more strongly he felt that somewhere in the world, among some people,
there was a pure, honourable, warm, refined life, full of love,
affection, gaiety, and serenity.... He felt this and was so intensely
miserable that one of the passengers, after looking in his face
attentively, actually asked:
"You have the toothache, I suppose?"
In the town _maman_ and Volodya lived with Marya Petrovna, a lady of
noble rank, who had a large flat and let rooms to boarders. _Maman_ had
two rooms, one with windows and two pictures in gold frames hanging on
the walls, in which her bed stood and in which she lived, and a little
dark room opening out of it in which Volodya lived. Here there was a
sofa on which he slept, and, except that sofa, there was no other
furniture; the rest of the room was entirely filled up with wicker
baskets full of clothes, cardboard hat-boxes, and all sorts of rubbish,
which _maman_ preserved for some reason or other. Volodya prepared his
lessons either in his mother's room or in the "general room," as the
large room in which the boarders assembled at dinner-time and in the
evening was called.
On reaching home he lay down on his sofa and put the quilt over him to
stop his shivering. The cardboard hat-boxes, the wicker baskets, and the
other rubbish, reminded him that he had not a room of his own, that he
had no refuge in which he could get away from his mother, from her
visitors, and from the voices that were floating up from the "general
room." The satchel and the books lying about in the corners reminded him
of the examination he had missed.... For some reason there came into his
mind, quite inappropriately, Mentone, where he had lived with his father
when he was seven years old; he thought of Biarritz and two little
English girls with whom he ran about on the sand.... He tried to recall
to his memory the colour of the sky, the sea, the height of the waves,
and his mood at the time, but he could not succeed. The English girls
flitted before his imagination as though they were living; all the rest
was a medley of images that floated away in confusion....
"No; it's cold here," thought Volodya. He got up, put on his overcoat,
and went into the "general room."
There they were drinking tea. There were three people at the samovar:
_maman_; an old lady with tortoiseshell pince-nez, who gave music
lessons; and Avgustin Mihalitch, an elderly and very stout Frenchman,
who was employed at a perfumery factory.
"I have had no dinner to-day," said _maman_. "I ought to send the maid
to buy some bread."
"Dunyasha!" shouted the Frenchman.
It appeared that the maid had been sent out somewhere by the lady of the
house.
"Oh, that's of no consequence," said the Frenchman, with a broad smile.
"I will go for some bread myself at once. Oh, it's nothing."
He laid his strong, pungent cigar in a conspicuous place, put on his hat
and went out. After he had gone away _maman_ began telling the music
teacher how she had been staying at the Shumihins', and how warmly they
welcomed her.
"Lili Shumihin is a relation of mine, you know," she said. "Her late
husband, General Shumihin, was a cousin of my husband. And she was a
Baroness Kolb by birth...."
"_Maman_, that's false!" said Volodya irritably. "Why tell lies?"
He knew perfectly well that what his mother said was true; in what she
was saying about General Shumihin and about Baroness Kolb there was not
a word of lying, but nevertheless he felt that she was lying. There was
a suggestion of falsehood in her manner of speaking, in the expression
of her face, in her eyes, in everything.
"You are lying," repeated Volodya; and he brought his fist down on the
table with such force that all the crockery shook and _maman_'s tea was
spilt over. "Why do you talk about generals and baronesses? It's all
lies!"
The music teacher was disconcerted, and coughed into her handkerchief,
affecting to sneeze, and _maman_ began to cry.
"Where can I go?" thought Volodya.
He had been in the street already; he was ashamed to go to his
schoolfellows. Again, quite incongruously, he remembered the two little
English girls.... He paced up and down the "general room," and went into
Avgustin Mihalitch's room. Here there was a strong smell of ethereal
oils and glycerine soap. On the table, in the window, and even on the
chairs, there were a number of bottles, glasses, and wineglasses
containing fluids of various colours. Volodya took up from the table a
newspaper, opened it and read the title _Figaro_ ... There was a strong
and pleasant scent about the paper. Then he took a revolver from the
table....
"There, there! Don't take any notice of it." The music teacher was
comforting _maman_ in the next room. "He is young! Young people of his
age never restrain themselves. One must resign oneself to that."
"No, Yevgenya Andreyevna; he's too spoilt," said _maman_ in a singsong
voice. "He has no one in authority over him, and I am weak and can do
nothing. Oh, I am unhappy!"
Volodya put the muzzle of the revolver to his mouth, felt something like
a trigger or spring, and pressed it with his finger.... Then felt
something else projecting, and once more pressed it. Taking the muzzle
out of his mouth, he wiped it with the lapel of his coat, looked at the
lock. He had never in his life taken a weapon in his hand before....
"I believe one ought to raise this ..." he reflected. "Yes, it seems
so."
Avgustin Mihalitch went into the "general room," and with a laugh began
telling them about something. Volodya put the muzzle in his mouth again,
pressed it with his teeth, and pressed something with his fingers. There
was a sound of a shot.... Something hit Volodya in the back of his head
with terrible violence, and he fell on the table with his face downwards
among the bottles and glasses. Then he saw his father, as in Mentone, in
a top-hat with a wide black band on it, wearing mourning for some lady,
suddenly seize him by both hands, and they fell headlong into a very
deep, dark pit.
Then everything was blurred and vanished.
AN ANONYMOUS STORY
I
THROUGH causes which it is not the time to go into in detail, I had to
enter the service of a Petersburg official called Orlov, in the capacity
of a footman. He was about five and thirty, and was called Georgy*
Ivanitch.
*Both _g's_ hard, as in "Gorgon"; _e_ like _ai_ in _rain_.
I entered this Orlov's service on account of his father, a prominent
political man, whom I looked upon as a serious enemy of my cause. I
reckoned that, living with the son, I should--from the conversations I
should hear, and from the letters and papers I should find on the
table--learn every detail of the father's plans and intentions.
As a rule at eleven o'clock in the morning the electric bell rang in my
footman's quarters to let me know that my master was awake. When I went
into the bedroom with his polished shoes and brushed clothes, Georgy
Ivanitch would be sitting in his bed with a face that looked, not
drowsy, but rather exhausted by sleep, and he would gaze off in one
direction without any sign of satisfaction at having waked. I helped him
to dress, and he let me do it with an air of reluctance without speaking
or noticing my presence; then with his head wet with washing, smelling
of fresh scent, he used to go into the dining-room to drink his coffee.
He used to sit at the table, sipping his coffee and glancing through the
newspapers, while the maid Polya and I stood respectfully at the door
gazing at him. Two grown-up persons had to stand watching with the
gravest attention a third drinking coffee and munching rusks. It was
probably ludicrous and grotesque, but I saw nothing humiliating in
having to stand near the door, though I was quite as well born and well
educated as Orlov himself.
I was in the first stage of consumption, and was suffering from