The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories
the rooms, looking helplessly on all the tables and on all the windows.
But the watch had disappeared completely.
Only three days afterwards Zinaida Fyodorovna, on coming in, left her
purse in the hall. Luckily for me, on that occasion it was not I but
Polya who helped her off with her coat. When the purse was missed, it
could not be found in the hall.
"Strange," said Zinaida Fyodorovna in bewilderment. "I distinctly
remember taking it out of my pocket to pay the cabman ... and then I put
it here near the looking-glass. It's very odd!"
I had not stolen it, but I felt as though I had stolen it and had been
caught in the theft. Tears actually came into my eyes. When they were
seated at dinner, Zinaida Fyodorovna said to Orlov in French:
"There seem to be spirits in the flat. I lost my purse in the hall
to-day, and now, lo and behold, it is on my table. But it's not quite a
disinterested trick of the spirits. They took out a gold coin and twenty
roubles in notes."
"You are always losing something; first it's your watch and then it's
your money ..." said Orlov. "Why is it nothing of the sort ever happens
to me?"
A minute later Zinaida Fyodorovna had forgotten the trick played by the
spirits, and was telling with a laugh how the week before she had
ordered some notepaper and had forgotten to give her new address, and
the shop had sent the paper to her old home at her husband's, who had to
pay twelve roubles for it. And suddenly she turned her eyes on Polya and
looked at her intently. She blushed as she did so, and was so confused
that she began talking of something else.
When I took in the coffee to the study, Orlov was standing with his back
to the fire and she was sitting in an arm-chair facing him.
"I am not in a bad temper at all," she was saying in French. "But I have
been putting things together, and now I see it clearly. I can give you
the day and the hour when she stole my watch. And the purse? There can
be no doubt about it. Oh!" she laughed as she took the coffee from me.
"Now I understand why I am always losing my handkerchiefs and gloves.
Whatever you say, I shall dismiss the magpie to-morrow and send Stepan
for my Sofya. She is not a thief and has not got such a repulsive
appearance."
"You are out of humour. To-morrow you will feel differently, and will
realise that you can't discharge people simply because you suspect
them."
"It's not suspicion; it's certainty," said Zinaida Fyodorovna. "So long
as I suspected that unhappy-faced, poor-looking valet of yours, I said
nothing. It's too bad of you not to believe me, _George_."
"If we think differently about anything, it doesn't follow that I don't
believe you. You may be right," said Orlov, turning round and flinging
his cigarette-end into the fire, "but there is no need to be excited
about it, anyway. In fact, I must say, I never expected my humble
establishment would cause you so much serious worry and agitation.
You've lost a gold coin: never mind--you may have a hundred of mine; but
to change my habits, to pick up a new housemaid, to wait till she is
used to the place--all that's a tedious, tiring business and does not
suit me. Our present maid certainly is fat, and has, perhaps, a weakness
for gloves and handkerchiefs, but she is perfectly well behaved, well
trained, and does not shriek when Kukushkin pinches her."
"You mean that you can't part with her?... Why don't you say so?"
"Are you jealous?"
"Yes, I am," said Zinaida Fyodorovna, decidedly.
"Thank you."
"Yes, I am jealous," she repeated, and tears glistened in her eyes. "No,
it's something worse ... which I find it difficult to find a name for."
She pressed her hands on her temples, and went on impulsively. "You men
are so disgusting! It's horrible!"
"I see nothing horrible about it."
"I've not seen it; I don't know; but they say that you men begin with
housemaids as boys, and get so used to it that you feel no repugnance. I
don't know, I don't know, but I have actually read.... _George_, of
course you are right," she said, going up to Orlov and changing to a
caressing and imploring tone. "I really am out of humour to-day. But,
you must understand, I can't help it. She disgusts me and I am afraid of
her. It makes me miserable to see her."
"Surely you can rise above such paltriness?" said Orlov, shrugging his
shoulders in perplexity, and walking away from the fire. "Nothing could
be simpler: take no notice of her, and then she won't disgust you, and
you won't need to make a regular tragedy out of a trifle."
I went out of the study, and I don't know what answer Orlov received.
Whatever it was, Polya remained. After that Zinaida Fyodorovna never
applied to her for anything, and evidently tried to dispense with her
services. When Polya handed her anything or even passed by her, jingling
her bangle and rustling her skirts, she shuddered.
I believe that if Gruzin or Pekarsky had asked Orlov to dismiss Polya he
would have done so without the slightest hesitation, without troubling
about any explanations. He was easily persuaded, like all indifferent
people. But in his relations with Zinaida Fyodorovna he displayed for
some reason, even in trifles, an obstinacy which sometimes was almost
irrational. I knew beforehand that if Zinaida Fyodorovna liked anything,
it would be certain not to please Orlov. When on coming in from shopping
she made haste to show him with pride some new purchase, he would glance
at it and say coldly that the more unnecessary objects they had in the
flat, the less airy it would be. It sometimes happened that after
putting on his dress clothes to go out somewhere, and after saying
good-bye to Zinaida Fyodorovna, he would suddenly change his mind and
remain at home from sheer perversity. I used to think that he remained
at home then simply in order to feel injured.
"Why are you staying?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, with a show of vexation,
though at the same time she was radiant with delight. "Why do you? You
are not accustomed to spending your evenings at home, and I don't want
you to alter your habits on my account. Do go out as usual, if you don't
want me to feel guilty."
"No one is blaming you," said Orlov.
With the air of a victim he stretched himself in his easy-chair in the
study, and shading his eyes with his hand, took up a book. But soon the
book dropped from his hand, he turned heavily in his chair, and again
screened his eyes as though from the sun. Now he felt annoyed that he
had not gone out.
"May I come in?" Zinaida Fyodorovna would say, coming irresolutely into
the study. "Are you reading? I felt dull by myself, and have come just
for a minute ... to have a peep at you."
I remember one evening she went in like that, irresolutely and
inappropriately, and sank on the rug at Orlov's feet, and from her soft,
timid movements one could see that she did not understand his mood and
was afraid.
"You are always reading ..." she said cajolingly, evidently wishing to
flatter him. "Do you know, _George_, what is one of the secrets of your
success? You are very clever and well-read. What book have you there?"
Orlov answered. A silence followed for some minutes which seemed to me
very long. I was standing in the drawing-room, from which I could watch
them, and was afraid of coughing.
"There is something I wanted to tell you," said Zinaida Fyodorovna, and
she laughed; "shall I? Very likely you'll laugh and say that I flatter
myself. You know I want, I want horribly to believe that you are staying
at home to-night for my sake ... that we might spend the evening
together. Yes? May I think so?"
"Do," he said, screening his eyes. "The really happy man is he who
thinks not only of what is, but of what is not."
"That was a long sentence which I did not quite understand. You mean
happy people live in their imagination. Yes, that's true. I love to sit
in your study in the evening and let my thoughts carry me far, far
away.... It's pleasant sometimes to dream. Let us dream aloud,
_George_."
"I've never been at a girls' boarding-school; I never learnt the art."
"You are out of humour?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, taking Orlov's hand.
"Tell me why. When you are like that, I'm afraid. I don't know whether
your head aches or whether you are angry with me...."
Again there was a silence lasting several long minutes.
"Why have you changed?" she said softly. "Why are you never so tender or
so gay as you used to be at Znamensky Street? I've been with you almost
a month, but it seems to me as though we had not yet begun to live, and
have not yet talked of anything as we ought to. You always answer me
with jokes or else with a long cold lecture like a teacher. And there is
something cold in your jokes.... Why have you given up talking to me
seriously?"
"I always talk seriously."
"Well, then, let us talk. For God's sake, _George_.... Shall we?"
"Certainly, but about what?"
"Let us talk of our life, of our future," said Zinaida Fyodorovna
dreamily. "I keep making plans for our life, plans and plans--and I
enjoy doing it so! _George_, I'll begin with the question, when are you
going to give up your post?"
"What for?" asked Orlov, taking his hand from his forehead.
"With your views you cannot remain in the service. You are out of place
there."
"My views?" Orlov repeated. "My views? In conviction and temperament I
am an ordinary official, one of Shtchedrin's heroes. You take me for
something different, I venture to assure you."
"Joking again, _George_!"
"Not in the least. The service does not satisfy me, perhaps; but,
anyway, it is better for me than anything else. I am used to it, and in
it I meet men of my own sort; I am in my place there and find it
tolerable."
"You hate the service and it revolts you."
"Indeed? If I resign my post, take to dreaming aloud and letting myself
be carried away into another world, do you suppose that that world would
be less hateful to me than the service?"
"You are ready to libel yourself in order to contradict me." Zinaida
Fyodorovna was offended and got up. "I am sorry I began this talk."
"Why are you angry? I am not angry with you for not being an official.
Every one lives as he likes best."
"Why, do you live as you like best? Are you free? To spend your life
writing documents that are opposed to your own ideas," Zinaida
Fyodorovna went on, clasping her hands in despair: "to submit to
authority, congratulate your superiors at the New Year, and then cards
and nothing but cards: worst of all, to be working for a system which
must be distasteful to you--no, _George_, no! You should not make such
horrid jokes. It's dreadful. You are a man of ideas, and you ought to be
working for your ideas and nothing else."
"You really take me for quite a different person from what I am," sighed
Orlov.
"Say simply that you don't want to talk to me. You dislike me, that's
all," said Zinaida Fyodorovna through her tears.
"Look here, my dear," said Orlov admonishingly, sitting up in his chair.
"You were pleased to observe yourself that I am a clever, well-read man,
and to teach one who knows does nothing but harm. I know very well all
the ideas, great and small, which you mean when you call me a man of
ideas. So if I prefer the service and cards to those ideas, you may be
sure I have good grounds for it. That's one thing. Secondly, you have,
so far as I know, never been in the service, and can only have drawn
your ideas of Government service from anecdotes and indifferent novels.
So it would not be amiss for us to make a compact, once for all, not to
talk of things we know already or of things about which we are not
competent to speak."
"Why do you speak to me like that?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, stepping