The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories
She looked greedily into his face, to stamp his dear features on her
memory, then she put her arms gracefully round his neck and laid her
head on his breast.
"Forgive me our misunderstandings," she said in French. "Husband and
wife cannot help quarrelling if they love each other, and I love you
madly. Don't forget me.... Wire to me often and fully."
Orlov kissed her once more, and, without saying a word, went out in
confusion. When he heard the click of the lock as the door closed, he
stood still in the middle of the staircase in hesitation and glanced
upwards. It seemed to me that if a sound had reached him at that moment
from above, he would have turned back. But all was quiet. He
straightened his coat and went downstairs irresolutely.
The sledges had been waiting a long while at the door. Orlov got into
one, I got into the other with two portmanteaus. It was a hard frost and
there were fires smoking at the cross-roads. The cold wind nipped my
face and hands, and took my breath away as we drove rapidly along; and,
closing my eyes, I thought what a splendid woman she was. How she loved
him! Even useless rubbish is collected in the courtyards nowadays and
used for some purpose, even broken glass is considered a useful
commodity, but something so precious, so rare, as the love of a refined,
young, intelligent, and good woman is utterly thrown away and wasted.
One of the early sociologists regarded every evil passion as a force
which might by judicious management be turned to good, while among us
even a fine, noble passion springs up and dies away in impotence, turned
to no account, misunderstood or vulgarised. Why is it?
The sledges stopped unexpectedly. I opened my eyes and I saw that we had
come to a standstill in Sergievsky Street, near a big house where
Pekarsky lived. Orlov got out of the sledge and vanished into the entry.
Five minutes later Pekarsky's footman came out, bareheaded, and, angry
with the frost, shouted to me:
"Are you deaf? Pay the cabmen and go upstairs. You are wanted!"
At a complete loss, I went to the first storey. I had been to Pekarsky's
flat before--that is, I had stood in the hall and looked into the
drawing-room, and, after the damp, gloomy street, it always struck me by
the brilliance of its picture-frames, its bronzes and expensive
furniture. To-day in the midst of this splendour I saw Gruzin,
Kukushkin, and, after a minute, Orlov.
"Look here, Stepan," he said, coming up to me. "I shall be staying here
till Friday or Saturday. If any letters or telegrams come, you must
bring them here every day. At home, of course you will say that I have
gone, and send my greetings. Now you can go."
When I reached home Zinaida Fyodorovna was lying on the sofa in the
drawing-room, eating a pear. There was only one candle burning in the
candelabra.
"Did you catch the train?" asked Zinaida Fyodorovna.
"Yes, madam. His honour sends his greetings."
I went into my room and I, too, lay down. I had nothing to do, and I did
not want to read. I was not surprised and I was not indignant. I only
racked my brains to think why this deception was necessary. It is only
boys in their teens who deceive their mistresses like that. How was it
that a man who had thought and read so much could not imagine anything
more sensible? I must confess I had by no means a poor opinion of his
intelligence. I believe if he had had to deceive his minister or any
other influential person he would have put a great deal of skill and
energy into doing so; but to deceive a woman, the first idea that
occurred to him was evidently good enough. If it succeeded--well and
good; if it did not, there would be no harm done--he could tell some
other lie just as quickly and simply, with no mental effort.
At midnight when the people on the floor overhead were moving their
chairs and shouting hurrah to welcome the New Year, Zinaida Fyodorovna
rang for me from the room next to the study. Languid from lying down so
long, she was sitting at the table, writing something on a scrap of
paper.
"I must send a telegram," she said, with a smile. "Go to the station as
quick as you can and ask them to send it after him."
Going out into the street, I read on the scrap of paper:
"May the New Year bring new happiness. Make haste and telegraph; I miss
you dreadfully. It seems an eternity. I am only sorry I can't send a
thousand kisses and my very heart by telegraph. Enjoy yourself, my
darling.--ZINA."
I sent the telegram, and next morning I gave her the receipt.
IX
The worst of it was that Orlov had thoughtlessly let Polya, too, into
the secret of his deception, telling her to bring his shirts to
Sergievsky Street. After that, she looked at Zinaida Fyodorovna with a
malignant joy and hatred I could not understand, and was never tired of
snorting with delight to herself in her own room and in the hall.
"She's outstayed her welcome; it's time she took herself off!" she would
say with zest. "She ought to realise that herself...."
She already divined by instinct that Zinaida Fyodorovna would not be
with us much longer, and, not to let the chance slip, carried off
everything she set her eyes on--smelling-bottles, tortoise-shell
hairpins, handkerchiefs, shoes! On the day after New Year's Day, Zinaida
Fyodorovna summoned me to her room and told me in a low voice that she
missed her black dress. And then she walked through all the rooms, with
a pale, frightened, and indignant face, talking to herself:
"It's too much! It's beyond everything. Why, it's unheard-of insolence!"
At dinner she tried to help herself to soup, but could not--her hands
were trembling. Her lips were trembling, too. She looked helplessly at
the soup and at the little pies, waiting for the trembling to pass off,
and suddenly she could not resist looking at Polya.
"You can go, Polya," she said. "Stepan is enough by himself."
"I'll stay; I don't mind," answered Polya.
"There's no need for you to stay. You go away altogether," Zinaida
Fyodorovna went on, getting up in great agitation. "You may look out for
another place. You can go at once."
"I can't go away without the master's orders. He engaged me. It must be
as he orders."
"You can take orders from me, too! I am mistress here!" said Zinaida
Fyodorovna, and she flushed crimson.
"You may be the mistress, but only the master can dismiss me. It was he
engaged me."
"You dare not stay here another minute!" cried Zinaida Fyodorovna, and
she struck the plate with her knife. "You are a thief! Do you hear?"
Zinaida Fyodorovna flung her dinner-napkin on the table, and with a
pitiful, suffering face, went quickly out of the room. Loudly sobbing
and wailing something indistinct, Polya, too, went away. The soup and
the grouse got cold. And for some reason all the restaurant dainties on
the table struck me as poor, thievish, like Polya. Two pies on a plate
had a particularly miserable and guilty air. "We shall be taken back to
the restaurant to-day," they seemed to be saying, "and to-morrow we
shall be put on the table again for some official or celebrated singer."
"She is a fine lady, indeed," I heard uttered in Polya's room. "I could
have been a lady like that long ago, but I have some self-respect! We'll
see which of us will be the first to go!"
Zinaida Fyodorovna rang the bell. She was sitting in her room, in the
corner, looking as though she had been put in the corner as a
punishment.
"No telegram has come?" she asked.
"No, madam."
"Ask the porter; perhaps there is a telegram. And don't leave the
house," she called after me. "I am afraid to be left alone."
After that I had to run down almost every hour to ask the porter whether
a telegram had come. I must own it was a dreadful time! To avoid seeing
Polya, Zinaida Fyodorovna dined and had tea in her own room; it was here
that she slept, too, on a short sofa like a half-moon, and she made her
own bed. For the first days I took the telegrams; but, getting no
answer, she lost her faith in me and began telegraphing herself. Looking
at her, I, too, began impatiently hoping for a telegram. I hoped he
would contrive some deception, would make arrangements, for instance,
that a telegram should be sent to her from some station. If he were too
much engrossed with cards or had been attracted by some other woman, I
thought that both Gruzin and Kukushkin would remind him of us. But our
expectations were vain. Five times a day I would go in to Zinaida
Fyodorovna, intending to tell her the truth. But her eyes looked piteous
as a fawn's, her shoulders seemed to droop, her lips were moving, and I
went away again without saying a word. Pity and sympathy seemed to rob
me of all manliness. Polya, as cheerful and well satisfied with herself
as though nothing had happened, was tidying the master's study and the
bedroom, rummaging in the cupboards, and making the crockery jingle, and
when she passed Zinaida Fyodorovna's door, she hummed something and
coughed. She was pleased that her mistress was hiding from her. In the
evening she would go out somewhere, and rang at two or three o'clock in
the morning, and I had to open the door to her and listen to remarks
about my cough. Immediately afterwards I would hear another ring; I
would run to the room next to the study, and Zinaida Fyodorovna, putting
her head out of the door, would ask, "Who was it rung?" while she looked
at my hands to see whether I had a telegram.
When at last on Saturday the bell rang below and she heard the familiar
voice on the stairs, she was so delighted that she broke into sobs. She
rushed to meet him, embraced him, kissed him on the breast and sleeves,
said something one could not understand. The hall porter brought up the
portmanteaus; Polya's cheerful voice was heard. It was as though some
one had come home for the holidays.
"Why didn't you wire?" asked Zinaida Fyodorovna, breathless with joy.
"Why was it? I have been in misery; I don't know how I've lived through
it.... Oh, my God!"
"It was very simple! I returned with the senator to Moscow the very
first day, and didn't get your telegrams," said Orlov. "After dinner, my
love, I'll give you a full account of my doings, but now I must sleep
and sleep.... I am worn out with the journey."
It was evident that he had not slept all night; he had probably been
playing cards and drinking freely. Zinaida Fyodorovna put him to bed,
and we all walked about on tiptoe all that day. The dinner went off
quite satisfactorily, but when they went into the study and had coffee
the explanation began. Zinaida Fyodorovna began talking of something
rapidly in a low voice; she spoke in French, and her words flowed like a
stream. Then I heard a loud sigh from Orlov, and his voice.
"My God!" he said in French. "Have you really nothing fresher to tell me
than this everlasting tale of your servant's misdeeds?"
"But, my dear, she robbed me and said insulting things to me."
"But why is it she doesn't rob me or say insulting things to me? Why is
it I never notice the maids nor the porters nor the footmen? My dear,
you are simply capricious and refuse to know your own mind.... I really
begin to suspect that you must be in a certain condition. When I offered
to let her go, you insisted on her remaining, and now you want me to
turn her away. I can be obstinate, too, in such cases. You want her to
go, but I want her to remain. That's the only way to cure you of your
nerves."
"Oh, very well, very well," said Zinaida Fyodorovna in alarm. "Let us
say no more about that.... Let us put it off till to-morrow.... Now tell
me about Moscow.... What is going on in Moscow?"
X
After lunch next day--it was the seventh of January, St. John the
Baptist's Day--Orlov put on his black dress coat and his decoration to