The Torrents of Spring
“I am fond of art…. I like everything beautiful.”
“And music?”
“I like music too.”
“Well, I don’t at all. I don’t care for anything but Russian songs—and
that in the country and in the spring—with dancing, you know … red
shirts, wreaths of beads, the young grass in the meadows, the smell of
smoke … delicious! But we weren’t talking of me. Go on, tell me.”
Maria Nikolaevna walked on, and kept looking at Sanin. She was tall—her
face was almost on a level with his face.
He began to talk—at first reluctantly, unskilfully—but afterwards he
talked more freely, chattered away in fact. Maria Nikolaevna was a very
good listener; and moreover she seemed herself so frank, that she led
others unconsciously on to frankness. She possessed that great gift of
“intimateness”—_le terrible don de la familiarité_—to which Cardinal
Retz refers. Sanin talked of his travels, of his life in Petersburg, of
his youth…. Had Maria Nikolaevna been a lady of fashion, with refined
manners, he would never have opened out so; but she herself spoke of
herself as a “good fellow,” who had no patience with ceremony of any
sort; it was in those words that she characterised herself to Sanin.
And at the same time this “good fellow” walked by his side with feline
grace, slightly bending towards him, and peeping into his face; and
this “good fellow” walked in the form of a young feminine creature,
full of the tormenting, fiery, soft and seductive charm, of which—for
the undoing of us poor weak sinful men—only Slav natures are possessed,
and but few of them, and those never of pure Slav blood, with no
foreign alloy. Sanin’s walk with Maria Nikolaevna, Sanin’s talk with
Maria Nikolaevna lasted over an hour. And they did not stop once; they
kept walking about the endless avenues of the park, now mounting a hill
and admiring the view as they went, and now going down into the valley,
and getting hidden in the thick shadows,—and all the while arm-in-arm.
At times Sanin felt positively irritated; he had never walked so long
with Gemma, his darling Gemma … but this lady had simply taken
possession of him, and there was no escape! “Aren’t you tired?” he said
to her more than once. “I never get tired,” she answered. Now and then
they met other people walking in the park; almost all of them
bowed—some respectfully, others even cringingly. To one of them, a very
handsome, fashionably dressed dark man, she called from a distance with
the best Parisian accent, “_Comte, vous savez, il ne faut pas venir me
voir—ni aujourd’hui ni demain_.” The man took off his hat, without
speaking, and dropped a low bow.
“Who’s that?” asked Sanin with the bad habit of asking questions
characteristic of all Russians.
“Oh, a Frenchman, there are lots of them here … He’s dancing attendance
on me too. It’s time for our coffee, though. Let’s go home; you must be
hungry by this time, I should say. My better half must have got his
eye-peeps open by now.”
“Better half! Eye-peeps!” Sanin repeated to himself … “And speaks
French so well … what a strange creature!”
Maria Nikolaevna was not mistaken. When she went back into the hotel
with Sanin, her “better half” or “dumpling” was already seated, the
invariable fez on his head, before a table laid for breakfast.
“I’ve been waiting for you!” he cried, making a sour face. “I was on
the point of having coffee without you.”
“Never mind, never mind,” Maria Nikolaevna responded cheerfully. “Are
you angry? That’s good for you; without that you’d turn into a mummy
altogether. Here I’ve brought a visitor. Make haste and ring! Let us
have coffee—the best coffee—in Saxony cups on a snow-white cloth!”
She threw off her hat and gloves, and clapped her hands.
Polozov looked at her from under his brows.
“What makes you so skittish to-day, Maria Nikolaevna?” he said in an
undertone.
“That’s no business of yours, Ippolit Sidoritch! Ring! Dimitri
Pavlovitch, sit down and have some coffee for the second time. Ah, how
nice it is to give orders! There’s no pleasure on earth like it!”
“When you’re obeyed,” grumbled her husband again.
“Just so, when one’s obeyed! That’s why I’m so happy! Especially with
you. Isn’t it so, dumpling? Ah, here’s the coffee.”
On the immense tray, which the waiter brought in, there lay also a
playbill. Maria Nikolaevna snatched it up at once.
“A drama!” she pronounced with indignation, “a German drama. No matter;
it’s better than a German comedy. Order a box for me—_baignoire_—or no
… better the _Fremden-Loge_,” she turned to the waiter. “Do you hear:
the _Fremden-Loge_ it must be!”
“But if the _Fremden-Loge_ has been already taken by his excellency,
the director of the town (_seine Excellenz der Herr Stadt-Director_),”
the waiter ventured to demur.
“Give his excellency ten _thalers_, and let the box be mine! Do you
hear!”
The waiter bent his head humbly and mournfully.
“Dimitri Pavlovitch, you will go with me to the theatre? the German
actors are awful, but you will go … Yes? Yes? How obliging you are!
Dumpling, are you not coming?
“You settle it,” Polozov observed into the cup he had lifted to his
lips.
“Do you know what, you stay at home. You always go to sleep at the
theatre, and you don’t understand much German. I’ll tell you what you’d
better do, write an answer to the overseer—you remember, about our mill
… about the peasants’ grinding. Tell him that I won’t have it, and I
won’t and that’s all about it! There’s occupation for you for the whole
evening.”
“All right,” answered Polozov.
“Well then, that’s first-rate. You’re a darling. And now, gentlemen, as
we have just been speaking of my overseer, let’s talk about our great
business. Come, directly the waiter has cleared the table, you shall
tell me all, Dimitri Pavlovitch, about your estate, what price you will
sell it for, how much you want paid down in advance, everything, in
fact! (At last, thought Sanin, thank God!) You have told me something
about it already, you remember, you described your garden delightfully,
but dumpling wasn’t here…. Let him hear, he may pick a hole somewhere!
I’m delighted to think that I can help you to get married, besides, I
promised you that I would go into your business after lunch, and I
always keep my promises, isn’t that the truth, Ippolit Sidoritch?”
Polozov rubbed his face with his open hand. “The truth’s the truth. You
don’t deceive any one.”
“Never! and I never will deceive any one. Well, Dimitri Pavlovitch,
expound the case as we express it in the senate.”
XXXVII
Sanin proceeded to expound his case, that is to say, again, a second
time, to describe his property, not touching this time on the beauties
of nature, and now and then appealing to Polozov for confirmation of
his “facts and figures.” But Polozov simply gasped and shook his head,
whether in approval or disapproval, it would have puzzled the devil,
one might fancy, to decide. However, Maria Nikolaevna stood in no need
of his aid. She exhibited commercial and administrative abilities that
were really astonishing! She was familiar with all the ins-and-outs of
farming; she asked questions about everything with great exactitude,
went into every point; every word of hers went straight to the root of
the matter, and hit the nail on the head. Sanin had not expected such a
close inquiry, he had not prepared himself for it. And this inquiry
lasted for fully an hour and a half. Sanin experienced all the
sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow bench
confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. “Why, it’s a
cross-examination!” he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria Nikolaevna
kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but Sanin felt
none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of the
“cross-examination” it turned out that he had not clearly realised the
exact meaning of the words “repartition” and “tilth,” he was in a cold
perspiration all over.
“Well, that’s all right!” Maria Nikolaevna decided at last. “I know
your estate now … as well as you do. What price do you suggest per
soul?” (At that time, as every one knows, the prices of estates were
reckoned by the souls living as serfs on them.)
“Well … I imagine … I could not take less than five hundred roubles for
each,” Sanin articulated with difficulty. O Pantaleone, Pantaleone,
where were you! This was when you ought to have cried again, “Barbari!”
Maria Nikolaevna turned her eyes upwards as though she were
calculating.
“Well?” she said at last. “I think there’s no harm in that price. But I
reserved for myself two days’ grace, and you must wait till to-morrow.
I imagine we shall come to an arrangement, and then you will tell me
how much you want paid down. And now, _basta cosi_!” she cried,
noticing Sanin was about to make some reply. “We’ve spent enough time
over filthy lucre … _à demain les affaires_. Do you know what, I’ll let
you go now … (she glanced at a little enamelled watch, stuck in her
belt) … till three o’clock … I must let you rest. Go and play
roulette.”
“I never play games of chance,” observed Sanin.
“Really? Why, you’re a paragon. Though I don’t either. It’s stupid
throwing away one’s money when one’s no chance. But go into the
gambling saloon, and look at the faces. Very comic ones there are
there. There’s one old woman with a rustic headband and a moustache,
simply delicious! Our prince there’s another, a good one too. A
majestic figure with a nose like an eagle’s, and when he puts down a
_thaler_, he crosses himself under his waistcoat. Read the papers, go a
walk, do what you like, in fact. But at three o’clock I expect you …
_de pied ferme_. We shall have to dine a little earlier. The theatre
among these absurd Germans begins at half-past six. She held out her
hand. “_Sans rancune, n’est-ce pas?_”
“Really, Maria Nikolaevna, what reason have I to be annoyed?”
“Why, because I’ve been tormenting you. Wait a little, you’ll see.
There’s worse to come,” she added, fluttering her eyelids, and all her
dimples suddenly came out on her flushing cheeks. “Till we meet!”
Sanin bowed and went out. A merry laugh rang out after him, and in the
looking-glass which he was passing at that instant, the following scene
was reflected: Maria Nikolaevna had pulled her husband’s fez over his
eyes, and he was helplessly struggling with both hands.
XXXVIII
Oh, what a deep sigh of delight Sanin heaved, when he found himself in
his room! Indeed, Maria Nikolaevna had spoken the truth, he needed
rest, rest from all these new acquaintances, collisions, conversations,
from this suffocating atmosphere which was affecting his head and his
heart, from this enigmatical, uninvited intimacy with a woman, so alien
to him! And when was all this taking place? Almost the day after he had
learnt that Gemma loved him, after he had become betrothed to her. Why,
it was sacrilege! A thousand times he mentally asked forgiveness of his
pure chaste dove, though he could not really blame himself for
anything; a thousand times over he kissed the cross she had given him.
Had he not the hope of bringing the business, for which he had come to
Wiesbaden, to a speedy and successful conclusion, he would have rushed
off headlong, back again, to sweet Frankfort, to that dear house, now
his own home, to her, to throw himself at her loved feet…. But there
was no help for it! The cup must be drunk to the dregs, he must dress,
go to dinner, and from there to the theatre…. If only she would let him
go to-morrow!
One other thing confounded him, angered him; with love, with
tenderness, with grateful transport he dreamed of Gemma, of their life
together, of the happiness awaiting him in the future, and yet this
strange woman, this Madame Polozov persistently floated—no! not