ALL Olga Ivanovna's
friends and acquaintances were at her wedding.
"Look at him;
isn't it true that there is something in him?" she said to her friends,
with a nod towards her husband, as though she wanted to explain why she was
marrying a simple, very ordinary, and in no way remarkable man.
Her husband, Osip
Stepanitch Dymov, was a doctor, and only of the rank of a titular councillor.
He was on the staff of two hospitals: in one a ward-surgeon and in the other a
dissecting demonstrator. Every day from nine to twelve he saw patients and was
busy in his ward, and after twelve o'clock he went by tram to the other
hospital, where he dissected. His private practice was a small one, not worth
more than five hundred roubles a year. That was all. What more could one say
about him? Meanwhile, Olga Ivanovna and her friends and acquaintances were not
quite ordinary people. Every one of them was remarkable in some way, and more
or less famous; already had made a reputation and was looked upon as a
celebrity; or if not yet a celebrity, gave brilliant promise of becoming one.
There was an actor from the Dramatic Theatre, who was a great talent of
established reputation, as well as an elegant, intelligent, and modest man, and
a capital elocutionist, and who taught Olga Ivanovna to recite; there was a
singer from the opera, a good-natured, fat man who assured Olga Ivanovna, with
a sigh, that she was ruining herself, that if she would take herself in hand
and not be lazy she might make a remarkable singer; then there were several
artists, and chief among them Ryabovsky, a very handsome, fair young man of
five-and-twenty who painted genre pieces, animal studies, and landscapes, was
successful at exhibitions, and had sold his last picture for five hundred
roubles. He touched up Olga Ivanovna's sketches, and used to say she might do
something. Then a violoncellist, whose instrument used to sob, and who openly
declared that of all the ladies of his acquaintance the only one who could
accompany him was Olga Ivanovna; then there was a literary man, young but
already well known, who had written stories, novels, and plays. Who else? Why,
Vassily Vassilyitch, a landowner and amateur illustrator and vignettist, with a
great feeling for the old Russian style, the old ballad and epic. On paper, on
china, and on smoked plates, he produced literally marvels. In the midst of
this free artistic company, spoiled by fortune, though refined and modest, who
recalled the existence of doctors only in times of illness, and to whom the
name of Dymov sounded in no way different from Sidorov or Tarasov -- in the
midst of this company Dymov seemed strange, not wanted, and small, though he
was tall and broad-shouldered. He looked as though he had on somebody else's
coat, and his beard was like a shopman's. Though if he had been a writer or an
artist, they would have said that his beard reminded them of Zola.
An artist said to Olga
Ivanovna that with her flaxen hair and in her wedding-dress she was very much
like a graceful cherry-tree when it is covered all over with delicate white
blossoms in spring.
"Oh, let me tell
you," said Olga Ivanovna, taking his arm, "how it was it all came to
pass so suddenly. Listen, listen! . . . I must tell you that my father was on
the same staff at the hospital as Dymov. When my poor father was taken ill,
Dymov watched for days and nights together at his bedside. Such self-sacrifice!
Listen, Ryabovsky! You, my writer, listen; it is very interesting! Come nearer.
Such self-sacrifice, such genuine sympathy! I sat up with my father, and did
not sleep for nights, either. And all at once -- the princess had won the
hero's heart -- my Dymov fell head over ears in love. Really, fate is so
strange at times! Well, after my father's death he came to see me sometimes,
met me in the street, and one fine evening, all at once he made me an offer . .
. like snow upon my head. . . . I lay awake all night, crying, and fell
hellishly in love myself. And here, as you see, I am his wife. There really is
something strong, powerful, bearlike about him, isn't there? Now his face is
turned three-quarters towards us in a bad light, but when he turns round look
at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what do you say to that forehead? Dymov, we are
talking about you!" she called to her husband. "Come here; hold out
your honest hand to Ryabovsky. . . . That's right, be friends."
Dymov, with a naive and
good-natured smile, held out his hand to Ryabovsky, and said:
"Very glad to meet
you. There was a Ryabovsky in my year at the medical school. Was he a relation
of yours?"
Olga Ivanovna was
twenty-two, Dymov was thirty-one. They got on splendidly together when they
were married. Olga Ivanovna hung all her drawing-room walls with her own and
other people's sketches, in frames and without frames, and near the piano and
furniture arranged picturesque corners with Japanese parasols, easels, daggers,
busts, photographs, and rags of many colours. . . . In the dining-room she
papered the walls with peasant woodcuts, hung up bark shoes and sickles, stood
in a corner a scythe and a rake, and so achieved a dining-room in the Russian
style. In her bedroom she draped the ceiling and the walls with dark cloths to
make it like a cavern, hung a Venetian lantern over the beds, and at the door
set a figure with a halberd. And every one thought that the young people had a
very charming little home.
When she got up at
eleven o'clock every morning, Olga Ivanovna played the piano or, if it were
sunny, painted something in oils. Then between twelve and one she drove to her
dressmaker's. As Dymov and she had very little money, only just enough, she and
her dressmaker were often put to clever shifts to enable her to appear
constantly in new dresses and make a sensation with them. Very often out of an
old dyed dress, out of bits of tulle, lace, plush, and silk, costing nothing,
perfect marvels were created, something bewitching -- not a dress, but a dream.
From the dressmaker's Olga Ivanovna usually drove to some actress of her
acquaintance to hear the latest theatrical gossip, and incidentally to try and
get hold of tickets for the first night of some new play or for a benefit
performance. From the actress's she had to go to some artist's studio or to
some exhibition or to see some celebrity -- either to pay a visit or to give an
invitation or simply to have a chat. And everywhere she met with a gay and
friendly welcome, and was assured that she was good, that she was sweet, that
she was rare. . . . Those whom she called great and famous received her as one
of themselves, as an equal, and predicted with one voice that, with her
talents, her taste, and her intelligence, she would do great things if she
concentrated herself. She sang, she played the piano, she painted in oils, she
carved, she took part in amateur performances; and all this not just anyhow,
but all with talent, whether she made lanterns for an illumination or dressed
up or tied somebody's cravat -- everything she did was exceptionally graceful,
artistic, and charming. But her talents showed themselves in nothing so clearly
as in her faculty for quickly becoming acquainted and on intimate terms with
celebrated people. No sooner did any one become ever so little celebrated, and
set people talking about him, than she made his acquaintance, got on friendly
terms the same day, and invited him to her house. Every new acquaintance she
made was a veritable fête for her. She adored celebrated people, was proud of
them, dreamed of them every night. She craved for them, and never could satisfy
her craving. The old ones departed and were forgotten, new ones came to replace
them, but to these, too, she soon grew accustomed or was disappointed in them,
and began eagerly seeking for fresh great men, finding them and seeking for
them again. What for?
Between four and five
she dined at home with her husband. His simplicity, good sense, and
kind-heartedness touched her and moved her up to enthusiasm. She was constantly
jumping up, impulsively hugging his head and showering kisses on it.
"You are a clever,
generous man, Dymov," she used to say, "but you have one very serious
defect. You take absolutely no interest in art. You don't believe in music or
painting."
"I don't
understand them," he would say mildly. "I have spent all my life in
working at natural science and medicine, and I have never had time to take an
interest in the arts."
"But, you know,
that's awful, Dymov!"
"Why so? Your
friends don't know anything of science or medicine, but you don't reproach them
with it. Every one has his own line. I don't understand landscapes and operas,
but the way I look at it is that if one set of sensible people devote their
whole lives to them, and other sensible people pay immense sums for them, they
must be of use. I don't understand them, but not understanding does not imply
disbelieving in them."
"Let me shake your
honest hand!"
After dinner Olga
Ivanovna would drive off to see her friends, then to a theatre or to a concert,
and she returned home after midnight. So it was every day.
On Wednesdays she had
"At Homes." At these "At Homes" the hostess and her guests
did not play cards and did not dance, but entertained themselves with various
arts. An actor from the Dramatic Theatre recited, a singer sang, artists
sketched in the albums of which Olga Ivanovna had a great number, the
violoncellist played, and the hostess herself sketched, carved, sang, and
played accompaniments. In the intervals between the recitations, music, and
singing, they talked and argued about literature, the theatre, and painting.
There were no ladies, for Olga Ivanovna considered all ladies wearisome and
vulgar except actresses and her dressmaker. Not one of these entertainments
passed without the hostess starting at every ring at the bell, and saying, with
a triumphant expression, "It is he," meaning by "he," of
course, some new celebrity. Dymov was not in the drawing-room, and no one
remembered his existence. But exactly at half-past eleven the door leading into
the dining-room opened, and Dymov would appear with his good-natured, gentle
smile and say, rubbing his hands:
"Come to supper,
gentlemen."
They all went into the
dining-room, and every time found on the table exactly the same things: a dish
of oysters, a piece of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviare, mushrooms,
vodka, and two decanters of wine.
"My dear mâitre d'
hôtel!" Olga Ivanovna would say, clasping her hands with enthusiasm,
"you are simply fascinating! My friends, look at his forehead! Dymov, turn
your profile. Look! he has the face of a Bengal tiger and an expression as kind
and sweet as a gazelle. Ah, the darling!"
The visitors ate, and,
looking at Dymov, thought, "He really is a nice fellow"; but they
soon forgot about him, and went on talking about the theatre, music, and
painting.
The young people were
happy, and their life flowed on without a hitch.
The third week of their
honeymoon was spent, however, not quite happily -- sadly, indeed. Dymov caught
erysipelas in the hospital, was in bed for six days, and had to have his
beautiful black hair cropped. Olga Ivanovna sat beside him and wept bitterly,
but when he was better she put a white handkerchief on his shaven head and
began to paint him as a Bedouin. And they were both in good spirits. Three days
after he had begun to go back to the hospital he had another mischance.
"I have no luck,
little mother," he said one day at dinner. "I had four dissections to
do today, and I cut two of my fingers at one. And I did not notice it till I
got home."
Olga Ivanovna was
alarmed. He smiled, and told her that it did not matter, and that he often cut
his hands when he was dissecting.
"I get absorbed,
little mother, and grow careless."
Olga Ivanovna dreaded
symptoms of blood-poisoning, and prayed about it every night, but all went
well. And again life flowed on peaceful and happy, free from grief and anxiety.
The present was happy, and to follow it spring was at hand, already smiling in
the distance, and promising a thousand delights. There would be no end to their
happiness. In April, May and June a summer villa a good distance out of town;
walks, sketching, fishing, nightingales; and then from July right on to autumn
an artist's tour on the Volga, and in this tour Olga Ivanovna would take part
as an indispensable member of the society. She had already had made for her two
travelling dresses of linen, had bought paints, brushes, canvases, and a new
palette for the journey. Almost every day Ryabovsky visited her to see what
progress she was making in her painting; when she showed him her painting, he
used to thrust his hands deep into his pockets, compress his lips, sniff, and
say:
" Ye--es . . . !
That cloud of yours is screaming: it's not in the evening light. The foreground
is somehow chewed up, and there is something, you know, not the thing. . . .
And your cottage is weighed down and whines pitifully. That corner ought to
have been taken more in shadow, but on the whole it is not bad; I like
it."
And the more incomprehensible
he talked, the more readily Olga Ivanovna understood him.
After dinner on the
second day of Trinity week, Dymov bought some sweets and some savouries and
went down to the villa to see his wife. He had not seen her for a fortnight,
and missed her terribly. As he sat in the train and afterwards as he looked for
his villa in a big wood, he felt all the while hungry and weary, and dreamed of
how he would have supper in freedom with his wife, then tumble into bed and to
sleep. And he was delighted as he looked at his parcel, in which there was
caviare, cheese, and white salmon.
The sun was setting by
the time he found his villa and recognized it. The old servant told him that
her mistress was not at home, but that most likely she would soon be in. The
villa, very uninviting in appearance, with low ceilings papered with
writing-paper and with uneven floors full of crevices, consisted only of three
rooms. In one there was a bed, in the second there were canvases, brushes,
greasy papers, and men's overcoats and hats lying about on the chairs and in
the windows, while in the third Dymov found three unknown men; two were
dark-haired and had beards, the other was clean-shaven and fat, apparently an
actor. There was a samovar boiling on the table.
"What do you
want?" asked the actor in a bass voice, looking at Dymov ungraciously.
"Do you want Olga Ivanovna? Wait a minute; she will be here
directly."
Dymov sat down and
waited. One of the dark-haired men, looking sleepily and listlessly at him, poured
himself out a glass of tea, and asked:
"Perhaps you would
like some tea?"
Dymov was both hungry
and thirsty, but he refused tea for fear of spoiling his supper. Soon he heard
footsteps and a familiar laugh; a door slammed, and Olga Ivanovna ran into the
room, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and carrying a box in her hand; she was
followed by Ryabovsky, rosy and good-humoured, carrying a big umbrella and a
camp-stool.
"Dymov!"
cried Olga Ivanovna, and she flushed crimson with pleasure. "Dymov!"
she repeated, laying her head and both arms on his bosom. "Is that you?
Why haven't you come for so long? Why? Why?"
"When could I,
little mother? I am always busy, and whenever I am free it always happens
somehow that the train does not fit."
"But how glad I am
to see you! I have been dreaming about you the whole night, the whole night,
and I was afraid you must be ill. Ah! if you only knew how sweet you are! You
have come in the nick of time! You will be my salvation! You are the only person
who can save me! There is to be a most original wedding here tomorrow,"
she went on, laughing, and tying her husband's cravat. "A young telegraph
clerk at the station, called Tchikeldyeev, is going to be married. He is a
handsome young man and -- well, not stupid, and you know there is something
strong, bearlike in his face . . . you might paint him as a young Norman. We
summer visitors take a great interest in him, and have promised to be at his
wedding. . . . He is a lonely, timid man, not well off, and of course it would
be a shame not to be sympathetic to him. Fancy! the wedding will be after the
service; then we shall all walk from the church to the bride's lodgings . . .
you see the wood, the birds singing, patches of sunlight on the grass, and all
of us spots of different colours against the bright green background -- very
original, in the style of the French impressionists. But, Dymov, what am I to
go to the church in?" said Olga Ivanovna, and she looked as though she
were going to cry. "I have nothing here, literally nothing! no dress, no
flowers, no gloves . . . you must save me. Since you have come, fate itself
bids you save me. Take the keys, my precious, go home and get my pink dress
from the wardrobe. You remember it; it hangs in front. . . . Then, in the
storeroom, on the floor, on the right side, you will see two cardboard boxes.
When you open the top one you will see tulle, heaps of tulle and rags of all
sorts, and under them flowers. Take out all the flowers carefully, try not to
crush them, darling; I will choose among them later. . . . And buy me some
gloves."
"Very well!"
said Dymov; "I will go tomorrow and send them to you."
"Tomorrow?"
asked Olga Ivanovna, and she looked at him surprised. "You won't have time
tomorrow. The first train goes tomorrow at nine, and the wedding's at eleven.
No, darling, it must be today; it absolutely must be today. If you won't be
able to come tomorrow, send them by a messenger. Come, you must run along. . .
. The passenger train will be in directly; don't miss it, darling."
"Very well."
"Oh, how sorry I
am to let you go!" said Olga Ivanovna, and tears came into her eyes.
"And why did I promise that telegraph clerk, like a silly?"
Dymov hurriedly drank a
glass of tea, took a cracknel, and, smiling gently, went to the station. And
the caviare, the cheese, and the white salmon were eaten by the two dark
gentlemen and the fat actor.
On a still moonlight
night in July Olga Ivanovna was standing on the deck of a Volga steamer and
looking alternately at the water and at the picturesque banks. Beside her was
standing Ryabovsky, telling her the black shadows on the water were not
shadows, but a dream, that it would be sweet to sink into forgetfulness, to
die, to become a memory in the sight of that enchanted water with the fantastic
glimmer, in sight of the fathomless sky and the mournful, dreamy shores that
told of the vanity of our life and of the existence of something higher,
blessed, and eternal. The past was vulgar and uninteresting, the future was trivial,
and that marvellous night, unique in a lifetime, would soon be over, would
blend with eternity; then, why live?
And Olga Ivanovna
listened alternately to Ryabovsky's voice and the silence of the night, and
thought of her being immortal and never dying. The turquoise colour of the
water, such as she had never seen before, the sky, the river-banks, the black
shadows, and the unaccountable joy that flooded her soul, all told her that she
would make a great artist, and that somewhere in the distance, in the infinite
space beyond the moonlight, success, glory, the love of the people, lay
awaiting her. . . . When she gazed steadily without blinking into the distance,
she seemed to see crowds of people, lights, triumphant strains of music, cries
of enthusiasm, she herself in a white dress, and flowers showered upon her from
all sides. She thought, too, that beside her, leaning with his elbows on the
rail of the steamer, there was standing a real great man, a genius, one of
God's elect. . . . All that he had created up to the present was fine, new, and
extraordinary, but what he would create in time, when with maturity his rare
talent reached its full development, would be astounding, immeasurably sublime;
and that could be seen by his face, by his manner of expressing himself and his
attitude to nature. He talked of shadows, of the tones of evening, of the
moonlight, in a special way, in a language of his own, so that one could not
help feeling the fascination of his power over nature. He was very handsome, original,
and his life, free, independent, aloof from all common cares, was like the life
of a bird.
"It's growing
cooler," said Olga Ivanovna, and she gave a shudder.
Ryabovsky wrapped her
in his cloak, and said mournfully:
"I feel that I am
in your power; I am a slave. Why are you so enchanting today?"
He kept staring
intently at her, and his eyes were terrible. And she was afraid to look at him.
"I love you
madly," he whispered, breathing on her cheek. "Say one word to me and
I will not go on living; I will give up art . . ." he muttered in violent
emotion. "Love me, love . . ."
"Don't talk like
that," said Olga Ivanovna, covering her eyes. "It's dreadful! How
about Dymov?"
"What of Dymov?
Why Dymov? What have I to do with Dymov? The Volga, the moon, beauty, my love,
ecstasy, and there is no such thing as Dymov. . . . Ah! I don't know . . . I
don't care about the past; give me one moment, one instant!"
Olga Ivanovna's heart
began to throb. She tried to think about her husband, but all her past, with
her wedding, with Dymov, and with her "At Homes," seemed to her
petty, trivial, dingy, unnecessary, and far, far away. . . . Yes, really, what
of Dymov? Why Dymov? What had she to do with Dymov? Had he any existence in
nature, or was he only a dream?
"For him, a simple
and ordinary man the happiness he has had already is enough," she thought,
covering her face with her hands. "Let them con- demn me, let them curse
me, but in spite of them all I will go to my ruin; I will go to my ruin! . . .
One must experience everything in life. My God! how terrible and how
glorious!"
"Well? Well?"
muttered the artist, embracing her, and greedily kissing the hands with which
she feebly tried to thrust him from her. "You love me? Yes? Yes? Oh, what
a night! marvellous night!"
"Yes, what a
night!" she whispered, looking into his eyes, which were bright with
tears.
Then she looked round
quickly, put her arms round him, and kissed him on the lips.
"We are nearing
Kineshmo!" said some one on the other side of the deck.
They heard heavy
footsteps; it was a waiter from the refreshment-bar.
"Waiter,"
said Olga Ivanovna, laughing and crying with happiness, "bring us some
wine."
The artist, pale with
emotion, sat on the seat, looking at Olga Ivanovna with adoring, grateful eyes;
then he closed his eyes, and said, smiling languidly:
"I am tired."
And he leaned his head
against the rail.
On the second of
September the day was warm and still, but overcast. In the early morning a
light mist had hung over the Volga, and after nine o'clock it had begun to
spout with rain. And there seemed no hope of the sky clearing. Over their
morning tea Ryabovsky told Olga Ivanovna that painting was the most ungrateful
and boring art, that he was not an artist, that none but fools thought that he
had any talent, and all at once, for no rhyme or reason, he snatched up a knife
and with it scraped over his very best sketch. After his tea he sat plunged in
gloom at the window and gazed at the Volga. And now the Volga was dingy, all of
one even colour without a gleam of light, cold-looking. Everything, everything
recalled the approach of dreary, gloomy autumn. And it seemed as though nature
had removed now from the Volga the sumptuous green covers from the banks, the
brilliant reflections of the sunbeams, the transparent blue distance, and all
its smart gala array, and had packed it away in boxes till the coming spring,
and the crows were flying above the Volga and crying tauntingly, "Bare,
bare!"
Ryabovsky heard their
cawing, and thought he had already gone off and lost his talent, that
everything in this world was relative, conditional, and stupid, and that he ought
not to have taken up with this woman. . . . In short, he was out of humour and
depressed.
Olga Ivanovna sat
behind the screen on the bed, and, passing her fingers through her lovely
flaxen hair, pictured herself first in the drawing-room, then in the bedroom,
then in her husband's study; her imagination carried her to the theatre, to the
dress-maker, to her distinguished friends. Were they getting something up now?
Did they think of her? The season had begun by now, and it would be time to
think about her "At Homes." And Dymov? Dear Dymov! with what
gentleness and childlike pathos he kept begging her in his letters to make
haste and come home! Every month he sent her seventy-five roubles, and when she
wrote him that she had lent the artists a hundred roubles, he sent that hundred
too. What a kind, generous-hearted man! The travelling wearied Olga Ivanovna;
she was bored; and she longed to get away from the peasants, from the damp
smell of the river, and to cast off the feeling of physical uncleanliness of
which she was conscious all the time, living in the peasants' huts and
wandering from village to village. If Ryabovsky had not given his word to the
artists that he would stay with them till the twentieth of September, they
might have gone away that very day. And how nice that would have been!
"My God!"
moaned Ryabovsky. "Will the sun ever come out? I can't go on with a sunny
landscape without the sun. . . ."
"But you have a
sketch with a cloudy sky," said Olga Ivanovna, coming from behind the
screen. "Do you remember, in the right foreground forest trees, on the
left a herd of cows and geese? You might finish it now."
"Aie!" the
artist scowled. "Finish it! Can you imagine I am such a fool that I don't
know what I want to do?"
"How you have
changed to me!" sighed Olga Ivanovna.
"Well, a good
thing too!"
Olga Ivanovna's face
quivered; she moved away to the stove and began to cry.
"Well, that's the
last straw -- crying! Give over! I have a thousand reasons for tears, but I am
not crying."
"A thousand
reasons!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "The chief one is that you are weary
of me. Yes!" she said, and broke into sobs. "If one is to tell the
truth, you are ashamed of our love. You keep trying to prevent the artists from
noticing it, though it is impossible to conceal it, and they have known all
about it for ever so long."
"Olga, one thing I
beg you," said the artist in an imploring voice, laying his hand on his
heart -- "one thing, don't worry me! I want nothing else from you!"
"But swear that
you love me still!"
"This is
agony!" the artist hissed through his teeth, and he jumped up. "It
will end by my throwing myself in the Volga or going out of my mind! Let me
alone!"
"Come, kill me,
kill me!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "Kill me!"
She sobbed again, and
went behind the screen. There was a swish of rain on the straw thatch of the
hut. Ryabovsky clutched his head and strode up and down the hut; then with a
resolute face, as though bent on proving something to somebody, put on his cap,
slung his gun over his shoulder, and went out of the hut.
After he had gone, Olga
Ivanovna lay a long time on the bed, crying. At first she thought it would be a
good thing to poison herself, so that when Ryabovsky came back he would find
her dead; then her imagination carried her to her drawing-room, to her
husband's study, and she imagined herself sitting motionless beside Dymov and
enjoying the physical peace and cleanliness, and in the evening sitting in the
theatre, listening to Mazini. And a yearning for civilization, for the noise
and bustle of the town, for celebrated people sent a pang to her heart. A
peasant woman came into the hut and began in a leisurely way lighting the stove
to get the dinner. There was a smell of charcoal fumes, and the air was filled
with bluish smoke. The artists came in, in muddy high boots and with faces wet
with rain, examined their sketches, and comforted themselves by saying that the
Volga had its charms even in bad weather. On the wall the cheap clock went
"tic-tic-tic." . . . The flies, feeling chilled, crowded round the
ikon in the corner, buzzing, and one could hear the cockroaches scurrying about
among the thick portfolios under the seats. . . .
Ryabovsky came home as
the sun was setting. He flung his cap on the table, and, without removing his
muddy boots, sank pale and exhausted on the bench and closed his eyes.
"I am tired . .
." he said, and twitched his eyebrows, trying to raise his eyelids.
To be nice to him and
to show she was not cross, Olga Ivanovna went up to him, gave him a silent
kiss, and passed the comb through his fair hair. She meant to comb it for him.
"What's
that?" he said, starting as though something cold had touched him, and he
opened his eyes. "What is it? Please let me alone."
He thrust her off, and
moved away. And it seemed to her that there was a look of aversion and
annoyance on his face.
At that time the
peasant woman cautiously carried him, in both hands, a plate of cabbage-soup.
And Olga Ivanovna saw how she wetted her fat fingers in it. And the dirty
peasant woman, standing with her body thrust forward, and the cabbage-soup
which Ryabovsky began eating greedily, and the hut, and their whole way of
life, which she at first had so loved for its simplicity and artistic disorder,
seemed horrible to her now. She suddenly felt insulted, and said coldly:
"We must part for
a time, or else from boredom we shall quarrel in earnest. I am sick of this; I
am going today."
"Going how?
Astride on a broomstick?"
"Today is
Thursday, so the steamer will be here at half-past nine."
"Eh? Yes, yes. . .
. Well, go, then . . ." Ryabovsky said softly, wiping his mouth with a
towel instead of a dinner napkin. "You are dull and have nothing to do
here, and one would have to be a great egoist to try and keep you. Go home, and
we shall meet again after the twentieth."
Olga Ivanovna packed in
good spirits. Her cheeks positively glowed with pleasure. Could it really be
true, she asked herself, that she would soon be writing in her drawing-room and
sleeping in her bedroom, and dining with a cloth on the table? A weight was
lifted from her heart, and she no longer felt angry with the artist.
"My paints and
brushes I will leave with you, Ryabovsky," she said. "You can bring
what's left. . . . Mind, now, don't be lazy here when I am gone; don't mope,
but work. You are such a splendid fellow, Ryabovsky!"
At ten o'clock
Ryabovsky gave her a farewell kiss, in order, as she thought, to avoid kissing
her on the steamer before the artists, and went with her to the landing-stage.
The steamer soon came up and carried her away.
She arrived home two
and a half days later. Breathless with excitement, she went, without taking off
her hat or waterproof, into the drawing-room and thence into the dining-room.
Dymov, with his waistcoat unbuttoned and no coat, was sitting at the table
sharpening a knife on a fork; before him lay a grouse on a plate. As Olga
Ivanovna went into the flat she was convinced that it was essential to hide
everything from her husband, and that she would have the strength and skill to do
so; but now, when she saw his broad, mild, happy smile, and shining, joyful
eyes, she felt that to deceive this man was as vile, as revolting, and as
impossible and out of her power as to bear false witness, to steal, or to kill,
and in a flash she resolved to tell him all that had happened. Letting him kiss
and embrace her, she sank down on her knees before him and hid her face.
"What is it, what
is it, little mother?" he asked tenderly. "Were you homesick?"
She raised her face,
red with shame, and gazed at him with a guilty and imploring look, but fear and
shame prevented her from telling him the truth.
"Nothing,"
she said; "it's just nothing. . . ."
"Let us sit
down," he said, raising her and seating her at the table. "That's
right, eat the grouse. You are starving, poor darling."
She eagerly breathed in
the atmosphere of home and ate the grouse, while he watched her with tenderness
and laughed with delight.
Apparently, by the
middle of the winter Dymov began to suspect that he was being deceived. As
though his conscience was not clear, he could not look his wife straight in the
face, did not smile with delight when he met her, and to avoid being left alone
with her, he often brought in to dinner his colleague, Korostelev, a little
close-cropped man with a wrinkled face, who kept buttoning and unbuttoning his
reefer jacket with embarrassment when he talked with Olga Ivanovna, and then
with his right hand nipped his left moustache. At dinner the two doctors talked
about the fact that a displacement of the diaphragm was sometimes accompanied
by irregularities of the heart, or that a great number of neurotic complaints
were met with of late, or that Dymov had the day before found a cancer of the
lower abdomen while dissecting a corpse with the diagnosis of pernicious
anaemia. And it seemed as though they were talking of medicine to give Olga
Ivanovna a chance of being silent -- that is, of not lying. After dinner
Korostelev sat down to the piano, while Dymov sighed and said to him:
"Ech, brother --
well, well! Play something melancholy."
Hunching up his
shoulders and stretching his fingers wide apart, Korostelev played some chords
and began singing in a tenor voice, "Show me the abode where the Russian
peasant would not groan," while Dymov sighed once more, propped his head
on his fist, and sank into thought.
Olga Ivanovna had been
extremely imprudent in her conduct of late. Every morning she woke up in a very
bad humour and with the thought that she no longer cared for Ryabovsky, and
that, thank God, it was all over now. But as she drank her coffee she reflected
that Ryabovsky had robbed her of her husband, and that now she was left with
neither her husband nor Ryabovsky; then she remembered talks she had heard
among her acquaintances of a picture Ryabovsky was preparing for the
exhibition, something striking, a mixture of genre and landscape, in the style
of Polyenov, about which every one who had been into his studio went into
raptures; and this, of course, she mused, he had created under her influence,
and altogether, thanks to her influence, he had greatly changed for the better.
Her influence was so beneficent and essential that if she were to leave him he
might perhaps go to ruin. And she remembered, too, that the last time he had
come to see her in a great-coat with flecks on it and a new tie, he had asked
her languidly:
"Am I
beautiful?"
And with his elegance,
his long curls, and his blue eyes, he really was very beautiful (or perhaps it
only seemed so), and he had been affectionate to her.
Considering and
remembering many things Olga Ivanovna dressed and in great agitation drove to
Ryabovsky's studio. She found him in high spirits, and enchanted with his
really magnificent picture. He was dancing about and playing the fool and answering
serious questions with jokes. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of the picture and
hated it, but from politeness she stood before the picture for five minutes in
silence, and, heaving a sigh, as though before a holy shrine, said softly:
"Yes, you have
never painted anything like it before. Do you know, it is positively
awe-inspiring?"
And then she began
beseeching him to love her and not to cast her off, to have pity on her in her
misery and her wretchedness. She shed tears, kissed his hands, insisted on his
swearing that he loved her, told him that without her good influence he would
go astray and be ruined. And, when she had spoilt his good-humour, feeling
herself humiliated, she would drive off to her dressmaker or to an actress of
her acquaintance to try and get theatre tickets.
If she did not find him
at his studio she left a letter in which she swore that if he did not come to
see her that day she would poison herself. He was scared, came to see her, and
stayed to dinner. Regardless of her husband's presence, he would say rude
things to her, and she would answer him in the same way. Both felt they were a
burden to each other, that they were tyrants and enemies, and were wrathful,
and in their wrath did not notice that their behaviour was unseemly, and that
even Korostelev, with his close-cropped head, saw it all. After dinner
Ryabovsky made haste to say good-bye and get away.
"Where are you off
to?" Olga Ivanovna would ask him in the hall, looking at him with hatred.
Scowling and screwing
up his eyes, he mentioned some lady of their acquaintance, and it was evident
that he was laughing at her jealousy and wanted to annoy her. She went to her
bedroom and lay down on her bed; from jealousy, anger, a sense of humiliation
and shame, she bit the pillow and began sobbing aloud. Dymov left Korostelev in
the drawing-room, went into the bedroom, and with a desperate and embarrassed
face said softly:
"Don't cry so
loud, little mother; there's no need. You must be quiet about it. You must not
let people see. . . . You know what is done is done, and can't be mended."
Not knowing how to ease
the burden of her jealousy, which actually set her temples throbbing with pain,
and thinking still that things might be set right, she would wash, powder her
tear-stained face, and fly off to the lady mentioned.
Not finding Ryabovsky
with her, she would drive off to a second, then to a third. At first she was
ashamed to go about like this, but afterwards she got used to it, and it would
happen that in one evening she would make the round of all her female
acquaintances in search of Ryabovsky, and they all understood it.
One day she said to
Ryabovsky of her husband:
"That man crushes
me with his magnanimity."
This phrase pleased her
so much that when she met the artists who knew of her affair with Ryabovsky she
said every time of her husband, with a vigorous movement of her arm:
"That man crushes
me with his magnanimity."
Their manner of life
was the same as it had been the year before. On Wednesdays they were "At
Home"; an actor recited, the artists sketched. The violoncellist played, a
singer sang, and invariably at half-past eleven the door leading to the
dining-room opened and Dymov, smiling, said:
"Come to supper,
gentlemen."
As before, Olga
Ivanovna hunted celebrities, found them, was not satisfied, and went in pursuit
of fresh ones. As before, she came back late every night; but now Dymov was
not, as last year, asleep, but sitting in his study at work of some sort. He
went to bed at three o'clock and got up at eight.
One evening when she
was getting ready to go to the theatre and standing before the pier glass,
Dymov came into her bedroom, wearing his dress-coat and a white tie. He was
smiling gently and looked into his wife's face joyfully, as in old days; his
face was radiant.
"I have just been
defending my thesis," he said, sitting down and smoothing his knees.
"Defending?"
asked Olga Ivanovna.
"Oh, oh!" he
laughed, and he craned his neck to see his wife's face in the mirror, for she
was still standing with her back to him, doing up her hair. "Oh, oh,"
he repeated, "do you know it's very possible they may offer me the
Readership in General Pathology? It seems like it."
It was evident from his
beaming, blissful face that if Olga Ivanovna had shared with him his joy and
triumph he would have forgiven her everything, both the present and the future,
and would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what was meant
by a "readership" or by "general pathology"; besides, she
was afraid of being late for the theatre, and she said nothing.
He sat there another
two minutes, and with a guilty smile went away.
It had been a very
troubled day.
Dymov had a very bad
headache; he had no breakfast, and did not go to the hospital, but spent the
whole time lying on his sofa in the study. Olga Ivanovna went as usual at
midday to see Ryabovsky, to show him her still-life sketch, and to ask him why
he had not been to see her the evening before. The sketch seemed to her
worthless, and she had painted it only in order to have an additional reason
for going to the artist.
She went in to him
without ringing, and as she was taking off her goloshes in the entry she heard
a sound as of something running softly in the studio, with a feminine rustle of
skirts; and as she hastened to peep in she caught a momentary glimpse of a bit
of brown petticoat, which vanished behind a big picture draped, together with
the easel, with black calico, to the floor. There could be no doubt that a
woman was hiding there. How often Olga Ivanovna herself had taken refuge behind
that picture!
Ryabovsky, evidently
much embarrassed, held out both hands to her, as though surprised at her
arrival, and said with a forced smile:
"Aha! Very glad to
see you! Anything nice to tell me?"
Olga Ivanovna's eyes
filled with tears. She felt ashamed and bitter, and would not for a million
roubles have consented to speak in the presence of the outsider, the rival, the
deceitful woman who was standing now behind the picture, and probably giggling
malignantly.
"I have brought
you a sketch," she said timidly in a thin voice, and her lips quivered.
"Nature morte."
"Ah -- ah! . . . A
sketch?"
The artist took the
sketch in his hands, and as he examined it walked, as it were mechanically,
into the other room.
Olga Ivanovna followed
him humbly.
"Nature morte . .
. first-rate sort," he muttered, falling into rhyme. "Kurort . . .
sport . . . port . . ."
From the studio came
the sound of hurried footsteps and the rustle of a skirt.
So she had gone. Olga
Ivanovna wanted to scream aloud, to hit the artist on the head with something
heavy, but she could see nothing through her tears, was crushed by her shame,
and felt herself, not Olga Ivanovna, not an artist, but a little insect.
"I am tired . .
." said the artist languidly, looking at the sketch and tossing his head
as though struggling with drowsiness. "It's very nice, of course, but here
a sketch today, a sketch last year, another sketch in a month . . . I wonder
you are not bored with them. If I were you I should give up painting and work
seriously at music or something. You're not an artist, you know, but a
musician. But you can't think how tired I am! I'll tell them to bring us some
tea, shall I?"
He went out of the
room, and Olga Ivanovna heard him give some order to his footman. To avoid
farewells and explanations, and above all to avoid bursting into sobs, she ran
as fast as she could, before Ryabovsky came back, to the entry, put on her
goloshes, and went out into the street; then she breathed easily, and felt she
was free for ever from Ryabovsky and from painting and from the burden of shame
which had so crushed her in the studio. It was all over!
She drove to her
dressmaker's; then to see Barnay, who had only arrived the day before; from
Barnay to a music-shop, and all the time she was thinking how she would write
Ryabovsky a cold, cruel letter full of personal dignity, and how in the spring
or the summer she would go with Dymov to the Crimea, free herself finally from
the past there, and begin a new life.
On getting home late in
the evening she sat down in the drawing-room, without taking off her things, to
begin the letter. Ryabovsky had told her she was not an artist, and to pay him
out she wrote to him now that he painted the same thing every year, and said
exactly the same thing every day; that he was at a standstill, and that nothing
more would come of him than had come already. She wanted to write, too, that he
owed a great deal to her good influence, and that if he was going wrong it was
only because her influence was paralysed by various dubious persons like the
one who had been hiding behind the picture that day.
"Little
mother!" Dymov called from the study, without opening the door.
"What is it?"
"Don't come in to
me, but only come to the door -- that's right. . . . The day before yesterday I
must have caught diphtheria at the hospital, and now . . . I am ill. Make haste
and send for Korostelev."
Olga Ivanovna always
called her husband by his surname, as she did all the men of her acquaintance;
she disliked his Christian name, Osip, because it reminded her of the Osip in
Gogol and the silly pun on his name. But now she cried:
"Osip, it cannot
be!"
"Send for him; I
feel ill," Dymov said behind the door, and she could hear him go back to
the sofa and lie down. "Send!" she heard his voice faintly.
"Good
Heavens!" thought Olga Ivanovna, turning chill with horror. "Why,
it's dangerous!"
For no reason she took
the candle and went into the bedroom, and there, reflecting what she must do,
glanced casually at herself in the pier glass. With her pale, frightened face,
in a jacket with sleeves high on the shoulders, with yellow ruches on her
bosom, and with stripes running in unusual directions on her skirt, she seemed
to herself horrible and disgusting. She suddenly felt poignantly sorry for
Dymov, for his boundless love for her, for his young life, and even for the
desolate little bed in which he had not slept for so long; and she remembered
his habitual, gentle, submissive smile. She wept bitterly, and wrote an
imploring letter to Korostelev. It was two o'clock in the night.
When towards eight
o'clock in the morning Olga Ivanovna, her head heavy from want of sleep and her
hair unbrushed, came out of her bedroom, looking unattractive and with a guilty
expression on her face, a gentleman with a black beard, apparently the doctor,
passed by her into the entry. There was a smell of drugs. Korostelev was
standing near the study door, twisting his left moustache with his right hand.
"Excuse me, I
can't let you go in," he said surlily to Olga Ivanovna; "it's
catching. Besides, it's no use, really; he is delirious, anyway."
"Has he really got
diphtheria?" Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper.
"People who
wantonly risk infection ought to be hauled up and punished for it,"
muttered Korostelev, not answering Olga Ivanovna's question. "Do you know
why he caught it? On Tuesday he was sucking up the mucus through a pipette from
a boy with diphtheria. And what for? It was stupid. . . . Just from folly. . .
."
"Is it dangerous,
very?" asked Olga Ivanovna.
"Yes; they say it
is the malignant form. We ought to send for Shrek really."
A little red-haired man
with a long nose and a Jewish accent arrived; then a tall, stooping, shaggy
individual, who looked like a head deacon; then a stout young man with a red
face and spectacles. These were doctors who came to watch by turns beside their
colleague. Korostelev did not go home when his turn was over, but remained and
wandered about the rooms like an uneasy spirit. The maid kept getting tea for
the various doctors, and was constantly running to the chemist, and there was
no one to do the rooms. There was a dismal stillness in the flat.
Olga Ivanovna sat in
her bedroom and thought that God was punishing her for having deceived her
husband. That silent, unrepining, uncomprehended creature, robbed by his
mildness of all personality and will, weak from excessive kindness, had been
suffering in obscurity somewhere on his sofa, and had not complained. And if he
were to complain even in delirium, the doctors watching by his bedside would
learn that diphtheria was not the only cause of his sufferings. They would ask
Korostelev. He knew all about it, and it was not for nothing that he looked at
his friend's wife with eyes that seemed to say that she was the real chief
criminal and diphtheria was only her accomplice. She did not think now of the
moonlight evening on the Volga, nor the words of love, nor their poetical life
in the peasant's hut. She thought only that from an idle whim, from
self-indulgence, she had sullied herself all over from head to foot in
something filthy, sticky, which one could never wash off. . . .
"Oh, how fearfully
false I've been!" she thought, recalling the troubled passion she had
known with Ryabovsky. "Curse it all! . . ."
At four o'clock she
dined with Korostelev. He did nothing but scowl and drink red wine, and did not
eat a morsel. She ate nothing, either. At one minute she was praying inwardly
and vowing to God that if Dymov recovered she would love him again and be a
faithful wife to him. Then, forgetting herself for a minute, she would look at
Korostelev, and think: "Surely it must be dull to be a humble, obscure
person, not remarkable in any way, especially with such a wrinkled face and bad
manners!" Then it seemed to her that God would strike her dead that minute
for not having once been in her husband's study, for fear of infection. And
altogether she had a dull, despondent feeling and a conviction that her life
was spoilt, and that there was no setting it right anyhow. . . .
After dinner darkness
came on. When Olga Ivanovna went into the drawing-room Korostelev was asleep on
the sofa, with a gold-embroidered silk cushion under his head.
"Khee-poo-ah,"
he snored -- "khee-poo-ah."
And the doctors as they
came to sit up and went away again did not notice this disorder. The fact that
a strange man was asleep and snoring in the drawing-room, and the sketches on
the walls and the exquisite decoration of the room, and the fact that the lady
of the house was dishevelled and untidy -- all that aroused not the slightest
interest now. One of the doctors chanced to laugh at something, and the laugh
had a strange and timid sound that made one's heart ache.
When Olga Ivanovna went
into the drawing-room next time, Korostelev was not asleep, but sitting up and
smoking.
"He has diphtheria
of the nasal cavity," he said in a low voice, "and the heart is not
working properly now. Things are in a bad way, really."
"But you will send
for Shrek?" said Olga Ivanovna.
"He has been
already. It was he noticed that the diphtheria had passed into the nose. What's
the use of Shrek! Shrek's no use at all, really. He is Shrek, I am Korostelev,
and nothing more."
The time dragged on
fearfully slowly. Olga Ivanovna lay down in her clothes on her bed, that had
not been made all day, and sank into a doze. She dreamed that the whole flat
was filled up from floor to ceiling with a huge piece of iron, and that if they
could only get the iron out they would all be light-hearted and happy. Waking,
she realized that it was not the iron but Dymov's illness that was weighing on
her.
"Nature morte,
port . . ." she thought, sinking into forgetfulness again. "Sport . .
. Kurort . . . and what of Shrek? Shrek . . . trek . . . wreck. . . . And where
are my friends now? Do they know that we are in trouble? Lord, save . . .
spare! Shrek . . . trek . . ."
And again the iron was
there. . . . The time dragged on slowly, though the clock on the lower storey
struck frequently. And bells were continually ringing as the doctors arrived. .
. . The house-maid came in with an empty glass on a tray, and asked,
"Shall I make the bed, madam?" and getting no answer, went away.
The clock below struck
the hour. She dreamed of the rain on the Volga; and again some one came into
her bedroom, she thought a stranger. Olga Ivanovna jumped up, and recognized
Korostelev.
"What time is
it?" she asked.
"About
three."
"Well, what is
it?"
"What, indeed! . .
. I've come to tell you he is passing. . . ."
He gave a sob, sat down
on the bed beside her, and wiped away the tears with his sleeve. She could not
grasp it at once, but turned cold all over and began slowly crossing herself.
"He is
passing," he repeated in a shrill voice, and again he gave a sob. "He
is dying because he sacrificed himself. What a loss for science!" he said
bitterly." Compare him with all of us. He was a great man, an
extraordinary man! What gifts! What hopes we all had of him!" Korostelev
went on, wringing his hands: "Merciful God, he was a man of science; we
shall never look on his like again. Osip Dymov, what have you done -- aie, aie,
my God!"
Korostelev covered his
face with both hands in despair, and shook his head.
"And his moral
force," he went on, seeming to grow more and more exasperated against some
one. "Not a man, but a pure, good, loving soul, and clean as crystal. He
served science and died for science. And he worked like an ox night and day --
no one spared him -- and with his youth and his learning he had to take a private
practice and work at translations at night to pay for these . . . vile
rags!"
Korostelev looked with
hatred at Olga Ivanovna, snatched at the sheet with both hands and angrily tore
it, as though it were to blame.
"He did not spare
himself, and others did not spare him. Oh, what's the use of talking!"
"Yes, he was a
rare man," said a bass voice in the drawing-room.
Olga Ivanovna
remembered her whole life with him from the beginning to the end, with all its
details, and suddenly she understood that he really was an extraordinary, rare,
and, compared with every one else she knew, a great man. And remembering how
her father, now dead, and all the other doctors had behaved to him, she
realized that they really had seen in him a future celebrity. The walls, the
ceiling, the lamp, and the carpet on the floor, seemed to be winking at her
sarcastically, as though they would say, "You were blind! you were
blind!" With a wail she flung herself out of the bedroom, dashed by some
unknown man in the drawing-room, and ran into her husband's study. He was lying
motionless on the sofa, covered to the waist with a quilt. His face was
fearfully thin and sunken, and was of a grayish-yellow colour such as is never
seen in the living; only from the forehead, from the black eyebrows and from
the familiar smile, could he be recognized as Dymov. Olga Ivanovna hurriedly
felt his chest, his forehead, and his hands. The chest was still warm, but the
forehead and hands were unpleasantly cold, and the half-open eyes looked, not at
Olga Ivanovna, but at the quilt.
"Dymov!" she
called aloud, "Dymov!" She wanted to explain to him that it had been
a mistake, that all was not lost, that life might still be beautiful and happy,
that he was an extraordinary, rare, great man, and that she would all her life
worship him and bow down in homage and holy awe before him. . . .
"Dymov!" she
called him, patting him on the shoulder, unable to believe that he would never
wake again. "Dymov! Dymov!"
In the drawing-room
Korostelev was saying to the housemaid:
"Why keep asking?
Go to the church beadle and enquire where they live. They'll wash the body and
lay it out, and do everything that is necessary."