Lizaveta Alexandrovna felt his intellectual superiority to all surrounding him and was tortured by it. " If only he were not so clever," she thought, "I should have been saved."
[e was bent on positive aims, that was clear, and he expected that his wife should not lead a life of dreams.
" But, my God!" thought Lizaveta, " if he only married to have a lady at the head of his 4iouse, to give his bachelor [uarters the fulness and dignity of a family home, so as to f have greater weight in society ! A housekeeper—a wife— in the most prosaic sense of these words ! But with all his intelligence, didn't he understand that love is present even ^n the positive aims of a woman ? . . . . Oh, let me pay for pSSsion in agony, let me endure every suffering that is inseparable from love, if only I may live a complete life, if only I may feel that I am living and not stagnating."
She looked at her luxurious furniture and all the toys and costly knicknacks of her boudoir, and all this luxury seemed to her a cold mockery of real happiness. She had to look on at two monstrous extremes—in her husband and her nephew. One enthusiastic to folly—the other frozen to / hardness.
" How little both of them—and the greater part of men— understand real feeling, and how well I understand it!" she thought. " And what is the good of it ? why ! oh, if only n
She hid her eyes and stayed so some instants, then uncovered them, looked round, sighed heavily and at once resumed her ordinary calm demeanour. Unhappy woman ! No one knew of it, no one saw it.
One day Alexandr came to his aunt in a paroxysm of ill-humour with the whole human species. Lizaveta Alexandrovna began to inquire the cause.
"You want to know," he began in a subdued, rapt tone, "' what is now my frenzied ill ?'" I will tell you; you know I had a friend whom I had not seen for some years, but who had always kept a niche in my heart When I was first here, uncle forced me to write a queer letter to him, in
*
which were inserted his favourite maxims and ways of thinking: but I tore it up and sent another, as it happened, so there was no lessening of our friendship from that After that letter our correspondence dropped, and I lost sight of my friend. What has happened now? Three days ago, walking along the Nevsky Prospect, I suddenly saw him. I was on fire in a minute, and tears were starting into my eyes. I stretched out my hands to him, but could not utter a word for joy; I was quite faint. He took one hand and shook it. " How are you, Adouev!" he said in a voice as though we had parted only the day before. " Have you been here long ? " He was surprised that we had not met before, lightly inquired what I was doing? what office I was in, thought it needful to inform me at length that he had a splendid position and liked his work, his superiors, and his companions, and everybody, and his fate; then said he had no time to spare, that he was hurrying to a dinner party he had been invited to. Do you hear, ma tante ? meeting a friend after this long separation, he could not put off a dinnerparty."
"But perhaps they would have been waiting for him," observed his aunt; " propriety does not permit "
"Propriety against friendship! and you too, ma tante/ but there is something more I had better tell you. He pressed his address into my hand, said that he would expect me the evening of the next day, and was gone. ' So be it then,' I thought, 'I will go.' I arrived. There were some ten people there, friends of his. He held out his hand to me in a more friendly way than the day before, it's true, but then, without uttering a word, at once proposed that we should sit down to cards. I said that I did not play, and took a seat alone on the sofa, expecting that he would throw down his cards and come to me. 'Don't you play?' said he in surprise—' what will you do then ?' A nice question ! So I waited an hour, two hours; he did not come to me; I reached the limit of my patience. He offered me first a cigar, then a pipe, regretted that I did not play, that I was bored, tried to occupy me—how, do you imagine?—by constantly turning to me and describing every successful and unsuccessful card he played. At last I could bear it no longer; I went up to him and asked, did he intend to devote any time to me that evening ? And my heart seemed boiling
<
V
A COMMON STORY 149
within me, my voice shook. It seemed to surprise him. He looked at me curiously. " Very well," he said, " let us finish the rubber." As this was all he said to me, I seized my hat and was about to go, but he noticed it and stopped me. "The rubber is just over," he said, "we will have supper directly." At last they finished the game. He took a seat near me and yawned; that was how our friendly conversation began. "You wanted to say something to me ? " he inquired. This was said in such a matter-of-fact, unfeeling voice that I simply gazed at him with a mournful smile. Then he suddenly seemed to thaw and began to ply me with questions : * What's the matter with you ? isn't there something you are in want of ? Couldn't I be of use to you in your official work ?'—and so on. I shook my head, and told him that I did not want to talk to him of my work but of what was nearer to my heart. Then I began to tell him of my love, of my sufferings, of the emptiness of my heart. I began to be carried away and thought that the story of my sufferings was breaking through the crust of ice, that his eyes were not quite unbedewed by tears, when suddenly he burst out laughing ! I looked at him, he had a handkerchief in his hands; he had been trying to control himself all the time I was talking, at last he could hold out no longer. I stopped in dismay.
"Enough, enough," he said, "better drink some vodka and we will have supper. Boy ! some vodka. Come, come, ha, ha, ha !—there's some capital roast—ha, ha, ha !—roast beef."
He was going to take me by the hand, but I tore myself away and fled from the monster.
"There, that's what men are like, ma tante" said Alexandr in conclusion, then, with a wave of the hand, he was gone.
Lizaveta Alexandrovna felt pity for Alexandr.
" Piotr Ivanitch !" she said to him affectionately one day, " I have a request to make of you ? "
" What is it ? "
" Guess."
" Tell me; you know your requests are never refused. I daresay it's about a country villa; well, it's still rather early."
"No I" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. "Alexandr was with me the day before yesterday."
"Ah, I feel there's something wrong!" interposed Piotr Ivanitch, "well?"
Then Lizaveta Alexandrovna told him all she had heard from her nephew. Piotr Ivanitch gave a vigorous shrug.
" What do you want me to do in the matter ? you see what a fellow he is !"
" You show him sympathy; ask him what is the state of his heart."
"You don't want me to weep with him? "
" It would do no harm."
" Ugh, that Alexandr; he is a burden !" said Piotr Ivanitch.
"A terrible burden; once a month to receive a letter from an old lady and to throw it—without reading it—under the table, or to talk a little to your nephew? Why, it keeps you from your whist! You men, you men h If you have a good dinner, Lafitte with a gold label and cards, it's everything; and no trouble about any one! If you have a chance of boasting and showing off as well, then you are happy!"
"Just what flirtation is for you," observed Piotr Ivanitch; " every one to his taste, my dear! What more would you have?"
" Why, some heart! of that there is never anything. It's vexing and sad to see you," said Lizaveta under her breath.
" Come, come, don't be angry; I will do all you tell me, only teach me how ! " said Piotr Ivanitch.
Explain to him in a kind way what can be asked and expected of friends in these days; tell him that his friend is not so much to blame as he imagines. But can I teach you? You are so clever, and so good at dissembling," added Lizaveta Alexandrovna.