She stopped in the middle of the room, the tears trickling from her eyes, and her voice trembled as she went on, ‘I swear, I swear by all that’s holy, by my children’s happiness, I can’t live without Kuzminki! I was born here, it’s my home. If they take it away from me I shall never get over it, I’ll die of despair.’
‘I think you’re rather looking on the black side,’ Podgorin said. ‘Everything will turn out all right. Your husband will get a job, you’ll settle down again, lead a new life …’
‘How can you say that!’ Tatyana shouted. Now she looked very beautiful and aggressive. She was ready to fall on the enemy who wanted to take her husband, children and home away from her, and this was expressed with particular intensity in her face and whole figure. ‘A new life! I ask you! Sergey Sergeich’s been busy applying for jobs and they’ve promised him a position as tax inspector somewhere near Ufa or Perm – or thereabouts. I’m ready to go anywhere. Siberia even. I’m prepared to live there ten, twenty years, but I must be certain that sooner or later I’ll return to Kuzminki. I can’t live without Kuzminki. I can’t, and I won’t!’ She shouted and stamped her foot.
‘Misha, you’re a lawyer,’ Varvara said, ‘you know all the tricks and it’s your job to advise us what to do.’
There was only one fair and reasonable answer to this, that there was nothing anyone could do, but Podgorin could not bring himself to say it outright.
‘I’ll … have a think about it,’ he mumbled indecisively. ‘I’ll have a think about it …’
He was really two different persons. As a lawyer he had to deal with some very ugly cases. In court and with clients he behaved arrogantly and always expressed his opinion bluntly and curtly. He was used to crudely living it up with his friends. But in his private, intimate life he displayed uncommon tact with people close to him or with very old friends. He was shy and sensitive and tended to beat about the bush. One tear, one sidelong glance, a lie or even a rude gesture was enough to make him wince and lose his nerve. Now that Nadezhda was sitting at his feet he disliked her bare neck. It palled on him and even made him feel like going home. A year ago he had happened to bump into Sergey Sergeich at a certain Madame’s place in Little Bronny Street and he now felt awkward in Tatyana’s company, as if he had been the unfaithful one. And this conversation about Kuzminki put him in the most dreadful difficulties. He was used to having ticklish, unpleasant questions decided by judge or jury, or by some legal clause, but faced with a problem that he personally had to solve he was all at sea.
‘You’re our friend, Misha. We all love you as if you were one of the family,’ Tatyana continued. ‘And I’ll tell you quite candidly: all our hopes rest in you. For heaven’s sake, tell us what to do. Perhaps we could write somewhere for help? Perhaps it’s not too late to put the estate in Nadezhda’s or Varvara’s name? What shall we do?’
‘Please save us, Misha, please,’ Varvara said, lighting a cigarette. ‘You were always so clever. You haven’t seen much of life, you’re not very experienced, but you have a fine brain. You’ll help Tatyana. I know you will.’
‘I must think about it … perhaps I can come up with something.’
They went for a walk in the garden, then in the fields. Sergey Sergeich went too. He took Podgorin’s arm and led him on ahead of the others, evidently intending to discuss something with him – probably the trouble he was in. Walking with Sergey Sergeich and talking to him were an ordeal too. He kept kissing him – always three kisses at a time – took Podgorin’s arm, put his own arm round his waist and breathed into his face. He seemed covered with sweet glue that would stick to you if he came close. And that look in his eyes which showed that he wanted something from Podgorin, that he was about to ask him for it, was really quite distressing – it was like having a revolver aimed at you.
The sun had set and it was growing dark. Green and red lights appeared here and there along the railway line. Varvara stopped and as she looked at the lights she started reciting:
The line runs straight, unswerving,
Through narrow cuttings,
Passing posts, crossing bridges,
While all along the verges,
Lie buried so many Russian workers!
‘How does it go on? Heavens, I’ve forgotten!’
In scorching heat, in winter’s icy blasts,
We laboured with backs bent low.
She recited in a magnificent deep voice, with great feeling. Her face flushed brightly, her eyes filled with tears. This was the Varvara that used to be, Varvara the university student, and as he listened Podgorin thought of the past and recalled his student days, when he too knew much fine poetry by heart and loved to recite it.
He still has not bowed his hunched back
He’s gloomily silent as before …
But Varvara could remember no more. She fell silent and smiled weakly, limply. After the recitation those green and red lights seemed sad.
‘Oh, I’ve forgotten it!’
But Podgorin suddenly remembered the lines – somehow they had stuck in his memory from student days and he recited in a soft undertone,
The Russian worker has suffered enough,
In building this railway line.
He will survive to build himself
A broad bright highway
By the sweat of his brow …
Only the pity is …
‘ “The pity is,” ’ Varvara interrupted as she remembered the lines,
that neither you nor I
Will ever live to see that wonderful day.
She laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
They went back to the house and sat down to supper. Sergey Sergeich nonchalantly stuck a corner of his serviette into his collar, imitating someone or other. ‘Let’s have a drink,’ he said, pouring some vodka for himself and Podgorin. ‘In our time, we students could hold our drink, we were fine speakers and men of action. I drink your health, old man. So why don’t you drink to a stupid old idealist and wish that he will die an idealist? Can the leopard change his spots?’
Throughout supper Tatyana kept looking tenderly and jealously at her husband, anxious lest he ate or drank something that wasn’t good for him. She felt that he had been spoilt by women and exhausted by them, and although this was something that appealed to her, it still distressed her. Varvara and Nadezhda also had a soft spot for him and it was obvious from the worried glances they gave him that they were scared he might suddenly get up and leave them. When he wanted to pour himself a second glass Varvara looked angry and said, ‘You’re poisoning yourself, Sergey Sergeich. You’re a highly strung, impressionable man – you could easily become an alcoholic. Tatyana, tell him to remove that vodka.’
On the whole Sergey Sergeich had great success with women. They loved his height, his powerful build, his strong features, his idleness and his tribulations. They said that his extravagance stemmed only from extreme kindness, that he was impractical because he was an idealist. He was honest and high-principled. His inability to adapt to people or circumstances explained why he owned nothing and didn’t have a steady job. They trusted him implicitly, idolized him and spoilt him with their adulation, so that he himself came to believe that he really was idealistic, impractical, honest and upright, and that he was head and shoulders above these women.
‘Well, don’t you have something good to say about my little girls?’ Tatyana asked as she looked lovingly at her two daughters – healthy, well-fed and like two fat buns – as she heaped rice on their plates. ‘Just take a good look at them. They say all mothers can never speak ill of their children. But I do assure you I’m not at all biased. My little girls are quite remarkable. Especially the elder.’