These were Startsev’s thoughts – and at the same time he wanted to shout out loud that he yearned for love, that he was waiting for love and that he must have it at all costs. Now he no longer saw slabs of white marble, but beautiful bodies; he saw figures coyly hiding in the shadows of the trees. He felt their warmth – and this yearning became all too much to bear …
And then, just as if a curtain had been lowered, the moon vanished behind the clouds and suddenly everything went dark. Startsev had difficulty finding the gate – all around it was dark, the darkness of an autumn night. Then he wandered around for an hour and a half, looking for the lane where he had left the carriage and pair.
‘I’m so exhausted I can barely stand,’ he told Panteleymon. And as he happily settled down in the carriage he thought: ‘Oh, I really ought to lose some weight!’
III
Next evening he went to the Turkins’ to propose to Yekaterina Ivanovna. But it happened to be an inconvenient time, since Yekaterina Ivanovna was in her room with her hairdresser having her hair done. That evening she was going to a dance at the club.
So once again he was condemned to a tea-drinking session in the dining-room. Noticing that his guest was bored and in a thoughtful mood Ivan Petrovich took some small pieces of paper from his waistcoat pocket and read out a comical letter from a German estate manager, that ‘all the machinations on the estate were ruinated’ and that ‘all the proprieties had collapsed’.
‘I bet they’ll come up with a good dowry,’ Startsev thought, listening absent-mindedly.
After a sleepless night he was in a state of stupor, just as if he had been given some sweetly cloying sleeping draught. His feelings were confused, but warm and joyful – and at the same time a cold, obdurate, small section of his brain kept reasoning: ‘Stop before it’s too late! Is she the right kind of wife for you? She’s spoilt, capricious, she sleeps until two in the afternoon. But you’re a sacristan’s son, a country doctor …’
‘Well, what of it?’ he thought. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What’s more, if you marry her,’ continued the small voice, ‘her family will make you give up your country practice and you’ll have to move to town.’
‘What of it?’ he thought. ‘Nothing wrong with living in town. And there’ll be a dowry, we’ll set up house together …’
At last in came Yekaterina Ivanovna, wearing a ball gown, décolletée, looking very pretty and elegant. Startsev couldn’t admire her enough and such was his delight that he was at a loss for words and could only look on and smile.
She began to make her farewells and he stood up – there was nothing more for him to stay for – saying that it was time he went home as his patients were waiting.
‘Well, it can’t be helped, you’d better go,’ said Ivan Petrovich. ‘At the same time you could give Pussycat a lift to the club.’
Outside it was drizzling and very dark, and only from Panteleymon’s hoarse cough could they tell where the carriage was. They put the hood up.
‘Such a fright will set you alight,’ Ivan Petrovich said, seating his daughter in the carriage. ‘If you lie – it’s as nice as pie … ! Off you go now. Goodbye – if you please!’
They drove off.
‘Last night I went to the cemetery,’ Startsev began. ‘How unkind, how heartless of you!’
‘You went to the cemetery?’
‘Yes, I went and waited for you until two o’clock. It was sheer hell.’
Delighted to have played such a cunning trick on the man who loved her, and that she was the object of such fervent passion, Yekaterina Ivanovna burst out laughing – and then she suddenly screamed with terror, for just then the horses turned sharply through the club gates, making the carriage lurch violently. Startsev put his arms around Yekaterina Ivanovna’s waist as she clung to him in her fright.
He could not control himself and kissed her lips and chin passionately, holding her in an even tighter embrace.
‘That will do!’ she said curtly.
A moment later she was gone from the carriage and the policeman standing at the lighted entrance to the club shouted at Panteleymon in a very ugly voice:
‘What yer stopped there for, you oaf! Move on!’
Startsev went home but he soon returned. Wearing borrowed coat and tails and a stiff white cravat which somehow kept sticking up as if wanting to slide off his collar, he sat at midnight in the club lounge and told Yekaterina Ivanovna in passionate terms:
‘Oh, those who have never loved – how little do they know! I think that no one has ever truly described love – and how could anyone describe that tender, joyful, agonizing feeling! Anyone who has but once experienced it would never even think of putting it into words! But what’s the point of preambles and descriptions? Why this superfluous eloquence? My love has no bounds. I’m asking you, begging you,’ Startsev at last managed to say, ‘to be my wife!’
‘Dmitry Ionych,’ Yekaterina Ivanovna said with a very serious expression after pausing for thought, ‘Dmitry Ionych, I’m most grateful for the honour and I respect you, but …’ She stood up and continued standing. ‘I’m sorry, I cannot be your wife. Let’s talk seriously. As you know, Dmitry Ionych, I love art more than anything in the world. I’m mad about music, I simply adore it. I’ve dedicated my whole life to it. I want to be a concert pianist. I want fame, success, freedom. But you want me to go on living in this town, to carry on with this empty, useless life that’s become quite unbearable for me. To be your wife … oh no, I’m sorry! One must always aspire towards some lofty, brilliant goal, but family life would tie me down for ever. Dmitry Ionych’ (at this she produced a barely perceptible smile since, when saying Dmitry Ionych the name Aleksey Feofilaktych came to mind), ‘Dmitry Ionych, you’re a kind, honourable, clever man, you’re the best of all …’ (here her eyes filled with tears), ‘I feel for you with all my heart, but … but you must understand …’
And to avoid bursting into tears she turned away and walked out of the lounge.
Startsev’s heart stopped pounding. As he went out of the club into the street the first thing he did was tear off that stiff cravat and heave a deep sigh of relief. He felt rather ashamed and his pride was hurt – he had not expected a refusal. And he just could not believe that all his dreams, yearnings and hopes had led to such a stupid conclusion, as if it were all a trivial little play performed by amateurs. And he regretted having felt as he did, he regretted having loved – so much so that he came close to sobbing out loud or walloping Panteleymon’s back as hard as he could with his umbrella.
For three days he could not put his mind to anything, he could neither sleep nor eat. But when the rumour reached him that Yekaterina Ivanovna had gone to Moscow to enrol at the Conservatoire he calmed down and carried on with his life as before.
Later, when he occasionally recalled how he had wandered around the cemetery or had driven all over town in search of coat and tails, he would stretch lazily and say: ‘Really! All that fuss!’
IV
Four years passed. Startsev now had a large practice in town. Every morning he hastily saw patients at his surgery in Dyalizh, then he drove to see his patients in town – no longer conveyed by carriage and pair, but by three horses abreast – and with bells! He would come home late at night. He had filled out, put on weight and he was reluctant to walk anywhere, as he had become short-winded. And Panteleymon had filled out too, and the more his girth expanded the more mournfully he sighed and complained of his bitter lot: all that driving was too much for him!
Startsev visited many different houses and met many people, but he did not strike up a close friendship with anyone. The townspeople’s conversations, attitude to life, even their appearance, irritated him. Gradually, experience had taught him that as long as one only played cards or enjoyed a meal with any resident of that town, then that person would be inoffensive, good-natured and even quite intelligent. But the moment one started a conversation about something that was inedible, such as politics or science, then the other person would either be stumped or give vent to such absurd and vicious ideas that one could only give it up as a bad job and make one’s exit. Whenever Startsev tried to start a conversation, even with a citizen of liberal views – for example, concerning the immense progress that humanity was making, thank God, and that, given time, it would be able to dispense with passports or the death penalty – he would be greeted with distrustful, sidelong glances and asked: ‘In that case, anyone could cut the throat of anyone he wanted to in the street, couldn’t he?’ And whenever he had supper or tea in company and ventured to say that one had to work hard, that life was impossible without hard work, everyone took it as a personal insult, got angry and launched into the most tiresome disputations. Yet these townspeople did nothing, absolutely nothing, and they were interested in nothing. So Startsev avoided conversations (it was impossible to think of anything to discuss with them), confining himself to eating and playing whist with them. Whenever he happened to be in a house where there was some family celebration and he was invited to stay for supper, he would sit down and eat in silence, staring blankly at his plate. And everything they happened to be discussing struck him as uninteresting, unfair, stupid; but despite his irritation and exasperation he remained silent. These stony silences and his habit of staring at his plate earned him the name ‘Snooty Pole’ in that town, although he had never been Polish.