After finishing the newspaper, a second cup of coffee, and a roll* and butter, he got up, shook the crumbs from his waistcoat, and, expanding his broad chest, smiled happily, not because he was harbouring anything particularly pleasant in his soul—the happy smile was brought on by good digestion.
But that happy smile now reminded him of everything, and he became pensive.
Two children’s voices (Stepan Arkadyich recognized the voices of Grisha, his youngest boy, and Tanya, his eldest girl) could be heard behind the doors. They were carrying something, which they dropped.
‘I said we couldn’t put passengers on the roof,’ shouted the girl in English, ‘so you pick everything up!’
‘Everything is confusion,’ thought Stepan Arkadyich; ‘the children are running about on their own out there.’ And going up to the doors, he called out to them. They abandoned the box which was supposed to be a train, and ran in to their father.
The girl, her father’s favourite, charged in boldly, put her arms around him and giggled as she hung on to his neck, revelling as always in the familiar scent of cologne emanating from his whiskers. After she had finally kissed him on his face, which had turned red from his crouched position and radiated affection, the girl unclasped her hands and was about to run back; but her father held on to her.
‘How is Mama?’ her father asked, running his hand down his daughter’s smooth, tender little neck. ‘Hello,’ he said, smiling at the boy who was greeting him.
He was aware that he was less fond of the boy, and always tried to be fair; but the boy sensed this and did not respond to his father’s cold smile with a smile.
‘Mama? She’s up,’ the girl answered.
Stepan Arkadyich sighed. ‘That means she was awake all night again,’ he thought.
‘And is she cheerful?’
The girl knew that there had been a quarrel between her father and mother, that her mother could not be cheerful, that her father ought to know this, and that he was putting on an act in asking about it so breezily. And she blushed for her father. He immediately understood this and blushed as well.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She didn’t tell us to study, but she did tell us to go for a walk with Miss Hull to Grandmamma’s.’
‘Well, off you go then, my darling Tanchurochka. Oh yes, wait a minute,’ he said, still holding on to her, and stroking her soft little hand.
He fetched from the mantelpiece the box of sweets he had put there the day before and gave her a couple, picking out her favourites, a chocolate and a fondant.
‘Is this for Grisha?’ the girl asked, pointing to the chocolate one.
‘Yes, yes.’ And after stroking her little shoulder once more, he kissed the roots of her hair, and her neck, and let her go.
‘The carriage is ready,’ said Matvey. ‘And there is a woman with a petition,’ he added.
‘Has she been here long?’ asked Stepan Arkadyich.
‘About half an hour.’
‘How many times have you been told to let me know straight away!’
‘But I have to let you at least finish drinking your coffee,’ said Matvey in that gruff but friendly tone with which it was impossible to get angry.
‘Well, ask her to come in without delay,’ said Oblonsky, frowning with annoyance.
The petitioner, the widow of a staff-captain Kalinin, was asking for something which was impossible and absurd; but Stepan Arkadyich sat her down in accordance with his usual custom, heard her out dutifully without interrupting, gave her detailed advice about whom she should approach and how to go about it, and even dashed off a brisk little note in his large, expansive, beautiful, and clear handwriting for her to take to the person who could provide assistance. After dismissing the staff-captain’s wife, Stepan Arkadyich picked up his hat and paused as he considered whether he had forgotten anything. It turned out that he had forgotten nothing apart from the one thing he wanted to forget—his wife.
‘Oh yes!’ He hung his head, and his handsome face took on a mournful expression. ‘Should I go or not?’ he said to himself. And an inner voice told him that he should not go, that it could produce nothing but falsity, and that it was impossible to restore or mend their relationship, because it was impossible to make her attractive and physically desirable again or to turn him into an old man incapable of love. Nothing could come out of it now except falsity and lies; but falsity and lies were inimical to his nature.
‘But I’ll have to sooner or later; after all, it can’t go on like this,’ he said, trying to muster some courage. He drew himself up, got out a cigarette, lit it, took a couple of puffs, threw it into the mother-of-pearl shell ashtray, walked briskly through the sombre drawing room, and opened the other door, into his wife’s bedroom.
4
DARYA ALEXANDROVNA, wearing a dressing-jacket, with the braids of her once thick and beautiful but already wispy hair pinned to the nape of her neck, and a haggard, drawn face and large, frightened eyes made prominent by the gauntness of her face, was standing amongst things scattered about the room in front of an open chest of drawers, from which she was removing something. At the sound of her husband’s footsteps, she stopped, vainly trying to give her face a stern and disdainful expression as she looked at the door. She felt that she was afraid of him, and afraid of their imminent encounter. She had just been trying to do something she had already tried to do ten times during the past three days: sort out which of the children’s and her own things she would take to her mother’s—and she had again been unable to bring herself to do it; but as on the previous occasions, she was now telling herself that this situation could not continue, that she had to do something to punish him, shame him, and take revenge on him for at least a small part of the pain he had caused her. She was still saying that she would leave him, but she felt it was impossible; it was impossible because she could not get out of the habit of regarding him as her husband and loving him. Apart from that, she felt that if she could barely manage to look after her five children here in her own house, it would be even worse for them wherever she took them all. As it was, during these three days the youngest had fallen ill because he had been given some broth that was bad, and the others had almost gone without dinner the previous day. She felt that it was impossible to leave; but deluding herself, she was still sorting things and pretending that she was going to leave.