“Anyuta! Anya! Anya, just one word!”
Anya leaned out the window towards him, and he whispered something to her, breathing winy fumes on her, blowing in her ear—she understood none of it—and made a cross over her face, breast, hands; his breath trembled and tears glistened in his eyes. And Anya’s brothers, Petya and Andryusha, both high-school students, pulled him from behind by the tailcoat and whispered in embarrassment:
“Papa, that will do … Papa, you mustn’t …”
When the train set off, Anya saw her father run a little way after their car, staggering and spilling his wine, and what a pathetic, kind, and guilty face he had.
“Hur-ra-a-ah!” he shouted.
The newlyweds were left alone. Modest Alexeich looked around the compartment, put their things on the racks, and sat down opposite his young wife, smiling. He was an official of average height, rather stout, plump, very well fed, with long side-whiskers and no mustache, and his clean-shaven, round, sharply outlined chin resembled a heel. What most characterized his face was the missing mustache, that freshly shaven, bare space which gradually turned into fat cheeks quivering like jelly. His bearing was dignified, his movements were not quick, his manners were gentle.
“I can’t help recalling one circumstance now,” he said, smiling. “Five years ago, when Kosorotov got the Order of St. Anna second degree2 and went to say thank you, His Excellency expressed himself thus: ‘So now you have three Annas: one in your buttonhole and two on your neck.’ And I should mention that at that time Kosorotov’s wife had just come back to him, a shrewish and frivolous person whose name was Anna. I hope that when I get the Anna second degree, His Excellency will have no reason to say the same to me.”
He smiled with his little eyes. And she also smiled, troubled by the thought that this man might at any moment kiss her with his full, moist lips, and she no longer had the right to deny him that. The soft movements of his plump body frightened her, she felt afraid and squeamish. He got up, unhurriedly removed his decoration from his neck, took off his tailcoat and waistcoat, and put on his dressing gown.
“There,” he said, sitting down beside Anya.
She recalled how painful the wedding ceremony had been, when it had seemed to her that the priest, the guests, and all the people in the church were looking at her sorrowfully: why, why was she, such a sweet, nice girl, marrying this middle-aged, uninteresting gentleman? That morning she had still been delighted that everything was turning out so well, but during the wedding, and now on the train, she felt guilty, deceived, and ridiculous. Here she had married a rich man, yet she still had no money, the wedding dress had been made on a loan, and when her father and brothers were seeing her off today, she could tell by their faces that they did not have a kopeck. Would they have any supper tonight? And tomorrow? And for some reason it seemed to her that her father and the boys were now sitting there without her, hungry and feeling exactly the same anguish as they had the first evening after their mother’s funeral.
“Oh, how unhappy I am!” she thought. “Why am I so unhappy?”
With the awkwardness of a dignified man unused to dealing with women, Modest Alexeich touched her waist and patted her shoulder, while she thought about money, about her mother and her death. When her mother died, her father, Pyotr Leontyich, a teacher of penmanship and drawing in the high school, took to drinking, and they fell into want; the boys had no boots or galoshes, the father kept being dragged before the justice of the peace, the bailiff came to make an inventory of the furniture … Such shame! Anya had to look after the drunken father, darn her brothers’ socks, go to the market, and when people praised her beauty, youth, and gracious manners, it seemed to her that the whole world could see that her hat was cheap and the holes in her shoes were daubed over with ink. And during the nights, there were tears and the persistent, troubling thought that her father would very soon be dismissed from the school on account of his weakness, that he would not survive it and would also die, as her mother had died. But then their lady acquaintances got busy and began looking for a good man for Anya. Soon they came up with this same Modest Alexeich, neither young nor handsome, but with money. He had a hundred thousand in the bank and also a family estate that he leased. He was a man of principle and in good standing with His Excellency; it would be nothing for him, as Anya was told, to take a note from His Excellency to the principal of the school and even to the superintendent, to keep Pyotr Leontyich from being dismissed …
As she recalled these details, she suddenly heard music bursting through the window with the noise of voices. The train had stopped at a small station. Beyond the platform, in the crowd, an accordion and a cheap, shrill fiddle were playing briskly, and from beyond the tall birches and poplars, from beyond the dachas bathed in moonlight, came the sounds of a military band: they must have been having an evening dance. Summer residents and city-dwellers, who came there in good weather to breathe the clean air, strolled along the platform. Artynov was also there, the owner of this whole summer colony, a rich man, tall, stout, dark-haired, with an Armenian-looking face, protruding eyes, and a strange costume. He was wearing a shirt unbuttoned on the chest and high boots with spurs; a black cloak hung from his shoulders, dragging on the ground like a train. Two Borzoi hounds, their sharp muzzles lowered, followed after him.
Anya’s eyes still glistened with tears, but she was no longer thinking about her mother, or money, or her wedding, but was shaking hands with some high-school students and officers she knew, laughing merrily and saying quickly:
“Hello! How are you?”
She went out to the end of the corridor, into the moonlight, and stood in such a way as to be fully visible in her magnificent new dress and hat.
“Why have we stopped here?” she asked.
“There’s a sidetrack here,” came the answer, “we’re expecting the mail train.”
Noticing that Artynov was looking at her, she narrowed her eyes coquettishly and began speaking loudly in French, and because her own voice sounded so pretty, and there was music, and the moon was reflected in the pond, and because Artynov, that notorious Don Juan and prankster, was looking at her greedily and with curiosity, and because everyone felt merry, she was suddenly filled with joy, and when the train started, and her officer acquaintances touched their visors in farewell, she was already humming the strains of a polka that the military band, banging away somewhere beyond the trees, sent after her; and she went back to her compartment feeling as if she had been convinced at the station that she would certainly be happy, no matter what.
The newlyweds spent two days at the monastery and then returned to town. They lived in a government apartment. When Modest Alexeich went to work, Anya played the piano, or wept from boredom, or lay on the couch and read novels and looked through fashion magazines. At dinner Modest Alexeich ate a great deal and talked about politics, about appointments, transfers, and bonuses, and that one had to work, that family life was not a pleasure but a duty, that a penny saved was a penny earned, and that he considered religion and morality the highest things in the world. And, gripping the knife in his fist like a sword, he said:
“Every man must have his responsibilities!”
And Anya listened to him, afraid and unable to eat, and usually left the table hungry After dinner her husband rested and snored loudly, and she went to see her family Her father and the boys looked at her somehow peculiarly, as if, just before she came, they had been denouncing her for marrying for the sake of money a dull, boring man whom she did not love; her rustling dress, her bracelets and ladylike look in general, embarrassed and offended them; in her presence they felt slightly abashed and did not know what to talk about; but still they loved her as before and had not yet grown accustomed to eating without her. She sat down with them and ate shchi, kasha,3 and potatoes fried in mutton fat, which smelled like candles. With a trembling hand, Pyotr Leontyich poured from a decanter and drank quickly, greedily, with disgust, then drank another glass, then a third … Petya and Andryusha, thin, pale boys with big eyes, took the decanter away and said in perplexity: