“You mustn’t, papa … That’s enough, papa …”
And Anya was also worried and begged him not to drink any more, and he suddenly flared up and banged his fist on the table.
“I won’t let anyone supervise me!” he cried. “Mere infants! I’ll throw you all out!”
But there was weakness and kindness in his voice, and no one was afraid of him. After dinner he usually got dressed up; pale, with razor nicks on his chin, stretching his skinny neck, he spent half an hour standing in front of the mirror preening himself, brushing his hair, twirling his black mustache, spraying himself with scent, knotting his tie, then put on his gloves and top hat and went to give private lessons. But if it was a feast day, he stayed home and painted or played the harmonium, which hissed and roared; he tried to squeeze whole, harmonious sounds out of it and sang along, or else said gruffly to the boys:
“Scoundrels! Blackguards! You’ve ruined the instrument!”
In the evenings Anya’s husband played cards with his colleagues, who lived under the same roof with him in the government building. During cards the wives of the officials got together, ugly, tastelessly dressed, coarse as kitchen maids, and gossip would begin, as ugly and tasteless as the wives themselves. Occasionally, Modest Alexeich took Anya to the theater. In the intermissions he never allowed her to go a step away from him, and walked, holding her under the arm, in the corridor and foyer. When he greeted someone, he would immediately whisper to Anya: “State councillor … received by His Excellency” or: “Wealthy … owns a house …” When they passed the buffet, Anya always wanted very much to eat something sweet; she loved chocolate and apple tarts, but she had no money and was embarrassed to ask her husband. He would take a pear, finger it, and ask hesitantly:
“How much?”
“Twenty-five kopecks.”
“Really!” he would say and put the pear back, but since it was awkward to leave the buffet without buying anything, he would ask for seltzer water and drink the whole bottle himself, and tears would come to his eyes, and Anya hated him at those moments.
Or else, blushing all over, he would say:
“Bow to this old lady!”
“But I don’t know her.”
“Never mind. She’s the wife of the chief treasurer! Bow to her, I tell you!” he murmured insistently. “Your head won’t fall off.”
Anya bowed, and indeed her head did not fall off, but it was painful. She did everything her husband wanted and was angry with herself for having been deceived like a perfect little fool. She had married him only for money, and yet she now had less money than before her marriage. Formerly, her father at least used to give her twenty kopecks, but now she did not have a cent. She could not take money secretly or ask for it, she was afraid of her husband and trembled before him. It seemed to her that she had borne a fear of this man in her soul for a long time. In childhood the most imposing and terrible power for her, which came like a storm cloud or a locomotive ready to crush her, was her school principal; another such power, which they always talked about in the family, and which they feared for some reason, was His Excellency; and there were also some dozen powers of a lesser sort, among them stern, implacable schoolmasters who shaved their mustaches, and now, finally, there was Modest Alexeich, a man of principle, who even looked like a director. And in Anya’s imagination all these powers blended into one, and in the shape of one terrible, enormous polar bear came down upon the weak and guilty, like her father, and she was afraid to say anything in protest, and she forced herself to smile and show feigned pleasure when she was crudely caressed and defiled with embraces that terrified her.
Only once did Pyotr Leontyich dare to ask for a loan of fifty roubles to pay some very unpleasant debt, but what a torment it was!
“Very well, I’ll give you a loan,” said Modest Alexeich, after some thought, “but I warn you that I will not assist you any more until you stop drinking. For a man in government service, such weakness is a disgrace. I cannot but remind you of the commonly known fact that many capable people have been ruined by this passion, whereas, if they had been temperate, they might in time have become high-ranking people.”
And lengthy periods followed: “inasmuch as …,” “considering the fact that …,” “in view of the aforementioned …,” while poor Pyotr Leontyich suffered humiliation and felt a strong desire for a drink.
And when the boys came to visit Anya, usually wearing torn boots and shabby trousers, they also had to listen to admonishments.
“Every man must have his responsibilities!” Modest Alexeich said to them.
But he gave no money. Instead, he gave Anya rings, bracelets, brooches, saying it was good to keep these things for an unlucky day. And he often unlocked her chest of drawers and checked that all the things were there.
II
Meanwhile winter came. Long before Christmas the local paper announced that the customary winter ball “would this year take place” on December 29th, at the Assembly of the Nobility. Every evening, after cards, Modest Alexeich, agitated, whispered with the officials’ wives, glanced worriedly at Anya, and afterwards paced the room for a long time, pondering something. Finally, late one evening, he stopped in front of Anya and said:
“You must have a ball gown made for you. Understand? Only please get advice from Marya Grigoryevna and Natalya Kuzminishna.”
And he gave her a hundred roubles. She took it; but, in ordering her ball gown, she did not get anyone’s advice, but only talked it over with her father and tried to imagine how her mother would have dressed for the ball. Her late mother had always dressed in the latest fashion and had always fussed over Anya, dressed her as elegantly as a doll, and taught her to speak French and dance the mazurka superbly (before her marriage she had worked as a governess for five years). Like her mother, Anya was able to make a new dress out of an old one, to clean her gloves with benzine, to rent bijoux, and, like her mother, she knew how to narrow her eyes, roll her r’s, assume beautiful poses, become enraptured when necessary, gaze sorrowfully and mysteriously. And from her father she had inherited her dark hair and eyes, her nervousness, and that manner of always preening herself.
When Modest Alexeich came into her room, without his frock coat, a half hour before going to the ball, in order to put his decoration on his neck in front of her pier glass, he was enchanted by the beauty and splendor of her fresh, airy costume, brushed out his side-whiskers smugly, and said:
“So that’s how you are … that’s how you are! Anyuta!” he went on, suddenly falling into a solemn tone. “I’ve made your happiness, and today you can make mine. I beg you to get yourself introduced to His Excellency’s wife! For God’s sake! Through her I may get the post of senior aide!”
They went to the ball. Here was the Assembly of the Nobility and the main entrance with its doorkeeper. The front hall with its cloakroom, fur coats, scurrying servants, and ladies in décolleté, shielding themselves from the drafty wind with fans. It smelled of gaslights and soldiers. When Anya, going up the stairs on her husband’s arm, heard the music and saw her whole figure in an enormous mirror under the light of many lamps, joy awoke in her soul and with it the same presentiment of happiness she had felt on that moonlit evening at the little station. She walked proudly, self-confidently, for the first time feeling herself not a girl but a lady, and inadvertently copying the gait and manner of her late mother. And for the first time she felt herself rich and free. Even the presence of her husband did not hamper her, because, as she crossed the threshold of the Assembly, she already guessed instinctively that the proximity of an old husband was not humiliating to her in the least, but, on the contrary, placed upon her the stamp of piquant mysteriousness that men like so much. In the big hall the orchestra thundered and the dancing began. After her government apartment, caught up in impressions of light, colors, music, noise, Anya passed her gaze over the hall and thought: “Ah, how good!” and at once made out all her acquaintances in the crowd, everyone she had met earlier at soirées or promenades, all those officers, teachers, lawyers, officials, landowners, His Excellency, Artynov, and the high-society ladies, decked out, extremely décolleté, the beautiful and the ugly, who had already taken up their posts in the little booths and pavilions in order to start the charity bazaar for the benefit of the poor. An immense officer with epaulettes—she had met him in Staro-Kievsky Street when she was a schoolgirl and no longer remembered his last name—appeared as if from out of the ground and invited her for the waltz, and she flew away from her husband, and it seemed to her as if she were sailing in a boat through a heavy storm, and her husband had stayed far behind on the shore … She danced with passion, with enthusiasm, the waltz, the polka, the quadrille, passing from hand to hand, dazed by the music and noise, mixing Russian with French, rolling her r’s, laughing, and not thinking of her husband, or anyone, or anything. She was a success with men, that was clear and could not have been otherwise, she was breathless with excitement, she convulsively clutched her fan and wanted to drink. Her father, Pyotr Leontyich, in a wrinkled tailcoat that smelled of benzine, came up to her, offering her a dish of red ice cream.