fond of each other, well then, I'd be very glad, happy even. I'm telling you straight, without frills, as an honest man.'
Kovrin burst out laughing. Pesotsky opened the door to go out and stopped on the threshold. 'If Tanya gave you a son I'd make a gardener out of him,' he said thoughtfully. 'However, that's an idle dream . . . Good night.'
Left alone, Kovrin settled himself more comfortably on the couch and started on the articles. One bore the title Intermedial Cultivation, another A few Observations on Mr Z's Remarks on Double-trenching in New Gardens, and another More about Grafting Dormant Buds; and there were other titles like that. But what a restless, uneven tone, what highly charged, almost pathological fervour! Here was an article with apparently the most inoffensive title and unexceptionable subject - the winter dessert apple. But Pesotsky first weighed in with an audiatur altera pars[1] and ended with sapienti satt, interpolating these dicta with a whole torrent of venomous animadversions apropos the 'learned ignorance of our self- appointed gentlemen-horticulturalists who look down on nature from their Olympian heights'; or Gaucher, 'whose reputation was made by ignoramuses and dilettantes'. These remarks were followed by the totally irrelevant, forced, sham regret for the fact that it was no longer legal to birch peasants who stole fruit and damaged trees in the process.
'It's a fine, pleasant, healthy occupation, but even here it's passion and warfare,' Kovrin thought. 'Probably, it's because
intellectuals are neurotic and over-sensitive everywhere, in all walks of life. Perhaps it can't be avoided.'
He thought of Tanya who liked Pesotsky's articles so much. She was not tall, was pale and thin, with protruding collar- bones; her dark, clever, staring eyes were always peering, seeking something. She walked just like her father, taking short, quick steps. Very talkative, she loved to argue and would accompany the most trivial phrase with highly expressive mimicry and gesticulations. She was probably highly strung.
Kovrin read on, but he understood nothing and gave up. That same, agreeable feeling of excitement he had had when dancing his mazurka and listening to the music made him weary now and stirred a multitude of thoughts. He stood up and started walking round the room, thinking about the black monk. It occurred to him that if he alone had seen that strange, supernatural apparition, then he must be ill and a prey to hallucinations. This thought frightened him, but not for long.
'In fact I feel fine. I'm not harming anyone. So that means there's nothing bad in these hallucinations,' he thought and felt fine again.
He sat on the couch and clasped his head to hold in check that incomprehensible feeling of joy which filled his whole being; then he paced up and down again and started to work. But the ideas he found in the book left him unsatisfied. He wanted something gigantic, immense, staggering. Towards dawn he undressed and reluctantly got into bed. After all, he had to sleep!
When he heard Pesotsky's footsteps receding into the garden, Kovrin rang the bell and told the servant to bring 17
him some wine. After enjoying a few glasses of claret his senses grew dim and he fell asleep.
4
Pesotsky and Tanya had frequent quarrels and said nasty things to each other. One morning, after a squabble about something, Tanya burst into tears and went to her room. She didn't appear for lunch, or tea. At first Pesotsky walked around solemnly and pompously, as if he wanted to make it known that he considered justice and order more important than anything else in the world. But he could not keep up the pose for long and lost heart. Sadly he wandered through the park, sighing the whole time, 'Ah, Good Lord, Good Lord!' and he did not eat a thing for dinner. Finally, full of guilt and remorse, he knocked on the locked door and called out timidly, 'Tanya! Tanya?'
A weak voice, drained by tears, but still determined, replied from behind the door, 'Leave me alone, I beg you.'
The anguish of the master and mistress was reflected all over the house, even in the gardeners. Kovrin was immersed in his interesting work, but in the end he too felt bored and embarrassed. Trying to dispel the prevailing unpleasant atmos- phere, he decided to intervene and towards evening knocked at Tanya's door. She let him in.
'Come now, you should be ashamed!' he joked, looking in amazement at Tanya's tear-stained, mournful face that was covered in red blotches. 'Surely it's not as bad as all that?
18 Now, now!'
'If you only knew how he torments me!' she said and copious, bitter tears welled from her large eyes. 'He's tor- mented the life out of me,' she went on, wringing her hands. 'I didn't say anything to him . . . nothing at all. I only said we don't need to keep on extra workers when . .. when we can engage day-labourers if we want to. You know, our gardeners have been standing idle for a whole week. That's all I said, but he shouted and said many insulting, deeply offensive things. Why?'
'Now, that's enough, enough,' Kovrin said, smoothing her hair. 'You've had your quarrel and a good cry, and that's enough. You must stop being angry now, it's not good . . . especially as he loves you so very much.'
'He's ruined my whole life,' Tanya continued, sobbing. 'All I hear is insults and abuse ... He thinks there's no place for me in this house. Agreed. He's right. I'll leave this place tomorrow, get a job as a telegraphist . . . That's what I'll do.'
'Come now, there's no need to cry, Tanya. Please don't, my dear . . . You're both quick-tempered, easily upset, and you're both to blame. Come on, I'll make peace between you.'
Kovrin spoke with feeling, convincingly, but she kept on crying, her shoulders twitching and her hands clenched as if something really terrible had happened to her. He felt all the more sorry for her because, although her grief was nothing serious, she was suffering deeply. How little it took to make this creature unhappy all day long, for her whole life perhaps! As he comforted Tanya, Kovrin thought that he wouldn't fi.nd two people who loved him so much as Tanya and her 19
father in a month of Sundays. Having lost his father ai mother as a small child, but for these two, probably, 1 would never have known true affection until his dying da He would never have known that simple, disinterested lo that is felt only for those who are very close, for blOt relations. And he felt that this weeping, trembling gir nerves were reacting to his own half-sick, overwrought nerv like iron to a magnet. He could never have loved a health strong, rosy-cheeked woman, but that pale, weak, unhapj Tanya attracted him.
And he gladly stroked her hair and shoulders, pressed h hands and wiped away the tears . . . Finally she stoppi crying. For a long time she complained about her father ai her hard, intolerable life in that house, imploring Kovrin see things as she did. Then gradually, she began to smile ai said sighing that God had given her such a bad character. the end she laughed out loud, called herself a fool and r: out of the room.
Shortly afterwards, when Kovrin went into the garde Pesotsky and Tanya were strolling side by side along the pa as if nothing had happened. They were both eating rye bre: with salt, as they were hungry.