'One thing, Ivan,' said Samoylenko with a blush, taking him by a button. 'Excuse my med^mg in your private affairs, but—why not take Nadezhda along?'
'Don't be silly, how can I? One of us has got to stay here, or my creditors will raise hell—1 do owe seven hundred roubles or more to the shops, you know. Butjust wait, I'll send them the money. I'll shut their mouths—and then she can leave too.'
'I see—but why not send her on ahead?'
'Good grief, how can I?' asked Layevsky in horror. 'She's a woman, isn't she? What can she do there on her o^? What does she under- stand ? It would be a sheer waste of time and money.' 'That's reasonable,' Samoylenko thought, but remembered his con- versation with Von Koren and dropped his eyes.
'I can't agree,' he said gloomily. 'You must go with her or send her on ahead. Or else—or else I won't give you the money, and that's my last word.'
Retreating, he backed imo the door, and entered the drawing-room red in the face and appallingly embarrassed.
'Friday, Friday,' thought Layevsky as he returned to the drawing- room. 'Friday.'
He was handed a cup of chocolate, and burnt his lips and tongue on the hot drink.
'Friday, Friday,' he thought.
He had Friday on the brain somehow, he couldn't get it out of his mind. A!l he knew—not in his mind, but somewhere deep inside him— was that a Saturday departure was out of the question. He was con- fronted by dapper little Nicodemus Bityugov, his hair brushed forward on to his temples.
'Help yourself,' he urged. 'Please do.'
Mary Bityugov was showing her guests Katya's school marks.
'School work is so frightfully hard these days,' she drawled. 'They expect so much.'
'Mother!' groaned Katya, not knowing where to hide from praises so embarrassing.
Layevsky also looked at the marks and commended them. Scripture, Russian, conduct.!-the exccllents and goods danced before his eyes. All this—a.dded to his obsession with Friday, plus the hair over Bityu- gov's temples, plus Katya Bityugov's red cheeks—struck him as such a shattering, crashing, frantic bore that he was ready to shriek.
'Shall I,' he wondered, 'shall I really be unable to get away from here ?'
They placed two card-tables side by side and sat down to play Post-office. Layevsky joined them.
'Friday, Friday,' he thought, smiling and taking a pencil from his pocket. 'Friday.'
He wanted to think over his situation—yet feared to do so. It was terrifying to realize that the doctor had caught him out, and in a deception which he had so long, so carefully, hidden even from himself. When thinking about his future, he never gave his imagination full rein. He would just board a train and go, thus solving his problem in life—and that was as far as he allowed his thoughts to stray. The idea occasionally flashed through his mind, like some dim light seen far away in the fields, that somewhere—in a back street of St. Petersburg, in the remote future—he would be driven to some minor prevarication in order to break with Nadezhda and pay his debts. After this one lie, a new life would da\wn—and a good thing too because he would gain tremendous integrity at the cost of a single fib.
But now that the doctor had turned him do\wn, thus crudely expos- ing his duplicity, he realized that the need for lies would arise not only in the remote future, but also today, tomorrow, in a month's time— until his dying day, perhaps. He could not leave town, indeed, without lying to Nadezhda, his creditors and his seniors at the office. Nor could he obtain money in St. Petersburg without lying to his mother by claiming to have left Nadezhda. His mother would give him no more than five hundred roubles, which meant that he already had deceived the doctor since he would be unable to send him any money in the near future. Then, when Nadezhda reached St. Petersburg, he would need a vast stock of new lies, great and small, before he could be rid ofher. There would be more weeping, more tedium, more world-weariness, more remorse—and therefore no new life for him. And the whole thing was so utterly bogus. A great mountain oflies towered up in Layevsky's mind. If he was to leap it with one bound, ifhe was to escape lying by instalments, he must steel himself to stern measures. For instance, he might get up from where he sat, say nothing to anyone, put on his hat and leave at once—with no money, without a word to a soul. But Layevsky felt he couldn't do that.
'Friday, Friday, Friday,' he thought.
Everyone was writing notes, folding them in two and putting them m Nicodemus Bityugov's old top hat. When there were enough of them, Kostya made a round of the table as postman and delivered them. The deacon, Katya and Kostya had all received funny notes and had tried to write as amusingly as possible. They were in raptures.
'We must have a talk,' Nadezhda read in her note. She exchanged glances with Mary Bityugov who gave her sugary smile and nodded.
'What is there to talk about, though?' Nadezhda wondered. 'If one can't say everything, why say anything?'
Before leaving for the party she had tied Layevsky's tie, which trivial act had inspired her with tender melancholy. His anxious face, his distraught glances, his pallor, the mysterious recent change in him, her own monstrous, unsavoury secret \vhich she was keeping from him, her trembling hands as she knotted his tie—these things somehow told her that their life together had not much longer to run. She looked at him with penitential awe, as if gazing at an icon.
'Forgive me,' she thought. 'Forgive me.'
Across the table from her, Achmianov could not keep his black, love-sick eyes off her. She was disturbed by desire and felt ashamed, fearing that even her grief and anguish would not prevent her from yielding to lust some day—fearing too that she was as little capable of self-restraint as a compulsive alcoholic.
Not wishing to continue a life degrading to herself and insulting to Layevsky, she decided that she would go away. She would beg him with tears in her eyes to let her go. Should he refuse, she would leave secretly, not telling him what had happened—let him preserve her memory undefiled.
'I'm in love, love, love,' she read. That must be Achmianov.
She would live in some remote spot where she would take a job and send Layevsky money, embroidered shirts and tobacco anonymously. Only in old age would she return to him, should he fall seriously ill and need a nurse. In old age he would learn why she had refused to be his wife, why she had left him. And he would prize her self-sacrifi.ce, forgiving her.
'You have a long nose.' The deacon or Kostya, that must be.
Nadezhda imagined herself saying good-bye to Layevsky. She would hold him tight, kiss his hand and swear to love him always. Then, living among strangers in that remote spot, she would remember every day that she had a dear friend somewhere, the man she loved—a clean- living, high-minded, superior person who preserved her memory undefiled.
.'If you won't meet me tonight I shall take steps, on my word of honour. Gentlemen are not to be treated like this, believe me.'
That was Kirilin.
XIII
Layevsky received two letters. He opened one and read: 'Don't leave, dear boy.'
'Who could have written that?' he wondered. 'Not Samoylenko, of course. Not the deacon either—he doesn't know I want to leave. Von Koren, could it be?'
Von Koren leant over the table, sketching a pyramid. His eyes were smiling, Layevsky thought.
'Samoylenko must have let the cat out of the bag,' he reflected.
The other letter was in the same ragged hand with long tails and curlicues: 'A certain person will not leave here on Saturday.'
'\Vhat a stupid sneer,' thought Layevsky. 'Friday, Friday '
He felt a catch in his throat, and touched his collar, making as if to cough, but erupted in laughter insteaid.
'Ha! Ha! Ha !' he cachinnated, wondering what it was he found so funny. 'Ha! Ha ! Ha!'
Trying to control himself, he covered his mouth with his hand, but mirth choked his chest and neck, and his hand was unable to close his mouth.