long would our happines la.st? ^^t would hap^rn to. her ifl became il or died? What if we just feU out of love?
Her rc:flections were si^^u. She thought about her
husband and children, thought about her mother who loved her hus^rnd like a son. If she yidded to her pasons she would either have to lie or teU the truth, but both co^rc would be alarrming and
difficult to one in her utuation. Would her love ^mg me luppines, she wondered agonizingly. Wouldn't it complicate my life: irksome enough anyway, and bcsct with all sorts of tribulations? She felt she was too old for me, that she lacked the drive and energy to start a new life. Shc often told her husband that I ought tO marry some deccnt, intelligcnt girl who would be a good housewife and helpmeet—but she would add at once that such a paragon was unlikely to be found anywhere in town.
Mcanwhile thc ycars wcre passing. Anne now had two children. Whenever I visitcd the family the scrvams smiled their welcome, the childrcn shouted that Uncle Paul had arrived and clung round my neck, and everyone rcjoiccd. Not understanding my imermost feelings, they thought I was rcjoicing with them. They all saw me as the embodiment of intcgrity. Adults and children alike, they felt that intcgrity incarnate was walking about the room—which imparted a special charm to their relations with me, as if my prcsence made their lives purer and finer. Annc and I used to go to the theatre together, always on foot. We would sit bcsidc each othcr in thc stails, our shoulders touching, and I'd silcntly take the opera glasses from hcr, sensing her nearncss to me, scnsing that she was mine, that we couldn't live without each other. But through somc strangc lack of rapport we always said good-bye when we lcft the theatrc, and wc parted like strangers. People were saying goodness knows what about us in town, but not one word of truth was thcrc in all their gossip.
fume had begun going away to her mother's and sister's more often in reccnt years. Shc had bccome subject to depressions: moods in which shc was conscious that her life was unfulfilled and wasted. She didn't want to sec her husband and children at such times. She was under treatment for a ncrvous condition.
And still we did not speak our minds. In company she would feel curiously exaspcrated with me. She would diagree with cverything I aid, and if I became involved in an argument she would take my opponent's sidc. If I chanced to drop something shc would coldly offer her 'congratulations'. IfI forgot the opera glasscs whcn we went to the theatre, she'd tell' me shc had 'kiown vcry well I'd forget those'.
Luckily or unluckily, thcrc is nothing in our lives which doesn't end sooncr or later. The time had now comc for us to part: Luganovich had bcen appointed to a judgcship in the wcst country. They had to sell their furniturc, horscs and cottaige. Wc drove out to thc cottage, and as we turned back for one last look at the gardcn and green roof cveryonc was sad, and I knew that it was time for mc to take my leave of rather more than a mere cottage. It had been decided that we should se Anne off to the Crimea (where her doctors lud advised her to stay) at the md of Augwt, and that Luganovich would uke the children to the west a little later.
A large crowd of w went to se Anne off. She lud already said g^^- bye to her hwband and children, and the train was due to leave at any moment, when I dashed into her compartment to put a baskct—whir:h she had nearly left behind—on the luggagc rack. It wa$ my tum to say g^^-bye. Our eyes met there in the compartment, and we could hold back no longer. I put my a^ra around her, she pr^^d her face against my breast, and the tears flowed. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her tear-drmched lunds—we were both so unhappy—I declared my love. With a burning pain in my heart, I saw how in^^nrial, how trivial, how iU^ry it was . . . everything which lud frustrated our love. I saw that, if you love, you mwt base your theory of love on something loftier and more significant than happines or unhappines, ^^ sin or vinue as they are commonly undent^^. Better, otherwise, not to theorize at al.
I kissed her for the last rime, I clasped her ^md, and we parted—for ever. The train lud already started. I sat do^wn in the next compart- ment, which was empty . .. sat there, weeping, until the first stop. Then I walked home to Sofyino.
It had stopped r^^g while wa$ telling his story, and the
sun lud ^^ped out. Burlcin and Ivan Ivanovich went on to the balcony, which lud a superb view of the garden, and of the river which now gle2med, miror-like, in the sun. As they admired the view they felt that ^^ the kind, intelligent ey«—who had spokm with such ancere feeling—really was going round and round the same old treadmill, doing neither academic work nor anything else capable ofmaking his life more pleasant. And they imagined how stricken that young woman must luve looked when he had said g^^-bye to her in the train, ki^rng her head and shoulders. Both of them lud met her in Burkin, indeed, had been a friend of hen and had thought
her very
PEASANTS
I
Nicholas Chikildeyev, a waiter at the Slav Fair Hotel in Moscow, fell iU. There was a numbness in his legs and his walk was so much affectcd that going down a corridor one day he tripped and feU with a trayful of ham and peas. That meant thc end of his job. His own and his wife's savings, such as they were, had gone on treatment and they had nothing to live on. Bored with doing nothing, he decided that hc must return to his viUage. Even iUness is not so bad at home and life is cheaper. 'No place like home,' they say, and there is some- thing ui it.
He reached his viUage—Zhukovo—towards evening. Remembering thc old place from boyhood as a bright, comfortable, homely spot, he actuaUy took fright whcn he went inside the hut now and saw how dark, cramped and dirty it was. His wife Olga and daughter Sasha had come with him, and thcy stared aghast at the huge, clumsy stove, black with soot and flies. It took up nearly half the hut. And what a lot of flies! The stove was lop-sidcd, the beans were askew and the hut looked just about ready to faU down. In the corner opposite the stovc, bottle labcls and newspaper cuttings had been stuck near the icons to servc as pictures. This was real poverty and no mistake.
The adults were aU out harvesting. On the stove sat a little girl of about cight, fair-hired, unwashcd, and so bored that she did not even give the ncwcomers a glance. A white cat rubbed itself against the fire-irons on thc floor.
Sasha beckoned to it. 'Puss, puss! Come here, pussy!'
'She can't hear,' said the little girl. 'Deaf.'
'Why?'
'Oh, someone hit her.'
One glance showed Nicholas and Olga how things were, but they said nothing—just threw down their bundles and went out in the street widiout a word.
Their hut was third from the end and seemed the poorest and oldest. The second hut along was no better, but the one at the end did have a liietal roof and window-curtains. This hut, unfenced and st^ding a little to one side, was the uin. The huts formed a single row and the whole villagc, quict and slcepy, with willow, ddcr .md mountain-ash peeping out of the yards, looked plcasant enough.
Behind the villagers' gardens a steep slope, almost a cliff, fell away down to the river, with bare boulders dotted about in the clay. Paths wound down the slope among the boulders and clay-pits dug by potters, and there were great heaps of brown and red broken pottery piled around. Down at the bottom stretched a bright green meadow, broad and level, already piown, where the vilage herd strayed. The river was the best part of a ^Je from the viUage and meandered between splendid leafy banks. Beyond it was another broad meadow, a herd of cattle, long strings of white geese, and then a steep upward rise, as on the near side. At the top of the rise was a large vilage, a church with ftve onion-domes and—a little further off-a manor- house.
'Isn't it lovely here!' said Olga, crossing herselfas she saw the church. 'Lord, what an open view!'