The Pustovalovs attended vcspers on Saturday nights. On Sundays and saints'-days they went to early service, and walked back from church side by side—with rapt expressions, both smelling sweet, her silk dress rustling agreeably. At homc they drank tea with fine white bread and various jams, and then ate pasties. At noon each day their yard, and the street outside their gate, were deliciously redolent of beetroot soup, roast lamb and duck—and of fish in Lent.You couldn't pass their gate without feeling hungry. They always kept the samovar boiling in the office, and they treated their customers to tea and buns. Once a week they both went to the public baths, and they would walk back side by side, red-faced.
'We're doing all right,' Olga told her friends. 'It's a good life, praise be. God grant everyone to live like me and Vasya.'
When Pustovalov went to fetch timber from the Mogilyov district she missed him terribly, she couldn't sleep at night, and she cried. She had an occasional evening visitor in young Srnirnin, an army vet who was renting her cottage. He would tell her stories or play cards with hcr, and this cheered her up. She was fascinated by his accounts of his own family life—he was married and had a son, but he and his wife had separated because she had been unfaithful. Now he hated her and sent her forty roublcs a month for the son's keep—hearing which, Olga would sigh, shake her head and pity Smirnin.
'God bless you,' she would say as she bade him good night and lighted his way to the stairs with a candlc. 'Thank you for sharing your sorrows with me. May God and the Holy Mother keep you.' She always spoke in this grave, deliberate way, imitating her husband.
Just as the vet was vanishing through the door downstairs she would call him back. 'Mr. Smirnin, you should make it up with your wife, you know. Do forgive her, if only for your son's sake—that little lad understands everything, I'II be bound.'
On PustovaIov's retum she wouId taIk in Iow tones about the vet and his unhappy famiIy history. Both wouId sigh, shake thcir heads— and discuss the Iittle boy, who probably missed lis fathcr. Then, strange as it might seem, by association of ideas both would kneeI before the icons, bow to the ground and pray to God to give thcm chiIdren.
Thus quietIy and peacefuIIy, in love and utter harmony, the Pustovalovs spent six years. But then, one winter's day, Vasya drank some hot tea in the office, wcnt out to dispatch some timber without his cap on, caught coId and feII iII. He was attended by aII thc best doctors, but the ilIncss took its course and he dicd after four months' suffering. OIga had bcen widowed again.
'Why did you forsake mc, dearest?' she sobbed after burying her husband. 'How ever can I Iivc without you? Oh, I'm so wrctched and unhappy! Pity me, good people, I'm all aIone now '
She worc a bIack dress with weepcrs, she had renounced her hat and gloves for alI timc, she seIdom went out of the house—and then onIy to church or her husband's grave—she lived at home Iike a nun. Not untiI six months had passed did she rcmovc those wecpers and open the shutters. She couId sometimes be scen of a morning shopping for food in the market with her cook, but how did she Iive now, what went on in her housc? It was a matter of guesswork . .. of guesswork based— shaII we say?—on her being seen having tca in her garden with the vet whiIe he read the newspaper to her, and also on what she said when she mct a Iady of hcr acquaintance at the post-office.
'Therc are no proper veterinary inspections in town, which is why we have so many diseases. You keep hearing ofpeople infected by milk and catching things from horses and cows. We should really take as much care of domestic animals' health as of people's.'
She echoed the vet's thoughts, f1ow holding the same views on all subjects as he. That she could not live a single year without an attach- ment, that she had found a new happiness in her o^ cottage . .. so much was clear. Any other woman would have incurred censure, but no one could think ill of Olga—everything about her was so above- board. She and the vet told no one of the change. in their relations. They tried to hide it, but failed because Olga couldn't keep a secret. When his service colleagues came to visit she would pour their tea or give them their supper, while talking about cattle plague, pearl disease and municipal slaughter-houses . .. which embarrassed him terribly. He would seize her arm as the guests left.
'Haven't I asked you not to talk about things you don't understand?' he would hiss angrily. 'Kindly don't interfere when us vets are talking shop, it really is most tiresome.'
She looked at him in consternation and alarm. 'What can I talk about then, Volodya ?'
She would embrace him with tears in her eyes, she would beg him not to be angry—and they would both be happy.
Their happiness proved short-lived, though. The vet left with his regiment. And since that regiment had been posted to far-away parts —Siberia practically—he left for good. Olga was alone.
She really was alone this time. Her father had died long ago, and his old arm-chair was lying around the attic minus one leg and covered with dust. She became thin, she lost her looks. People no longer noticed her, no longer smiled at her in the street. Her best years were over and done with, obviously. A new life was beginning, an unknown life—better not think about it. Sitting on the porch ofan evening, Olga could hear the band playing and the rockets bursting in the Tivoli, but that did not stimulate her thoughts. She gazed blankly at her empty yard, she thought of nothing, she wanted nothing. When night came she went to bed and dreamt about that empty yard. She did not seem to want food and drink.
The main trouble was, though, that she no longer had views on anything. She saw objects around her, yes, she did grasp what was going o_n. But she could not form opinions. What was she to talk about? She did not know. It's a terrible thing, that, not having opinions. You see an upright bottle, say—or rain, or a peasant in a cart. But what are they for: that bottIe, that rain, that peasant? What sense do they make? That you couldn't say . . . not even if someone gave you a thousand roubles, you couldn't. In the Kukin and Pustovalov eras—and then in the vet's day—Olga could give reasons for everything, she would have offered a view on any subject you Iiked. But. now her mind and heart were as empty as her empty yard. It was an unnerving, bitter sensation: like eating a lot of wormwood.
The town has been gradually expanding on all sides. Gipsy Lane is a 'road' now. Houses have mushroomed and a set of side-streets has sprung up where once Tivoli and timber-yard stood. How time does fly! Olga's house looks dingy, her roofhas rusted, her shed is lop-sided, her entire premises are deep in weeds and stinging nettles. OIga herself looks older, uglier. In summer she sits on her porch with the same old heartache and emptiness, there is the same old taste of wormwood. In winter she sits by her window looking at the snow. If she scents the spring air, or hears the peal of cathedral bells borne on the breeze, memories suddenly overwhelm her, she feels a delicious swooning sensation, tears well from her eyes. It lasts only a minute, though. Then the old emptiness returns, and life loses all meaning. Her black cat Bryska rubs up against his mistress, purring gently, but these feline caresses leave Olga cold. She needs a bit more than that! She needs a love to possess her whole being, all her mind and souclass="underline" a Iove to equip her with ideas, with a sense of purpose, a love to warm her ageing blood. She irritably shakes black Bryska off her lap. 'Away with you, you're not wanted here.'
So day follows day, year follows year: a life without joy, without opinions. Whatever her cook Mavra says goes.
Late one warm July afternoon, as the town cows are being driven do^ the street, filling the whole yard with dust clouds, there is a sudden knock at the gate. Olga opens it herself, Iooks out—and is dumbfounded. At the gate stands veterinary surgeon Smirnin—now grey-haired and wearing civilian clothes. It all comes back to her at once and she breaks down and cries, laying her head on his chest without a word. She is so shaken that they have both gone into the house and sat do^ to tea before she has realized what is happening.