Masha drank more water. He looked at her neck, plump shoulders and breasts, remembering what the retired major-general had called her in church that day—'a dear little rosebud'.
'Dear little rosebud,' he muttered. And laughed. Under the bed sleepy Bluebottle growled her guttural response.
Inside Nikitin a cold, heavy, spiteful urge seemed to hammer and twist. He wanted to be rude to Masha, or even jump up and hit her. His heart throbbed.
'So that's the way of it,' he stated, trying to restrain himself. 'By visiting your house I thereby undertook to marry you, I suppose?'
'Of course you did, you know that as well as I do.'
'Charming, I must say.'
A minute later he said it again. 'Charming.'
To stop himself adding something which he would regret, and to calm his emotions, Nikitin went to his study and lay on the ottoman without a pillow. Then he lay on the carpet on thc floor.
He tried to reassure himself. 'This is all nonsense. You, a teacher, have a most admirable calling. What other world can you need? What utter rubbish!'
But then he at once answered himself with certainty that, far from being a teacher, he was a mediocre, featureless hack like the Greek master, a Czech. He had never had a vocation for teaching, he knew nothing of pedagogic theory, he had never been interested in it, he had no idea how to treat children. The significance ofhis teaching was lost on him, perhaps he was even teaching all the wrong things. The late Hippolytus had been frankly stupid, but all his colleagues and pupils had known who he was .and what to expect of him—whereas he, Nikitin, was like the Czech who could conceal his dullness and adroitly deceive people by pretending that everything was, thank God, just as it should be. These new ideas alarmed Nikitin, he spurned them, he called them stupid, he put them down to nerves, he thought he would soon be laughing at himself.
Towards morning, indeed, he already was laughing at his nerves and calling himself an old woman. And yet he also realized that his pcace of mind was lost, probably for ever, and that there was no happiness for him in this two-storeyed house with its unrendered walls. The illusion was gone, he sensed, and a new, uneasy, conscious life had begun—a life incompatible with peace of mind and personal happiness.
On the next day, a SWlday, he went to the school chapel where he met the headmaster and his colleagues. Their sole business in life seemed to consist of sedulously concealing their ignorance and dissatis- faction, and he too smiled affably and indulged in small talk to avoid betraying his unease. Then he walked to the station. He watched the mail train come and go, pleased to be alone and not to have to talk to anyone.
At home he foWld his father-in-law and Varya who had come over for dinner. Varya's eyes were red from crying, and she complained of a headache, while Shelestov ate a lot and went on about young people being so wueliable and ungentlemanly nowadays.
'It's the act of a boWlder,' he said. 'And so I shall tell him to his face— the act of a boWlder, sir.'
Nikitin smiled amiably and helped Masha entertain their guests, but after dinner he went and locked himself in his study.
The March sun shone brightly, and warm rays fell on the desk through the doublc frames. It was only the twentieth of the month, but sledges had now given way to whceled traffic and starlings wcrc singing in the garden. He had the feeling that Masha was about to come in, put one arm around his neck, say that the horses or chaise had been brought round to the porch, and ask what die was to wear to keep warm. Spring had begun—a spring just as exquisite as the previous yi!ar's, promisingjust the same joys. But Nikitin thought he would like to take a holiday, go to Moscow and stay in his old lodgings in Neglimiy Drive. In the next room they were drinking coffee and talking about Captain Polyansky while he tried not to listen.
Ye gods, where am I (he wrote in his diary)? I'm surrounded by smug, complaccnt mediocrities, dreary nonentities, pots of sour cream, jugs of milk, cockroaches, stupid women.
There is nothing more tcrrible, insulting and mortifying than the smug complacency of the second-rate. I musr run away, I must escape this very day or I shall go out of my mind.
TERROR
MY FRIEND ' S STORY
Having t aken a university degree and been a civil servant in St. Pcters- burg, Dmitry Silin had given up his job at thc age of thirty to take up farming. Though he had made a fair success ofit I felt hewas out ofhis element and would have done better to return to St. Petersburg. Sun- burnt, grey with dust and toil-worn, he would meet me ncar his gate or entrance, then battle with drowsiness over supper until his wife took him off to bed like a baby. Or else he would conquer his fatigue and begin expounding edifying sentiments in his gentle, sincere and ap- parently pleading voice—at which times I never saw him as a farmer or agriculturalist) but only as a' tormented human being. He needed no fann, I realized, he just wanted some way of getting through the day without mishap.
I liked going over there and sometimes stayed at his farm for two or three days at a stretch. I liked his house, his park, his big orchard, his little river, and I liked his general outlook: rather passive and over- elaborate, yet lucid. I must have liked him perso!lally too, though I cannot say for certain as I am still unable to analyse my feelings of the time. He was an intelligent, good-natured, genuine, quite interest- ing person, but I well remember how upset and embarrassed I was when he told me his most intimate secrets and said what great friends the two of us were. There was something uncomfortable and tiresome about this great affection for me, and I would far rather have had us just ordinary friendly acquaintances.
The fact is, I was greatly attracted by his wife Mary. Not that I was in love with her, but I liked her face, her eyes, her voice, her walk. I used to miss this good-looking, elegant young woman when I hadn't seen her for some time and I liked to dwell OJ1. her image in fancy: more so than on anyone else's. I had no specific designs on her, no romantic aspirations, but whenever we were alone together I somehow re- membered that her husband took me for his great friend, which was so embarrassing. I enjoyed listening when she played my favourite piano pieces or told me anything of interest, yet I was aIso rather irked by the thought of her loving her husband, of him being my great friend, ofher thinking me his great friend, and all this spoilt my mood, making me listless, uncomfortable and bored. She would notice these changes in me.
'You're bored without your friend,' she usually said. 'I must get him back from the fields.'
'See, your friend's here,' she would say when Silin arrived. 'You can cheer up now.'
This situation continued for about eighteen months.
One Sunday in July Silin and I happened to have nothing to do, so we drove over to the large village of Klushino to buy some food for supper. The sun set while we were shopping and evening came on: an evening which I shall probably never forget as long as I live. After buying soap-like cheese and petrified salaii smelling of tar, we went to the inn in quest of beer. Our coachman drove off to the smithy to have our horses shod and we told him we would wait for him by the church. While we walked, spoke and laughed at our purchases, our steps were dogged, with an air of silent mystery befitting a detective, by one known in the county under the rather odd nic^ume of Forty Martyrs. This Forty Martyrs was none other than a Gabriel ('Gavry- ushka') Severov whom I had once briefly employed as footman before dismisang him for drunkenness. He had worked for Dmitry Silin too and had also been dismissed by him: again for the same shortcoming. He was a raging drunkard—his whole way of life, indeed, was as tipsy and debauched as the man himself. His father had been a priest and his mother a gentlewoman, so he had been born into the privileged classes. But carefully though I might scrutinize his haggard, respectful, always s\veaty face, his ginger beard now turning grey, his wretched, tattered little jacket and his red shirt worn outside his trousers—of what are commonly called privileges I found not the faintest trace. He called himself educated—said he had studied at a church school, but hadn't stayed the course since he was expelled for smoking. Then he had sung in the bishop's choir and spent a couple ofyears in a monastery from which he was also dismissed: not for smoking this time, but for 'my weaknes'. He had tramped all over two provinces, had put in certain applications to the provincial church authorities and various govern- ment offices, and had been had up in court four times. In the end he had become stranded in our county, working as footman, forester, kennel- man and church caretaker. He had married a widowed cook of loose character and had eventually been swallowed up in this menial swamp, growing so inured to its dirt and brawls that even he now referred to his genteel origin somewhat sceptically, as to a myth. At the time of which I write he was running around jobless, pretending to be a farrier and huntsman. His wife had vanished without trace.