'It's bed-time, though,' she said. 'I wish you a restful night.'
'I don't want a restful night,' I said, laughing and following her into the drawing-room. 'I'll see this night in hell if it proves restful!'
Pressing her arm, escorting her to the door, I saw from her face that she understood me and was pleased that I had understood her.
I went to my room. Ncar the books on the table lay Dmitry's cap, reminding me of our great friendship. I took my stick and went into the garden. Mist was rising and tall, narrow phantoms were trailing near trees and bushes, embracing them: the- same phantoms seen not long ago on the river. What a pity I couldn't talk to them.
In air unusually clear each leaf, each dew-drop, was sharply outlined and all these things seemed to smile at me in the drowsy silence. As I passed the green benches I recalled words from some pla y of Shake- speare's: 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!'
There was a little hillock in the garden. I climbed it, I sat down and a swoon of enchantment came over me. I knew for certain that I was soon going to hold her in my arms, that I would press against that voluptuous body, kiss those golden eyebrows. Yet I wanted not to believe that this was so, I wanted to tantalize myself and I was sorry that she had tormented me so little by yielding so quickly.
Then, suddenly, heavy footsteps were heard. A man of medium height appeared on the path and I at once recognized Forty Martyrs. He sat on the bench, heaved a deep sigh, crossed himself three times and lay down. A minute later he stood up and lay on his other side. The gnats and the dampness of the night prevented him from sleeping.
'What a life!' he said. 'What a wretched, miserable existence.'
Looking at his gaunt, stooped body and hearing his heavy, hoarse sighs, I remembered another wretched, miserable existence as confessed to me that day and I felt aghast—terrified of my own ecstatic mood. I climbed do^wn the knoll and went to the house.
'Silin finds life terrifying,' I thought. 'So don't stand on ceremony with it, break it, snatch everything you can from it before it crushes you.'
Mary was standing on the terrace. I put my arms round her without a word and began greedily kissing her eyebrows, her temples, her ncck. . . .
In my room she told me that she had loved me for a long time, for more than a year. She swore she loved me, she wept, she begged me to take her away. I kept leading her over to the window to see her face in the moonlight. She seemed like a lovely dream and I quickly gripped her tight in my arms to convince myself that she was really there. Not for a long time had I known such raptures. And yet I felt a certain dis- quiet. In some remote cranny of my heart I was ill at ease. There was something as incongruous and oppressive about her love for me as in Dmitry's friendship. It was a grand passion, this, all very serious with tears and vows thrown in, whereas I didn't want it to be serious, I wanted no tears, no vows, no talk about the future—this moonlit night should just flash through our lives like a bright meteor and let that be the end of it.
She left me at exactly three o'clock and I was standing in the door- way watching her go when Dmitry Silin suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor. Seeing him, she shuddered and made way for him to pass, her whole figure expressing revulsion. He gave a rather strange smile, coughed and came into my room.
'I left my cap here last night,^he said, not looking at me.
He found the cap, put it on his head with both hands, and then looked at my embarrassed face and slippers.
'I must be doomed never to understand anything,' he said in a rather strange, husky voice quite unlike his own. 'If you can make sense of anything I can only congratulate you. I see nothing.'
He went out, coughing. Then I saw him through the window harnessing his horses near the stable. His hands trembled, he was hurry- ing and he kept looking back at the house. He probably felt scared. Then he climbed into his carriage and struck the horses. There was a strange, hunted expression on his face.
A little later I set off too. The sun was already rising, and yesterday's mist clung timidly to bushes and hillocks. Forty Martyrs sat on my carriage box. He' had already got himself a drink somewhere and was talking drunken gibberish.
'I'm a free man,' he shouted to the horses. 'Hey there, my darlings! I was born a gentleman, just in case you're interested.'
Dmitry Silin's tcrror . . .I had been unable to get it out of my mind and it infected me too. Thinking of what had happened, I CouJd make nothing ofit. I looked at the rooks and their flight puzzled me, terrified me.
'Why did I do it?' I wondered, baffled and frantic. 'Why did it have to happen just like that? Why not in some differcnt way? Why did she havc to fall in love with me so seriously? Why must he come into the room to fetch his cap? What use was it all? And to whom? And why should his cap be involved ?'
I lcft for St. Petersburg that day and I have never set eyes on Dmitry Silin or his wife again. Thcy arc said to bc still living together.
THE ORDER OF ST. ANNE
I
No food was served after the wedding, not even light refreshments. Bridc and groom just drank their glass of champagne, changed and drove to the station. There was no gay wedding breakfast, no party, no band and no dancing—they were going to stay at a monastery instead, a hundred and fifty miles away.
A good idea too, many people thought. Modeste Alekseyevich was pretty high up in the service now and not so young as all that either, so a hearty wedding reception might wcU have seemed not quite the thing—or so people said. Who feels like music, anyway, when a civil servant of fifty-two marries a girl barely turned eighteen? Besides, being a man of principle, Modeste Alekseyevich was said to have arranged this monastery trip on purpose, to let his bride know that even as a married man he still put religion and morality first.
A crowd went to see them off at the station, colleagues and relatives who stood glass in hand waiting to cheer when the train pulled out. Peter Leontyevich, thc bride's father, wore a top hat and the tail-coat bclonging to his schoolmaster's regulation dress. Alreadv drunk and white as a sheet, he kept reaching up to the train wmdow, holding his glass and pleading with his daughter.
'Anne, dear. A word in your ear, Anne.'
Anne leant out ofthe window towards him and he whispered to her, breathing alcohol aU over her, blowing in her ear—not one word could she miderstand—and making the sign of the cross over her face, breast and hands. His breathing was unsteady and tears shone in his eyes. Anne's schoolboy brothers Peter and Andrew were tugging at his coat.
'Oh reaUy, Father,' thcy whispered, somewhat put out. 'Do stop it.'
When the train startcd, Anne saw her father run a few steps after the coach, staggering aid spilling his win^ He had such a pathetic, good-natured, hang-dog air.
He gave a long cheer.
Now bride and bridegroom were alone. Modeste looked round the compartment, put their things on thc racks and sat down, beaming, oppositc his young wife. He was a civil scrvant of average height, rather round and plump and extremely sleek. He had long whiskers, but no moustache, and his round, clean-shaven, sharply defined chin looked like the heel of a foot. That missing moustache—the freshly shaved bare patch that graduaUy merged into fat cheeks quivering like jellies—was the most t)rpical thing about his face. He bore himself with dignity, his movements slow and his manner mild.
'At this juncture I cannot but recall a certain incident,' he said with a smile. 'Five years ago Kosorotov received the Order of St. Anne, second class, and caUed on the Governor ofthe Provir.:.:e to thank him. "So you have three Annes now," declared His Excellency. "One in your buttonhole and two round your neck." I must explain that Kosorotov's wife had just come back, a bad-tempered, giddy creature called Anne. When I receive the Order of St. Anne, second class, His Excellency I trust, have no cause to pass the same remark.'