When I discussed earlier with Pavel Ivanych the reasons that made me suddenly stop visiting the Kalinins, I was being dishonest and quite inaccurate. I concealed the real reason – I concealed it because I was ashamed of its triviality. This reason, as flimsy as gossamer, was as follows. On my last visit, after I had handed Zorka to the coachman, the following phrase reached my ears as I was entering the Kalinins’ house:
‘Nadya, where are you? Your fiancé’s arrived!’
These words were spoken by her father, the JP, who had probably not expected me to hear him. But hear him I did and my vanity was aroused.
‘Me a fiancé?’ I asked myself. ‘Who allowed you to call me a fiancé? And on what basis?’
And something seemed to snap deep inside me… My pride welled up and I forgot all that I had remembered when riding to the Kalinins… I forgot that I had captivated the girl and that I in turn had been so taken with her that I was unable to spend a single evening without her company. I forgot her lovely eyes that never left my memory day and night, her kind smile, her melodious voice. I forgot those quiet summer evenings which would never be repeated, either for me or for her… Everything crumbled under the pressure of devilish arrogance, aroused by that stupid phrase of her simpleton father. Infuriated, I had swept out of the house, mounted Zorka and galloped off, vowing to be revenged on Kalinin, who had dared enlist me as fiancé for his daughter without my permission.
‘Besides, Voznesensky’s in love with her,’ I thought, trying to justify my sudden departure as I rode home. ‘He started buzzing around her before me and he was already considered her fiancé when I first met her. I won’t cramp his style!’
From that time onwards I never set foot in Kalinin’s house again, although there were moments when I suffered from longings for Nadya and my heart was yearning, simply yearning, for a renewal of the past. But the whole district knew about the break that had occurred, knew that I had ‘cut and run’ from marriage. But my vanity could not make any concessions!
Who can tell? If Kalinin hadn’t used that phrase and if I hadn’t been so foolishly vain and touchy, perhaps there would have been no need for me to look back, or for her to look at me with such eyes. But better such eyes, better that feeling of injury and reproach than what I saw in them several months after the meeting in the church at Tenevo. The sadness that was shining now in the depths of those black eyes was only the beginning of that terrible disaster which wiped the girl off the face of the earth, like a sudden, onrushing train. It was like comparing little flowers to the berries that were already ripening in order to pour awful venom into her frail body and pining heart.
After leaving Tenevo, I took the same road I had walked along that morning. From the sun I could tell that it was already noon. As they had done earlier that morning, peasant carts and landowners’ carriages seduced my ears with their creaking and the metallic jingle of their bells. Once again gardener Franz drove past with his sour eyes and touched his cap. His revolting face jarred on me, but this time the disagreeable impression from meeting him was erased at one stroke by the appearance of Olenka, the forester’s daughter, who had caught up with me in her cumbersome wagonette.
‘Give me a lift!’ I shouted to her.
She nodded gaily at me and stopped the vehicle. I sat beside her and the wagonette rumbled noisily along the road that ran like a bright strip across a two-mile cutting in the Tenevo forest. For two minutes we silently surveyed each other.
‘How pretty she really is!’ I thought, glancing at her slender neck and plump little chin. ‘If I were asked to choose between Nadenka and her I’d settle for this one. She’s more natural, fresher, her nature is more expansive and happy-go-lucky. If she fell into the right hands one could do a lot with her! As for the other one, she’s so gloomy, so dreamy, so cerebral!’
Two pieces of linen and several parcels were lying at Olenka’s feet.
‘So many purchases!’ I said. ‘Why do you need so much linen?’
‘I don’t really need all of it right now,’ Olenka replied. ‘I just bought it, amongst other things. You just can’t imagine the running around I’ve had to do! Today I spent a whole hour walking all over the fair and tomorrow I have to go shopping in town. And then there’s the sewing on top of it. Listen – do you know any women who could come and do some sewing for me?’
‘No, I don’t. But why did you have to go and buy so much? Why all this sewing? For heaven’s sake, your family’s not so big, is it? You can count them on one hand!’
‘How strange you men are! You understand nothing, you’d be angry enough if your wife came to you dressed like a slut right after getting married. I know Pyotr Yegorych isn’t hard up, but still, it would be a bit embarrassing if I didn’t look like a decent housewife right from the start.’
‘What’s Pyotr Yegorych got to do with it?’
‘Hm… you’re laughing – as if you didn’t know!’ Olenka said, blushing slightly.
‘You, young lady, are talking in riddles.’
‘Surely you must have heard? I’m going to marry Pyotr Yegorych!’
‘Marry?’ I asked in a startled voice, opening my eyes wide. ‘Which Pyotr Yegorych?’
‘For heaven’s sake! Why… Urbenin!’
I glanced at her blushing, smiling face.
‘You… getting married… to Urbenin? I see you like to have your little joke!’
‘It’s not a joke at all… I really don’t see what’s so surprising or peculiar about it,’ Olenka said, pouting.
A minute passed in silence. I looked at that beautiful girl, at her young, almost childish face and I was amazed – how could she make such awful jokes? At once I pictured that elderly, fat, red-faced Urbenin standing next to her with his protruding ears and rough hands, whose touch could only scratch a young female body that had just begun to live. Surely the thought of such a sight must scare this pretty, sylvan fairy, who could look at the sky with romantic eyes when lightning flashed across it and thunder angrily rumbled. I was really frightened!
‘True, he’s on the elderly side,’ Olenka sighed, ‘but then he loves me. His love is the reliable sort.’
‘It’s not a question of reliability, but of happiness.’
‘I’ll be happy with him. He’s not short of money, thank God. He’s not some sort of beggar, but a gentleman. Of course, I’m not in love with him, but are only those who marry for love happy? I know all about these love matches!’
‘My child!’ I exclaimed, looking at her bright eyes in horror. ‘When did you manage to stuff your poor little head with this terrible worldly wisdom? Granted you’re only telling me jokes, but where did you learn to joke so crudely, like an old man! Where? When?’
Olenka looked at me in amazement and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘You don’t like it when a young girl marries an old man. True?’
Olenka suddenly blushed, her chin twitched nervously and without waiting for a reply she hastened to add:
‘You don’t like it? Then please go into the forest yourself, into that boredom, where there’s nothing but merlins and a mad father, sitting and twiddling your thumbs until a young fiancé turns up! You liked it there that evening, but you should take a look in winter – then you’re glad that death is round the corner.’
‘Oh, all this is so silly, Olenka, so immature, so stupid! If you’re not joking then… I really don’t know what to say, really I don’t! You’d better say nothing and not pollute the air with your little tongue! In your position I would have hanged myself on seven aspens, but you calmly go and buy linen… and you’re smiling! A-ah!’
‘At least he’ll get treatment for my father with the money he’s got,’ she whispered.