‘Very well, I’ll write to him,’ muttered the Count.
‘My congratulations, Pyotr Yegorych,’ I said, standing up and offering the estate manager my hand.
‘On what?’
‘You’re getting married, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, fancy that – he’s getting married,’ said the Count, winking at the blushing Urbenin. ‘What do you think of him! Ha ha! He kept it all hush-hush and then suddenly – right out of the blue! And do you know who he’s marrying? Both of us guessed it that evening, didn’t we? We, Pyotr Yegorych, had decided even then that something highly improper was brewing in your rascally heart! And when Sergey Petrovich looked at you and Olenka he even said that nice fellow’s smitten! Ha ha! Sit down and have some dinner with us, Pyotr Yegorych!’
Urbenin gingerly and respectfully took his seat and motioned to Ilya with his eyes to bring him some soup.
I poured him a glass of vodka.
‘I don’t drink,’ he said.
‘Rubbish! You drink more than we do!’
‘I used to drink, sir, but not any more,’ the manager smiled. ‘I don’t need to drink now, I’ve no reason to. Thank God everything’s turned out so well, everything’s settled to my heart’s desire – even better than I could ever have hoped.’
‘Well, you could at least drink this to celebrate,’ I said, pouring him some sherry.
‘Well, perhaps I will. I used to drink a great deal, in fact. Now I can admit it in front of His Excellency. I used to drink from dawn to dusk. The moment I got up my first thought was drink. Well, naturally, I’d go straight to the cabinet. But now, thank God, I’ve no reason to drown my sorrows in vodka!’
Urbenin downed the sherry. I poured him another. He drank that too and imperceptibly grew tipsy.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ he said, suddenly laughing happily, like a child. ‘As I look at this ring I recall her words when she gave her consent – and I still can’t believe it! It’s even quite funny – how could someone of my age and with my looks ever have dreamed that this worthy girl wouldn’t turn her nose up at becoming my… the mother of my little orphans? Really, she’s a beauty, as you saw for yourselves, an angel in the flesh! It’s a sheer miracle!… Is that some more sherry you’ve poured me? Well, why not, for the very last time. I used to drink to drown my sorrows, now I’m drinking to celebrate. And how I suffered, gentlemen, what I went through! I first saw her a year ago and – would you believe it? – since then I didn’t have one good night’s sleep, not one day passed without my drowning that silly weakness of mine in vodka, without my blaming myself for my stupidity. I would look at her through the window and admire her – and I’d tear my hair out. I could have hanged myself at the time… But thank God I took a chance. I proposed and – you know – you could have knocked me down with a feather! Ha ha! I listened and I just couldn’t believe my ears. She said: “I consent”, but I thought she said: “Go to hell, you old fogey!” But afterwards, when she kissed me, I was certain…’
As he recalled the first time he kissed poetic Olenka the fifty-year-old Urbenin closed his eyes and blushed like a schoolboy. I found all this disgusting.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, looking at us with happy, friendly eyes. ‘Why don’t you get married? Why are you wasting your lives, throwing them out of the window? Why are you avoiding the greatest blessing for any mortal on this earth? Surely the pleasure you derive from debauchery can’t provide a fraction of what a quiet family life might offer! You’re a young man, Your Excellency. And you too, Sergey Petrovich. I’m happy now and – as God is my witness – I’m so very fond of you both! Please forgive this stupid advice of mine, but I only want both of you to be happy. Why don’t you get married? Family life is a blessing… it’s every man’s duty!’
The blissful, melting look of that elderly man who was about to marry a young girl and who was now advising us to exchange our dissipated existence for a quiet family life became too much to bear.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘family life is a duty. I agree with you. So, you’re fulfilling this duty for the second time?’
‘Yes, for the second time. In general, I like family life. To be a bachelor or widower is only half a life for me. Whatever you may say, gentlemen, matrimony is a wonderful thing!’
‘Well, of course… even when the husband is almost three times his wife’s age?’
Urbenin flushed. The hand bearing the spoonful of soup to his lips trembled and the soup spilled back into the plate.
‘I understand what you wish to say, Sergey Petrovich,’ he mumbled. ‘Thank you for being so frank. And in fact I do ask myself: isn’t this all rather low? Yes, I’m going through hell! But why should I question myself, make problems for myself when I feel constantly happy, when I can forget my old age and ugliness… everything! Homo sum,36 Sergey Petrovich! And when the question of age difference enters my old noddle for one fleeting moment, I’m not lost for a reply and I calm myself as best I can. I feel that I’ve made Olenka happy, that I’ve given her a father and my children a mother. However, it’s all rather like in a novel… my head’s going round! You shouldn’t have made me drink all that sherry!’
Urbenin got up, wiped his face with his napkin and sat down again. A minute later he downed another sherry at one gulp, gave me a long, pleading look as if asking for protection – and then his shoulders suddenly began to shake and he began sobbing like a child.
‘It’s nothing, sir, nothing,’ he muttered, trying to overcome his tears. ‘Now don’t you worry. After what you said my heart was filled with some vague forebodings. But it’s nothing, sir.’
Urbenin’s forebodings were realized so soon that I hardly have time to change my pen and start a new page. With the next chapter my tranquil muse will exchange the serene expression on her face for one of anger and grief. The Preface is finished and the drama begins. The criminal will of man now comes into its own.
X
I remember a fine Sunday morning. Through the windows of the Count’s church the diaphanous blue sky was visible and a dull shaft of light, where clouds of incense gaily played, lay across the church, from its painted cupola right down to the floor. Through the windows and doors came the songs of swallows and starlings. One sparrow, clearly a very bold fellow, flew in through the doorway; after circling and chirping over our heads and dipping several times into the beam of light, it flew out of the window. There was singing in the church too… The choir sang harmoniously, with feeling, and with that same enthusiasm of which our Ukrainian singers are capable when they feel that they are the heroes of the moment and that all eyes are constantly on them. Most of the tunes were cheerful and lively, like those tiny patches of sunlight that played on the walls and the clothes of the congregation. Despite the cheerful wedding melodies, my ear seemed to detect a note of melancholy in that unpolished, yet soft tenor voice, as if the singer felt sorry that pretty, romantic Olenka was standing beside that ponderous, bear-like has-been, Urbenin. And it was not only the tenor who felt sorry at the spectacle of that ill-matched couple. Even an idiot could have read pity on those numerous faces that filled my field of vision, however hard they tried to appear cheerful and unconcerned.
Attired in my new dress suit, I stood behind Olenka and held the garland over her head. I was pale and not feeling too well… yesterday’s carousal and outing on the lake had given me a splitting headache and I constantly had to check that my hand wasn’t trembling as it held the garland. Deep down I felt miserable and apprehensive, as if I were in a forest on a rainy, autumn night. I felt annoyed, repelled, regretful, I felt a nagging anxiety, as if I were suffering pangs of conscience. There in the depths, at the very bottom of my heart, dwelt a little demon that stubbornly, persistently whispered to me that if Olenka’s marriage to that clumsy Urbenin was a sin, then I was guilty of it. Where could such thoughts have come from? Couldn’t I have saved that silly young girl from the unbelievable risk she had taken, from her undoubted mistake?