XV
Late that evening I was sitting at the Count’s. As usual, we were drinking. The Count was completely drunk, myself only slightly.
‘This morning Olga let me touch her waist “accidentally”,’ he muttered. ‘That means we can take things a bit further tomorrow.’
‘Well, what about Nadya? How’s things with her?’
‘I’m making progress! With her it’s only just the start! So far it’s only a period of eye contact. I love reading her mournful black eyes, old chap. Something that words cannot convey is written in them, something only the soul can understand… Another drink?’
‘So, she must like you if she has the patience to talk to you for hours on end. Her Papa likes you too.’
‘Her Papa? You mean that blockhead! Ha ha! That moron suspects I have honourable intentions!’
The Count had a coughing fit and took a drink.
‘He thinks I’m going to marry her! Apart from the fact that I can’t get married, it would be more honourable on my part – looking at things from an honourable viewpoint – to seduce the girl rather than marry her… Stuck for life with a drunken middle-aged sot who’s always coughing?! Brrr! Any wife would wither away or clear out the next day. What’s that noise?’
The Count and I leapt up. Several doors slammed almost simultaneously and Olga ran into the room. She was as white as a sheet and trembling like a violently plucked violin string. Her hair was dishevelled, the pupils of her eyes dilated. She was gasping for breath and kept crumpling the front of her nightdress with her fingers.
‘Olga, what’s wrong, dear?’ I asked, grasping her arm and turning pale.
The Count ought to have been startled by my accidental use of ‘dear’, but he didn’t hear. Transformed into one huge question mark, his mouth wide open and his eyes goggling, he stared at Olga as if she were a ghost.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘He keeps beating me,’ Olga said and slumped sobbing into an armchair. ‘He keeps beating me!’
‘Who’s he?’
‘My husband, of course! I just cannot live with him. I’ve left him!’
‘That’s outrageous!’ the Count exclaimed, banging his fist on the table. ‘What right does he have? This is sheer tyranny… it’s… it’s the devil only knows what! Beating his wife! Beating her! Why does he do that to you?’
‘For no reason at all,’ Olga replied, wiping away the tears. ‘I simply took my handkerchief from my pocket and out fell the letter you sent me yesterday. He leapt up, read it and started hitting me. He grabbed my hand and crushed it – just look, there’s still red blotches on it – and he demanded an explanation. Instead of giving him an explanation I rushed over here… If only you would take my side! He has no right to treat his wife so roughly. I’m not a cook, I’m a gentlewoman!’
The Count paced from corner to corner and with his drunken, muddled tongue started jabbering some nonsense which, when translated into sober language, must have meant: ‘On the position of women in Russia.’
‘This is sheer barbarity! This is New Zealand! Does that peasant also think that his wife will have her throat cut at his funeral? As you know, when savages go to the next world they take their wives with them!’
I just couldn’t come to my senses. How was I to interpret Olga’s sudden visit in her nightdress? What should I think, what should I decide to do? If she had been beaten, if her dignity had been insulted, then why hadn’t she run to her father or the housekeeper? Finally, why not to me, who despite everything, was still close to her? And had she really been insulted? My heart spoke to me of that simple-minded Urbenin’s innocence: sensing the truth, it was afflicted with the same pain that the stunned husband must have been feeling now. Without asking questions and without knowing where to begin, I started calming Olga down and offered her some wine.
‘What a mistake I made! What an awful mistake!’ she sighed through her tears, raising the wine glass to her lips. ‘And the look on his face when he was courting me – it was as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I thought that this was no man, but an angel!’
‘Did you expect him to be pleased about that letter which fell from your pocket?’ I asked. ‘Did you want him to have a good laugh about it?’
‘Let’s not talk about it,’ the Count interrupted. ‘Whatever happened, he behaved like a cad! That’s no way to treat a woman! I shall challenge him to a duel. I’ll show him! Believe me, Olga Nikolayevna, he won’t get away with it!’
The Count puffed himself out like a young turkey, although no one had authorized him to come between husband and wife. I said nothing and didn’t contradict him, because I knew that his taking revenge on behalf of someone else’s wife would be limited to a drunken torrent of words within those four walls and that the duel would be completely forgotten by the morning. But why did Olga remain silent? I was reluctant to think that she wouldn’t object to any services that the Count might offer her, I didn’t want to believe that this silly, beautiful cat had so little pride that she would willingly agree for the drunken Count to be judge of man and wife…
‘I’ll rub his nose in the mud!’ screeched this newly fledged knight in shining armour. ‘And to finish with – a slap in the face! Yes, tomorrow!’
And she didn’t succeed in silencing that scoundrel who in a drunken fit had insulted a man guilty only of making a mistake and being deceived himself. Urbenin had violently squeezed her hand – this was the reason for that scandalous flight to the Count’s house. But now, right in front of her, that drunken reprobate was trampling a good name and emptying filthy slops over a man who must now be eating his heart out with anguish and uncertainty, who must have now come to realize that he had been deceived. But she didn’t turn a hair!
While the Count was venting his anger and Olga was wiping away the tears, a manservant served some roast partridge. The Count offered his lady guest half a partridge. She refused with a shake of the head but then, like an automaton, took her knife and fork and started eating. The partridge was followed by a large glass of wine, and soon there were no more signs of tears – except for a few pink spots near the eyes and some isolated, deep sighs.
Soon we could hear laughter… Olga was laughing like a comforted child that had forgotten the injury done to it. The Count laughed too as he looked at her.
‘Do you know – I’ve had an idea!’ he began, moving closer to her. ‘I’m thinking of organizing some amateur dramatics at my place. We’ll put on a play with excellent parts for women. Eh? What do you think?’
They started discussing amateur dramatics. How violently this idle chatter clashed with the horror that had been written all over Olga’s face when she had rushed weeping into the room only an hour before, her hair hanging loose. How cheap that horror, those tears!
Meanwhile, time passed. The clock struck twelve. At this respectable hour women usually go to bed. Olga should have already left, but half past struck, one o’clock and still she was sitting there chatting with the Count.
‘Time for bed,’ I said, looking at my watch. ‘I’m off! May I see you home, Olga Nikolayevna?’
Olga glanced at me and then at the Count.
‘Where can I go?’ she whispered. ‘I can’t go back to him.’
‘No, of course you can’t go back to him,’ the Count said. ‘Who’ll guarantee that he won’t start beating you again? No, no!’
I walked up and down the room. All became silent. I paced from corner to corner, while my friend and my mistress followed my footsteps with their eyes. I felt that I understood both that silence and those looks – there was something impatient in them, something expectant. I put my hat down and sat on the couch.