"Akk, brother! Well! Play me something mournful."
Whereupon, raising his shoulders and spreading his hands, Korostelev strummed a few chords and sang in tenor, "Show 'l1e but one spot where Russia's peasants do not groan!" and Dymov sighed again, rested his head on his hands, and «eemed lost in thought.
Of late Olga Ivanovna had behaved recklessly. She awoke ~ach morning in bad spirits, tortured by the thought that Riabovsky no longer loved her, that—thanks to the Lord, all the same!—all was over. But as she drank her coffee she reasoned that Riabovsky had stolen her from her husband, and that now she belonged to neither. Then she remembered a friend's remark that Riabovsky was getting ready for the exhibition a striking picture, a mixture of landscape and genre, in the style of Polienov, and that thi!:. picture sent every one into raptures; this, she consoled herself, he had done under her influence. Thanks to her influence, indeed, he had on the whole changed for the better, and deprived of it, he would probably perish. She remembered that when last he visited her he came in a splashed cloth coat and a new tie and asked her languidly, "Am I good-looking?" And, in truth, elegant Riabovsky with his blue eyes and long curls was very good-looking—or, it may be, he merely seemed so and he had treated her with affection.
Having remembered and reasoned much, Olga Ivanovna dressed, and in deep agitation drove to Riabovsky's studio. He was in good humour, delighted with what was indeed a fine picture; he hopped, played the fool, and answered every serious question with a joke. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of the picture, and hated it, but for the sake of good manners, she stood before it five minutes, and, sighing as people sigh before holy things, said softly—
"Yes, you never painted like that before. Do you know, it almost frightens me."
And she began to implore him to love her, not to forsake her, to pity her—poor and unfortunate! She kissed his hand, cried, made him swear his love, and boasted that without her influence he would go off the track and perish utterly. Thus having spoilt his good humour, and humiliated herself, she would drive away to a dressmaker, or to some actress friend to ask for free tickets.
Once when she found Riabovsky cut she left a note swear- ing that if he did not visit her at once she would take poison. And he, frightened, came and stayed to dinner. Ignoring her husband's presence, he spoke to her impudently; and she answered in the same ttme. They felt chained to one another; they were despots and foes; and their anger hid from them their own rudeness, which even close-clipped Korostelev re- marked. After dinner Riabovsky said good-bye hastily and went.
"Where are you going?'' asked Olga Ivanovna. She stood in the hall, and looked at him with hatred.
Riabovsky frowned and blinked, and named a woman she knew, and it was plain that he enjoyed her jealousy, and wished to annoy her. Olga Ivanovna went to her bed- room and lay on her bed; from jealousy, anger, and a sense of humiliation and shame, she bit her pillow, and sobbed aloud. Dymov left Korostelev alone, came into the bedroom, and, confused and abstracted, said softly—
"Don't cry so loudly, mama! . . . What good is it? We must keep silence about this. . . . People mustn't see. . . . You know yourself that what has happened is beyond re- call."
Unable to appease the painful jealousy which made her temples throb, thinking, nevertheless, that what had hap- pened was not beyond recall, she washed and powdered her face, and flew off to the woman friend. Finding no Riabov- sky there she drove to another, then to a third. . . . At first she felt ashamed of these visits, but she soon reconciled her- self; and one evening even called on every woman she knew and sought Riabovsky; and all of them understood her. Of her husband she said to Riabovsky— "This man tortures me with his magnanimity." And this sentence so pleased her that, meeting artists who knew of her affair with Riabovsky, she repeated with an emphatic gesture—
"This man tortures me with his magnanimity." In general, her life remained unchanged. She resumed her Wednesday-evening parties. The actor declaimed, the painters sketched, the violoncellist played, the singers sang; and in- variably half an hour before midnight the dining-room door opened, and Dymov said with a smile— "Come, gentlemen, supper is ready."
As before, Olga Ivanovna sought celebrities, found tb'.:m, and, insatiable, sought for more. As before, she ret.urned home late. But Dymov, no longer sleeping as of old, sat in his study and worked. He went to bed at three, and rose at eight.
Once as she stood before the pier-glass dressing for the theatre, Dymov, in evening dress and a white tie, came into the bedroom. He smiled kindly, with his old smile, and looked his wife joyfully in the face. His face shone.
"I have just defended my dissertation," he said. He sat down and stroked his leg.
"Your dissertation?" said Olga Ivanovna.
"Yes," he laughed. He stretched forward so as to see in the mirror the face of his wife, who coittinued to stand with her back to him and dress her hair. "Yes," he repeated. "Do you know what? I expect to be offered a privat-docentship in general pathology. That is something."
It was plain from his radiant face that had Olga Ivanovna shared his joy and triumph he would have forgiven and for- gotten everything. But "privat-docentship" and "general pathology" had no meaning for her, and, what's more, she feared to be late for the theatre. She said nothing.
Dymov sat still for a few minutes, smiled guiltily, and left the room.
vii
This was an evil day.
Dymov's head ached badly; he ate no breakfast, and did not go to the hospital, but lay on the sofa in his study. At one o'clock Olga Ivanovna went to Riabovsky's, to show him her Nature morte, and ask why he had not come the day before. The Nature morte she herself did not take seriously; she had painted it only as an excuse to visit the artist.
She went to his apartment unannounced. As she took off her goloshes in the hall she heard hasty footsteps, and the rustle of a woman's dress; and as she hurried into the studio a brown skirt flashed for a moment before her and vanished behind a big picture, which together "ith its easel was hung with black calico. There was no doubt that a woman hid there. How often bad Olga Ivanovna herself hidden behind that picture! Riabovsky, in confusion, stretched out both hands as if surprised at her visit, and said with a constrained smile—
"Ah, I am glad to see you. What is the news?"
Olga Ivanovna's eyes filled with tears. She was ashamed and angered, and would have given millions to be spared :;peaking before the strange woman, the rival, the liar, who hid behind the picture and tittered, no doubt, maliciously.
"I have brought a study . . ." she said in a thin, fright- ened voice. Her lips trembled. "Nature morte."
"What? What? A study?"
The artist took the sketch, looked at it, and walked me- chanically into another room. Olga Ivanovna followed sub- missively.
"\"ature morte . . ." be stammered, seeking rhymes. "Kurort . . . sort . . . porte . . ."
From the studio came hasty footfalls and the rustle of a skirt. She bad gone. Olga Ivanovna felt impelled to scream and strike the artist on the head; but tears blinded her, she was crushed by her shame, and felt as if she were not Olga Ivanovna the artist, but a little beetle.
"I am tired . . ." said Riabovsky languidly. He looked at the study, and shook his bead as if to drive away sleep. "This is charming, of course, but . . . it is study to-day, and study to-morrow, and study last year, and study it will b.! again in a month . . . . How is it you don't get tired? If I were you, I should give up painting, and take up seriously music, or something else. . . . You are not an artist but a musician. You cannot imagine how tired I am. Let me order some tea. Eh?"