‘I’ve become so used to you – it’s as if I were your gun-dog!’ Ognyov continued. ‘I’ve been coming here nearly every day and stayed overnight a dozen times. I’ve drunk so much of your liqueurs it doesn’t bear thinking about! But what I have to thank you for most of all, Gavriil Petrovich, is for your help and cooperation. Without you I would have been busy with my statistics here until October. And that’s just what I’m going to put in my preface: “It is my duty to express my gratitude to Kuznetsov, President of N— District Council for his kind assistance.” Statistics has a brill-i-ant future!2 My profound respects to Vera Gavrilovna and please tell the doctors, the two magistrates and your secretary that I shall never forget their help. And now, old friend, let’s embrace and kiss for the last time!’
Limp with emotion, Ognyov kissed the old man again and started going down the steps. On the bottom step he turned round.
‘Shall we ever meet again?’
‘God knows!’ the old man replied. ‘Probably not!’
‘Yes, that’s true. Nothing will induce you to go to St Petersburg and it’s hardly likely I’ll ever come back to this district. Well – goodbye!’
‘Why don’t you leave your books here?’ Kuznetsov shouted after him. ‘Why drag all that weight around? I could send them over tomorrow with one of the servants.’
But Ognyov was listening no longer and he quickly walked away from the house. Warmed by the liqueurs, at heart he felt glowing, cheerful – and sad. On the way he thought how often in life one chances to meet splendid people and what a pity it was that all that is left of these encounters is memories. It is the same when one glimpses some cranes on the horizon and a gentle gust of wind carries their mournfully exultant cries towards you. But a moment later, however eagerly you peer into the blue distance, you cannot see one speck or hear one sound – so people’s faces and voices flash through our lives and are swallowed up by the past, leaving nothing but worthless scraps of memories. Having lived since early spring in N— district and visited the amiable Kuznetsovs almost every day, Ivan Ognyov had come to look upon the old man, his daughter, the servants as his own family; he had become familiar with every little detail of that house, the cosy verandah, the winding garden paths, the silhouettes of the trees over the kitchen and the bath-house. But the moment he passed through the garden gate all this would become but a memory, losing for him its meaning as part of reality for ever, and after one or two years all these cherished images would grow dim in his mind and fade together with the fruits and fancies of his imagination.
‘Nothing in life is as precious as people!’ thought Ognyov, deeply moved as he strode along the path towards the gate. ‘Nothing!’
It was still and warm in the garden. A scent of still-blossoming mignonette, tobacco plant and heliotrope wafted from the flowerbeds. The spaces between the shrubs and tree trunks were filled with delicate, filmy mist saturated with moonlight; what Ognyov remembered for long afterwards were the spectral wisps of mist which were slowly but perceptibly following each other across the paths. The moon stood high above the garden and beneath it transparent patches of mist were hurrying eastwards. The whole world seemed to consist solely of black silhouettes and wandering white shadows. Seeing the mist on a moonlit August night almost for the first time in his life, Ognyov thought that it was not nature that he was witnessing but a stage set, where some clumsy pyrotechnists, intending to illumine the garden with Bengal lights, had concealed themselves in the shrubs and were discharging clouds of white smoke together with their flares.
As Ognyov approached the garden gate a dark shadow moved away from the low fence to meet him.
‘Vera Gavrilovna!’ he joyfully exclaimed. ‘It’s you! I’ve been looking for you everywhere… I wanted to say goodbye… Well, goodbye then, I’m leaving.’
‘So early? It’s only eleven o’clock.’
‘Well, it’s time I went. I’ve a three-mile walk and I haven’t even packed yet. I have to be up early tomorrow.’
Before Ognyov stood Kuznetsov’s daughter Vera, a girl of twenty-one, sad-faced as usual, carelessly dressed and most attractive. Young women who daydream a great deal and who spend days lying around lazily reading whatever comes to hand, who are bored and melancholy, generally tend to dress carelessly. To those of them whom nature has endowed with taste and a feeling for beauty this slight carelessness lends its own special charm. At least, when Ognyov later recalled pretty Verochka, he couldn’t picture her without that loose-fitting blouse that hung creased in deep folds at the waist without touching her body, or that curl which had come loose from her piled-up hair onto her brow, or that red knitted shawl with the shaggy bobbles at the edges that was sadly draped over Verochka’s shoulders in the evenings like a flag in calm weather, lying crumpled up during the day in the hall near the men’s caps or on the chest in the dining-room and unceremoniously slept on by the old cat. That shawl and those creases in her blouse conveyed a feeling of idle ease, domesticity and placidity. Perhaps it was because he liked Vera that he saw in every button and frill something warm, cosy and innocent, something fine and poetic – just what was lacking in cold, insincere women with no feeling for beauty.
Verochka had a good figure, a regular profile and pretty, curly hair. Ognyov, who hadn’t seen many women in his lifetime, thought she was beautiful.
‘Well, I’m leaving,’ he said, bidding her farewell at the gate. ‘Think kindly of me! Thanks for everything!’
In that same singing, theology student’s voice in which he had talked to the old man, blinking and twitching his shoulders again, he started to thank Verochka for her kindness, hospitality and cordiality.
‘I mentioned you in every letter to my mother,’ he said. ‘If everyone were like you and your papa life would be a bed of roses. You’re such wonderful people. So unpretentious, so friendly and sincere!’
‘Where are you going now?’ Verochka asked.
‘First to my mother’s at Oryol for a couple of weeks, then back to my work in St Petersburg.’
‘And after that?’
‘After that? I’ll be working all winter and come spring it’s back to somewhere in the provinces to collect material. Well, be happy, live a hundred years… Think kindly of me. We shan’t meet again.’
Ognyov stooped and kissed Verochka’s hand. And then, in mute emotion, he straightened his cape and rearranged his bundle of books.
‘The mist’s really come down tonight!’ he said after a short pause.
‘Yes. You haven’t left anything at our place have you?’
‘No, I don’t think so…’
Ognyov stood for several seconds in silence, then he turned awkwardly towards the gate and walked out of the garden.
‘Just a moment,’ Verochka said, following him. ‘I’ll come with you as far as the wood.’
They set off along the path. Now there were no trees to obscure the view and one could see the sky and into the far distance. The whole of nature seemed to be hiding behind a gauzy, transparent haze, through which she gaily peered in all her beauty. Where the mist was thicker and whiter it lay unevenly near the ricks and bushes, or floated wispily across the path, clinging close to the earth as if trying not to spoil the view. Through the haze the whole path was visible as far as the wood, with dark ditches along its sides where thin bushes grew, trapping vagrant patches of mist. About a quarter of a mile from the gate they could see the dark strip of the Kuznetsovs’ wood.
‘Why has she come with me?’ thought Ognyov. ‘Now I’ll have to see her back.’ But after glancing at Verochka’s profile he smiled warmly and said, ‘I don’t really feel like leaving in such wonderful weather. A truly romantic night – with the moon, silence – all the trimmings! Do you know what, Verochka? I’m twenty-nine, but I’ve never had a single love affair. Not one romantic episode in my whole life, so I know of lovers’ trysts, paths of sighs and kisses only at second-hand. It’s not normal! When you’re cooped up in your room in town you don’t realize what you’re missing, but out here in the fresh country air you’re very conscious of it. Somehow it’s rather annoying.’