‘Why are you like this?’
‘I don’t know. Probably because I’ve never had the time, but perhaps it’s simply because I’ve never happened to meet the kind of women who… In fact, I don’t have many friends and I never go out.’
For about three hundred paces the young pair walked in silence. Ognyov kept glancing at Verochka’s bare head and her shawl and one after the other the memories of those spring and summer days came flooding back. That was when, far from his dreary Petersburg room, taking such delight in the kind attentions of fine people, in nature and in the work he loved that he failed to notice how dawn passed into sunset glow and how, presaging summer’s end, first the nightingale, then the quail and soon afterwards the corncrake ceased their song… Time had flown past unnoticed and that meant life had been so good, so easy. He began to recall aloud how reluctantly he, a young man of modest means, unaccustomed to society and travel, had come at the end of April to N— district, how he had been expecting to find boredom, solitude and an indifference to statistics3 which he considered now queen of the sciences. Arriving one April morning at the little provincial town of N— he had put up at the inn kept by the Old Believer4 Ryabukhin, where for twenty copecks a day they had provided a bright clean room, with the restriction that he should smoke out of doors. After a short rest and after discovering who was president of the rural council, he at once set off on foot to see Gavriil Petrovich Kuznetsov. The walk took him through two miles of lush meadows and young woodland. Beneath the clouds, filling the air with their silvery notes, skylarks hovered, whilst rooks circled over cornfields that were turning green, sedately and decorously flapping their wings.
‘Heavens!’ Ognyov had thought in surprise. ‘Do they always breathe air like this here or does it smell like this just for today, in honour of my arrival?’
Expecting a cold, formal reception, he had entered the Kuznetsovs’ house timidly, looking around distrustfully and shyly tugging his beard. At first the old man had frowned and failed to understand how the rural council could be of use to that young man with his statistics, but when Ognyov explained at length what statistical material was and where it was collected, Kuznetsov brightened up, smiled and began to examine his notebooks with childish curiosity. That same evening Ognyov was already dining with the Kuznetsovs, the potent liqueurs rapidly went to his head, and as he glanced at those placid faces and the lazy movements of his new friends, his body was filled with that delicious, drowsy indolence which makes one want to sleep, stretch oneself out and smile. And his new friends looked at him benignly, inquiring whether his father and mother were still alive, how much he earned a month and how often he went to the theatre.
Ognyov recalled his journeys through the neighbouring districts, the picnics, the fishing parties and the group excursion to the convent to see Mother Superior Martha, who gave each of the visitors a bead purse. He recalled those heated, endless, typically Russian arguments when the disputants, spluttering and banging their fists on the table, misunderstand and interrupt each other, contradict themselves with every sentence without even noticing, constantly change the subject and after arguing for two or three hours burst into loud laughter and exclaim: ‘God alone knows what we’ve been arguing about! We began on a cheerful note and finished on a sad one!’
‘Do you remember when you and I and the doctor rode over to Shestovo?’ Ognyov asked Verochka as they approached the wood. ‘That was when I met the holy fool.5 I gave him five copecks and he crossed himself three times and flung it into the rye. Heavens, I’ll be taking so many impressions away with me that if I could gather them into a solid mass they’d make a sizeable gold ingot! I don’t understand why clever, sensitive people should herd together in St Petersburg and Moscow and not come out here. Is there really more breathing space on Nevsky Avenue and in those huge damp houses than here? Honestly, that existence in furnished rooms, packed from top to bottom with artists, academics and journalists, has always struck me as a complete sham!’
Twenty paces from the wood the path was crossed by a little narrow bridge with small pillars at the corners. This bridge always served as a brief stopping-place for the Kuznetsovs and their guests during their evening walks. From here, those who were so inclined could draw echoes from the wood and one could see the path disappearing into a dark cutting.
‘Well, here’s the bridge!’ Ognyov said. ‘You should turn back now.’
Verochka stopped and drew a deep breath.
‘Let’s sit down for a moment,’ she said, sitting on one of the pillars. ‘Everyone usually sits here to say goodbye before they leave.’
Ognyov settled himself beside her on his pile of books and carried on talking. Vera was breathing heavily from the walk and she wasn’t looking at Ognyov, but to one side, so that he couldn’t see her face.
‘And suppose we suddenly meet in ten years’ time?’ he said. ‘What shall we be like then? By then you’ll be the respected mother of a family and I’ll be the author of some respected, totally useless collection of statistical articles6 as fat as forty thousand others. We shall meet and talk over the old days… Now we’re more conscious of the present, it absorbs and excites us, but when we meet ten years from now we shan’t remember the date or the month or even the year when we last met on this bridge. Most likely you will have changed by then. Do you think you’ll have changed?’
Vera shuddered and turned her face to him.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘I was just asking…’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you were saying.’
Only then did Ognyov notice the change that had come over Vera. She was pale and breathing erratically, and her tremulous breathing communicated itself to her hands, lips and head; two curls instead of the customary one came loose and fell onto her forehead… She was evidently trying to avoid looking him in the eye and in an effort to conceal her agitation she kept adjusting her collar as if it were cutting into her neck and shifting her red shawl from one shoulder to the other.
‘You must be cold,’ Ognyov said. ‘Sitting in the mist isn’t very healthy. Let me see you nach Hause.’7
Vera said nothing.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ognyov asked, smiling. ‘You’re so quiet, you don’t answer my questions. Aren’t you well – or are you cross?’
Vera pressed the palm of her hand firmly to the cheek that was turned towards him and immediately jerked it away.
‘It’s too awful,’ she whispered with a look of intense pain. ‘Too awful!’
‘What’s awful?’ asked Ognyov, shrugging his shoulders and making no attempt to conceal his surprise. ‘What’s the matter?’
Still breathing heavily and twitching her shoulders Vera turned her back to him and gazed up at the sky for half a minute.
‘I must speak to you, Ivan Alekseyevich,’ she said.
‘I’m listening.’
‘It may seem strange to you… you’ll be surprised, but I really don’t care.’
Ognyov shrugged his shoulders again and prepared to listen.
‘You see,’ Verochka began, bowing her head and fingering a bobble on her shawl, ‘this is what… I wanted to tell you… it will seem strange and… silly… but… I can’t bear it any longer!’
Vera’s words turned into an indistinct mumble and suddenly dissolved in sobs. The girl hid her face in her shawl, bowed her head even lower and wept bitterly. Ivan Alekseyevich cleared his throat in his confusion and, not knowing what to say or do, looked around in despair. Unaccustomed to sobbing and tears he felt that his own eyes were beginning to smart.