‘Well really!’ he stammered in dismay. ‘Vera Gavrilovna! I’m asking you – whatever’s the matter? Aren’t you well, my dear? Or has someone upset you? If you tell me then perhaps I can… help.’
And when, in his efforts to console her, he allowed himself carefully to take her hands from her face, she smiled at him through her tears.
‘I… I love you!’ she said.
These words, so simple and ordinary, were spoken in simple, human language, but Ognyov turned away from Verochka in utter confusion and stood up – and his confusion was followed by panic.
That sad, glowing feeling and the sentimental mood induced by fond farewells and liqueurs suddenly evaporated and gave way to an acutely unpleasant sensation of awkwardness. As though his feelings had suffered an upheaval, he cast a sidelong glance at Verochka – and now that she had declared her love for him and shed that inaccessibility which is so attractive in a woman, she struck him as somehow shorter, plainer, darker.
‘What’s happening to me?’ he asked himself in horror. ‘Now… really… do I love her… or don’t I? That’s the problem!’
And now that the most important and difficult thing had finally been said, Vera breathed easily and freely again. She too stood up, looked Ognyov straight in the eye and started speaking quickly, passionately, irrepressibly.
Just as someone suddenly startled cannot recall afterwards the exact sequence of sounds that accompanied the catastrophe which stunned him, Ognyov cannot remember Verochka’s words or phrases. All he remembers is the general drift of what she said, Verochka herself and the feelings that her words aroused. He remembers that voice, stifled and somewhat hoarse with emotion, and the rare music and passion of her intonation. Weeping and laughing, tears glistening on her eyelashes, she confessed that from the very first days of their friendship she had been struck by his originality, his intellect, his kind, clever eyes, by his aspirations and his aims in life; that she had fallen in love with him passionately, madly, deeply; that whenever she went from the garden into the house during the summer and saw his cape in the hall or heard his voice in the distance, her heart would thrill in anticipation of happiness. Even his weakest jokes made her laugh, in every figure in his notebooks she saw something exceptionally wise, majestic – and his knotty walking-stick seemed more beautiful than the trees themselves.
The wood, the wisps of mist and the dark ditches on the sides of the path seemed hushed as they listened to her. But in Ognyov’s heart something strange and unpleasant was happening. When she declared her love Verochka had been enchantingly appealing, had spoken nobly and passionately; but now, instead of the pleasure and rejoicing in life that he would have liked to have felt, he experienced nothing but pity for her, pain, and regret that such a fine person should be suffering because of him. Heaven alone knew whether he was motivated by cold logic or if that incurable habit of remaining coolly detached which so often prevents people from living life to the full was manifesting itself, but Verochka’s rapture and suffering struck him as cloying, trivial. And at the same time a feeling rebelled within him, whispering that all he was seeing and hearing now, as far as nature and personal happiness were concerned, was more serious than any statistics, books, eternal verities… And he was angry and reproached himself, although he did not understand where exactly he was to blame.
And to compound his embarrassment he had absolutely no idea what to say – yet speak he must. To tell her bluntly, ‘I don’t love you’ was beyond him, nor could he bring himself to say ‘Yes’, since for all his soul-searching he could not find one spark of feeling within him…
He remained silent while she told him that for her there could be no greater happiness than to see him, to follow him wherever he wanted, there and then, to be his wife and helper, and that if he left her she would die of grief.
‘I can’t live here any more!’ she said, wringing her hands. ‘I’m sick of this house, these woods and the air. I cannot bear this perpetual peace, this aimless life. I cannot stand all these colourless, dull people – so alike you can’t tell one from the other! They’re all so well-meaning and good-natured only because they’re well fed and because they don’t have to suffer or struggle. But it’s just to those great damp houses where people suffer, where drudgery and poverty make them bitter, that I do want to go!’
This too struck Ognyov as affected and frivolous. When Verochka had finished he still had no idea what to say, but silence was impossible, so he mumbled, “Vera Gavrilovna, I’m most grateful to you, although I do feel that I’ve done nothing to deserve such feelings on your part. Secondly, as a man of honour, I ought to tell you that happiness is based on… reciprocity… that is… when both parties love equally…’
But Ognyov immediately felt ashamed of his mumbling and stopped. He sensed at that moment that his expression was stupid, guilty, lifeless, that it was strained and false. Vera must have read the truth in his face because suddenly she became serious, turned pale and bowed her head.
‘Please forgive me,’ Ognyov muttered, unable to bear the silence. ‘I have so much respect for you that this really hurts me!’
Vera turned sharply away and rapidly walked towards the house. Ognyov followed her.
‘No, don’t bother!’ Vera said, waving him away. ‘Don’t come with me, I can go by myself…’
‘But… I must see you home… after all…’
Everything he said, to the very last word, struck Ognyov as flat and loathsome. His feeling of guilt increased with every step he took. He fumed, clenched his fists and cursed his coldness and clumsiness with women. In an attempt to stir some measure of feeling he glanced at Verochka’s pretty figure, at her hair and the traces left by her tiny feet on the dusty path; he recalled her words and tears, but all this merely moved him: it did not excite him.
‘Ah well, you can’t force yourself to fall in love!’ he assured himself – and at the same time he thought, ‘but when shall I ever fall in love without forcing myself? After all, I’m nearly thirty! I’ve never met anyone better than Verochka and I never shall… Oh, this wretched old age! Old age at thirty!’
Verochka walked ahead of him, quickening her steps and without looking back, her head bowed. It seemed that in her grief she had grown thinner and narrower in the shoulders…
‘I can imagine what’s going on inside her now,’ he thought as he looked at her back. ‘She must be feeling so ashamed and miserable that she wishes she were dead! Heavens, there’s enough life, poetry and meaning in all this to melt a stone… But I’m… I’m stupid, ridiculous!’
At the gate Vera glanced back at him for an instant, wrapped her shawl more tightly around her hunched shoulders and hurried down the path.
Ognyov was left alone. As he went back to the wood he walked slowly, constantly stopping to look round at the gate and his whole bearing seemed to express utter disbelief in what he had done. He searched for Verochka’s footprints along the path and could not believe that a young woman whom he liked so much had just declared her love and that he had so clumsily and boorishly ‘spurned’ her. For the first time in his life he had learnt from experience how little of what we do depends on our goodwill and he found himself in the position of a decent, sincere man who had brought cruel, undeserved suffering upon his neighbour despite himself.
His conscience troubled him and when Verochka disappeared from view it began to dawn on him that he had lost something very precious and close that he would never find again. He felt that with Verochka part of his youth had slipped away and that those moments he had lived through so fruitlessly would never be repeated.