‘Me? Yes, it’s true, I’m now looked upon as one of the criminal fraternity, my precious.’
‘But why?’
‘For nothing at all… it was mainly… it’s mainly because of something to do with politics,’ Pyotr said, yawning. ‘It’s the struggle between Left and Right. I’m a reactionary old stick-in-the-mud and I was bold enough to use – in official communications – expressions that such infallible Gladstones as our local Justice of the Peace Kuzma Grigoryevich Vostryakov (and Vladimir Pavlovich Vladimirov too) found offensive.’
Pyotr yawned again and went on, ‘In this society of ours you may disapprove of the sun, the moon or anything you like, but God help you if you say anything about liberals! Liberals are like that toadstool over there – if you touch it accidentally it will shower you with clouds of dust.’
‘What happened to you, then?’
‘Nothing much; it was all a storm in a teacup. Some wretched schoolmaster – a loathsome type of clerical origin – filed a suit before our J.P., Vostryakov, against an innkeeper for slander and assault in a public place. According to the facts, both schoolmaster and innkeeper were blind drunk, both behaved equally nastily. Even if there had been a case to answer, both parties were at fault anyway. Vostryakov should have fined both of them for breach of the peace and thrown them out of court – and that would have been the end of the matter. But we don’t do things that way! We always want to classify, to stick labels on people – the individual and facts take second place. However terrible a scoundrel your schoolmaster may be, he’s bound to be right, for the simple fact that he’s a schoolmaster. But innkeepers are always in the wrong just because they’re innkeepers – they always grab what they can. Vostryakov sentenced the innkeeper to a term in prison, the innkeeper appealed to the Assizes who solemnly upheld Vostryakov’s verdict. Well, I spoke my mind… got rather worked up about it… that’s all.’
Pyotr spoke calmly, with a casual irony, but in fact he was terribly worried about the impending trial. Olga remembered how he had come back from those ill-fated proceedings and had tried desperately to conceal his despondency and feeling of dissatisfaction with himself from the servants. Being an intelligent man, he could not help thinking that he had gone too far in expressing disagreement – and how he had been forced to prevaricate to hide this feeling from himself and others! How many futile discussions had taken place, how much grumbling and forced laughter at things that were not at all funny! And when he learned that he had to stand trial, he had suddenly become weary and dejected, and begun to sleep badly and taken to standing by the window more often, drumming his fingers on the panes. He was too ashamed to admit to his wife that he was feeling depressed, and this had annoyed her.
‘I hear you’ve been away, in Poltava,’ Lyubochka said.
‘Yes,’ Pyotr replied. ‘I got back two days ago.’
‘I bet it was very nice there.’
‘Yes, it was nice, very nice in fact. I must tell you, I happened to arrive just in time for the haymaking, which is the most idyllic time of year in the Ukraine. Here we have a large house, with a large garden, but what with all these servants, all the rushing around, it’s quite impossible to see any haymaking. But on my farm down in the Ukraine forty acres of meadow open out before your eyes, you can see reapers from every window. There’s mowing in the meadows and the garden, there’s no visitors, none of this rushing around, so you just can’t help seeing, hearing and feeling anything but haymaking. There’s the smell of hay outdoors and in, scythes clatter away from dawn to dusk. The dear old Ukraine’s a charming country, really. Believe me, when I drank water at those wells with their sweeps and filthy vodka at Jewish taverns, when the sound of Ukrainian fiddles and tambourines wafted over to me on calm evenings – then I was tempted by the enchanting thought of settling down on my farm and living a life miles away from these Assizes, smart conversations, philosophizing women and interminable dinners.’
Pyotr was not lying. He had been feeling depressed and he was really dying to get away from it all. He had gone to Poltava only to escape from his study, the servants, his friends and everything that would remind him of his wounded pride and his mistakes.
Lyubochka suddenly leapt up and waved her arms in horror.
‘Oh, a bee, a bee!’ she screamed. ‘It’s going to sting me!’
‘Don’t be silly, of course it’s not!’ Pyotr said. ‘What a little coward you are!’
‘No, no, it’s going to!’ Lyubochka cried, looking round at the bee as she quickly made her escape.
Pyotr followed her, his feeling of tenderness mingled with sadness as he watched her go. Looking at her he must have thought of his farm in the south, of solitude and – who knows? – perhaps he was even thinking how warm and snug life on his farm would be if that young, pure, fresh girl who was unspoilt by higher education, who was not pregnant, had been his wife…
When the voices and footsteps died away, Olga left the hut and set off towards the house. She wanted to cry and by now felt extremely jealous. She understood how tired Pyotr was, that he was dissatisfied with himself and ashamed; and people who are ashamed always avoid close friends more than anyone else and open their hearts only to strangers. She also understood that Lyubochka, like all those other women now drinking coffee in the house, posed no threat to her. But it was all so incomprehensible, so frightening, and Olga had now come to feel that Pyotr only half belonged to her.
‘He has no right,’ she muttered, trying to find the reason for her jealousy and her annoyance with her husband. ‘No right at all. I’m going to let him know where he stands. This instant!’
She decided to find her husband right away and tell him the facts of the matter. The way he attracted women and sought their approval, as though it was a gift from heaven, was unspeakably degrading. He was behaving dishonourably when he gave perfect strangers what by right belonged to his wife, when he hid his heart and conscience from her and bared them to the first pretty face that came along. What had she done wrong? Finally, she was sick and tired of his lying. He was perpetually posing, flirting, saying what he did not mean and trying to appear other than he really was or should have been. What was the point of this prevarication? Was that sort of thing right for a respectable man? His lying was an insult to himself and to those to whom he dissimulated; and he did not care what kind of lies he told. If he could keep posing, showing off at the Bench, expatiating at dinner about the prerogatives of power just to spite her uncle, couldn’t he see that it only went to show that he did not give a damn for the court, for himself or for anyone listening to him or watching?
As she came out on to the main avenue Olga tried to give the impression she was performing some domestic duty. The men were drinking liqueurs and eating soft fruit on the terrace. One of them, the examining magistrate, a stout, elderly gentleman, a clown and wit, must have been telling some rather risqué story since he suddenly pressed his hands to his fat lips when he saw the mistress of the house and sat back in his chair, eyes goggling. Olga did not care for their clumsy, overbearing wives, their gossip, their over-frequent visits, their adulation of her husband – whom they all hated. But now, when they were sitting there having drinks after a good meal, and showed no sign of leaving, she found their presence quite nauseating. But she smiled warmly at the examining magistrate and wagged a threatening finger at him so as not to appear ungracious. She crossed the ballroom and drawing-room smiling, making out that she was on her way to give orders to the servants and make some arrangements. ‘I hope no one stops me, God forbid!’ she thought, but she forced herself to stop for a moment in the drawing-room to listen – out of politeness’ sake – to a young man playing the piano. After standing there for a minute she shouted ‘Bravo, bravo, Monsieur Georges!’, clapped twice and went on her way.