‘It’s raining!’ someone shouted.
Everyone looked up at the sky.
‘Yes, it really is,’ Pyotr confirmed, wiping his cheek. The sky let fall just a few drops – it wasn’t really raining yet, but the guests abandoned their tea and began to hurry. At first they all wanted to go back in the carriages, but then they changed their minds and went towards the boats. On the pretext that she urgently had to see to supper, Olga asked if they minded if she travelled back on her own, by carriage.
The first thing she did when seated was to give her face a rest from smiling. She drove scowling through the village and gave bowing peasants angry looks. When she arrived home she went to the bedroom by the back entrance and lay down on her husband’s bed.
‘Good heavens!’ she whispered, ‘what’s the use of all this hard labour? Why do these people hang around here pretending they’re having a good time? Why all these false smiles? I don’t understand, I just don’t understand!’
She heard footsteps and voices. The guests had returned.
‘They can do what they like,’ Olga thought. ‘I’m going to lie down a little longer.’ But the maid came into the bedroom and said, ‘Madam, Marya Grigoryevna’s leaving.’
Olga leapt up, tidied her hair and rushed out of the room.
‘Marya, what’s wrong?’ she asked in an offended voice, going up to Marya Grigoryevna. ‘Why the rush?’
‘I must go, my dear, I simply must! I’ve stayed too long already. The children are waiting for me at home.’
‘You’re so naughty! Why didn’t you bring them with you?’
‘My dear, I’ll bring them over one day in the week if you like, but as for today…’
‘Oh, yes!’ Olga interrupted, ‘I’d be delighted. Your children are so sweet. Give them all a kiss from me. But honestly, I’m quite offended. Why the hurry, I just don’t understand!’
‘I must be going, I really must… Goodbye, my dear, and look after yourself. In your condition…’
And they kissed. After seeing her guest to her carriage, Olga joined the ladies in the drawing-room. There the lamps had been lit and the men were just sitting down to cards.
IV
At a quarter past twelve, after supper, the guests began to leave. Olga stood at the porch to say goodbye.
‘Really, you should have brought a shawl,’ she said, ‘it’s getting rather chilly. I hope you won’t catch cold!’
‘Don’t worry, Olga,’ the guests replied as they climbed into their carriages. ‘Well, goodbye. Remember, we’re expecting you. Don’t let us down!’
‘Whoa!’ said the coachman, holding back the horses.
‘Let’s be going, Denis! Goodbye, Olga.’
‘Give the children a kiss from me!’
The carriage moved off and immediately vanished in the darkness. In the red circle cast by the lamp on the road, a new pair or team of three impatient horses would appear, their coachman silhouetted with hands stretched out in front of him. Once again there were kisses, reproaches and requests to come again or to take a shawl. Pyotr ran back and forwards from the hall, helping the ladies into carriages.
‘Drive straight to Yefremovshchina,’ he told the coachman. ‘It’s quicker if you go by way of Mankino, but that road isn’t so good. You might overturn… Goodbye, my dear! Mille compliments to your artist friend!’
‘Goodbye, darling Olga. Go inside now or you’ll catch cold. It’s damp.’
‘Whoa! Up to your tricks again, eh!’
‘Where did you get these horses from?’ Pyotr asked.
‘From Khaydarov, during Lent,’ the coachman answered.
‘They’re superb!’
Pyotr slapped the trace-horse on the croup. ‘Well, off with you! Safe journey!’
Finally the last guest departed. The red circle on the road flickered, drifted off to one side, dwindled and vanished – Vasily had taken the lamp away from the front door. Previously, when they saw their guests off, Pyotr and Olga usually performed a jig in front of each other in the ballroom, clapped their hands and sang ‘They’ve gone, they’ve gone, they’ve gone!’ But Olga did not feel up to that now. She went into the bedroom, undressed, and climbed into bed.
She thought that she would fall asleep immediately and that she would sleep soundly. Her legs and shoulders ached horribly, her head was reeling from all that talk and once again she felt strangely uncomfortable all over. Covering her head, she lay still for a little while, then stole a glance at the icon-lamp from under the blanket, listened to the silence and smiled.
‘Good, good,’ she whispered, tucking in her legs, which she felt had grown longer from all that walking. ‘I must sleep, sleep.’
Her legs would not stay under the blankets, her whole body felt uncomfortable and she turned over on the other side. A large fly flew around the bedroom, buzzing and restlessly beating against the ceiling. She could also hear Grigory and Vasily treading carefully as they cleared the tables in the ballroom. Olga felt that only when those noises stopped would she feel comfortable and able to fall asleep. And once again she impatiently turned over.
She could hear her husband’s voice in the drawing-room. One of the guests was probably staying the night, because Pyotr was telling someone in a loud voice, ‘I wouldn’t say that Count Aleksey Petrovich is a trickster. But he can’t help giving that impression, since you all try to see him as other than he actually is. His eccentricity is misinterpreted as originality, his familiar manner as a sign of good-heartedness, and because of his complete lack of any views you take him for a conservative. Let’s even go so far as to admit that he’s a conservative of the purest stamp. But what is conservatism, all things considered?’
Furious with Count Aleksey Petrovich, with his guests and with himself, Pyotr unbosomed himself. He cursed the Count, his guests, and was so annoyed with himself he was prepared to hold forth or preach a sermon on any subject. After showing his guest to his room, he paced the drawing-room, walked around the dining-room, then up and down the corridor and around his study, then once more around the drawing-room, after which he went into the bedroom. Olga was lying on her back with the blanket only up to her waist (she was feeling hot now) and sullenly watching the fly banging against the ceiling.
‘Do we have someone staying overnight, then?’ she asked.
‘Yegorov.’
Pyotr undressed and lay down on his bed. He silently lit a cigarette and he too started watching the fly. His face was gloomy and uneasy. Olga looked at his handsome profile for about five minutes without saying a word. For some reason she felt that if he were suddenly to turn his face towards her and say ‘I feel so depressed, Olga’, then she would have burst into tears or laughed, and she would have felt better for it. Her legs ached and her whole body felt uncomfortable – from nervous tension, she thought.
‘Pyotr, what are you thinking about?’ she asked.
‘Oh, nothing,’ her husband answered.
‘You’ve started keeping secrets from me lately. That’s not right.’
‘Why isn’t it?’ Pyotr replied dryly, pausing briefly. ‘We all have our own private lives, therefore we must have our secrets.’
‘Private lives, secrets… that’s only words! Do you realize that you’re insulting me?’ Olga said, sitting up. ‘If you feel depressed, why do you hide it from me? And why do you find it more convenient to confide in strange women rather than talk to your wife? In fact I heard you pouring out your heart this afternoon to Lyubochka, near the beehives.’
‘Well, congratulations. I’m delighted you heard.’