'These arc for Mrs. Krasnovsky,' said the girl.
She went down without another word. All this was most mysterious and provoked a sly grin from Polya, who doted on her master's capers. 'He isn't half a one,' she seemed to say, and she walked round on tiptoe the whole time. Then, at last, steps were heard, and Zinaida came quickly into the hall.
'Stephen,' she said, seeing me at the door of my room, 'help Mr. Orlov to get dressed.'
When I went into Orlov's room with his clothes and boots he was sitting on his bed with his feet dangling on the bearskin rug, his whole being expressive of discomfiture. He ignored me, having no interest in my menial opinion. It was in his own eyes, in the eyes of his inner self, that he felt disconcerted and embarrassed, that was obvious. He dressed, washed and spent some time fussing with his brushes and combs: silently, unhurriedly, as if taking time to ponder and work out where he stood, and his very back betrayed his dismay and annoyance with himself.
They had coffee together. Zinaida poured out for both of them, then put her elbows on the table and laughed.
'I still can't believe it,' she said. 'When you've been travelling for ages, and at last reach your hotel, you still can't believe you are at journey's end. It's so nice to breathe freely.'
Looking like a mischievous little girl, she sighed with relief and laughed again.
'You will excuse me,' said Orlov with a nod at the newspapers. 'Reading at breakfast is an addiction of mine. But I can do two things at once, I can both read and listen.'
'No, read away, do. You shall keep all your old habits and your freedom. Why are you so glum, though? Are you always like this in the mornings, or is it only today? Aren't you pleased?'
'Oh, very much so. But I must confess to being somewhat nonplussed.'
'Now, why? You've had plenty of time to prepare for my invasion, I've been threatening you with it every day.'
'True, but I had not cxpected you to execute that threat on this particular morning.'
'Well, I hadn't expected to either, but it's better this way—far better, darling. It's best to take the plunge and get it over with.'
'Yes, of course.'
'Darling!' she said, screwing up her eyes. 'All's well that ends well, but how much trouble there was before we reached this happy ending! Don't mind my laughing. I'm so glad and happy, but I feel more like crying than laughing.
'Yesterday I won a pitched battle,' she went on in French, 'God alone knows how I suffered. But I'm laughing because I just can't believe it. Sitting drinking coffee with you ... I feel I must be dreaming it, it can't be real.'
Continuing in French, she told how she had broken with her husband on the previous day, her eyes brimming with tears and laughing by turns as she gazed at Orlov enraptured. Her husband had long suspected her, she said, but had avoided the subject. They had quarrelled very frequently, but he had a way of retreating into silence when things reached boiling point—he would retire to his study to avoid blurting out his suspicions in the heat of the moment, and also to cut short any admissions on her part. Now, Zinaida had felt guilty, despicable and incapable oftaking any bold, serious step, for which reason she had hated herself and her husband more and more every day, and had suffered the torments ofthe damned. But when, during their quarrel ofthe previous day, he had shouted tearfully 'My God, when will all this end ?' and had retired to his study, she had pounced after him like a cat after a mouse, she had stopped himclosingthe door behindhim, andshehadshoutedthatshe hated him from the bottom ofher heart. Then he had admitted her to the study and she had told him everything, confessing that she loved another man, that this other man was her true and most lawful husband, and that she considered ither moral duty to go away andjoin him that very day, come what might, and even under artillery bombardment if necessary.
'You have a marked romantic streak,' Orlov put in, his eyes glued to his newspaper.
She laughed and went on talking, leaving her coffce untouched, Her cheeks were burning, which rather disconcerted her, and she looked at me and Polya in embarrassment. From the rest of her tale I learnt that her husband had replied with reproaches and threats, and fmall y with tears—it would have been truer to say that it was he, not she, who had won their pitched battle.
'Yes, darling, aslong asI was worked upitall went off marvellously,' she said. 'But with nightfall I lost heart. You don't believe in God, George, but I do believe a little and I'm afraid of retribution. God requires us to be patient, generous and unselfish, but here am I refusing to be patient and wanting to build my life my o^ way. But is that right? What if it's wrong in God's eyes? My husband came in at two o'clock in the morning.
"'You'll never dare leave me," he said. "I'll have you brought back by the police and make a scene."
'Then; a little later, I saw him in the doorway again, looking like a ghost. "Have pity on me, you might damage my career by riming away."
'These words shocked me, they made me feel rotten. The retribution's started, thought I, and I began trembling with fear and crying. I felt as though the ceiling would fall in on me, as ifl should be dragged off to the police station then and there, as if you'd get tired of me. God knows what I didn't feel, in other words! I shall enter a convent, thought I, I'll become a nurse, I'll renounce happiness, but then I remembered that you loved me, that I had no right to dispose of myselfwithout your knowledge—oh, my head was in such a whirl and I didn't know what to do or think, I was so frantic. Then the sun rose and I cheered up again. As soon as morning came I dashed off here. Oh, what I've been through, darling! I haven't slept the last two nights.'
She was tired and excited. She wanted to sleep, to go on talking for ever, to laugh, cry, and drive off for lunch in a restaurant and savour her new freedom: all these things at one and the same time.
'Your flat is comfortable, but it's a bit small for two, I'm afraid,' she said, quickly touring all the rooms after breakfast. 'Which is my room? I like this one because it's next to your study.'
At about half past one she changed her dress in the; room next to the study, which she thereafter termed hers, and went out to lunch with Orlov. They also dined in a restaurant, and they spent the long gap between lunch and dinner shopping. I was opening the door and accepting sundry purchases from shop-assistants and errand-boys till late that night. Amongst other things they brought a magnificent pier- glass, a dressing-table, a bedstead and a sumptuous tea service which we didn't need. They brought a whole tribe of copper saucepans which we arranged in a row on the shelf in our cold, empty kitchen. When we unpacked the tea service Polya's eyes gleamed and she looked at me two or three times with hatred, and with fear that I, not she, might he first to steal one of those elegant cups. They brought a very expensive but inconvenient lady's writing desk. Zinaida obviously intended to settle in permanently and set up house with us.
At about half past nine she and Orlov returned. Proudly conscious of having achieved something bold and original, passionately in love, and (as she supposed) passionately loved, deliciously tired and anticipating deep, sweet sleep, Zinaida was revelling in her new life. She kept clasping her hands tightly together from sheer high spirits, she declared that everything was marvellous, she swore to love for ever. These vows and the innocent, almost infantile, conviction that she was deeply loved in return and would be loved for ever ... it all made her look five years younger. She talked charming nonsense, laughing at herself.