'Then try and talk some sense into her,' said Pekarsky.
'Eh? Do you think she would understand me? Why, we think so differently! Leaving Daddy and Mummy, or one's husband, going off with the man one loves . . . that's civic courage at its highest in her view, whereas to me it's sheer childishness. To fall in love and have an affair ... to her it means beginning a new life, while to me it means nothing. Love, man . . . they're her be-all and end-all, and perhaps the theory of the subconscious is affecting her here. You just try persuading her that love is only a simple need like food and clothing, that it really isn't the end of the world if husbands and wives misbehave, that one may be a lecher and seducer yet also a man of genius and integrity— and that, conversely, someone who renounces the pleasures oflove may be a stupid, nasty animal all the same. Modern civilized man, even on a low level—your French worker, say—spends ten sous a day on his dinner, five sous on the wine with his dinner, and five to ten sous on his woman, and he gives all his mind and nerves to his work. Now, Zinaida doesn't pay for love in sous, she gives her whole soul. I might well try to talk some sense into her, but she would answer by crying out in all sincerity that I've r^ned her and that she has nothing left to live for.'
'Then don't talk to her,' said Pekarsky. 'Just take a separate flat for her, and that will be that.'
'It's easy enough to say '
There was a short pause.
'But she is so charming,' said Kukus^rin. 'She's delightful. Such women think they'll love for ever, they surrender themselves with such feeling.'
'One must keep one's wits about one,' said Orlov. 'One must use one's brain. Experiences culled from everyday life, and enshrined in countless novels and plays . . . they all confirm that the adulteries and cohabitations ofdecent people never last more than two or three years at the outside, however much they may have loved each other at the start. That she must know. So all these changes of residence, these saucepans, these hopes for eternal love and harmony simply add up to a wish to bamboozle herself and me. She is charming and delightful, no doubt about it. But she has turned my life upside do^. All that I have hitherto considered trivial nonsense . .. she makes me elevate it to the status of a serious problem, so I'm serving an idol which I have never worshipped. She is charming, she is delightful, but when I drive home from work nowadays I'm somehow in a bad mood, as if I expect to find some inconvenience at home like workmen having dismantled all our stoves and left great piles of bricks everywhere. I'm not paying for my love in sous now, in other words, but with part of my peace of mind and my nerves. And that's pretty bad.' 'Oh, if only she could hear this wicked man!' sighed Kukushkin.
'My dear sir,' he added theatrically, 'I will liberate you from the onerous obligation of loving this charming creature: I'll cut you out with Zinaida.'
'Go ahead,' said Orlov nonchalantly.
Kukushkin laughed a shrill little laugh for half a minute, shaking all over, and then spoke. 'Now sec here, I'm not joking. And don't let's have any of the Othello business afterwards!'
Everyone started talking about Kukushkin's unflagging love life, about how irresistible he was to women, how dangerous to husbands, and how devils would barbecue him in the next world because he was so dissolute. He said nothing, he just screwed up his eyes, and when people named ladies of his acquaintance he would wag his little finger as if warning that other people's secrets must not be divulged.
Orlov suddenly looked at his watch.
The guests understood and prepared to leave. On this occasion I remember Gruzin, who had drunk too much wine, taking an unconscionable time getting ready. He donned an overcoat resembling the coats made for children in poor families, put his collar up and began telling some long-winded story. Then, noticing that no one was listening to him, he shouldered that rug smelling of the nursery, assumed a hunted, wheedling air and begged me to find his cap.
'My dear old George,' he said tenderly. 'Now, listen: how about a trip out of town, old boy?'
'You go, I can't. I now have married status.'
'She's a marvellous woman, she won't be angry. Come on, my good lord and master. It's wonderful weather, there's a bit of a snow-storm and a spot of frost. You need a thorough shake-up, believe me. You're out of sorts, da^^ it '
Orlov stretched, yawned and looked at Pckarsky.
'You going?' he asked hesitantly.
'I don't know, I might.'
'A drinking expedition, eh? Oh, all right, I'll come,' Orlov decided after some hesitation. 'Wait a moment, I'll get some money.'
He went into the study and Gruzin waddled after him, trailing his rug. A minute later both returned to the hall. Tipsy and very pleased with himself, Gruzin was crumpling a ten-rouble note in his hand.
'We'll settle up tomorrow,' he said. 'And she's so good-natured, she won't be angry. She's godmother to my little Liza, I'm fond ofthe poor girl. Oh, my dear chap!'—he gave a sudden happy laugh and pressed his forehead on Pekarsky's back—'Oh, my dear old Pekarsky! You legal eagle, you crusty old fogy, you. . . . But you're fond of women, that I'll wager.'
'Fat ones, incidentally,' said Orlov, putting his coat on. 'But let's be off, or we shall meet her on the way out.'
'Vieni, pensando a me segretamente,' hummed Gruzin.
They left at last. Orlov was away all night, and returned for lunch next day.
VI
Zinaida had lost a little gold watch, a present from her father. Its disappearance surprised and alarmed her. She spent half the day going round the flat, looking frantically at tables and window-sills, but that watch seemed to have vanished into thin air.
A day or two later she left her purse in the hall on returning from some expedition. Luckily for me it was Polya, not I, who had helped her off with her coat on that occasion. When the purse was missed it was no longer in the hall.
Zinaida was puzzled. 'This is most odd. I distinctly remember taking it out of my pocket to pay the cabman, and then I put it do^ here near the looking-glass. Highly peculiar!'
I had not stolen it, yet I felt as ifl had and had been caught in the act. Tears even came to my eyes.
'We must be haunted,' Zinaida told Orlov in French as they sat do^ to their meal. 'I lost my purse in the hall today—and now, lo and behold, it has turned up on my table! But it was in no disinterested spirit that our ghost performed this trick. He took a gold coin and twenty roubles in notes for his pains.'
'First your watch is missing, then it's money,' said Orlov. 'Why docs that sort of thing never happen to me?'
A minute later Zinaida had forgotten the ghost's trick, and was laughing as she told how she had ordered some writing-paper last week, but had forgotten to give her new address, so the shop had sent the paper to her husband at her old home and he had had to pay a bill of twelve roubles. Then she suddenly fixed her eyes on Polya and stared at her, while blushing and feeling such embarrassment that she changed the subject.