With Olga's flaxen hair, the actor said, and in her wedding dress, she much resembled a shapely young cherry-tree festooned with delicate white blossom in spring.
'Now, just listen to me,' Olga told him, clutching his hand. 'How did all this happen so suddenly? Well, listen, won't you? The thing is, my father worked at the same hospital as Dymov. When poor Father fell ill Dymov watched at his bed-side day and night. Such self- sacrifice! Now, listen, Ryabovsky. And you'd better listen too, Mr. Author, this is most interesting. Come closer. What self-sacrifice, what true sympathy! I stayed up every night too and sat with Father, when suddenly—what do you know?—the handsome prince is at my feet! Brother Dymov's in love, head over heels! Funny things do happen, I must say. Well, he took to calling after Father's death, or we would meet in the street. Then, one fme evening, suddenly—hey presto! He's proposing! You could have knocked me down with a feather! I cried all night and fell fiendishly in love myself. And now I'm Mrs. Dymov, as you see. There's something tough and rugged about him, isn't there, a sort of bear-like quality? You see him in three- quarter face now and badly lit, but when he turns just you look at that forehead. Ryabovsky, what say you to that forehead?
'We're discussing you, Dymov,' she shouted to her husband. 'Come here. Hold out your honest hand to Ryabovsky. That's the spirit. Now, be friends.'
With a good-natured, unsophisticated smile Dymov held out his hand to Ryabovsky.
'How do you do?' he said. 'There was a Ryabovsky in my year at college. I don't suppose he's a relative of yours?'
II
Olga was twenty-two years old, Dymov thirty-one. They settled do^ splendidly after their wedding. Olga plastered all the drawing-
seeking new and ever newer great men . . . and, finding them, began the scarch afresh. One wonders why.
She would have a meal with her husband at about half past four. His good nature, common sense and kindness had her in transports of joy. She kept jumping up, impulsively hugging his head, bestrewing him with kisses.
'You're so clever, Dymov, you're such a fine man,' she would say. 'But you do have one great defect. You take no interest whatever in art. Music, painting . . . you reject them both.'
'I don't understand them,' was his gentle reply. 'I have worked at science and medicine all my life, and I've had no time to be interested in the arts.'
'But I say, that's absolutely awful, Dymov.'
'Why so? Your friends know nothing of science and medicine, but you don't hold that against them. Everyone has his o^n line. I don't understand landscapes and operas, but if highly intelligent people give their whole lives to them and other intelligent people pay vast sums for them, then they must be important, as I see it. I don't understand, but not understanding doesn't mean rejecting.'
'Let me shake your honest hand!'
After their meal Olga would visit friends, then go to a theatre or concert and come home after midnight. So it went on every day.
On Wednesdays she was 'at home'. Hostess and guests did not play cards or dance on these occasions, but diverted themselves with various artistic activities. The actor recited, the singer sang, the artists sketched in albums (of which Olga had many), the 'cellist played and the hostess herself also sketched, modelled, sang and played accompaniments. In the gaps between recitals, music and singing there was talk and argument about literature, theatre and painting. Ladies were not present since Olga considered all women dreary and vulgar, actresses and her dressmaker excepted. Not' one party passed without the hostess trembling at every ring.
'It is he,' she would say triumphantly, understanding by 'he' some new invited celebrity.
Dymov would not be in the drawing-room, nor would anyone remember his existence. But at exactly half past eleven the dining-room door would open and he would appear, smiling his good-natured, gentle smile.
'Supper is served, gentlemen,' he would say, rubbing his hands.
Then all would go into the dining-room, where they always saw the same array on the table: a dish of oysters, a joint of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviare, mushrooms, vodka and two carafes of wine.
'My dear maitre d'hotel,' said Olga, throwing up her hands in ecstasy. 'You're too, too adorable! Look at that forehead, gentlemen. Turn your profile, Dymov. See, gentlemen: the face of a Bengal tiger, but a kindly, charming expression like a fawn^. Now, isn't he perfectly sweet?'
The visitors ate and looked at Dymov.
'He really is a splendid chap,' they thought, but soon forgot him and went on talking about theatre, music and painting.
The young couple were happy and everything went swimmingly. The third week of their married life was not altogether serene, though —it was rather the opposite. Dymov caught erysipelas in hospital, spent six days in bed and had to have his magnificent black hair shaved to the scalp. Olga sat by him weeping bitterly, but when he felt better she put a white kerchief round his cropped head and began to paint him as a Bedouin. That was great fun, they both found. Then, a day or two after he had recovered and gone back to his hospital work, a new misfortune befell him.
'I'm out of luck, my dear', he said at dinner one day. 'I did four postmortems today and I went and scratched two fingers. I only noticed when I got home.'
Olga was scared, but he smiled and said it was nothing, and that he often cut his hands when dissecting.
'I get carried away, my dear, and don't concentrate.'
Olga was worried. She feared blood poisoning and prayed about it every night, but all was well and their quiet, happy life resumed its course free from worry and alarm. The present was wonderful and spring was at hand, already smiling from afar and promising a thousand delights. They would live happily ever after! For April, May and June there was a holiday cottage some distance from town^. There would be walking, sketching, fishing and nightingales, and then, from July right through till autumn, a painting party on the Volga, in which trip Olga would take part as an indispensable member of their society. She had already had two linen travelling dresses made, and she had bought paints, brushes, canvases and a new palette for the journey. Ryabovsky visited her almost daily to see how her painting progressed. When she showed him her work he would thrust his hands deep into his pockets, purse his lips and sniff.
'Quite so,' he would say. 'That cloud of yours is a bit oJf, the light's wrong for evening. The foreground's rather chewed up and there's something, you know, not quite. . . . And your cottage has choked on something, it's more than a bit squeaky. And you should dim out that corner a shade. But altogether it's not so dusty. Nice work.'
And the more obscurely he spoke the more easily Olga understood him.
III
On Whit Monday afternoon Dymov bought some food and sweets, and set off to visit his wife at their cottage. Not having seen her for a fortnight, he missed her terribly. While in the train and then while searching a huge wood for the cottage, he felt famished and exhausted, looking forward to an informal supper with his wife, after which he would flop into bed and sleep. It cheered him up to look at the bundle in which he had wrapped caviare, cheese and white salmon.