I brought him a glass of tea and a carafe ofvodka. He drank the tea slowly, with evident reluctance.
'Have you a bite to, er, eat, my friend?' he asked timidly as he gave me back the glass. 'I haven't had a meal.'
There was nothing in the flat, so I fetched him the ordinary one- rouble dinner from the restaurant.
'Your health, dear!' he said to Zinaida and tossed do^ a glass of vodka. 'My little girl, your god-daughter, sends her love. She has a touch of scrofula, poor child.
'Ah, children, children!' he sighed. 'But you can say what you like, my dear, it's nice being a father. Good old George can't understand that feeling.'
He do^ed another glass. Gaunt, pale, wearing a napkin on his chest like an apron, he ate greedily, raising his eyebrows and looking from Zinaida to me like a small boy in disgrace. He looked ready to have burst into tears if l had not given him his grouse or jelly. Having satisfied his hunger, he cheered up and laughed as he started telling a story about the Birshov family, but then grew silent, when he noticed that this was uninteresting, and that Zinaida was not laug^ng. Then a sort of boredom suddenly descended. After the meal they both sat in the dining-room by the light of a single lamp and said nothing. He was tired oflying, while she wanted to ask him something, but didn't dare. Half an hour passed in this way. Then G^in looked at his watch.
'Well, perhaps it's time I went.'
'No, please stay. We must Ык.'
There was a further silence. He sat at the piano, touched a key, then played and quietly sang: 'What does the morrow hold in store?' Then, as usual, he suddenly rose to his feet and shook his head.
'Play something, my dear,' Zinaida said.
'But what?' he asked with a s^^g. 'I've forgotten it all, I gave it up ages ago.'
Looking at the ceiling as if ^^g to remember, he played two of Tchaikovsky's pieces with wonderful expression, warmly and intelligently. He looked just as he always did—neither intelligentnor stupid— and I found it utterly miraculous that a ^до whom I was used to seeing in this mean and squalid environment should be capable of flights of emotion so pure, so far beyond my ken. Zinaida flushed and paced the drawing-room excitedly.
'Just a moment, my dear, I'll play you something else if I can remember it,' he said. 'It's something I heard on the 'cello.'
Starting timidly, then picking up, and finally with complete confidence, he played Saint-Saens's The Swan. Then he played it again.
'Not bad, eh ?' he said.
Greatly moved, Zinaida went and stood beside him.
'My friend,' she said, 'tell me truly as a friend: what do you think of me?'
'What can I say?' he answered, raising his eyebrows. 'I like you, and I think only good of you.
'But if you want my general views on the problem which concerns you,' he went on, rubbing his sleeve near the elbow and frowning, 'then, my dear, you know. . . . Following one's heart's impulses freely ... it doesn't always bring nappiness to decent people. If one wants to be free and happy at the same time, I think one must face the fact that life is cruel, harsh and pitiless in its conservatism, and that one must pay it back in its o^ currency: be equally harsh, equally pitiless in one's o^ drive for freedom, in other words. That's my view.'
'But how can I ?' Zinaida smiled sadly. 'I'm so tired, my friend. I can't lift a finger to save myself, I'm so tired.'
'Go into a convent, my dear.'
He said it injest, but after he had spoken tears glistened in Zinaida's eyes, and then in his.
'Ah well,' he said, 'I have sat here long enough, it's time I was olf. Good-bye, dear friend. God give you health.'
He kissed both her hands and stroked them affectionately, saying that he would certainly come to see her again in a day or rwo. As he put on his overcoat—the one that was so like a child's—in the hall, he spent a long time fumbling in his pockets for a tip for me, but found nothing.
'Good-bye, old chap,' he said sadly, and went out.
I shall never forget the atmosphere which the man left behind him. Zinaida continued pacing the drawing-room excitedly. She was walking about instead of lying do^, and that in itself was a good sign. I wanted to take advantage of this mood to speak to her frankly and then leave at once, but hardly had I seen Gruzin out when the door-bell rang. It was Kukushkin.
'Is Mr. Orlov in?' he asked. 'Is he back? No, you say? What a pity. In that case I'll go and kiss your mistress's hand and then run along.
'May I come in, Zinaida?' he shouted. 'I want to kiss your hand. I'm sorry I'm so late.'
He was not long in the drawing-room—ten minutes, no more—but I felt as ifhe had been there for some time and would never leave. I bit my lips in indignation and annoyance, and I already hated Zinaida. I wondered why she didn't throw him out and I felt outraged, though it was obvious that he bored her.
When I held his coat for him he bestowed a special sign offavour by asking how I managed without a wife.
'But you don't let the grass grow under your feet, I'm sure,' he laughed. 'No doubt you have your bit of slap and tickle with Polya, you rascal.'
Despite my experience oflife I had little knowledge of people at that time, and I frequently exaggerated trifles, very possibly, and entirely missed things of importance. Kukuslkin's sniggers and flattery had a certain point, it struck me. Perhaps he hoped that, being a servant, I should gossip in kitchens and servants' halls all over the place about his visiting us in the evenings when Orlov was out, and sitting with Zinaida until late at night? Then, when my gossip reached his friends' ears he would drop his eyes in confusion, and wag his'little finger. At cards that very evening he would pretend, or perhaps accidentally blurt out, that he had won Zinaida away from Orlov—or so I thought, looking at that unctuous little face.
I was now gripped by the very hatred which had failed me during the old man's visit at midday. Kukushkin left at last. Listening to the shuffle of his leather galoshes, I felt a strong urge to pursue him with some coarse parting oath, but restrained myself. Then, when his steps had died away on the stairs, I went back into the hall and, not knowing what I was doing, seized the roll ofpapers which he had left behind and rushed headlong downstairs. I ran into the street without my coat or cap. It was not cold, but big snow flakes were falling, and there was a wind.
'Sir!' I shouted, catching up Kukushkin. 'I say, sir!'
He stopped by a lamp-post and looked round in bewilderment.
'I say, sir,' I panted. 'Sir!'
Having no idea what to say, I hit him twice on the face with the roll of paper. Quite at a loss, not even surprised—so unawares had I taken him—he leant back against the lamp-post and shielded his face with his hands. At that moment some army medical officer passed by and saw me hitting the man, but only looked at us in a^zement and walked on.
I felt ashamed and rushed back to the house.
XII
My head wet with snow, out of breath, I ran to my room, immediately threw off my tail-coat, put on my jacket and top-coat, and brought my suitcase into the hall. Oh, to escape! But before leaving I quickly sat do^ and began writing to Orlov.
'I leave you my false passport,' I began. 'Please keep it in memory of me, you humbug, you metropolitan stuffed shirt.
'To insinuate oneself into a household under an alias, to observe domestic intimacies behind a servant's mask, to see all, hear all, and then volunteer denunciations ofyour mendacity ... it's all rather underhand, you will say. Very well, but I am not concerned with cultivating integrity at the moment. I have suffered dozens of your suppers and lunches, when you spoke and did as you pleased while I had to listen, watch and hold my peace, and I don't see why you should get away with it. Besides, if there's no one else near you who dares tell you the truth without flattery, let Stephen the footman be the one to knock you offyour elevated perch.'
I disliked this beginning, but I was not inclined to change it. What did it matter, anyway?