Ward Number Six and Other Stories

We no longer had our evening chats either, I don't know why. Ever since the day when I had found her in tears she had adopted a rather casual manner towards me, sometimes off-hand—or ironical, even. For some reason she was calling me 'my dear sir'. Whatever had once impressed her as awesome, admirable and heroic, arousing her envy and enthusiasm ... it left her quite cold now. After hearing me out she would usually stretch herself slightly.

'Yes, yes, yes, but I seem to have heard all that before, my dear sir.'

There were even times when I did not see her for days on end. Sometimes I would knock timidly and quietly on her door, and there would be no answer. Then I would knock again: still silence. I would stand by the door listening, but then the chambermaid would walk past and bleakly declare that 'Madame est partie' Then I would pace up and do^ the hotel corridor. I would see English people, full-bosomed ladies, waiters in evening dress. Then, after I have been gazing for some time at the long, striped carpet which runs do^ the whole corridor, it occurs to me that I am playing a strange and probably false part in this woman's life, and that I am no longer able to change that role. I run to my room, I fall on the bed, I rack my brains, but no ideas come to me. All I can see is that I have a great zest for life, and that the uglier, the more wasted, the rougher her face looks, the closer does she seem to me, and the more intensely and painfully do I sense our kinship. Call me 'my dear sir', adopt that casual, contemptuous tone, do what you like, my darling, only don't leave me. I am afraid of being alone.

Then I go into the corridor again and listen anxiously. I miss my dinner, I don't notice evening coming on. At last, at about half past ten, familiar footsteps are heard and Zinaida appears at the bend near the staircase.

'Are you taking a stroll?' she asks as she passes by. 'Then you'd better go outside. Good night.'

'Shan't we meet today then?'

'I think it's too late. Oh, all right, have it your own way.'

'Tell me where you've been?' I say, following her into her room.

'Oh, to Monte Carlo.' She takes a dozen gold coins from her pocket.

'There, my dear sir,' says she. 'My roulette winnings.'

'Oh, I can't see you gambling.'

'Why ever not? I'm going back tomorrow.'

I could picture her with that ugly, ill expression on her face, pregnant, tightly laced, as she stood near the gaming table in a crowd of demimondaines and old women in their dotage swarming round the gold like flies round honey, and I remembered that for some reason she had gone to Monte Carlo without telling me.

'I don't believe you,' I said once. 'You wouldn't go there.'

'Don't worry, I can't lose much.'

'It's not a question ofwhat you lose,' I said irritably. 'When you were gambling there, did it never occur to you that the glint of gold, all these women, old and young, the croupiers, the whole complex . . . it's all a filthy rotten mockery of the worker's toil, blood and sweat?'

'But what else is there to do here except gamble?' she asked. 'The worker's toil, blood and sweat ... you keep those fine phrases till some other time. But now, since you started it, permit me to go on. Let me ask you outright: what is there for me to do here? What am I to do?'

'What indeed?' I shrugged. 'One can't answer that question straight out.'

'I want an honest answer, Vladimir,' she said, her expression growing angry. 'I didn't venture to pose the question in order to be fobbed off with commonplaces.

'I repeat,' she went on, banging her palm on the table as if marking time. 'What am I supposed to do here ? And not only here in Nice, but anywhere else.'

I said nothing and looked through the window at the sea. My heart was pounding fearfully.

'Vladimir,' she said, breathing quietly and unevenly, and finding it hard to speak. 'If you don't believe in the cause yourself, Vladimir, if you no longer mean to go back to it, then why, oh why, did you drag me out of St. Petersburg ? Why make promises, why raise mad hopes ? Your convictions have altered, you have changed, and no blame attaches to you because we can't always control what we believe, but

' Vladimir, why are you so insincere, in heaven's name?' she continued quietly, corning close to me. 'While I was dreaming aloud all these months—raving, exulting in my plans, remodelling my life— why didn't you tell me the truth? Why did you say nothing? Or why did you encourage me with your stories and behave as though you were in complete sympathy with me? Why? What was the point of it?' 'It is hard to confess one's o^ bankruptcy,' I brought out, turning round but not looking at her. 'All right, I have lost my faith, I'm worn out, I'm feeling pretty low. It is hard to be truthful, terribly hard, so I said nothing. God forbid that anyone else should suffer as I have.'

I felt like bursting into tears and said no more.

'Vladimir,' she said, taking me by both hands. 'You have suffered and experienced so much, you know more than I do. Think seriously and tell me what I am to do. Teach me. If you yourself are unable to take the lead any longer, then at least show me the way. Look here, I am a living, feeling, reasoning creature, aren't I ? To get into a false position, play some fatuous role . . . that I can't stand. I am not reproaching you, I am not blaming you, I'm only asking you.'

Tea was served.

'Well?' asked Zinaida, handing me a glass. 'What's your answer?'

'There is more light in the world than shines through yonder window,' I replied. 'And there are other people about besides me, Zinaida.'

'Then show me where they are,' she said briskly. 'That is all I ask of you.'

'And another thing,' I went on. 'One can serve an idea in more than one field. If you have gone wrong and lost your faith in one cause, then find yourself another. The world of ideas is broad and inexhaustible.'

'The world of ideas!' she said, looking me in the face sardonically. 'Oh, we had really better stop. Why go on?'

She blushed.

'The world of ideas!' she repeated, hurling her napkin to one side, and her face took on an indignant, contemptuous expression. 'All your fine ideas, I note, boil down to one single essential, vital step: I am to become your mistress. That is what you're after. To run round with a load of ideals while not being the mistress of the most upright and idealistic of men . . . that means failing to comprehend ideas. The mistress business is the starting point, the rest follows automatically!'

'You're in an irritable mood,' I told her.

'No, I mean it!' she shouted, breathing hard. 'I'm perfectly sincere.'

'Sincere you may be, but you're mistaken and I'm wounded by what you say.'

'Mistaken, am I?' she laughed. 'You are the last person in the world to say that, my dear sir. Now, I shall sound tactless and cruel, perhaps, but never mind. Do you love me? You do love me, don't you?'

I shrugged my shoulders.

'Oh yes, you can shrug your shoulders,' she continued sarcastically. 'When you were ill I heard your delirious ravings, and then we had all these adoring eyes and sighs, these well-meant discussions on intimacy and spiritual kinship. But the main thing is, why have you never been sincere with me? Why have you hidden the truth and told lies? Had you told me at the start just what ideas obliged you to drag me away from St. Petersburg I should have kno^ where I stood. I should have poisoned myself then, as I meant to, and we should have been spared this dismal farce. Oh, what's the point of going on ?'

She waved a hand and sat do^.

'You speak as if you suspected me of dishonourable intentions,' I said, hurt.

'All right, have it your own way. Why go on ? It isn't your intentions I suspect, it's your lack of intentions. Ifyou had had any I should know wh^t they were. All you had was your ideas and your love. And now it's ideas and love with me as your prospective mistress. Such is the way of life and novels.