By the time that he had found and identified his cottage the sun was setting. An ancient maid said that the mistress was out, but would be home directly for sure. The cottage was extremely unprepossessing, its low ceilings papered with writing-paper and its floors uneven and cracked. It had only three rooms. In one stood a bed, in another chairs and window-sills were bestrewn with canvases, brushes, greasy paper, and with men's overcoats and hats, while in the third Dymov found three strange men. Two were dark with little beards, while the third was clean-shaven and fat: an actor, apparently. A samovar hissed on the table.
'Can I help you?' boomed the actor, surveying Dymov frigidly. 'Looking for Olga, are you? Then wait, she'll be here any moment.'
Dymov sat and waited. One of the dark men gave him a few sleepy, languid glances and poured himself some tea.
'Perhaps you'd like a glass?' he asked.
Dymov was thirsty, and hungry too, but refused tea, not wanting to spoil his supper. Soon he heard footsteps and a familiar laugh, the door slammed and Olga swept into the room in a wide-brimmed hat with a box in her hand, followed by jolly, rosy-cheeked Ryabovsky ca^^g a huge parasol and c^p-stool.
'Dymov!' shrieked Olga, flushing with joy.
'Dymov!' she repeated, laying head and both hands on his chest. 'Can it be you? Why have you been so long? Why, why, why?'
'But I never have rime, my dear. I'm always busy, and when I am free the railway timetable never fits.'
'Now, I'm so glad to see you! I dreamt of you all night long, I was afraid you might be ill. Oh, if you did but know how sweet you are, you've come just in the nick of time, you'll be my salvation: only you can do it!
'We're having a quite fantastic wedding here tomorrow,' she went on, laughing and tying her husband's tie. 'A young telegraph clerk at the station's getting married, one Chikeldeyev. He's a good-looking boy, er, by no means unintelligent, and there's something rugged about his face, you know, a sort of bear-like quality. He could model a young Viking. We holiday visitors are all taking an interest in him and we have promised to be at his wedding. He's not well off, he has no relatives, he's a bit bashful and to let him down would be unforgivable, of course. Just think, the wedding will be after the service and then everyone will troop off from church to the bride's house. We'll have the copse, see? We'll have bird-song, sunlit patches on grass and all of us as variegated blobs against a bright green background: quite fantastic, in French impressionist style.
'But what can I wear in church, Dymov?' Olga asked with a tearful simper. 'I have nothing here, literally nothing: no dress, no flowers, no gloves. You must save me. The very fates bid you rescue me, your arrival shows it. Take your keys, dear man, go home and get my pink dress from the wardrobe. You remember it, it's hanging in front. Now, on the right of the closet, on the floor, you'll see two cardboard boxes. When you open the top one you'll find tulle all over the place and various bits and pieces, and underneath those some flowers. Take all the flowers out carefully, try not to crush them, darling, and I'll choose the ones I want later. And buy me some gloves.'
'All right,' said Dymov. 'I'll go back tomorrow and send them.'
' TomorrowOlga stared at him in amazement. 'But you won't have time tomorrow: the first train leaves here at nine in the morning and the wedding's at eleven. No, darling, you must go tonight, tonight without fail, and if you can't come yourself tomorrow you must send the stuff by messenger. Come on, now, hurry up! There's a passenger train due in directly. Don't miss it, darling.'
'Very well.'
'Oh, how I late letting you go,' said Olga, and tears came to her eyes. 'Oh, silly me, why ever did I promise that telegraph clerk?'
Dymov gulped a glass of tea, seized a roll, smiled gently and made for the station. His caviare, cheese and white salmon were consumed by the two dark men and the fat actor.
IV
One quiet, moonlit July night Olga stood on the deck of a Volga steamer, gazing alternately at the water and the picturesque banks. Ryabovsky stood by her side. The black shadows on the water were not shadows, he told her, but phantoms. This enchanted water with its eerie glitter, this unplumbed sky, these sad, pensive banks eloquent of our life's vanity and of some higher world of everlasting bliss . . . they were sights to make one swoon, die, become a memory. The past was vulgar and dreary, the future was meaningless, and this superb, unique night would soon end and melt into eternity. So why live?
Lending an ear, now to Ryabovsky's voice, now to the night's stillness, Olga thought that she was immortal and could never die. Turquoise-hued water such as she had never seen before, sky, banks, black shadows, mysterious joy flooding her inmost being . . . these things said that she would be a great artist and that out there, beyond that far horizon, beyond this moonlit night, in the vastness of space, she was heading for success, fame and a place in people's hearts.
She gazed nnwinking into distance for some time, her fancy picturing crowds, lights, solenm music, triumphant shouts, herself in a white dress, flowers strewn on her from all around. She also reflected that by her side, leaning his elbows on the ship's rail, stood a truly great man, a genius, one of God's elect.
His present achievements were superb, fresh, extraordinary, but what he would achieve in time, with the mature development of his peculiar gifts . . . that would be something spectacular, something ineffably sublime, as could be seen by his face, his way of expressing things, his attitude to nature. He had his o^n special language for describing shadows, evening tints and moonlight, so that his power over nature cast an irresistible spell. He was a very handsome man, very much of an individual. Independent, free, a stranger to everything pedestrian, he seemed to live the life of a bird.
'It's a bit chilly,' said Olga with a shiver.
Ryabovsky wrapped his cloak round her.
'I feel I'm in your power,' he said mournfully. 'I'm your slave. Why are you so bewitching tonight?'
He gazed at her, he could not take his eyes off her and those eyes so scared her that she feared to look at him.
'I love you madly,' he whispered, breathing on her cheek. 'Say the word and I'll end my life.
TU abandon art,' he muttered with violent emotion. 'Love me, love me '
'Don't say such things.' Olga closed her eyes. 'That's terrible. What about Dymov?'
'And what about Dymov? Why Dymov? What do I care for Dymov? There's Volga, moon, beauty, there's my love, my ecstasy, but there's no such thing as Dymov. Oh, I don't know anything, I don't care about the past. Just give me one second, one fleeting moment.'
Olga's heart was thumping. She tried to think about her husband, but al her past life—her wedding, Dymov, her At Homes ... it all seemed so small, worthless, dull, superfluous and far, far away.
What did Dymov matter, actually? Why Dymov? What did she care about Dymov? Did such a phenomenon really exist? Or had she just imagined him?
'For so simple, so very ordinary a man the happiness which he has already received is quite adequate,' she thought, covering her face with her hands. 'Let them condemn me, let them curse me back there, but I'll ruin myself just to annoy them, I'll just jolly well wreck my life. One must experience ever^hing in this world. God, how frightening, and how marvellous!'
'Well, what do you say?' muttered the artist, embracing her and hungrily kissing the ^rnds with which she feebly tried to push him away. 'Do you love me? You do, don't you? Oh, what a night, what a fantastic night!'