'You used to blame Orlov,' she said, and struck her palm on the table. 'But you can't help agreeing with him. No wonder he despises all those ideas.'
'He doesn't despise ideas, he fears them,' I shouted. 'He's a coward and a liar.'
'All right, have it your o^ way. He's a coward, he's a liar, he betrayed me. But what about you? Excuse me being so frank, but what about you? He betrayed me and abandoned me to my fate in St. Petersburg, while you have betrayed and abandoned me here. But he at least didn't tag any ideas to his betrayal, while you '
'Why say all this, for heaven's sake ?' I asked in horror, wringing my hands and going quickly up to her. 'Look here, Zinaida, this is sheer cynicism, it's not right to give way to despair like this.
'Now, you listen to me,' I went on, clutching at a vague thought which had suddenly flashed through my ^and and which, it seemed, might still save both of us. 'Listen to me. I have been through a lot in my time—so much that my head spins at the thought of it all—and I have now really grasped, both with my mind and in my tortured heart, that man either hasn't got a destiny, or else it lies exclusively in self-sacrificing love for his neighbour. That's the way we should be going, that's our purpose in life. And that is my faith.'
I wanted to go on talking about mercy and forgiveness, but my voice suddenly rang false and I felt confused.
'I feel such zest for life!' I said sincerely. 'Oh, to live, to live! I want peace and quiet, I want warmth, I want this sea, I want you near me. Oh, if only I could instil this passionate craving for life in you l You spoke of love just now, but I would be content just to have you near me, to hear your voice and see the look on your fac с '
She blushed.
'You love life and I hate it,' she said quickly, to stop me going on. 'So our ways lie apart.'
She poured herself some tea, but left it untouched, went into her bedroom and lay down.
'I think we had better end this conversation,' she told me from there. 'Everything is finished so far as I'm concerned, and I don't need anything. So why go on talking?'
'No, everything is not finished.'
'Oh, have it your own way. I know all about that and I'm bored, so give over.'
I stood for a moment, walked up and down the room, and then went into the corridor. Approaching her door late that night and listening, I distinctly heard her crying.
When the servant brought me my clothes next morning he informed me with a smile that the lady in Number Thirteen was in labour. I pulled my clothes on somehow and rushed to Zinaida, terrified out of my wits. In her suite were the doctor, a midwife and an elderly Russian lady from Kharkov called Darya Mikhaylovna. There was a smell of ether drops. Barely had I crossed the threshold when a quiet, piteous groan came from the room where she lay, as ifborne on the winds from Russia. I remembered Orlov and his irony, Polya, the Neva, the snow- flakes, then the cab without an apron, the portents which I had read in the bleak morning sky and the desperate shout of 'Nina, Nina!'
'Go into her room,' the lady said.
I went into Zinaida's room feeling as if I was the child's father. She was lying with her eyes closed: thin, pale, in a white lace nightcap. There were two expressions on her face, I remember. One was impassive, cold and listless, while the other, childlike and helpless, was imparted by the white cap. She did not hear me come in, or perhaps she did hear, but paid me no attention. I stood, looked at her, waited.
Then her face twisted with pain. She opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling as though puzzling out what was happening to her. Revulsion was written on her face.
'How sickening,' she whispered.
'Zinaida,' I called weakly.
She looked at me impassively and wanly, and closed her eyes. I stood there for a while, then went out.
That night Darya Mikhaylovna told me that the baby was a little girl, but that the mother's condition was serious. Then there was noise and bustle in the corridor. Darya Mikhaylovna came to see me again.
'This is absolutely awful,' she said, looking frantic and wringing her hands. 'The doctor suspects her of taking poison. Russians do behave so badly here, I must say!'
Zinaida died at noon next day.
XVIII
Two years passed. Conditions changed, I returned to St. Petersburg and could now live there openly. I no longer feared being or seeming sentimental, and I surrendered entirely to the fatherly—or rather idolatrous —feelings aroused in me by Zinaida's daughter Sonya. I fed her myself, I bathed her, I put her to bed, I did not take my eyes olfher for nights on end, I shrieked when I thought the nanny was about to drop her. My craving for ordinary commonplace life became more and more powerful and insistent in course of time, but my sweeping fantasies stopped short at Sonya as if in her they had at last found just what I needed. I loved this little girl insanely. In her I saw the continuation of my o^ life. This was more than just an impression, it was something I felt, something I had faith in, almost: that when I should at last cast olf this long, bony, bearded body, I should live on in those little light blue eyes, those fair, silky little hairs, those chubby little pink hands which so lovingly stroked my face and clasped my neck.
I feared for Sonya's future. Orlov was her father, she was a Kras- novsky on her birth certificate and the only person who knew of her existence or took any interest in it—myself, that is—was now at death's door. I must think about her seriously.
On the day after my arrival in St. Petersburg I went to see Orlov A fat old man with ginger side-whiskers and no moustache—a German, obviously—opened the door. Polya was tidying the drawing-room and failed to recognize me, but Orlov knew me at once.
'Aha, our seditious friend,' he sa!d, looking me over with curiosity and laughing. 'And how are you faring?'
He had not changed at all. There was still that same well-groomed, disagreeable face, that same irony. On the table, as of old, lay a new book with an ivory paper-knife stuck in it. He had obviously been reading before I arrived. He sat me do^n, offered me a cigar. With the tact peculiar to the well-bred he concealed the distaste which my face and wasted figure aroused in him, and remarked in passing that I hadn't changed a bit—that he would have kno^n me anywhere in spite of my having gro^n a beard. We spoke of the weather and Paris.
'Zinaida Krasnovsky died, didn't she?' he asked, hastening to dispose of the tiresome and unavoidable problem which weighed on both of us.
'Yes, she did,' I answered.
'In childbirth?'
'That is so. The doctor suspected another cause of death, but it's more comforting for both of us to take it that she died in childbirth.'
He sighed for reasons of propriety and said nothing. There was a short silence.
'Quite so. Well, things are just the same as ever here, there haven't been any real changes,' he said briskly, noticing me looking round the study. 'My father has retired, as you know, he's taking it easy now, and I'm still where I was. Remember Pekarsky? He hasn't changed either. Gruzin died of diphtheria last year. Well now, Kukushkin's alive, and he mentions you quite often.
'By the way,' Orlov went on, lowering his eyes diffidently, 'when Kukushkin learnt who you were, he told everyone you had attacked him and tried to assassinate him, and that he had barely escaped with his life.'
I said nothing.
'Old servants don't forget their masters. This is very decent of you,' Orlov joked. 'Now, would you care for wine—or coffee? I'll have some made.'
'No, thank you. I came to see you on a most important matter, Orlov.'
'I'm not all that keen on important matters, but I am happy to be of service. What can I do for you?'
'Well, you see,' I began excitedly, \ have poor Zinaida's daughter with me at the moment. I have been looking after her so far, but I'm not long for this world, as you see. I should like to die knowing that she was provided for.'