'Stop before it is too late!' a stolid, cold part of his brain argued. 'Is she the wife for you? She's spoilt and capricious, she sleeps till two in the afternoon, while you're a sexton's son, a country doctor '
'Never mind, I don't care,' he answered himself.
'What's more,' went on the voice, 'if you do get married, her family will stop you working in the country and make you move to town.'
'What of it? Then town it shall be,' he thought. 'They'll give a dowry, we'll set up house '
Catherine came in at last, wearing a decollete evening dress. She looked so pretty and fresh that Startsev goggled at' her, and was so transported that he could not get a word out, but just stared at her and laughed.
She began to say good-bye. Having no reason to stay on, he stood up and remarked that it was time to go home as some patients were expecting him.
'You go, then,' said Mr. Turkin. 'It can't be helped. And you might give Puss a lift to the club.'
It was very dark outside and drizzling, with only Panteleymon's raucous cough to guide them to the carriage. They put the hood up.
'Why did the cowslip?' Mr. Turkin said, helping his daughter into the carriage. 'Because she saw the bullrush, of course. Off with you! Cheerio, chin chin!'
And off they went.
'I went to the cemetery yesterday,' Startsev began. 'How mean and heartless of you to '
'You actually went?'
'Yes. And waited till nearly two o'clock. I suffered '
'Serves you right if you can't take a joke.'
Delighted to have played such a mean trick on a man who loved her—delighted, too, to be the object of such a passion—Catherine laughed, then suddenly screamed with fright because the horses were turning sharply in through the club gates at that moment, and the carriage lurched to one side. Startsev put his arm round her waist while she clung to him in terror. He could not resist kissing her passionately on lips and chin, gripping her more tightly.
'That will do,' she said curtly.
A second later she was out ofthe carriage. A policeman stood near the lighted entrance of the club.
'Don't hang around here, you oaf!' he yelled at Panteleymon in a nasty voice. 'Move on!'
Startsev drove home, but was soon back again. Wearing borrowed tails and a stiff white cravat, which somehow kept slipping up and trying to ride off his collar, he sat in the club lounge at midnight ardently haranguing Catherine.
'Those who've never been in love . . . how little they know! I don't think anyone has ever described love properly. Does it, indeed, lend itself to description: this tender, joyous, tormented feeling? No one who has ever experienced it would try to put it into words. But what's the use of preambles and explanations? Or of superfluous eloquence?
I love you infinitely. I ask you, I implore you '
Startsev got it out at last. 'Be my wife.'
'Dmitry Startsev—' said Catherine with a very earnest expression, after some thought. 'I am most grateful to you for the honour, Dmitry,
and I respect you, but '
She stood up and continued, standing. 'I'm sorry, though, I can't be your wife. Let us talk seriously. As you know, Dmitry, I love Art more than anything in the world—I'm mad about music, I adore it, I have dedicated my whole life to it. I want to be a concert pianist. I want fame, success, freedom—whereas you want me to go on living in this to^, pursuing an empty, futile existence which I can't stand. To be a wife . . . no, no, I'm sorry. One must aim at some lofty, brilliant goal, and family life would tie me do^ for ever. Drnitry Startsev—.' She gave a slight smile because, while saying his name, she remembered 'Alexis Feoflaktovich'. 'You're a kind, honourable,
intelligent man, Dmitry, you're the nicest one of all '
Tears came into her eyes. 'I feel for you with all my heart, but, er,
you must understand '
To avoid bursting into tears she turned away and left the lounge. Startsev's heart ceased to throb. Going out of the club into the street, he first tore off the stiff cravat and heaved a deep sigh. He felt a little ashamed and his pride was hurt—for he had not expected a refusal. Nor could he believe that his dreams, his yearnings, his hopes had led to so foolish a conclusion, like something in a little play acted by amateurs. And he was sorry for his o^ feelings, for that love of his— so sorry that he felt ready to break into sobs, or to land a really good clout on Panteleymon's broad back with his umbrella.
For a couple of days he let things slide—couldn't eat or sleep. But when rumour reached him that Catherine had gone to Moscow to enrol at the Conservatory, he calmed do^ and resumed his former routine.
Recalling, later, how he had wandered round the cemetery and driven all over to^ in search of a tail-coat, he would stretch himself lazily, saying that it had all been 'oh, such a lot of fuss'.
IV
Four years passed, and Startsev now had a large practice in town. He hastily took surgery at his home in Dyalizh each morning, after which he left to visit his to^ patients. From a two-horse outfit he had graduated to a troika with bells. He would return home late at night. He had grown broad and stout, and he disliked walking because he was always short of breath. Panteleymon had filled out too, and the broader he grew the more dolefully he would sigh and lament his bitter fate. 'The driving's got me down!'
Startsev was received in various houses and met many people, but was intimate with none. The conversations, the attitudes—the appearance, even—of the to^sfolk irritated him. Experience had gradually taught him that your average provincial is a peaceable, easy-going and even quite intelligent human being when you play cards or have a meal with him, but that you only have to talk about something which can't be eaten—politics, say, or learning—for him to be put right off his stroke ... or else to launch on generalizations so trite and malicious that there's nothing for it but to write him off and leave. Take the typical local liberal, even—just suppose Startsev should try to tell him that humanity was progressing, thank God, and would manage without passports and capital punishment in time. 'You mean it will be possible to murder people in the street?' the man would ask with a mistrustful sidelong glance. Whenever Startsev spoke in company, at tea or supper, of the need to work—of the impossibility of living without work—-everyone took it as a reproach, becoming angry and tiresomely argumentative. What's more, your average provincial never did a single blessed thing. He had no interests—indeed, you just couldn't think what to talk to him about. So Startsev avoided conversation, and just ate or played bridge. When he chanced on some family celebration and was asked in for a bite, he would sit and cat silently, staring at his plate. Their talk was all dull, prejudiced and stupid, which irritated and upset him. Dut he would still say nothing.
2ĵ8 doctor startsev
This austere silence and habit of staring at his plate earned him a nickname—'the pompous Pole'—in to^, though he was not of Polish origin.
He avoided such entertainments as concerts and the theatre, but enjoyed three hours of bridge every evening. He had another recreation too, which he had slipped into by stages. This was to take from his pockets at night the bank-notes earned on his medical rounds. There were sometimes seventy roubles' worth stuffed in his pockets—yellow and green notes smelling of scent, vinegar, incense and fish oil. When they added up to a few hundreds he would take them to the Mutual Credit Bank and put them in his current account.
In the four years since Catherine's departure he had visited the Turkins only twice—at the behest of Mrs. Turkin, who was still under treatment for migraine. Catherine came and stayed with her parents each summer, but he had not seen her once. It somehow never happened.