Forty Stories (32 page)

While she was remembering these things, the strains of music and the sound of voices suddenly burst in through the window. The train had stopped at a small wayside station. Beyond the platform there was a crowd of people listening to an accordion and a cheap squeaking fiddle playing lively tunes, and from behind the tall birches and poplars and the country cottages flooded with moonlight there came the sound of a military band: obviously it was dance night in the village. The summer visitors and the town people who came out here in fine weather to breathe the fresh air were walking up and down the platform. Among them was Artynov, the very rich, stout, dark-haired owner of the summer cottages. He had prominent eyes, looked like an Armenian, and wore a strange costume: his shirt was unbuttoned, revealing his chest, and he wore boots with spurs, and from his shoulders hung a black cloak which trailed like a train. Two borzois followed him, their pointed muzzles hanging low to the ground.

The tears were still glistening in Anna’s eyes, but she was no
longer thinking about money, or her mother, or her marriage. She was shaking hands with the schoolboys and officers she knew, laughing gaily and saying quickly: “How are you? How do you do?”

She walked out on the platform in the moonlight and stood so that they could all see her in her new finery.

“Why are we stopping here?” she asked.

“This is a siding,” they told her. “We are waiting for the mail train to pass.”

Observing that Artynov was watching her closely, she winked coquettishly and began talking loudly in French, and because her voice was so beautiful, and because she heard music, and because the moon was reflected in a pool, and because Artynov, a notorious Don Juan and man of the world, was gazing at her eagerly and inquisitively, and because everyone was gay, she suddenly felt a great happiness, and when the train started and the officers she knew saluted her by snapping their hands to their caps, she was humming the polka which was being played by the military band somewhere beyond the trees, and she returned to the compartment with the feeling that she had received here, at the wayside station, proof that she would be happy in spite of everything.

They spent two days at the monastery and then returned to the town. They lived in an apartment provided by the government. When Modest Alexeich went to his office, Anna played the piano, or wept out of sheer boredom, or lay down on the sofa, or read novels, or looked through the fashion magazines. At dinner Modest Alexeich ate a great deal, and talked about politics, appointments, staff transfers, special remunerations; he observed that it was necessary for men to work very hard, and further that family life was not a pleasure but a duty, and that if you take care of the kopecks the rubles will take care of themselves. He said he placed religion and morality above everything in the world. Holding a knife in his hand, like a sword, he declared: “Everyone should perform his duties!”

Anna listened in fear and trembling; she could not bring herself to eat; and usually she rose hungry from the table. After dinner her husband took a nap, snoring loudly, while she went off to see her own people. Her father and the boys looked at her in a peculiar way, as though just a few minutes before she arrived they were blaming her for having married that tiresome man for money—a man she did not love. Her bracelets, her dress, which made a beautiful rustling sound, and her stylish appearance embarrassed and offended them; and in her presence they were a little confused, and did not know what to talk about; but they still loved her as before and had not yet grown accustomed to having dinner without her. She sat down and ate cabbage soup, porridge, and potatoes fried in mutton dripping, which smelled of tallow candles. With trembling hands Pyotr Leontyich filled his glass from a decanter and drank quickly, greedily, with disgust, and then he filled another glass, and then another. Petya and Andryusha, thin, pale little boys with large eyes, took the decanter away and said with embarrassment: “You shouldn’t, Papa.… It’s enough, Papa.…”

Anna was dismayed. She begged him not to drink any more, and he suddenly flew into a wild temper and struck the table with his fist.

“I won’t let anyone tell me what to do!” he roared at her. “My children are all guttersnipes! I’ve a good mind to throw you all out of the house!”

But there was a note of weakness and good nature in his voice, and no one was afraid of him. After dinner it was his habit to wear his best clothes. Pale, with cuts on his chin from shaving, he would stand in front of the mirror for half an hour, combing his hair, twisting his black mustache, and sprinkling himself with perfume. Finally he would tie his cravat in a bow, slip on his gloves, put on his top hat, and go off to give private lessons. If it was a holiday, he remained at home and painted or played the harmonium, which hissed and growled; he would try to wrestle melodic and harmonious sounds from it, and
he would sing to the music, or else he would roar at the boys: “Vile creatures! Good-for-nothings! They have ruined the instrument!”

In the evening Anna’s husband played cards with his colleagues who lived under the same roof at the government-owned house. While they were playing cards, the wives of the officials would come in—ugly, tastelessly dressed, coarse as cooks—and the gossip that circulated through the apartment was as ugly and tasteless as the women themselves. Sometimes it happened that Modest Alexeich took Anna to the theater. During the entr’acte he would not let her move an inch from his side, but walked with her on his arm in the foyer and in the corridors. Whenever he bowed to anyone he would immediately whisper to Anna: “He’s a State Councilor … attends the receptions of His Excellency,” or “Very well-to-do … has a house of his own.” Passing the buffet, Anna was overwhelmed with a desire for sweets; she loved chocolate and apple tarts, but she had no money and did not like to ask her husband. He would take up a pear, pinch it with his fingers, and ask uncertainly: “How much?”

“Twenty-five kopecks.”

“Good heavens!” he would say, replacing the pear, but as it was awkward to leave the buffet without buying anything he would order a bottle of seltzer water and drink it all himself, while tears would come to his eyes. At such times Anna loathed him. Or else, suddenly blushing scarlet, he would say quickly: “Bow to that old lady!”

“But I’ve never been introduced to her.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s the wife of the director of the local treasury. Yes, I’m talking to you—bow to her!” he would grumble insistently. “Your head won’t fall off!”

Anna bowed, and her head did not fall off, but it was sheer torture. She did everything her husband wanted her to do, and was furious with herself for letting him deceive her like the
silliest little fool. She had only married him for his money, and yet she had less money now than before her marriage. Formerly her father would sometimes give her a twenty-kopeck piece, but now she did not have a kopeck to her name. She could not bring herself to steal money or ask for it: she was afraid of her husband and trembled before him. She felt as though she had been afraid of him for many years. In her childhood the most imposing and terrifying person had been the principal of her high school, a man who swept down on her like a thundercloud or a steam engine about to crush her. Another great power, often discussed by her family and inordinately feared, was His Excellency. Among the dozen less formidable powers were her high-school teachers, stern and implacable, with their shaved upper lips. But now she feared Modest Alexeich most of all, that man of principle, whose face even resembled the face of her high-school principal. In Anna’s imagination all these powers merged into one single power which took the form of a huge and terrifying white bear which attacked the guilty and those who were weak like her father. The thought of contradicting her husband terrified her, and so she smiled her strained smile and pretended to be pleased when he caressed her in a coarse way or defiled her with his embraces, which filled her with horror.

Only once did Pyotr Leontyich make bold to ask him for a loan of fifty rubles to pay off a most unpleasant debt, but what agony it was!

“Very well, I shall give you the money,” Modest Alexeich said after a moment’s thought, “but I warn you—it will be impossible for me to help you again until you give up drinking! Such a weakness in a man who is in government service is a downright disgrace! I must remind you of the well-established fact that many capable people have been ruined by this addiction, and they were people, moreover, who might have reached very high rank if they had acquired the gift of temperance!”

There followed long-winded paragraphs—“whereas,” “in the
measure of,” “in view of the aforesaid”—and all the time poor Pyotr Leontyich suffered agonies of humiliation and an intense craving for a drink.

When the boys came to visit Anna, usually in broken boots and threadbare trousers, they too had to listen to his sermons.

“Everyone has a duty to perform!” Modest Alexeich would say.

He never gave them any money. But he gave Anna rings, bracelets, and brooches, explaining that they would come in usefully on a rainy day. Often he would open her chest of drawers for a formal inspection: to see whether they were still safe.

Meanwhile winter was coming on. Long before Christmas there was an announcement in the local newspaper to the effect that on December 29 the usual winter ball would be held in the Hall of Nobles. In excited whispers Modest Alexeich would confer with the wives of his colleagues after the evening game of cards. He would glance anxiously at Anna, and then for a long time he would pace across the room, sunk in thought. At last, late one evening, he stood quite still in front of Anna and said: “You really must have a ball dress made. Do you understand me? Only please consult Marya Grigoryevna and Natalya Kuzminishna.”

He gave her a hundred rubles. She took the money, but when ordering the gown she consulted no one, and spoke only with her father, and she tried to imagine how her mother would have dressed for a ball. Her lamented mother had always dressed her in the latest fashion, taking trouble over her clothes, dressing her daintily like a doll, teaching her to speak French and to dance the mazurka superbly. (She had been a governess for five years before her marriage.) Like her mother, Anna could make a new dress out of an old one, clean gloves with benzine, and rent jewels. Like her mother, she knew how to squint, speak with a
lisp, assume ravishing poses, and whenever it was necessary she could get wildly enthusiastic or look mysterious and melancholy. From her father she had inherited her dark hair and dark eyes, her nervous temperament, and her habit of always appearing at her best.

Half an hour before leaving for the ball Modest Alexeich came into her bedroom, coatless. He wanted to put his order round his neck in front of her mirror. He was so dazzled by her beauty and by the splendor of her fresh, gossamer-like gown that he complacently stroked his side whiskers and said: “So that’s what my wife looks like.… Look at you, Anyuta!” Suddenly assuming a solemn tone, he went on: “Anna, my dear, I have given you happiness, and today you have the opportunity to give me happiness. I am begging you to obtain an introduction to the wife of His Excellency! For God’s sake do this for me! Through her I may be able to get the post of senior reporter!”

They drove to the ball. There was a uniformed doorman in the lobby of the Hall of Nobles. The vestibule was a sea of fur coats, hatstands, hurrying lackeys, and décolleté ladies hiding behind their fans to avoid the drafts: the place smelled of illuminating gas and soldiers. Walking up the stairs on her husband’s arm, Anna heard music and caught a glimpse of herself in an immense mirror in the glow of innumerable lamps, and there came a rush of joy to her heart and she knew the same presentiment of happiness which had come to her on a moonlit night at the railway station. She walked proudly, sure of herself, and for the first time felt she was no longer a girl, but a lady, and unconsciously she found herself imitating her mother in her walk and in her manner. For the first time in her life she felt rich and free. Even the presence of her husband did not embarrass her, for as she passed through the entrance leading into the Hall of Nobles she had instinctively guessed that the presence of an elderly husband did not in the least detract from her; on the contrary, it gave her an air of seductive mystery, which is always pleasing to men. The orchestra had already struck up in the
ballroom, and the dances had begun. After their apartment, Anna was overwhelmed by the lights, the bright colors, the music, the noise, and looking round the ballroom, she thought: “Oh, how adorable!” and immediately she recognized in the crowd the acquaintances she had met at parties and picnics: officers, teachers, lawyers, officials, landowners, His Excellency, Artynov, and also those very décolleté ladies dressed in their finery, the hideous and the beautiful, and they were already in their places in the pavilions and booths which made up the charity bazaar, and they were all ready to sell things for the benefit of the poor. A huge officer with epaulettes—she had been introduced to him once before in Old Kiev Street when she was attending high school, but she could no longer remember his name—this officer seemed to rise out of the ground to ask her for a waltz, and she flew away from her husband, feeling like someone caught in the midst of a violent storm in a sailing boat, while her husband was left far behind on the shore.… She danced a waltz, and then a polka, and then a quadrille with passionate eagerness, passing from one partner to another, dizzy with the music and noise, mixing Russian with French, laughing, lisping, never thinking about her husband, never thinking at all. She was a great success among the men—that was self-evident, and it could not have been otherwise: she was breathless with excitement and squeezed her fan convulsively in her hand, and wanted something to drink. Her father, Pyotr Leontyich, wearing a crumpled dress coat which smelled of benzine, came up to her and offered her a plate of pink ice cream.

“You are so enchanting this evening,” he said, gazing at her in rapture. “Never have I so deeply regretted that you were in a hurry to get married. Why did you do it? Oh, I know you did it for us, but …” With trembling hands he drew out a roll of banknotes and said: “Today I got the money they owed me for my lessons. I can pay back the debt I owe your husband.”