Lysevich waved his arms and paced from corner to corner in violent excitement.
“Yes, it is inconceivable,” he pronounced, as though in despair; “his last thing overwhelmed me, intoxicated me! But I am afraid you will not care for it. To be carried away by it you must savor it, slowly suck the juice from each line, drink it in. . . . You must drink it in! . . .”
After a long introduction, containing many words such as demonic sensuality, a network of the most delicate nerves, simoom, crystal, and so on, he began at last telling the story of the novel. He did not tell the story so whimsically, but told it in minute detail, quoting from memory whole descriptions and conversations; the characters of the novel fascinated him, and to describe them he threw himself into attitudes, changed the expression of his face and voice like a real actor.
He laughed with delight at one moment in a deep bass, and at another, on a high shrill note, clasped his hands and clutched at his head with an expression which suggested that it was just going to burst. Anna Akimovna listened enthralled, though she had already read the novel, and it seemed to her ever so much finer and more subtle in the lawyer’s version than in the book itself. He drew her attention to various subtleties and emphasized the felicitous expressions and the profound thoughts, but she saw in it, only life, life, life and herself, as though she had been a character in the novel. Her spirits rose, and she, too, laughing and clasping her hands, thought that she could not go on living such a life, that there was no need to have a wretched life when one might have a splendid one. She remembered her words and thoughts at dinner and was proud of them; and when Pimenov suddenly rose up in her imagination, she felt happy and longed for him to love her.
When he had finished the story, Lysevich sat down on the sofa, exhausted.
“How splendid you are! How handsome!” he began, a little while afterwards in a faint voice as if he were ill. “I am happy near you, dear girl, but why am I forty-two instead of thirty? Your tastes and mine do not coincide: you ought to be depraved, and I have long passed that phase, and want a love as delicate and immaterial as a ray of sunshine—that is, from the point of view of a woman of your age, I am of no earthly use.”
In his own words, he loved Turgenev, the singer of virginal love and purity, of youth, and of the melancholy Russian landscape; but he loved virginal love, not from knowledge but from hearsay, as something abstract, existing outside real life. Now he assured himself that he loved Anna Akimovna platonically, ideally, though he did not know what those words meant. But he felt comfortable, snug, warm. Anna Akimovna seemed to him enchanting, original, and he imagined that the pleasant sensation that was aroused in him by these surroundings was the very thing that was called platonic love.
He laid his cheek on her hand and said in the tone commonly used in coaxing little children:
“My precious, why have you punished me?”
“How? When?”
“I have had no Christmas present from you.”
Anna Akimovna had never heard before of their sending a Christmas box to the lawyer, and now she was at a loss how much to give him. But she must give him something, for he was expecting it, though he looked at her with eyes full of love.
“I suppose Nazarich forgot it,” she said, “but it is not too late to set it right.”
She suddenly remembered the fifteen hundred she had received the day before, which was now lying in the toilet drawer in her bedroom. And when she brought that ungrateful money and gave it to the lawyer, and he put it in his coat pocket with indolent grace, the whole incident passed off charmingly and naturally. The sudden reminder of a Christmas box and this fifteen hundred was not unbecoming in Lysevich.
“Merci,” he said, and kissed her finger.
Krylin came in with blissful, sleepy face, but without his decorations.
Lysevich and he stayed a little longer and drank a glass of tea each and began to get ready to go. Anna Akimovna was a little embarrassed. . . . She had utterly forgotten in what department Krylin served, and whether she had to give him money or not; and if she had to, whether to give it now or send it afterwards in an envelope.
“Where does he serve?” she whispered to Lysevich.
“Goodness knows,” muttered Lysevich, yawning.
She reflected that if Krylin used to visit her father and her uncle and respected them, it was probably not for nothing: apparently he had been charitable at their expense, serving in some charitable institution. As she said good-bye she slipped three hundred rubles into his hand; he seemed taken aback and looked at her for a minute in silence with his pewtery eyes, but then seemed to understand and said:
“The receipt, honored Anna Akimovna, you can only receive on the New Year.”
Lysevich had become utterly limp and heavy, and he staggered when Mishenka put on his overcoat.
As he went downstairs he looked like a man in the last stage of exhaustion, and it was evident that he would drop asleep as soon as he got into his sledge.
“Your Excellency,” he said languidly to Krylin, stopping in the middle of the staircase, “has it ever happened to you to experience a feeling as though some unseen force were drawing you out longer and longer? You are drawn out and turn into the finest wire. Subjectively this finds expression in a curious voluptuous feeling which is impossible to compare with anything.”
Anna Akimovna, standing at the top of the stairs, saw each of them give Mishenka a note.
“Good-bye! Come again!” she called to them, and ran into her bedroom.
She quickly threw off her dress, which she was weary of already, put on a dressing gown, and ran downstairs; and as she ran downstairs she laughed and thumped with her feet like a schoolboy; she had a great desire for mischief.
4. EVENING
Auntie, in a loose print blouse, Varvarushka, and two old women, were sitting in the dining-room having supper. A big piece of salt meat, a ham, and various savories were lying on the table before them, and clouds of steam were rising from the meat, which looked particularly fat and appetizing. Wine was not served on the lower story, but they made up for it with a great number of spirits and homemade liqueurs. Agafyushka, the fat, white-skinned, well-fed cook, was standing with her arms crossed in the doorway and talking to the old women, and the dishes were being handed by the downstairs Masha, a dark girl with a crimson ribbon in her hair. The old women had had enough to eat before the morning was over, and an hour before supper had had tea and buns, and so they were now eating with effort—as it were, from a sense of duty.
“Oh, my girl!” sighed Auntie, as Anna Akimovna ran into the dining-room and sat down beside her. “You’ve frightened me to death!”
Everyone in the house was pleased when Anna Akimovna was in good spirits and played pranks; this always reminded them that the old men were dead and that the old women had no authority in the house, and anyone could do as he liked without any fear of being sharply called to account for it. Only the two old women glanced askance at Anna Akimovna with amazement: she was humming, and it was a sin to sing at table.
“Our mistress, our beauty, our picture,” Agafyushka began chanting with sugary sweetness. “Our precious jewel! The people, the people that have come today to look at our queen. Lord have mercy upon us! Generals and officers and gentlemen. . . . I kept looking out of window and counting and counting till I gave it up.”
“I’d as soon they did not come at all,” said Auntie; she looked sadly at her niece and added: “They only waste the time for my poor orphan girl.”
Anna Akimovna felt hungry, as she had eaten nothing since the morning. They poured her out some very bitter liqueur; she drank it off, and tasted the salt meat with mustard, and thought it extraordinarily nice. Then the downstairs Masha brought in the turkey, the pickled apples, and the gooseberries. And that pleased her, too. There was only one thing that was disagreeable: there was a draught of hot air from the tiled stove; it was stiflingly close and everyone’s cheeks were burning. After supper the cloth was
taken off and plates of peppermint biscuits, walnuts, and raisins were brought in.
“You sit down, too . . . no need to stand there!” said Auntie to the cook.
Agafyushka sighed and sat down to the table; Masha set a wineglass of liqueur before her, too, and Anna Akimovna began to feel as though Agafyushka’s white neck were giving out heat like the stove. They were all talking of how difficult it was nowadays to get married, and saying that in old days, if men did not court beauty, they paid attention to money, but now there was no making out what they wanted; and while hunchbacks and cripples used to be left old maids, nowadays men would not have even the beautiful and wealthy. Auntie began to set this down to immorality and said that people had no fear of God, but she suddenly remembered that Ivan Ivanich, her brother, and Varvarushka—both people of holy life—had feared God, but all the same had had children on the sly, and had sent them to the Foundling Asylum. She pulled herself up and changed the conversation, telling them about a suitor she had once had, a factory hand, and how she had loved him, but her brothers had forced her to marry a widower, an icon painter, who, thank God, had died two years after. The downstairs Masha sat down to the table, too, and told them with a mysterious air that for the last week some unknown man with a black mustache, in a greatcoat with an astrakhan collar, had made his appearance every morning in the yard, had stared at the windows of the big house, and had gone on further—to the buildings; the man was all right, nice-looking. . . .
All this conversation made Anna Akimovna suddenly long to be married—long intensely, painfully; she felt as though she would give half her life and all her fortune only to know that upstairs there was a man who was closer to her than anyone in the world, that he loved her warmly and was missing her; and the thought of such closeness, ecstatic and inexpressible in words, troubled her soul. And the instinct of youth and health flattered her with lying assurances that the real poetry of life was not over but still to come, and she believed it, and, leaning back in her chair (her hair fell down as she did so), she began laughing, and, looking at her, the others laughed, too. And it was a long time before this causeless laughter died down in the dining-room.
She was informed that the Stinging Beetle had come. This was a pilgrim woman called Pasha or Spiridonovna—a thin little woman of fifty, in a black dress with a white kerchief, with keen eyes, sharp nose, and a sharp chin; she had sly, viperish eyes and she looked as though she could see right through everyone. Her lips were shaped like a heart. Her viperishness and hostility to everyone had earned her the nickname of the Stinging Beetle.
Going into the dining-room without looking at anyone, she made for the icons and chanted in a high voice “Thy Holy Birth,” then she sang, “The Virgin today gives birth to the Son,” then, “Christ is born,” then she turned round and bent a piercing gaze upon all of them.
“A happy Christmas,” she said, and she kissed Anna Akimovna on the shoulder. “It’s all I could do, all I could do to get to you, my kind friends.” She kissed Auntie on the shoulder. “I should have come to you this morning, but I went in to some good people to rest on the way. ‘Stay, Spiridonovna, stay,’ they said, and I did not notice that evening was coming on.”
As she did not eat meat, they gave her salmon and caviar. She ate looking from under her eyelids at the company and drank three glasses of vodka. When she had finished she said a prayer and bowed down to Anna Akimovna’s feet.
They began to play a game of “kings,” as they had done the year before, and the year before that, and all the servants in both stories crowded in at the doors to watch the game. Anna Akimovna fancied she caught a glimpse once or twice of Mishenka, with a patronizing smile on his face, among the crowd of peasant men and women. The first to be king was Stinging Beetle, and Anna Akimovna as the soldier paid her tribute; and then Auntie was king and Anna Akimovna was peasant, which excited general delight, and Agafyushka was prince and was quite abashed with pleasure. Another game was got up at the other end of the table—played by the two Mashas, Varvarushka, and the sewing-maid Marfa Petrovna, who was waked on purpose to play “kings,” and whose face looked cross and sleepy.
While they were playing they talked of men, and of how difficult it was to get a good husband nowadays, and which state was to be preferred—that of an old maid or a widow.
“You are a handsome, healthy, sturdy lass,” said Stinging Beetle to Anna Akimovna. “But I can’t make out for whose sake you are holding back.”
“What’s to be done if nobody will have me?”
“Or maybe you have taken a vow to remain a maid?” Stinging Beetle went on, as though she did not hear. “Well, that’s a good deed. . . . Remain one,” she repeated, looking intently and maliciously at her cards. “All right, my dear, remain one. . . . Yes . . . only maids, these saintly maids, are not all alike.” She heaved a sigh and played the king. “Oh no, my girl, they are not all alike! Some really watch over themselves like nuns, and butter would not melt in their mouths; and if such a one does sin in an hour of weakness, she is worried to death, poor thing! so it would be a sin to condemn her. While others will go dressed in black and sew their shroud, and yet love rich old men on the sly. Yes, y-es, my canary birds, some hussies will bewitch an old man and rule over him, my doves, rule over him and turn his head; and when they’ve saved up money and lottery tickets enough, they will bewitch him to his death.”
Varvarushka’s only response to these hints was to heave a sigh and look towards the icons. There was an expression of Christian meekness on her countenance.
“I know a maid like that, my bitterest enemy,” Stinging Beetle went on, looking round at everyone in triumph; “she is always sighing, too, and looking at the icons, the she-devil. When she used to rule in a certain old man’s house, if one went to her she would give one a crust and bid one bow down to the icons while she would sing: ‘In conception Thou dost abide a Virgin . . . !’ On holidays she will give one a bite, and on working days she will reproach one for it. But nowadays I will make merry over her! I will make as merry as I please, my jewel.”
Varvarushka glanced at the icons again and crossed herself.
“But no one will have me, Spiridonovna,” said Anna Akimovna to change the conversation. “What’s to be done?”
“It’s your own fault. You keep waiting for highly educated gentlemen, but you ought to marry one of your own sort, a merchant.”
“We don’t want a merchant,” said Auntie, all in a flutter. “Queen of Heaven, preserve us! A gentleman will spend your money, but then he will be kind to you, you poor little fool. But a merchant will be so strict that you won’t feel at home in your own house. You’ll be wanting to fondle him and he will be counting his money, and when you sit down to meals with him, he’ll grudge you every mouthful, though it’s your own, the lout! . . . Marry a gentleman.”
They all talked at once, loudly interrupting one another, and Auntie tapped on the table with the nutcrackers and said, flushed and angry:
“We won’t have a merchant; we won’t have one! If you choose a merchant, I shall go to an almshouse.”
“Sh . . . Sh! . . . Hush!” cried Stinging Beetle; when all were silent she screwed up one eye and said: “Do you know what, Annushka, my birdie . . .? There is no need for you to get married really like everyone else. You’re rich and free, you are your own mistress; but yet, my child, it doesn’t seem the right thing for you to be an old maid. I’ll find you, you know, some trumpery and simple-witted man. You’ll marry him for appearances and then have your fling, bonny lass! You can hand him five thousand or ten maybe and pack him off where he came from, and you will be mistress in your own house—you can love whom you like and no one can say anything to you. And then you can love your highly educated gentleman. You’ll have a jolly time!” Stinging Beetle snapped her fingers and gave a whistle.
“It’s sinful,” said Auntie.
“Oh, sinful,” laughed Stinging Beetle. “She is educated, she understands. To cut someone’s throat or b
ewitch an old man—that’s a sin, that’s true; but to love some charming young friend is not a sin at all. And what is there in it, really? There’s no sin in it at all! The old pilgrim women have invented all that to make fools of simple folk. I, too, say everywhere it’s a sin; I don’t know myself why it’s a sin.” Stinging Beetle emptied her glass and cleared her throat. “Have your fling, bonny lass,” this time evidently addressing herself. “For thirty years, wenches, I have thought of nothing but sins and been afraid, but now I see I have wasted my time, I’ve let it slip by like a ninny! Ah, I have been a fool, a fool!” She sighed. “A woman’s time is short and every day is precious. You are handsome, Annushka, and very rich; but as soon as thirty-five or forty strikes for you your time is up. Don’t listen to anyone, my girl; live, have your fling till you are forty, and then you will have time to pray forgiveness—there will be plenty of time to bow down and to sew your shroud. A candle to God and a poker to the devil! You can do both at once! Well, how is it to be? Will you make some little man happy?”
“I will,” laughed Anna Akimovna. “I don’t care now; I would marry a workingman.”
“Well, that would do all right! Oh, what a fine fellow you would choose then!” Stinging Beetle screwed up her eyes and shook her head. “O—o—oh!”
“I tell her myself,” said Auntie, “it’s no good waiting for a gentleman, so she had better marry, not a gentleman, but someone humbler; anyway we should have a man in the house to look after things. And there are lots of good men. She might have someone out of the factory. They are all sober, steady men. . . .”
“I should think so,” Stinging Beetle agreed. “They are capital fellows. If you like, Aunt, I will make a match for her with Vassily Lebedinsky.”
“Oh, Vasya’s legs are so long,” said Auntie seriously. “He is so lanky. He has no looks.”