Urbenin got up, wiped his face with his napkin and sat down again. A minute later he downed another sherry at one gulp, gave me a long, pleading look as if asking for protection – and then his shoulders suddenly began to shake and he began sobbing like a child.
‘It’s nothing, sir, nothing,’ he muttered, trying to overcome his tears. ‘Now don’t you worry. After what you said my heart was filled with some vague forebodings. But it’s nothing, sir.’
Urbenin’s forebodings were realized so soon that I hardly have time to change my pen and start a new page. With the next chapter my tranquil muse will exchange the serene expression on her face for one of anger and grief. The Preface is finished and the drama begins. The criminal will of man now comes into its own.
X
I remember a fine Sunday morning. Through the windows of the Count’s church the diaphanous blue sky was visible and a dull shaft of light, where clouds of incense gaily played, lay across the church, from its painted cupola right down to the floor. Through the windows and doors came the songs of swallows and starlings. One sparrow, clearly a very bold fellow, flew in through the doorway; after circling and chirping over our heads and dipping several times into the beam of light, it flew out of the window. There was singing in the church too… The choir sang harmoniously, with feeling, and with that same enthusiasm of which our Ukrainian singers are capable when they feel that they are the heroes of the moment and that all eyes are constantly on them. Most of the tunes were cheerful and lively, like those tiny patches of sunlight that played on the walls and the clothes of the congregation. Despite the cheerful wedding melodies, my ear seemed to detect a note of melancholy in that unpolished, yet soft tenor voice, as if the singer felt sorry that pretty, romantic Olenka was standing beside that ponderous, bear-like has-been, Urbenin. And it was not only the tenor who felt sorry at the spectacle of that ill-matched couple. Even an idiot could have read pity on those numerous faces that filled my field of vision, however hard they tried to appear cheerful and unconcerned.
Attired in my new dress suit, I stood behind Olenka and held the garland over her head. I was pale and not feeling too well… yesterday’s carousal and outing on the lake had given me a splitting headache and I constantly had to check that my hand wasn’t trembling as it held the garland. Deep down I felt miserable and apprehensive, as if I were in a forest on a rainy, autumn night. I felt annoyed, repelled, regretful, I felt a nagging anxiety, as if I were suffering pangs of conscience. There in the depths, at the very bottom of my heart, dwelt a little demon that stubbornly, persistently whispered to me that if Olenka’s marriage to that clumsy Urbenin was a sin, then I was guilty of it. Where could such thoughts have come from? Couldn’t I have saved that silly young girl from the unbelievable risk she had taken, from her undoubted mistake?
‘Who knows?’ whispered the little demon. ‘You should know this better than me!’
I’d seen many unequal marriages in my time, I’d stood more than once before Pukirev’s picture,37 read many novels based on disparity between husband and wife. Finally, I knew all about physiology, which peremptorily punishes unequal marriages – but not once in my life had I experienced such an appalling state of mind, that I could not shake off, however hard I tried, now as I stood behind Olenka, fulfilling a best man’s duties. If my heart was troubled by regret alone, then why hadn’t I felt this regret earlier, when I attended other weddings?
‘It’s not regret,’ whispered the little demon. ‘It’s jealousy!’
But one can be jealous only of those one loves – and did I love that girl in red? If I were to love all the girls I met living under the moon, then my heart would not be large enough and I would really have been overreaching myself!
At the back of the church, just by the door, behind the churchwarden’s cupboard, stood my friend Count Karneyev, selling candles. His hair was smoothed down and heavily greased, and it gave off a narcotic, stifling smell of perfume. Today he looked such a dear that I couldn’t resist remarking when I greeted him:
‘Aleksey! You look the perfect quadrille dancer today!’
He escorted everyone who came in or out with a sugary smile and I could hear the clumsy compliments with which he rewarded every lady who bought a candle from him. He, that spoilt darling of fortune, who never kept brass coins and who had no idea how to use them, was constantly dropping five-and three-copeck coins on the floor. Nearby, leaning on the cupboard, stood the majestic Kalinin, with the Order of Stanislas around his neck. His face was radiant and shining – he was glad that his idea about ‘at-homes’ had fallen on such fertile soil and was already beginning to bear fruit. In his heart of hearts he was showering Urbenin with a thousand thanks: although the wedding was an absurdity, it was easy to seize upon it as an opportunity to arrange the first ‘at-home’.
Vain Olenka must have been in her seventh heaven. From the nuptial lectern, right up to the main doors, stretched two rows of female representatives from our local ‘flower-garden’. The lady guests were dressed as they would have been if the Count himself were getting married – one couldn’t have wished for more elegant outfits. The majority of these ladies were aristocrats – not one priest’s wife, not one shopkeeper’s wife. There were ladies to whom Olenka had never before thought that she even had the right to curtsy. Olenka’s groom was an estate manager, merely a privileged servant, but that could not have wounded her vanity. He was of the gentry and owned a mortgaged estate in the neighbouring district. His father had been district marshal of the nobility and he himself had already been a JP for nine years in his native district. What more could an ambitious daughter of a personal nobleman have wanted? Even the fact that her best man was celebrated throughout the whole province as a bon vivant38 and a Don Juan could tickle her pride: all the ladies were ogling him. He was as impressive as forty thousand best men put together39 and – more significant than anything else – had not refused to be best man to a simple girl like her, when it was a known fact that he had even refused aristocratic ladies when they invited him to be their best man!
But vain Olenka did not rejoice. She was as pale as the linen she had recently brought back from Tenevo fair. The hand which held the candle trembled slightly, now and then her chin quivered. Her eyes were filled with a kind of stupor, as if she had suddenly been surprised or frightened by something. There was not a trace of that gaiety that had shone in her eyes when, even as recently as yesterday, she had run around the garden and enthusiastically discussed the kind of wallpaper she would like to have in her drawing-room, on what days she would receive visitors, and so on. Now her face was far too serious – much more than the solemnity of the occasion demanded.
Urbenin was wearing a new dress suit. Although he was decently attired, his hair was brushed the way Orthodox Russians used to brush their hair back in 1812. As usual, he was red-faced and serious. His eyes seemed to be praying and the signs of the cross he made after each ‘Lord have mercy’ were not performed mechanically.
Behind me stood Urbenin’s children from his first marriage – the schoolboy Grisha and a fair-haired little girl called Sasha. They were gazing at their father’s red neck and protruding ears, and their faces resembled question marks. They just couldn’t understand what their father wanted with that woman and why he was taking her into their house. Sasha was merely surprised, but fourteen-year-old Grisha was frowning and scowling. He would definitely have said ‘no’ if his father had asked his permission to marry.
The wedding ceremony was performed with particular solemnity. Three priests and two deacons were officiating. The service was long – so long that my arms grew weary from holding the garland, and the ladies, who normally like to witness weddings, let their eyes wander from the bridal pair. The rural dean read the prayers slowly, in measured tones, without omitting a single one. The choir sang an extremely long hymn from their music books. Taking the opportunity to show off his deep bass voice, the clerk read from the Acts of the Apostles with a ‘doubly emphatic dra
wl’. But finally the senior priest took the garland from my hand, the couple kissed. The guests grew excited, the regular rows broke up, the sound of congratulations, kisses and sighing filled the air. Radiant and smiling, Urbenin took his young bride on his arm and we all went out into the fresh air.
If anyone who was with me in the church should find this account incomplete and not totally accurate, let him ascribe any omission to my headache and the above-mentioned depression that prevented me from observing and taking note of the proceedings. Of course, had I known at the time that I would be writing a novel, I wouldn’t have gazed at the floor as I did that morning and I would have ignored my headache completely!
Fate sometimes allows itself to play bitter, nasty tricks. The bridal pair had barely left the church when they were greeted by an unwelcome and unexpected surprise. As the wedding procession – so gay in the sunshine with hundreds of different tints and colours – was making its way from the church to the Count’s house, Olenka suddenly took a step backwards, stopped and tugged her husband’s elbow so violently that he staggered.
‘They’ve let him out!’ she cried out loud, looking at me in horror.
Poor girl! Her insane father, the forester Skvortsov, was running down the avenue to meet her. Waving his arms and stumbling, rolling his eyes like one demented, he made quite a disagreeable spectacle. Even this would probably have been acceptable had he not been wearing his cotton-print dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, whose decrepitude clashed terribly with his daughter’s luxurious wedding-gown. His face was sleepy, his hair fluttered about in the wind, his nightshirt was undone…
‘Olenka!’ he babbled as he approached the couple. ‘Why have you left me?’
Olenka blushed and gave the smiling ladies a sidelong glance. The poor girl was burning with shame.
‘Mitka didn’t lock the doors!’ the forester continued, turning to us. ‘Do you think burglars would have any trouble getting in? Last year they stole the samovar from the kitchen and now she wants us to be robbed again!’
‘I don’t know who let him out!’ Urbenin whispered to me. ’I gave orders for him to be locked in. Sergey Petrovich, my dear chap, please do us a favour and get us out of this mess somehow!’
‘I know who stole your samovar,’ I told the forester. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
Putting my arm around Skvortsov’s waist, I led him towards the church. After taking him into the churchyard I talked to him, and when (according to my calculations) the wedding procession should have arrived back at the house, I left him, without showing him where his stolen samovar was.
However unexpected and extraordinary that encounter with the madman was, it was nevertheless soon forgotten. A new surprise that fate had in store for the couple was even weirder…
XI
An hour later we were all sitting down and having dinner at long tables.
Anyone who was used to the cobwebs, mildew and the uninhibited whooping of gipsies in the Count’s apartments must have found it strange looking at that everyday, pedestrian crowd, now shattering the silence of those ancient, deserted rooms with its banal chatter. That gaily coloured, noisy crowd resembled a flock of starlings that had suddenly flown down to rest for a fleeting moment in a neglected cemetery or (and may that noble bird forgive the comparison!) a flight of migratory storks that had come to roost in their twilight days on the ruins of an abandoned castle.
I sat there, full of loathing for that crowd which was inspecting the decaying wealth of Count Karneyev with such idle curiosity. Those mosaic walls, the moulded ceilings, the luxurious, splendid Persian carpets and rococo furniture aroused delight and amazement. The Count’s mustachioed face continually grinned with a self-satisfied smile. He accepted the rapturous flattery of his guests as something well deserved, although in fact he had not contributed one bit to the riches and luxury of his neglected mansion. On the contrary, he deserved the bitterest reproaches – contempt even – for his barbaric, grossly indifferent attitude to all the wealth assembled by his father and forefathers, which had taken decades rather than days to accumulate! Only the spiritually blind or poor could fail to see on every grey marble slab, in every painting, in every dark corner of the Count’s garden, the sweat, tears and calloused hands of the people whose children now sheltered in those miserable little huts in the Count’s wretched village. And among that vast assembly now seated at the wedding table – wealthy, independent people whom nothing was preventing from uttering the harshest truth – there wasn’t a soul who would have informed the Count that his self-satisfied smile was stupid and inappropriate. Everyone found it necessary to smile obsequiously and sing his praises. If this was ‘elementary’ politeness (we love to lump the blame for many things on politeness and propriety) then I would have preferred ill-mannered louts who eat with their hands, take bread from someone else’s plate at table and blow their noses between two fingers, to those fops.
Urbenin was smiling, but he had his own reasons for that. He smiled obsequiously and respectfully – and happily, like a child. His broad smile was a substitute for the happiness of a dog – a loyal, affectionate dog that had been petted and made happy, and which was wagging its tail now, cheerfully and devotedly, as a token of gratitude.
Like Risler Senior in Alphonse Daudet’s novel,40 beaming and rubbing his hands with pleasure, he gaped at his loving wife and was so overcome with emotion that he could not resist asking himself question after question.
‘Who would have thought that this young beauty would fall in love with an old fogey like me? Surely she could have found someone a little younger and more refined? A woman’s heart passes all understanding!’
And he even had the nerve to turn to me and blurt out:
‘Just think – the times we live in! He he! When an old man can carry off such a beautiful fairy from under the noses of young men! Why didn’t you keep your eyes open!? He he! The young men of today aren’t what they were!’
Unable to stem the flood of gratitude that was bursting from his broad chest, he kept leaping up and holding out his glass to the Count’s. In a voice that was trembling with emotion he said: ‘You know how I feel towards you, Your Excellency. You’ve done so much for me today that my fondness for you seems a mere nothing, a trifle. What have I done to deserve such consideration from Your Excellency, such concern for my happiness? Only counts and bankers celebrate their weddings in such style! Such luxury, so many distinguished guests! Ah, what can I say? Believe me, Your Excellency, I’ll never forget you, just as I’ll never forget the best, the happiest day of my life!’
And so on. Evidently Olenka didn’t care for her husband’s flamboyant show of respect. She was noticeably pained by his speechifying, which produced smiles on the diners’ faces, and she even seemed ashamed of it. Despite the glass of champagne she had drunk she was as gloomy and miserable as ever: there was that same pallor as in the church, that same dread in her eyes. She said nothing, replied lazily to all questions, forced herself to smile at the Count’s jokes and barely touched those expensive dishes. As much as Urbenin (who was gradually getting drunk) considered himself the happiest of mortals, so her pretty little face was unhappy. Just looking at it made me feel sorry, and to avoid the sight of that little face I tried to fix my eyes on my plate.
How could this sadness of hers be explained? Was regret beginning to gnaw away at that poor girl? Or perhaps she was so vain that she expected even more pomp and ceremony?
When I glanced up at her during the second course I was so upset that my heart really began to ache for her. As she answered one of the Count’s stupid questions, that poor girl tried hard to swallow. Sobs welled up in her throat. Instead of taking her napkin from her mouth she timidly, like a small, frightened animal, kept looking at us to see whether we had noticed how close she was to tears.
‘Why are you looking so sour-faced today?’ asked the Count. ‘Hey, Pyotr Yegorych, it’s your fault! Now please be good enough to cheer your wife up. Gentlemen, I demand
a kiss. Ha ha! Not for myself, of course, but… I want them to kiss each other. Oh, it’s so sad!’
‘So sad!’ repeated Kalinin.
Smiling all over his red face, Urbenin stood up and blinked. Prompted by the guests’ whooping and exclamations, Olenka rose slightly and offered her motionless, lifeless lips to Urbenin. He kissed her. Olenka pressed her lips tightly together, as if afraid they might be kissed a second time and glanced at me. Most probably she didn’t like the way I looked at her: taking note of this she suddenly blushed, reached for her handkerchief and started blowing her nose in an attempt to hide her terrible confusion one way or the other. It occurred to me that she felt ashamed in front of me, ashamed of that kiss, of her marriage.
‘Why should I worry about you?’ I thought. But at the same time I didn’t let her out of my sight as I tried to find the reason for her confusion.
My gaze was too much for the poor girl. True, the blushes of shame soon vanished from her face, but then tears poured from her eyes – real tears, that I had never seen before. With her handkerchief pressed to her face she stood up and ran out of the dining-room.
‘Olga Nikolayevna has a headache,’ I hurriedly explained her exit. ‘She was already complaining about it this morning.’
‘Come off it, old man!’ joked the Count. ‘Headaches have nothing to do with it. It was the kiss that was to blame and embarrassed her. Ladies and gentlemen! I demand that the bridegroom be sternly reprimanded! He hasn’t trained his wife in the art of kissing. Ha ha!’
Delighted by the Count’s witticism, the guests burst out laughing. But it wasn’t right of them to laugh…