‘And how do you like her papa?’ laughed the Count.
‘He’s insane… should be in a lunatic asylum, not managing forests. You wouldn’t be far wrong if you went and hung the sign “Lunatic Asylum” on the gates to your estate. It’s sheer Bedlam here! This forester, Owlet, that card-mad Franz, that old man in love, an overexcited girl, a drunken Count – what more do you want?’
‘And I pay that forester wages! How can he work if he’s insane?’
‘It’s obvious that Urbenin’s keeping him on solely because of the daughter. Urbenin says that Nikolay Yefimych goes off his rocker every summer. But that’s not so… that forester’s constantly off his rocker, not only during the summer. Fortunately your Pyotr Yegorych rarely lies and he’d soon give himself away if he did.’
‘Last year Urbenin wrote to inform me that our old forester Akhmetyev was going to Mount Athos21 to become a monk and he recommended the “experienced, honest and worthy Skvortsov”. Of course, I agreed, as I invariably do. After all, letters aren’t faces: they don’t show it if they lie!’
The carriage drove into the courtyard and stopped at the main entrance. We climbed out. By now it had stopped raining. Giving off flashes of lightning and angrily rumbling, a storm cloud was racing towards the north-east, revealing an ever-increasing expanse of starry blue sky. It seemed as if some heavily armed power, having wrought wholesale devastation and exacted terrible tribute, was now rushing on to new conquests. Small clouds that had been left behind hurried after it in hot pursuit, as if afraid they would not catch up with it. Peace was being restored to Nature.
And this peace was apparent in the calm aromatic air, filled with languor and nightingale melodies, in the silence of the sleeping garden, in the caressing light of the rising moon. The lake awoke after its daytime slumbers and made itself audible to man with its gentle murmur.
At such times it is pleasant to drive through open country in a comfortable carriage, or to row on a lake. But we went into the house: there a different kind of poetry was awaiting us.
V
The man who, under the influence of mental pain or plagued with unbearable suffering, puts a bullet in his brains is called a suicide. But for those who give full rein to their pathetic, spiritually debasing passions during the sacred days of their youth there is no name in the language of man. Bullets are followed by the peace of the grave, ruined youth is followed by years of grief and agonizing memories. Anyone who has profaned his youth will understand my present state of mind. I’m not old yet, I’m not grey, but I’m no longer alive. Psychiatrists tell of a soldier who, wounded at Waterloo, went mad, subsequently assuring everyone (and he believed it himself) that he had been killed at Waterloo and that the person they now took to be him was merely his ghost, an echo of the past. And now I’m experiencing something similar to that half-death.
‘I’m very glad you didn’t have anything to eat at the forester’s and haven’t spoilt your appetite,’ the Count told me as we entered the house. ‘We’re going to have an excellent supper, just like old times. You can serve us now,’ he told Ilya, who was helping him off with his jacket and putting on his dressing-robe.
Off we went to the dining-room. Here, on a side-table, life was already ‘bubbling away’. Bottles of every colour and conceivable size stood in rows, as they do on the shelves of theatre bars, reflecting the light from the lamps and awaiting our attention. Salted, marinaded meats, all kinds of savouries stood on another table, together with a carafe of vodka and another of English bitters.22 Close to the wine bottles were two dishes: one with sucking-pig, the other with cold sturgeon.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ began the Count, filling three glasses and shuddering as if he felt cold. ‘Good health! Take your glass, Kaetan Kazimirovich!’
I emptied mine, but the Pole shook his head negatively. He drew the sturgeon closer to him, sniffed it and started eating.
Here I must crave the reader’s forgiveness, for now I have to describe something which is not in the least ‘poetic’.
‘Well now, you’ve had your first,’ said the Count, refilling the glasses. ‘Be bold, my dear Lecoq!’
I took my glass, glanced at it and put it down. ‘To hell with it, it’s ages since I last had a drink,’ I said. ‘Why not remember the good old days?’ And without further hesitation I filled five glasses and, one after the other, poured their contents down my throat. That was the only way I knew how to drink. Little schoolboys learn from big ones how to smoke cigarettes. The Count looked at me as he poured himself five glasses, arched his body, wrinkled his face, shook his head and tossed them all back. My own five glasses struck him as an act of bravado, but I didn’t drink at all to flaunt my talent for drinking: far from it. I craved intoxication, pure and utter intoxication such as I had not known for a very long time, living as I did in a tiny little village. After drinking my fill I sat at the table and started on the sucking-pig.
Intoxication was not long in coming. Soon I felt a slight dizziness. Then I experienced a pleasant, cool sensation in my chest – this was the start of a blissful, expansive state. Suddenly, without any particularly noticeable transition, I became extremely merry. My feelings of boredom and emptiness gave way to a sensation of perfect joy and euphoria. I started smiling. Suddenly I yearned for conversation, laughter, people. As I chewed the sucking-pig I began to experience life in all its plenitude, almost complete contentment with life, almost perfect happiness.
‘Why aren’t you drinking?’ I asked the Pole.
‘He doesn’t drink,’ said the Count. ‘Don’t try and force him.’
‘All the same, you must at least drink something!’ I exclaimed. The Pole popped a large slice of sturgeon into his mouth and shook his head dismissively. His silence only egged me on.
‘Listen, Kaetan… what’s your second name?… why do you never say a word?’ I asked. ‘So far I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing your voice.’
His eyebrows rose like a swallow in flight and he looked at me.
‘Do you vish me to speak?’ he asked with a strong Polish accent.
‘I vish very much.’
‘And vy is zat?’
‘Vy indeed! On board ship, during dinner, strangers and people who’ve never met manage to get into conversation. But we, who have known each other for several hours now, simply gape at one another – and so far we haven’t spoken a single word to each other. It’s unheard of!’
The Pole said nothing.
‘But vy are you so silent?’ I asked after a brief interval. ‘Give me some sort of reply.’
‘I don’t vish to reply. I can detect laughter in your voice and I don’t like being ridiculed.’
‘But he’s not laughing at you at all!’ the Count said in alarm. ‘Where did you get that idea from, Kaetan? He’s just being friendly.’
‘Counts and princes have never taken zat tone with me!’ Kaetan said, frowning. ‘I don’t like zat tone.’
‘So, you won’t honour us with a little conversation?’ I persisted, polishing off another glass and laughing.
‘Do you know my real reason for coming back here?’ interrupted the Count, wishing to change the subject. ‘Haven’t I told you yet? In St Petersburg I went to see a doctor friend who’s always treated me, complaining about not feeling well. He listened, tapped, poked me all over and asked: “You’re not a coward, are you?” Well, although I’m no coward, I went white and replied that I wasn’t.’
‘Cut it short, old man, you’re boring me!’
‘He diagnosed that I would die very soon if I didn’t leave St Petersburg and go abroad. My whole liver was diseased from chronic drinking. So I decided to come here. Yes, it would have been stupid to have stayed on there. This estate is magnificent, so rich… the climate alone is priceless! Here one can at least get on with some work! Hard work is the best, the most effective medicine. Isn’t that so, Kaetan? I’ll do a spot of farming and give up drink. The doctor forbade me a single glass… not even one glass!’
r /> ‘Then don’t drink!’
‘I don’t drink any more – today’s the very last time, just to celebrate my reunion’ – here the Count leant over and gave me a resounding kiss on the cheek – ‘with my dear, good friend. But not a drop tomorrow! Today Bacchus takes leave of me forever! So, how about a little farewell glass of brandy, Sergey?’
We drank some brandy.
‘I’ll get well again, my dear Seryozha, and I’ll busy myself with farming. Rationalized farming! Urbenin is a good, kind man, he understands everything – but is he really the managerial type? No, he’s simply a slave to routine! We should subscribe to journals, read, follow all the news, exhibit at agricultural shows. But he’s too ignorant for that! Surely he can’t be in love with Olenka? Ha ha! I’ll take charge of things myself and make him my assistant. I’ll take part in the elections, cheer local society up a bit… eh? Come off it, you’re laughing! Yes, laughing! Really, it’s impossible to discuss anything with you.’
I felt cheerful and amused. The Count, the candles, the bottles, the plaster hares and ducks that adorned the dining-room walls all amused me. The only thing that didn’t amuse me was Kaetan’s sober physiognomy. That man’s presence irritated me.
‘Can’t you tell your lousy Pole to go to hell?’ I whispered to the Count.
‘What did you say? For God’s sake!’ mumbled the Count, seizing both my arms as if I were about to thrash that Pole of his. ‘Leave him alone!’
‘But I just can’t bear the sight of him!’ I said. ‘Listen,’ I went on, turning to Pshekhotsky. ‘You refuse to talk to me, but please forgive me – I haven’t abandoned all hope yet of gaining a closer acquaintance with your conversational ability…’
‘Stop it!’ exclaimed the Count, tugging my sleeve. ‘I beg you!’
‘I won’t leave you alone until you reply to my questions,’ I continued. ‘Vy are you frowning? Do you detect laughter in my voice even now?’
‘If I’d drunk as much as you, I’d be able to have a conversation vith you. But I’m not your sort,’ the Pole growled.
‘ “Not my sort” – that’s exactly what needs to be proven… that’s exactly what I meant to say. A goose is no companion for a pig… a drunkard cramps a sober man’s style and the sober man cramps the drunkard. In the next room there are the most excellent soft sofas! You can go and sleep off your sturgeon with horseradish. You won’t be able to hear me from there. Don’t you vish to head in zat direction?’
The Count clasped his hands in despair, blinked and walked up and down the dining-room. He was a coward and scared of ‘angry exchanges’. But when I was drunk, misunderstandings and unpleasantness only amused me.
‘I don’t understand. I don’t under-stand!’ moaned the Count, at a loss what to say or do.
He knew that I would take some stopping.
‘I don’t really know you yet,’ I continued. ‘Perhaps you are a very fine person and therefore I wouldn’t want to start quarrelling with you so early in the day. I don’t have any quarrel with you, I’m simply inviting you to try and get into your head that there’s no place for the sober amongst the drunk. The presence of a sober person has an irritating effect on the drunken organism! Please understand that!’
‘You can say vot you like,’ Pshekhotsky sighed. ‘Nothing you say vill get my back up, young man!’
‘Nothing? What if I called you an obstinate pig – wouldn’t you take offence at that?’
The Pole turned crimson – and that was all. White as a sheet, the Count came over to me with an imploring look and opened his arms wide.
‘Please moderate your language, I beg you!’
I was now relishing my drunken role and wanted to carry on, but fortunately for the Count and the Pole some footsteps rang out and into the dining-room came Urbenin.
‘I wish you good appetite!’ he began. ‘I’ve come to inquire if you have any orders for me, Your Excellency.’
‘None at the moment, but I do have a request,’ replied the Count. ‘I’m really delighted you’ve come, Pyotr Yegorych. Sit down and have some supper with us and let’s discuss farming.’
Urbenin sat down. The Count quaffed some brandy and started explaining his plans for the future ‘rational’ management of the estate. He spoke lengthily, tiresomely, constantly repeating himself and changing the subject. Urbenin listened to him attentively, as serious people listen to the chatter of women and children. He ate some fish soup and sadly gazed into his plate.
‘I’ve brought some first-class plans back with me,’ the Count said. ‘Remarkable plans! Would you like me to show you them?’
Karneyev jumped up and ran to his study to fetch them. Taking advantage of his absence, Urbenin quickly poured himself half a tumbler of vodka and swallowed it, without taking any food with it.
‘Vodka’s a disgusting drink!’ he said, looking hatefully at the carafe.
‘Why don’t you drink while the Count’s here, Pyotr Yegorych?’ I asked him. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’
‘Sergey Petrovich, it’s better to play the hypocrite and drink on the sly, than when you’re with the Count. You know he’s very odd. If I were to steal twenty thousand from him and he got to know, he wouldn’t be concerned and he’d say nothing. But if I forgot to account for a ten-copeck piece that I’d spent, or if I drank some vodka in front of him, he’d start moaning that his manager was a crook. You know very well what he’s like.’
Urbenin poured himself another half tumbler and swallowed it.
‘You never used to drink, Pyotr Yegorych,’ I said.
‘No – but I do now. A hell of a lot!’ he whispered. ‘A hell of a lot, day and night, never stopping for a breather! Even the Count never drank as much as I do now. Things are very hard for me, Sergey Petrovich. God alone knows how heavy my heart is. That’s exactly why I drink – to drown my sorrows… I’ve always been fond of you and respected you, Sergey Petrovich, and to tell you quite frankly… I’d willingly go and hang myself!’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because of my own stupidity. It’s not only children who are stupid… there are fools at fifty. Don’t ask the reason.’
The Count came in again and put a stop to his effusions.
‘A most excellent liqueur!’ he exclaimed, putting a pot-bellied bottle with the Benedictine seal on the table instead of his ‘first-class plans’. ‘I picked it up at Depré’s23 when I was passing through Moscow. Would you care for a drop, Seryozha?’
‘But I thought you’d gone to fetch the plans,’ I said.
‘Me? What plans? Oh yes! But the devil himself couldn’t sort my suitcases out, old chap. I kept rummaging and rummaging but I gave it up as a bad job. It’s a very nice liqueur. Would you care for a drop?’
Urbenin stayed a little longer, then he said goodbye and left. When he had gone we started on the red wine: this completely finished me off. I was intoxicated exactly the way I wanted to be when I was riding to the Count’s. I became extremely high spirited, lively, unusually cheerful. I wanted to accomplish some truly extraordinary, amusing, dashing deed… At such moments I felt I could have swum right across the lake, solved the most complicated case, conquered any woman. The world, with all its diversity of life, sent me into raptures. I loved it, but at the same time I wanted to find fault with someone, to sting with venomous witticism, to mock… I simply had to ridicule that black-browed Pole and the Count, to wear them down with biting sarcasm, to make mincemeat of them.
‘Why are you so quiet?’ I began. ‘Speak and I’ll listen! Ha ha! I simply adore it when people with serious, respectable physiognomies spout puerile nonsense! It’s such a mockery, such a mockery of the human brain! Your faces don’t correspond to your brains! To tell the truth, you should have the physiognomies of idiots, but you have the faces of Greek sages!’
I didn’t finish. My tongue became tied in knots at the thought that I was talking to nobodies who weren’t even worth a mention! I needed a crowded ballroom, brilliant women, thous
ands of lights… I got up, took my glass and started wandering through all the rooms. On a drunken spree you don’t set limits to your space, you don’t restrict yourself to a dining-room, but roam over the whole house, even the entire estate.
I selected an ottoman in the ‘mosaic’ room, lay down and surrendered myself to fantasies and building castles in the air. Drunken dreams, each more grandiose and boundless than the last, took possession of my young brain. Now I could see a new world, full of stupefying pleasures and beauty beyond description. All that was lacking was for me to talk in rhyme and start having hallucinations.
The Count came up to me and sat on the edge of the ottoman. He wanted to tell me something. I had begun to read in his eyes this desire to communicate something rather unusual very soon after the above-mentioned five glasses: I knew what he wanted to discuss.
‘I’ve had so much to drink today!’ he told me. ‘For me it’s more harmful than any poison. But today’s the last time. Word of honour, the last time! I do have will-power.’
‘Of course, of course.’
‘For the last… for the last time, Seryozha, old chap, shouldn’t we send a telegram to town?’
‘By all means… send one…’
‘Let’s have a real orgy – for the last time. Come on, get up and write it.’
The Count had no idea how to write telegrams – they always turned out too long and incomplete. So I got up and wrote: