IX
Revelry
In a small and elegant back room of the Novotroitsky inn used only by patrons who were particularly well-known, our four acquaintances were sitting at a long table on which supper had been eaten.
‘You know who I want to drink to,’ said Seriozha to Prince Kornakov, pouring out a glass and raising it to his lips. Seriozha’s face was very red and his eyes had an oily, unnatural appearance.
‘Let us drink,’ replied Kornakov, his usual bored and impassive expression transformed by an affectionate smile.
This toast to an unnamed person was repeated several times. The General had taken off his tie and was lying on a divan with a bottle of cognac, a glass and some cheese beside him. His face was somewhat redder and puffier than usual and from his impudent and half screwed-up eyes it was evident that he was enjoying himself.
‘This is what I really like,’ he said, looking at Seriozha who was seated opposite him emptying one glass after another. ‘There was a time when I used to drink champagne, as you do. I would drink a whole bottle at supper at a ball, and then whatever happened I would dance and be even more charming than before.’
‘No, I have no regrets for those days,’ said N.N., leaning on his elbow and looking with a melancholy expression into Kornakov’s agreeably animated eyes. ‘I can still put away as many glasses as you could wish, but what of that? The only sad thing is that the time is long past when, like him, I would drink some lady’s health, and I would sooner have died than refuse to drink to anyone when I was dead set on reaching le fond de la bouteille,16 for I really believed that I would end up marrying the woman whose health I drank from this found de la bouteille. Oh, if only I could have married all the women to whom I’ve dedicated that last drop, how many wonderful wives I would have had! Ah yes, what wonderful wives – if you only knew, Seriozha …’ – and he waved his hand in the air. ‘Well, and here is your fond de la bouteille,’ he said, pouring out the last of the wine for him … ‘But what am I saying? You shouldn’t be doing this …’ – and he gave him a cheerful and affectionate smile.
‘Oh, don’t remind me. I had forgotten all about the things I should not be doing, and I don’t want to think about them, I feel so content here and now.’ And his eyes shone with the pure delight of a young man throwing himself fearlessly into his first passionate love.
‘Well, what about this, how delightful he is!’ said N.N., turning to the General. ‘You can’t imagine how much he reminds me of myself. Débouchons-le tout à fait.’17
‘Yes,’ said the General, ‘you know <I was thinking about taking the company along to visit the gypsies, and now I’m in the mood, let’s go.> Allons au b …,18 and we’ll take him with us.’
Five minutes later Seriozha was sitting in N.N.’s evening sledge; the fresh, frosty air stung his face, and in front of him he could see the driver’s burly back, as dim streetlights and the walls of houses sped past on both sides.
Daydreams
‘Here I am in the country where I was born and spent my childhood, at Semyonovskoye, so full of dear and wonderful memories. It is an evening in spring, and I am in the garden, in the spot my late mother was so fond of beside the pond in the birch-tree walk, and I am not alone – with me is my wife, in a white dress, her hair swept up simply on her lovely head; and this wife of mine is the woman I love – the woman I love as I have never loved anyone before, more than anything in the world, more than myself even. The moon, sailing peacefully across a sky covered with transparent clouds, is brightly reflected, together with the clouds it illumines, in the mirror-like surface of the unruffled pond, and it lights up the green banks overgrown with yellowish sedge, the light-coloured logs of the little dam, the willow branches hanging above it, the dark-green foliage of the blossoming lilacs and bird-cherries which fill the pure air with a joyful spring fragrance, the leaves of the dogroses which crowd the flowerbeds between the winding paths, the long, leafy, motionless branches of the tall birches and the delicate greenery of the lime trees standing in their straight, dark avenues. From the far side of the pond the loud song of the nightingale can be heard in the overgrown thicket of trees, and the music is reflected even more sonorously from the still surface of the water. I am holding the soft hand of the woman I love, and gazing into her wonderful wide eyes whose look has such a comforting effect on my soul, and she smiles and squeezes my hand in return – she is happy too!’
How stupid are these comforting dreams. Stupid because of their impossibility, comforting because of the poetic feeling with which they are filled. Granted, they will not, cannot indeed, come true; but why not let oneself be carried away by them if this fantasy is a source of such pure and lofty delight? It never occurred to Seriozha at that moment to ask himself the question: how could this woman become his wife when she was married already, and even if that were possible, would it be a good thing, the right thing? And if it were to be so, how then would he set about arranging his life? Beyond these few minutes of love and passion he was quite unable to picture this other life. True love experiences in itself such a range of sacred, innocent, powerful, invigorating, liberating feelings, that for true love neither crimes nor obstacles, nor the whole of the prosaic side of life, have any real existence.
Suddenly the sleigh came to a halt, and this interruption of the regular lulling motion roused him from his reverie. On his left he could see a snow-covered open space quite large for the city, with a few bare trees, and on his right the entrance porch of a low, rather crooked, drab little house with closed shutters.
‘What, are we outside the town?’ he enquired of the driver.
‘Not at all, this is Patriarch’s Ponds if you want to know, and that’s right next to Kozikhi.’
N.N. and the cheery General were already standing by the entrance. The latter was alternately kicking the cracked and shaky-looking house door with his foot, and tugging at a rusty piece of bent wire which hung from the lintel, shouting quite loudly as he did so: ‘Hey, you girls in there! Open up, girls!’ At length a rustling sound was heard – the noise of uncertain, cautious slippered footsteps, there was a glimmer of light behind the shutters, and the door opened. On the threshold appeared a bent old woman in a fox-fur coat which she had thrown on over a white nightshirt, holding a guttering tallow candle in her wrinkled hands. From a first glance at her sharp, forceful, wrinkled features, her glittering dark eyes, the jet-black hair streaked with grey sticking out from beneath her kerchief, and the swarthy brick-like hue of her skin, it could be seen beyond a doubt that she was a gypsy. She held up the candle to the faces of N.N. and the General, and at once recognized them, apparently with delight.
‘Ah, goodness gracious, good Lord! Mikhail Nikolayevich, my little father,’ she began in her harsh voice, with that particular accent which is peculiar to gypsies. ‘What a joy to see you, sun of our lives that you are! Aiee, and you too, N.N., it’s such a long time since you paid us a visit: won’t the girls be glad to see you! We humbly bid you come in, and we’ll have some dancing for you!’
‘Are your people at home, then?’
‘Yes, yes, all at home, they’ll come running, my golden one. Come in, come in.’
‘Entrons,’19 said N.N., and all four of them, without removing their hats and overcoats, entered a small, lowceilinged dirty room which, its untidiness apart, resembled the sort of room normally to be found in the houses of lower-middle-class folk: it was furnished with little mirrors in pretty frames, a tattered wooden-backed divan, and dirty-looking veneered chairs and tables.