'Auntie!' he exclaimcd blissfully. 'What's been the matter with me?'
'You'vc had typhus.'
'Really? But I feel fine now, fine! Where's Katya?'
'She's out. I expect she called in to see someone after her exam.'
Theold lady said these words and bentdown over the stocking she was knitting; her lips began to tremble, she turned aside and sud- denly burst out sobbing.
'Oh Katya, Katya !' she said, in her despair forgetting all that the doctor had told her. 'Our angel's gone! Gone!'
She dropped the stocking and bent down to pick it up, and as she did so, her cap fell off her head. Looking at her grey hair and not understanding anything, Klimov felt scared for Katya and asked:
'But where is she? Auntie!'
The old lady, who was no longer thinking about Klimov but only of her own grief, said:
'She caught typhus from you and . . . and died. She was buried the day before yesterday.'
This terrible and unexpected news entercd fully into Klimov's consciousness, but however terrible and compelling it might be, it could not overcome the feeling of animal joy that filled the lieutenant as he regained his strength. He cried, he laughed, and soon he began swearing because he was not allowed to eat.
It was only the week after, when he walked over to the window in his dressing-gown leaning on Pavel's arm, looked out at the dull spring sky and listened to the unpleasant clanging of some old rails being carried past in the street, that he felt sick at heart, burst into tears, and pressed his forehead against the window-frame.
'Lord, how unhappy I am,' he murmured. 'How unhappy!'
And his joy gave way to a fceling of mundane boredom and a sense of irreparable loss.
Notes from the journal of a Quick-Tempered Man
I am a serious person with a philosophical turn of mind. An accoun- tant by profession, I am studying fiscal law and writing a thesis entitled: 'The Dog-Tax: its Past and Future.' It's quite obvious I can have absolutely no interest in young ladies, love songs, the moon and suchlike nonsense.
At 10 a.m. my maman poured my coffee. I drank it and went out on to the balcony to get down to work on my thesis right away. I took a fresh sheet of paper, dipped my pen in the ink and put down the title: 'The Dog-Tax: its Past and Future.' Then, after thinking for a while, I wrote: 'Historical Survey. Judging from certain passing references to be found in Herodotus and Xenophon, the dog-tax arose from — '
But at that point I heard footsteps of a highly suspicious nature. Looking down from the balcony I saw a young lady with an elon- gated face and elongated figure. I believe she is called Nadenka or Varenka (however, that is absolutely irrelevant). She was looking for something, pretending not to have noticed me, and singing: 'Dost thou recall that melody so full, so full of bliss . ..'
I re-read what I had written and was about to continue when the young lady suddenly pretended she had just noticed me and said plaintively:
'Oh good morning, Nikolay Andrcich! I'm awfully upset. I must havc lost a baublc from my bract-lc.-t whcn I was out walking ycstcr- day.' '
I read thc opening phrase of my thcsisonce again, touched up the crossbar on a 't' and was about to resume - but the young lady was not to bc put off so easily.
'Nikolay Andreich,' shc said, 'please come and see me back to the house. I'm so scared of passing that enormous dog of the Karelins I daren't go on my own.'
Well, there was no way out, so I replaced my pen and went down. Nadcnka (or Varenka) took my arm and wc set off towards her datcha.
Whenever it falls to my lot rn have to walk arm-in-arm with a young girl or a lady, for some reason I always fcel like a hook on which someone ha.s hung a large fur coat. Nadenka (or Varenka) - who, bctwccn oursclves, has rather a passionate nature (her grand- father was Armenian) - is gifted with a way of leaning on your arm with the whole weight of hcr body and pressing herself to your side like a leech. So that was how we proceedcd . . . As we walked past the Karelins' l saw their large dog. That reminded me of the dog-tax and I sighed wistfully as I recalled my opening sentence.
'Why are you sighing?' askcd Nadenka (or Varenka), and herself breathed a deep sigh.
A word of explanation here. Nadenka or Varenka (but now I seem to recall that her name is, in fact, Mashenka) for some reason has got it into her head that I am in love with her, and therefore considers it her duty, on humanitarian grounds, always to look at me with compassion in her eyes and to minister verbally to my wounded soul.
She stopped and said; 'Oh, I know why you are sighing. You love someone, that's what it is! But in the name of our friendship I beg you to bclieve that the girl whom you love holds you in great respect! She cannot answer your affection with like, but is the fault hers if her heart has long belonged to another?'
Mashenka's nose flushed and began to look puffy, and tears welled up in her eyes. She obviously expected me to reply, but fortunately just at that moment we arrived at her house ... Mashenka's maman was sitting on the verandah. She is a kind woman, but with some funny ideas. Observing the signs of emotion in her daughter's face, she gave me a long hard look and sighed, as if to say; 'Ah, youth, youth! Too innocent even to conceal your feel- ings!' Apart from her there were several variegated young ladies sitting on the verandah, and in their midst the fellow who lives in the datcha next door to mine — an ex-army officer wounded during the last war in the left temple and right hip. Like me, this unfortunate had made up his mind to devote the summer to literary activity. He was writing the 'Memoirs of a Military Man'. Like me, he would set about his honourable task every morning and never get further than writing: 'I was born in .. .' when some Varenka or Mashenka would appear beneath his balcony and carry offthe wounded warrior under escort.
The whole party sitting on the verandah were preparing some kind of ghastly berries for jam-making. I bowed with the intention of leaving them, but the variegated damsels seized my hat with a squeal and insisted I stay. So I sat down. I was given a plateful of berries and a hairpin. I started stoning the berries.
The variegated young ladies were discoursing on the subject of men: Mr. A. was awfully sweet, Mr. B. was good-looking but not very attractive, Mr. C. wasn't good-looking but he was attractive, Mr. D. wouldn't be bad if his nose wasn't so like a thimble, and so on.
'And you, monsieur Nicolas,' Varenka's tmaman said turning to me, 'aren't good-looking but you are attractive. You've an interest- ing face . .. But of course,' she sighed, 'the most important thing in a man isn't his looks but his brain . . .'
The young ladies all sighed and looked at the floor . .. They too clearly agreed that the most important thing in a man wasn't his looks but his brain. At this point I took a sidelong glance at myselfin the mirror to check how attractive I was. What I saw was a shaggy head of hair, a shaggy beard, moustache, eyebrows, hair on my cheeks, hairs under my eyes — a perfect thicket with a substantial nose sticking out of it like a forester's watch-tower. A fine-looking chap, I must say!
'But of course, Nicolas, it is your spiritual qualities that will win the day,' sighed Nadenka's maman, as if confirming some secret thought of her own.
Nadenka was sitting there suffering visibly on my behalf, but at the same time it clearly gave her the greatestsatisfaction to know that opposite her was a man who was deeply in love with her. After they had finished with men, the young ladies got on to love. Then after a long conversation about love one of them stood up and left. The others immediately set about tearing her to pieces. They all agreed she was stupid, unbearable, a sight, and that one of her shoulder- blades stuck out.