Now the foreign steamships and people in white reminded her for some reason of a vast hall; along with the French talk, the sounds of a waltz rang in her ears, and her breast trembled with causeless joy. She wanted to dance and speak French.
She reasoned joyfully that there was nothing terrible in her infidelity; her soul took no part in it; she continues to love Laevsky, and that is obvious from the fact that she is jealous of him, pities him, and misses him when he’s not at home. Kirilin turned out to be so-so, a bit crude, though handsome; she’s broken everything off with him, and there won’t be anything more. What there was is past, it’s nobody’s business, and if Laevsky finds out, he won’t believe it.
There was only one bathing cabin on the shore, for women; the men bathed under the open sky. Going into the bathing cabin, Nadezhda Fyodorovna found an older lady there, Marya Konstantinovna Bitiugov, the wife of an official, and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Katya, a schoolgirl; the two were sitting on a bench undressing. Marya Konstantinovna was a kind, rapturous, and genteel person who spoke in a drawl and with pathos. Until the age of thirty-two, she had lived as a governess, then she married the official Bitiugov, a small bald person who brushed his hair forward on his temples and was very placid. She was still in love with him, was jealous, blushed at the word ‘‘love,’’ and assured everyone that she was very happy.
‘‘My dear!’’ she said rapturously, seeing Nadezhda Fyodorovna and giving her face the expression that all her acquaintances called ‘‘almond butter.’’ ‘‘Darling, how nice that you’ve come! We’ll bathe together—that’s charming!’’
Olga quickly threw off her dress and chemise and began to undress her mistress.
‘‘The weather’s not so hot today as yesterday, isn’t that so?’’ said Nadezhda Fyodorovna, shrinking under the rough touch of the naked kitchen maid. ‘‘Yesterday it was so stifling I nearly died.’’
‘‘Oh, yes, my dear! I nearly suffocated myself. Would you believe, yesterday I went bathing three times ... imagine, my dear, three times! Even Nikodim Alexandrych got worried.’’
‘‘How can they be so unattractive?’’ thought Nadezhda Fyodorovna, glancing at Olga and the official’s wife. She looked at Katya and thought: ‘‘The girl’s not badly built.’’
‘‘Your Nikodim Alexandrych is very, very sweet!’’ she said. ‘‘I’m simply in love with him.’’
‘‘Ha, ha, ha!’’ Marya Konstantinovna laughed forcedly. ‘‘That’s charming!’’
Having freed herself of her clothes, Nadezhda Fyodorovna felt a wish to fly. And it seemed to her that if she waved her arms, she would certainly take off. Undressed, she noticed that Olga was looking squeamishly at her white body. Olga, married to a young soldier, lived with her lawful husband and therefore considered herself better and higher than her mistress. Nadezhda Fyodorovna also felt that Marya Konstantinovna and Katya did not respect her and were afraid of her. That was unpleasant, and to raise herself in their opinion, she said:
‘‘It’s now the height of the dacha season13 in Petersburg. My husband and I have so many acquaintances! We really must go and visit them.’’
‘‘It seems your husband’s an engineer?’’ Marya Konstantinovna asked timidly.
‘‘I’m speaking of Laevsky. He has many acquaintances. But unfortunately his mother, a proud aristocrat, rather limited...’
Nadezhda Fyodorovna did not finish and threw herself into the water; Marya Konstantinovna and Katya went in after her.
‘‘Our society has many prejudices,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna continued, ‘‘and life is not as easy as it seems.’’
Marya Konstantinovna, who had served as a governess in aristocratic families and knew something about society, said:
‘‘Oh, yes! Would you believe, at the Garatynskys’ it was
absolutely required that one dress both for lunch and for dinner, so that, like an actress, besides my salary, I also received money for my wardrobe.’’
She placed herself between Nadezhda Fyodorovna and Katya, as if screening her daughter from the water that lapped at Nadezhda Fyodorovna. Through the open door that gave onto the sea, they could see someone swimming about a hundred paces from the bathing cabin.
‘‘Mama, it’s our Kostya!’’ said Katya.
‘‘Ah, ah!’’ Marya Konstantinovna clucked in fright. ‘‘Ah! Kostya,’’ she cried, ‘‘go back! Go back, Kostya!’’
Kostya, a boy of about fourteen, to show off his bravery before his mother and sister, dove and swam further out, but got tired and hastened back, and by his grave, strained face, one could see that he did not believe in his strength.
‘‘These boys are trouble, darling!’’ Marya Konstantinovna said, calming down. ‘‘He can break his neck any moment. Ah, darling, it’s so pleasant and at the same time so difficult to be a mother! One’s afraid of everything.’’
Nadezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and threw herself out into the sea. She swam some thirty feet away and turned on her back. She could see the sea as far as the horizon, the ships, the people on the shore, the town, and all of it, together with the heat and the transparent, caressing waves, stirred her and whispered to her that she must live, live... A sailboat raced swiftly past her, energetically cleaving the waves and the air; the man who sat at the tiller looked at her, and she found it pleasing to be looked at...
After bathing, the ladies dressed and went off together.
‘‘I have a fever every other day, and yet I don’t get thinner,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, licking her lips, which were salty from bathing, and responding with smiles to the bows of acquaintances. ‘‘I’ve always been plump, and now it seems I’m plumper still.’’
‘‘That, darling, is a matter of disposition. If someone is not disposed to plumpness, like me, for instance, no sort of food will help. But darling, you’ve got your hat all wet.’’
‘‘Never mind, it will dry.’’
Nadezhda Fyodorovna again saw people in white walking on the embankment and talking in French; and for some reason, joy again stirred in her breast, and she vaguely remembered some great hall in which she had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And something in the very depths of her soul vaguely and dully whispered to her that she was a petty, trite, trashy, worthless woman...
Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and invited her to come in for a moment.
‘‘Come in, my dear!’’ she said in a pleading voice, at the same time looking at Nadezhda Fyodorovna with anguish and hope: maybe she’ll refuse and not come in!
‘‘With pleasure,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna accepted. ‘‘You know how I love calling on you!’’
And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna seated her, gave her coffee, offered her some sweet rolls, then showed her photographs of her former charges, the young Garatynsky ladies, who were all married now, and also showed her Katya’s and Kostya’s grades at the examinations; the grades were very good, but to make them look still better, she sighed and complained about how difficult it was now to study in high school... She attended to her visitor, and at the same time pitied her, and suffered from the thought that Nadezhda Fyodorovna, by her presence, might have a bad influence on Katya’s and Kostya’s morals, and she was glad that her Nikodim Alexandrych was not at home. Since, in her opinion, all men liked ‘‘such women,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna might have a bad influence on Nikodim Alexandrych as well.
As she talked with her visitor, Marya Konstantinovna remembered all the while that there was to be a picnic that evening and that von Koren had insistently asked that the macaques—that is, Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna—not be told about it, but she accidentally let it slip, turned all red, and said in confusion:
‘‘I hope you’ll be there, too!’’