“These are all trifles,” sobbed Nadezhda Fyodorovna. “If only I were happy, but I’m so miserable!”
“Yes, yes, you really are miserable!” sighed Maria Konstantinovna, barely containing herself to keep from crying. “And horrible grief awaits you in the future! Loneliness in your old age, illness, then having to answer on Judgment Day … Horrible, horrible! Now, fate herself is extending a helping hand, but you, uncomprehending, step out of her way. Get married, and get married quickly!”
“Yes, I must, I must,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, “but it’s impossible!”
“But why?”
“It’s impossible, oh, but if only you knew!”
Nadezhda Fyodorovna wanted to tell her about Kirilin and about how, last night on the wharf, she had met with the young, handsome Achmianov, and about how an insane but amusing thought had entered her mind of how to rid herself of the three-hundred-ruble debt, how she had found it all very amusing and returned home late in the evening, feeling irrevocably fallen and sold. She, herself, did not know how this had happened. And she wanted very much, now, to swear before Maria Konstantinovna that she would repay the debt without fail, but her sobs and shame prevented her from speaking.
“I’ll leave,” she said. “Let Ivan Andreich stay here, but I’ll leave.”
“And go where?”
“To Russia.”
“And how do you intend to live there? You don’t have anything.”
“I’ll work on translation … or I’ll open a little lending library …”
“You’re living in a fantasy world, my darling. It takes money to open a little lending library. Well, I’ll leave you now, you ought to calm down and do some thinking, and tomorrow come visit me cheerful as can be. It will be simply enchanting! Now, say farewell, my little angel. Let me give you a kiss.”
Maria Konstantinovna kissed Nadezhda Fyodorovna on the forehead, made the sign of the cross above her and quietly exited. It was already dark out, and Olga had lit a flame in the kitchen. Still crying, Nadezhda Fyodorovna went into the bedroom and got into bed. She was overcome by intense fever. She undressed reclining, crumpling her dress down about her legs, wrapped herself up in the blanket and curled into a ball. She was thirsty, but there was no one there to bring her anything.
“I’ll repay it!” she said to herself, and in her delirium it seemed to her as though she were seated beside some patient whom she recognized as herself. “I’ll pay it back. It was foolish to think that I would … over money … I’ll leave and I’ll send him the money from Petersburg. First, a hundred … then a hundred … and then—a hundred …”
Laevsky arrived late at night.
“First, a hundred …” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said to him, “then a hundred …”
“You should take your quinine,” he said, and thought:
Tomorrow is Wednesday, the steamship sets sail tomorrow, and I won’t be on it. That means I’ll have to live here until Saturday.
Nadezhda Fyodorovna got up on her knees in bed.
“Was I just saying something?” she asked, smiling and squinting from the candlelight.
“Not a thing. We’ll have to send for the doctor tomorrow morning. Sleep.”
He took a pillow and proceeded to the door. Once he had definitively decided to go away and leave Nadezhda Fyodorovna behind, she began to incite pity and feelings of guilt in him; he felt a little bit ashamed in her presence, as one would in the presence of an old or sick horse that was to be destroyed. He stopped at the door and looked over at her.
“At the picnic, I was irritated and spoke crudely to you. Won’t you pardon me, for God’s sake.”
Having said this, he went into his own study, lay down, but could not fall asleep for a long time.
When Samoylenko arrived the morning of the following day, dressed, in full formal uniform including epaulets and orders for the occasion of the holiday, having felt Nadezhda Fyodorovna’s pulse and looked at her tongue, exited the bedroom, Laevsky, who’d been standing at the threshold asked him in a state of alarm:
“Well, what? What?”
His face expressed fear, or at the very least unease and hope.
“Clam down, it’s nothing dangerous,” Samoylenko said. “An ordinary fever.”
“I’m not talking about that,” Laevsky grimaced impatiently. “Did you get the money?”
“My dear soul, pardon me,” whispered Samoylenko, looking sideways at the door and ill at ease. “For God’s sake, pardon me! No one has any money to spare, and I’ve managed to gather five here, ten rubles there—all in all, one hundred and ten. I’ve still got a couple of people to talk to today. Be patient.”
“Well, by Saturday, at the very latest!” whispered Laevsky, shaking from impatience. “In the name of all that’s holy, do it by Saturday! If I haven’t left by Saturday, then I need for nothing … nothing! I just can’t understand how it is that a doctor can have no money!”
“Yes, it’s as the lord wills,” Samoylenko whispered quickly, encumbered, even as something squeaked in his throat. “They’ve all taken it, I’m owed seven thousand, and I owe money all over town. Am I really to blame here?”
“That means you’ll get it by Saturday? Yes?”
“I’ll try my best.”
“My good man, I’m imploring you! That’s it, the money must be in my hands by Friday morning.”
Samoylenko had a seat and mixed China bark into a prescription, kali bromati, rhubarb tincture, tincturae gentianae, aquae foeniculi—to all this, in one single mixture, he added rose syrup so the taste would not be bitter, and left.
XI
“You look as though you’re coming to arrest me,” Von Koren said, seeing the approaching Samoylenko in formal uniform.
“I was just walking past and thought to myself: Why not go in, I’ll pay a call on zoology,” Samoylenko said, sitting down at a large table that had been cobbled together by the zoologist himself from common boards. “Hello, holy father!” he nodded to the deacon, who was sitting at the window transcribing something. “I’ll stay a moment then run home to arrange dinner. It’s about that time … I’m not disturbing you, am I?”
“Not in the least,” the zoologist answered, arranging small pieces of paper with particular notations out on the table. “We’re occupying ourselves with transcription.”
“Well, there you have it … Oh, my God, my God …” sighed Samoylenko; he carefully removed a dust-covered book from the table, on which a dead dehydrated arachnid lay, and said: “And yet! To think, some little green beetle is going about its business when suddenly it encounters this pariah in the road. I can only imagine the horror!”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Is it venomous, as a form of defense against enemies?”
“Yes, as a form of defense and also to allow for attack.”
“Well, well, well … And so everything in nature, my good men, is intentional and explicable,” sighed Samoylenko. “Only here’s what I don’t understand. Won’t you, as a man of superior intellect, please explain it to me? You know, there are little beasts, not much larger than rats, that are attractive to the eye, but in the overall scheme of things, I’ll tell you, they are base and wicked. Such a beast goes about his business, let’s say through a forest, he sees a little bird, he catches it and eats it. He goes a little further and sees a nest in the grass with eggs; he’s already gobbled down his fill, he’s satiated, but he’ll bite into the egg anyway, the rest he’ll knock out of the nest with his paw. Then he encounters a frog and toys with it. Having finished tormenting the frog he continues on licking his chops, then he meets a beetle. The beetle gets the paw … And so he spoils and ruins everything along his path … He climbs into strangers’ dens … He tears anthills apart for no good reason, he’ll bite into a snail … If he encounters a rat—he’ll fight it; if he sees a snake or a little mouse—he’ll have to suffocate it. The whole day is spent like this. Well, tell me, what use is this beast? Why was it created?”