When they had gone a couple of miles, old Semyon, who was driving, turned round and said:
"They have nabbed an official in the town. They have sent him away. They say that he and some Germans killed Alexeyev, the mayor, in Moscow."
"Who told you that?"
"They read it in the papers, in Ivan Ionov's tea- house."
And again there was a long silence. Marya Vasilyevna thought of her school, of the examinations that were coming soon, and of the girl and the four boys whom she was sending up for them. And just as she was think- ing about the examinations she was overtaken by a landowner named Hanov in a carriage with four horses, the very man who had acted as examiner in her school the previous year. As he drew alongside he recognized her and bowed.
"Good morning," he said. "Are you driving home, madam?"
This Hanov, a man of about forty, with a worn face and a lifeless expression, was beginning to age notice- ably, but was still handsome and attractive to women. He lived alone on his large estate, was not in the serv- ice, and it was said of him that he did nothing at home but pace from one end of the room to the other, whis- tling, or play chess with his old footman. It was said, too, that he drank heavily. And indeed, at the examina- tion the previous year the very papers he had brought with him smelt of scent and wine. On that occasion everything he wore was brand-new, and Marya Va- silyevna had found him very attractive and, sitting next to him, had felt embarrassed. She was used to see- ing cold, hardheaded examiners at the school, but this one did not remember a single prayer, did not know what questions to ask, was exceedingly polite and con- siderate, and gave only the highest marks.
"I am on my way to visit Bakvist," he continued, addressing Marya Vasilyevna, "but I wonder if he is at home."
They turned off the highway onto a dirt road, Hanov leading the way and Semyon following. The team of four horses kept to the road, slowly pulling the heavy carriage through the mud. Semyon changed his course continually, leaving the road now to drive over a hillock, now to skirt a meadow, often jumping down from the cart and helping the horse. Marya Vasilyevna kept think- ing about the school, and wondering whether the arith- metic problem at the examination would be hard or easy. And she was annoyed with the Zemstvo office, where she had found no one the previous day. What negligence! For the past two years she had been asking them to discharge the janitor, who did nothing, was rude to her, and cuffed the boys, but no one paid any attention to her. It was hard to find the chairman at the office and when you did find him, he would say with tears in his eyes that he had no time; the inspector visited the school once in three years and had no under- standing of anything connected with it, since he had formerly been employed in the Finance Department and had obtained the post of school inspector through pull; the School Board met very rarely and no one knew where; the Trustee was a half literate peasant, the ownwner of a tannery, stupid, coarse, and a bosom friend of the janitor's—and heaven knows to whom she could with complaints and inquiries.
"He is really handsome," she thought, glancing at Hanov.
Meanwhile the road was growing worse and worse. They drove into the woods. Here there was no turning off the road, the ruts were deep, and water flowed and gurgled in them. Twigs struck them stingingly in the face.
"How's the road?" asked Hanov, and laughed.
The schoolmistress looked at him and could not un- derstand why this odd fellow lived here. What could his money, his interesting appearance, his refinement get him in this Godforsaken place, with its mud, its boredom? Life granted him no privileges, and here, like Semyon, he was jogging slowly along over an abomina- ble road and suffering the same discomforts. Why live here, when one had a chance to live in Petersburg or abroad? And it seemed as though it would be a simple matter for a rich man like him to turn this bad road into a good one so as to avoid having to endure this misery and seeing the despair written on the faces of his coach- man and Semyon? But he merely laughed, and appar- ently it was all the same to him, and he asked nothing better of life. He was kind, gentle, naive; he had no grasp of this coarse life, he did not know it, any more than he had known the prayers at the examination. He presented nothing to the schools but globes, and sin- cerely regarded himself as a useful person and a promi- nent worker in the field of popular education. And who had need of his globes here?
"Hold on, Vasilyevna!" said Semyon.
The cart lurched violently and was about to tum over; something heavy fell on Marya Vasilyevna's feet —it was her purchases. There was a steep climb uphill over a clayey road; noisy rivulets were flowing in wind- ing ditches; the water had gullied the road; and how could one drive here! The horses breathed heavily. Hanov got out of the carriage and walked at the edge of the road in his long coat. He was hot.
"How's the road?" he repeated, and laughed. "This is the way to smash your carriage."
"But who tells you to go driving in such weather?" asked Semyon in a surly voice. "You ought to stay home."
"I'm bored at home, grandfather. I don't like staying home."
Next to old Semyon he seemed well-built and vigor- ous, but there was something barely perceptible in his gait which betrayed him as a weak creature, already blighted, approaching its end. And suddenly it seemed as though there were a whiff of liquor in the woods. Marya Vasilyevna felt frightened and was filled with pity for this man who was going to pieces without rhyme or reason, and it occurred to her that if she were his wife or his sister she would devote her whole life to his rescue. His wife! Life was so ordered that here he was living in his great house alone, while she was living in a Godforsaken village alone, and yet for some reason the mere thought that he and she might meet on an equal footing and become intimate seemed impossible, absurd. Fundamentally, life was so arranged and hu- man relations were complicated so utterly beyond all understanding that when you thought about it you were terrified and your heart sank.
"And you can't understand," she thought, "why God gives good looks, friendliness, charming, melancholy eyes to weak, unhappy, useless peopl^—•why they are so attractive."
"Here we must turn off to the right," said Hanov, getting into his carriage. "Good-by! All good wishesl"
And again she thought of her pupils, of the examina- tion, of the janitor, of the School Board; and when the wind brought her the sound of the receding carriage these thoughts mingled with others. She wanted to think of beautiful eyes, of love, of the happiness that would never be. . . .
His wife? It is cold in the morning, there is no one to light the stove, the janitor has gone off somewhere; the children come in as soon as it is light, bringing in snow and mud and making a noise; it is all so uncomfortable, so unpleasant. Her quarters consist of one little room and a kitchen close by. Every day when school is over she has a headache and after dinner she has heartburn. She has to collect money from the children for firewood and to pay the janitor, and to tum it over to the Trustee, and then to implore him—that overfed, insolent peasant —for God's sake to send her firewood. And at night she dreams of examinations, peasants, snowdrifts. And this life has aged and coarsened her, making her homely, angular, and clumsy, as though they had poured lead into her. She is afraid of everything, and in the presence of a member of the Zemstvo Board or of the Trustee, she gets up and does not dare sit down again. And she uses obsequious expressions when she mentions any one of them. And no one likes her, and life is passing drearily, without warmth, without friernlly sympathy, without interesting acquaintances. In her position how terrible it would be if she were to fall in love!