He went back to his study and began thinking things over, where- upon it all came back to him. About eighteen months ago he had been in St. Petersburg with his wife. They had lunched at Cubat's Restaurant with an old school friend ofhis, a transport engineer who had introduced a young man of twenty-two or twenty-three caUed Michael with a short, rather odd sumame—Rees. Two months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his wife's album with some writing in Frcnch: .. In mcmorv ofthc prcscut and in hopc for thc futurc.' Then he had riin across thc man a conplc of times at his mothcr-in- law's. That was when his wifc had taken to going out a lot and coming home at all hours of the morning. She kcpt asking him to lct her have a passport so that she could go abroad. He had refused and for days on end all hcll had been let loose at home and he could hardly face the servants.
Six months ago Nicholas's medical colleagues had decided that he was developing T.D. and advised him to drop everything and go to the Crimea, hearing which Olga put on an air of great alarm and started making up to her husband. She told him how cold and boring the Crimea was and how much better Nice would be. She would go with him and nurse him and see that he had some peace and quiet.
Now he knew why his wife was so set on Nice This Michel lived at Monte Carlo.
He picked up an English-Russian dictionary and gradually put to- gether the foUowing by translating the words and guessing the mean- mg:
drink to my dearly beloved kiss tiny foot thousand times eagerly await arrival
Now he saw what a laughing-stock he would have inade of himself if he had agreed to take his wife to Nice. He was so upset that he was ready to cry, and began stalking from room to room in great distress. A sensitive man of humble origins, he felt wounded in his pride. He clenched his fists and scowled disgustedly, wondering how he—the son of a village priest, brought up at a church school, a plain, blunt man and a surgeon' by profession—could ever have let himself be enslaved. Why this shameful surrender to a creature so feeble, mean- spirited, dishonest and generally beneath contempt?
'Tiny foot!' he muttered, screwing up the telegram. 'Tiny foot my foot!'
Falling in love, proposing, seven years of marriage—nothing re- mained of all that but the memory of long, fragrant hair, clouds of soft lace and a tiny foot. Yes, it actually was very small and pretty. Those early embraces now seemed to have left him with the feel of silk and lace on his hands and face, and nothing else.
Nothing else, that is, unless you count hysteria, screams, reproaches, threats and lies—barefaced, treacherous lies.
At his father's house in the village, he remembered, a bird sometimes chanced to fly in from outside and would crash furiously against the windows and knock things ovcr. And that is what this woman was likc, flying into his life from a complctely different world and creating sheer havoc. The best years ofhis life were over and they had been hell, his hopes of happiness had been dashed and mocked, his health was gone, and his house was full of the paraphernalia of a vulgar coquette. Out of the ten thousand roubles that he earned each year he could not raise even ten to send to his old mother and he was in debt to the tune of fifteen thousand. A gang of thugs could have camped out in his home without making such a total wreck of his life as this woman had done, or so it seemed.
He began coughing and gasping for breath. He should have gone to bed to get warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the house or sitting down at his desk, doodling nervously with a pencil and writing automatically, 'Writing practice. . . . Tiny foot. .. .'
By fve o'clock he felt quite weak and was blaming hinself for everything. He felt that Olga should have married someone else who could have had a good influcnce on her. That might have turned her into a good, decent woman—who knows ?—whereas he was a poor psychologist who knew nothing of the female heart, quite apart from being so dull and insensitive .. ..
Tm not long for this world,' he thought. 'A walking corpse like me shouldn't get in living people's way. To stand out for one's sup- posed rights now—that really would be silly and eccentric. I'll have it out with her. Let her go off with her lover—I'll give her a divorce and take the blame . . . . '
Olga arrived in the end. She came straight into the study without taking off her white coat, hat and galoshes, and flopped down in an armchair.
'Horrid, horrid fat boy!' she panted with a sob. 'Thoroughly dis- honest, I call it! Beastly!' She stamped. 'I can't, I won't, I shan't put up with it!'
'Why, what is it?' asked Nicholas, going towards her.
'A student—Azarbckov—has been seeing me home and he's lost my purse with fifteen roubles that Mother gave me.'
She was crying in real earnest, like a little girl, and not only her handkerchief, but even her gloves were wet with tears.
'It can't be helped,' sighed the doctor. 'If it's lost it's lost and that's that. Do calm down, I want a word with you.'
'I'm not made of money and I can't afford to be so slapdash. He says he'll pay it back, but I don't believe him, he's too poor. . . . '
Hcr husband askcd hcr to calm down and listen, but shc hpt 011 about the student and this missing fiftcen roublc.s.
'Look,' he said irritably, 'I'U let you havc twcmy-fivc roubles in thc morning. Only please do shut up.'
'I must go and change,' she sobbed. 'Well, I can't talk seriously with my coat on, can I? Whatever next!'
Helping her ofi" with her coat and galoshes, hc caught a whiff of the white wine that she liked with oysters—she could certainly put away the food and drink, for al her dainty looks.
She went to her room and came back after a while, having changed her clothca and powdered her face, but with eyes swollen from crying. She sat down and vanished inside her lace ncglige, and all her husband could make out in this. sca of pink biUows was her hair all over the place and that tiny foot in a slipper.
'Well, what iS it?' she asked, rocking herself in the chair.
'I happened to see this,' said the doctor and handed her the telegram.
She read it and shrugged.
'What of it?' she asked, rockuig harder. 'It's an ordinary New Year's greeting, that's all. There's no mystery about it.'
'You're banking on me not knowing English. I know I don't, but I do have a dictionary. That telegram's from Rees. He drinks to his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But never mind that, never mind that,' the doctor hurried on. 'I haven't the faintest wish to re- proach you or mal<e a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches enough and it's about time we stopped. What I say is this—you're free to live as you like.'
There was a short silence. She began crying softly.
'I'm giving you your freedom so that you won't need to pretend and lie any more,' went on Nicholas. 'If you love that young man, well then, love him. And if you want to join him abroad, go ahead. You're young and healthy and I'm an invalid, I'm not long for this world. In other words—well, you see what I mean.'
He felt too upset to go on. Weeping, Olga admitted in a self-pitying voice that she did love Rees, had been with him onjaunts out of town, visited in his hotel room—and realy was very keen on this trip abroad.
'You see, I'm not hiding anything,' she sighed. 'I'm putting my cards on the table and I implore you once again to do the decent thing and give me my passport.'
'That's just what I'm teUing you—you'rc free.'
She movcd to a chair ne.ircr him so that shc could look at his face. She distrusted him and wanted to read his innermost thoughts. She never trusted pcople and always suspected them, however well-mean- ing, of being up to some dirty little trick and having an eye to the main chance. As she scrutinized his face her eyes seemcd to flash green like a cat's.