A smile lit up his small eyes and Anne smiled back. Any moment the man might kiss her with his ful, wet lips and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it—a disturbing thought. The sleek motions of his plump body scared her. She felt frightened and disgusted.
He stood up, slowly took the medal from his neck, removed his coat and waistcoat, and put on his dressing-go^.
'That's better,' he said, sitting downwn beside her.
She remembered the ordeal of the marriage service, with the priest, the guests and everyone else in church looking at hsr sadly as if wondering why on earth such a lovely girl should be marrying this unattractive elderly gentleman. Only that mo^rng she had been terribly pleased that everything had worked out so well, but during the ceremony and here in the train she had a guilty feeling—felt she had been let downwn and made to look silly. Yes, she had her rich husband. But she stil had no money. Her wedding dress had still not been paid for, and her father and brothers had not had a copeck between them when they had seen her off that mo^rng—she could tell by the look on their faces. Would they have any supper tonight? Or tomorrow night ? Somehow she thought that Father and the boys must be starving now that she had left home, and would be sitting there in the depths of despair as on the night after Mother's funeral.
'Oh, I'm so unhappy,' she thought. 'Why am I so unhappy?'
As clumsy as any other pilar ofsociety unused to women's company, Modeste kept touching her waist and patting her shoulder, while she thought about money, about her mother, and her mother's death.
After Mother's death, her father—art master at the local high school —had takcn to drink and then they really had been in a bad way, what with the boys havmg no boots or galoshes, Father being continually had up m court, and bailiffs coming and making an inventory of the furniture.
What a shameful business! Anne had had to look after her druiken father, darn her brothers' socks and do the shopping. And any com- pliment to her beauty, youth and elegant manners made her feeI as if the whoIe worId couId see her cheap hat and the worn patches on her shoes that she had smeared with ink. At nights she cried and could not shake off the nagging worry that Father might Iose his job any day because he drank. That might welI be the last straw, and then he wouId follow Mother to the grave.
But then some ladies who knew the famiIy bestirred themselves and started looking out a husband for her. And before Iong this Modeste Alekseyevich had emerged. He was not young or handsome, but he did have money. He had something like a hundred thousand in the bank and a family estate which he let to a tenant. He was a man of principle, in His ExcelJency's good books, and couId easily^^r so Anne \vas told^^btain a note from His ExceIlency to the headmaster or even to the local education officer, and then Father would not lose his job . .. .
She was musing on these points when a snatch of music and a buzz of voices suddenly burst through the window. The train had stopped at a \vayside halt. Someone in the crowd on the other side of the platform had struck up a rousing tunc on an accordion accompanied by a cheap, squeaky fiddle. There were taIl birches, poplars, moonlit cottages, and beyond them a miJitary band was playing. The summer visitors must be holding a dance. People were strolling along the plat- form—holidav-makers and visitors from town who had made the trip for a breath of fresh air on a fine day. And Artynov was there. He owned the whole holiday area. A rich man, tall and stout with dark hair, a face like an Armenian's and bulging eyes, he wore peculiar clothes —an open-necked shirt, riding boots and spurs, and a black cloak hanging from his shoulders and traiJing on the ground like the train of a dress. At his heels, their pointed muzzles lowered, were two borzoi hounds.
Anne's eyes were still bright with tears, but now Mother, money problems, wedding—all were forgotten. She shook hands with schooI- boys and oflicers that she knew, Iaughed merrily and showered greet- ings on them.
She went out onto the small platform at the end ofher carriage and stood there in the moonlight to show off her marvellous new dress and hat. She asked why the train had stopped.
'This is a loop-line,' she was told. 'They're waiting for the mail train.'
Seeing that Artynov was watching her, she coyly fluttered her eye- lids and began to speak loudly in French. The splendid ring of her own voice, the strains of the band and a glimpse of the moon reflected in the pond, together with the general high spirits and the fact that Arty- nov, notorious gay spark and ladies' man, had his eye on her—all these things suddenly combined to make her happy. When the train started off again and her officer friends gave her a goodbye salute, she was already humming a polka—the tune blown after her by the brass band blaring away somewhere be^^d the trees. Back in her compartment, she felt that the halt at that country station had proved that she. was bound to be happy in spite of everything..
Bride and groom stayed two days at the monastery, then retumed to town and lived in the flat which went with Modeste's job. Anne used to play the piano when he was at the office, or felt bored to tears, or lay on the sofa reading novels and looking at fashion magazines. At diner her husband ate a lot and talked about politics, appointments. staff transfers and honours lists.
'Hard work never harmed anyone,' he would say, or, 'Family life is not pleasure, but duty,' or, 'Take care of the copecks and the roubles wil take care of themselves.' He thought religion and morality the most important things in life. 'We all have^ our responsibilities, ' he would say, holding a knife in his fist like a sword.
Listening to him scared Anne so much that she could not eat and usually left the table hungry.
After dinner her husband would take a nap, snoring noisily, while she went off to see the family. Father and the boys always gave her a special look as if they had.just been saying as she came in how wrong she was to have married an abysmal bore for his money when she didn't even like the man. The rustle of her dress, her bracelets, her ladylike air—they found it vaguely inhibiting and offensive. It was.a little em- barrassing having her there and they did not know what to say to her, though they were as fond of her as ever and stil could not get used to her not being around at supper time. She would sit down with them and eat cabbage soup, porridge or potatoes fried in mutton dripping that smelt of tallow. Her father's hand would shake as he poured out a glass of vodka from the decanter and drank it down rapidly and greedily, with disgust, followed by a second glass and a third.
Peter and Andrew, thin, pale boys with large eyes, would take the decanter from him, quite at their wits' end.
'Oh really, Father . . .' they would say. 'Do stop it. . . .'
When Anne grew worried as well and begged him to stop drinking, he would suddenly flare up, thumping his fist on the table. 'No one orders me about,' he would shout. 'Young puppies! Wretched girl! I've a good ^rnd to chuck you out!'
But his voice sounded so feeble and good-natured that no one was afraid. After dinner he usually dressed up. Pale, with his chin cut from shaving, he would spend half an hour craning his thin neck in front of the mirror and trying to make himself look smart, brushing his hair or twirling his black moustache. He would sprinkle himself with scent, put on a bow tie, gloves and top hat and go out to give private lessons. On holidays he stayed at home, painting or playing the wheezy, groaning harmonium. He tried to squeeze out delicious harmonies, humming an accompaniment, or else lost his temper with the boys.
'Monsters! Scoundrels! They've ruined the instrument.'
In the evening Anne's husband played cards with colleagues from the office who lived in the same block of government flats. During these sessions the wives forgathered as well. Hideous women, dressed in appallingly bad taste and as vulgar as could be, they would start gossiping and telling tales as ugly and tasteless as they were themselves.