gave a painful grin:
“But I mean, you couldn’t have loved me all your life!”
“But I could. However much time passed, I kept on living for the one thing. I knew the former you was long gone, that for you it was as if there had never even been anything, but then… It’s too late for reproaches now, but you know, it’s true, you did abandon me ever so heartlessly – how many times did I want to lay hands upon myself out of hurt alone, not even to mention everything else. There was a time, after all, Nikolai Alexeyevich, when I called you Nikolenka, and you called me – do you remember what? And you were good enough to keep on reciting me poetry about various ‘dark avenues’,” she added with an unfriendly smile.
“Ah, how good-looking you were!” he said, shaking his head. “How ardent, how beautiful! What a figure, what eyes! Do you remember how everyone used to stare at you?”
“I do, sir. You were extremely good-looking too. And you know, it was you I gave my beauty to, my ardour. How on earth can such a thing be forgotten?”
“Ah! Everything passes. Everything gets forgotten.”
“Everything passes, but not everything gets forgotten.”
“Go away,” he said, turning and going up to the window. “Please, go away.”
And taking out a handkerchief and pressing it to his eyes, speaking rapidly he added:
“If only God can forgive me. For you, evidently, have forgiven me.”
She went up to the door and paused:
“No, Nikolai Alexeyevich, I haven’t. Since our conversation has touched upon our feelings, I’ll tell you straight: I never could forgive you. Just as there was nothing on earth dearer to me at that time than you, so was there nothing afterwards either. And that’s why I can’t forgive you. Well, but what sense is there in remembering, the dead don’t get brought back from the graveyard.”
“No, that’s right, there’s no point, order the horses to be brought up,” he replied, moving away from the window with a face already stern. “I’ll tell you one thing: I’ve never been happy in life, please don’t think that. I’m sorry that I may be wounding your pride, but I’ll tell you frankly – I was madly in love with my wife. But she was unfaithful, and abandoned me even more insultingly than I did you. I adored my son – while he was growing, what hopes did I not place on him! But he turned out a good-for-nothing, a spendthrift, insolent, without a heart, without honour, without a conscience… However, all that is the most ordinary, vulgar story too. Keep well, dear friend. I think I too lost in you the dearest thing I had in life.”
She went up to him and kissed his hand, and he kissed hers.
“Order the horses…”
When they had set off on their way, he thought gloomily: “Yes, how delightful she was! Magically beautiful!” He remembered with shame his final words and the fact that he had kissed her hand, and was immediately ashamed of his shame. “Isn’t it the truth, then, that she gave me the best moments of my life?”
Close to setting, a pale sun had peeped out. The coachman drove at a trot[9], ever shifting from one black rut to another, choosing the less muddy ones, and thinking about something too. Finally he said with serious rudeness:
“She kept on looking out of the window, Your Excellency, as we were leaving. You’ve probably been good enough to know her a long time?”
“A long time, Klim.”
“That woman’s got her head on her shoulders. And they say she keeps on getting richer. She lends money on interest[10].”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t! Who doesn’t want to live a bit better! If you lend with a conscience, there’s nothing much wrong with that. And they say she’s fair on that score. But she’s a harsh one! If you haven’t repaid on time, you’ve only yourself to blame.”
“Yes, that’s right, you’ve only yourself to blame… Keep driving on, please, I’m afraid we might miss the train…”
The low sun shone yellow on the empty fields, the horses splashed steadily through the puddles. He gazed at the fleetingly glimpsed horseshoes, his black brows knitted, and thought:
“Yes, you’ve only yourself to blame. Yes, of course they were the best moments. And not merely the best, but truly magical! ‘All round the scarlet dog rose bloomed, the avenues of dark limes stood…’[11] But my God, what would have happened later on? What if I hadn’t abandoned her? What nonsense! This Nadezhda, not the keeper of a lodging house, but my wife, the mistress of my house in St Petersburg, the mother of my children?”
And closing his eyes, he shook his head.
The Caucasus
On arriving in Moscow, I put up furtively at[12] inconspicuous rooms in a side street near the Arbat and led the tiresome life of a recluse – from meeting to meeting with her. During those days she visited me just three times, and each time she came in hurriedly with the words:
“I’ve only come for a minute…”
She was pale with the beautiful pallor of an excited woman in love, her voice would break, and the way that, after tossing her umbrella down anywhere, she would hurry to raise her veil and embrace me struck me with pity and delight.
“It seems to me,” she would say, “he suspects something, that he even knows something – perhaps he’s read one of your letters, found a key to open my desk… I believe he’s capable of anything with his cruel, proud character. Once he said to me outright: ‘I won’t stop at anything in defending my honour, the honour of a husband and an officer!’ Now for some reason he’s watching literally my every move, and for our plan to succeed I have to be terribly careful. He’s already agreed to let me go, so vehemently did I suggest to him I’d die if I didn’t see the south, the sea, but for God’s sake be patient!”
Our plan was audacious: to leave for the coast of the Caucasus by one and the same train and to live there in some completely wild place for three or four weeks. I knew that coast, I had once lived for some time near Sochi – when young and single – I had those autumn evenings amidst black cypresses by the cold, grey waves committed to memory[13] for the rest of my life… And she would turn pale when I said: “And now I’ll be there with you, in mountainous jungle, by the tropical sea…” We did not believe in the realization of our plan until the last minute – too great a happiness did it seem to us.
It was cold and wet in Moscow, it looked as if the summer was already over and would not return, it was dirty, murky, the crows were cawing, the streets glistened wet and black with the opened umbrellas of passers-by and the raised tops of cab men’s droshkies[14], shaking as they sped along. And it was a dark, repulsive evening as I drove to the station, and everything inside me was freezing from anxiety and the cold. I ran through the station and along the platform with my hat pulled down towards my eyes and my face buried in the collar of my coat.
In
at a trot – рысцой
to lend money on interest – давать деньги в рост
All round… dark limes stood: A slightly inaccurate quotation from the poem ‘An Ordinary Tale’ (1842) by Nikolai Platonovich Ogaryov (1813–77): “all round” should be “nearby”.
to put up at (some place) – остановиться где-либо
to commit to memory – запоминать
cab men’s droshkies – пролетки
