Family Happiness and Other Stories Page 17

  Eugene was standing at the time by the bed and Liza was looking at him, and one of her moist hands outside the coverlet caught his hand and pressed it. “Bear with her for my sake. You know she cannot prevent our loving one another,” was what her look said.

  “I won’t do so again. It’s nothing,” he whispered, and he kissed her damp, long hand and then her affectionate eyes, which closed while he kissed them.

  “Can it be the same thing over again?” he asked. “How are you feeling?”

  “I am afraid to say for fear of being mistaken, but I feel that he is alive and will live,” said she, glancing at her stomach.

  “Ah, it is dreadful, dreadful to think of.”

  Notwithstanding Liza’s insistence that he should go away, Eugene spent the night with her, hardly closing an eye and ready to attend on her.

  But she passed the night well, and had they not sent for the doctor she would perhaps have got up.

  By dinnertime the doctor arrived and of course said that though if the symptoms recurred there might be cause for apprehension, yet actually there were no positive symptoms, but as there were also no contrary indications one might suppose on the one hand that—and on the other hand that . . . And therefore she must lie still, and that “though I do not like prescribing, yet all the same she should take this mixture and should lie quiet.” Besides this, the doctor gave Varvara Alexeyevna a lecture on woman’s anatomy, during which Varvara Alexeyevna nodded her head significantly. Having received his fee, as usual into the backmost part of his palm, the doctor drove away and the patient was left to lie in bed for a week.

  XV

  Eugene spent most of his time by his wife’s bedside, talking to her, reading to her, and what was hardest of all, enduring without murmur Varvara Alexeyevna’s attacks, and even contriving to turn these into jokes.

  But he could not stay at home all the time. In the first place his wife sent him away, saying that he would fall ill if he always remained with her; and secondly the farming was progressing in a way that demanded his presence at every step. He could not stay at home, but had to be in the fields, in the wood, in the garden, at the thrashing floor; and everywhere he was pursued not merely by the thought but by the vivid image of Stepanida, and he only occasionally forgot her. But that would not have mattered, he could perhaps have mastered his feeling; what was worst of all was that, whereas he had previously lived for months without seeing her, he now continually came across her. She evidently understood that he wished to renew relations with her and tried to come in his way. Nothing was said either by him or by her, and therefore neither he nor she went directly to a rendezvous, but only sought opportunities of meeting.

  The most possible place for them to meet was in the forest, where peasant women went with sacks to collect grass for their cows. Eugene knew this and therefore went there every day. Every day he told himself that he would not go, and every day it ended by his making his way to the forest and, on hearing the sound of voices, standing behind the bushes with sinking heart looking to see if she was there.

  Why he wanted to know whether it was she who was there, he did not know. If it had been she and she had been alone, he would not have gone to her—so he believed—he would have run away; but he wanted to see her.

  Once he met her. As he was entering the forest she came out of it with two other women, carrying a heavy sack full of grass on her back. A little earlier he would perhaps have met her in the forest. Now, with the other women there, she could not go back to him. But though he realized this impossibility, he stood for a long time behind a hazel bush, at the risk of attracting the other women’s attention. Of course she did not return, but he stayed there a long time. And, great heavens, how delightful his imagination made her appear to him! And this not only once, but five or six times, and each time more intensely. Never had she seemed so attractive, and never had he been so completely in her power.

  He felt that he had lost control of himself and had become almost insane. His strictness with himself had not weakened a jot; on the contrary he saw all the abomination of his desire and even of his action, for his going to the wood was an action. He knew that he only need come near her anywhere in the dark, and if possible touch her, and he would yield to his feelings. He knew that it was only shame before people, before her, and no doubt before himself that restrained him. And he knew too that he had sought conditions in which that shame would not be apparent—darkness or proximity—in which it would be stifled by animal passion. And therefore he knew that he was a wretched criminal, and despised and hated himself with all his soul. He hated himself because he still had not surrendered: every day he prayed God to strengthen him, to save him from perishing; every day he determined that from today onward he would not take a step to see her, and would forget her. Every day he devised means of delivering himself from this enticement, and he made use of those means.

  But it was all in vain.

  One of the means was continual occupation; another was intense physical work and fasting; a third was imagining to himself the shame that would fall upon him when everybody knew of it—his wife, his mother-in-law, and the folk around. He did all this and it seemed to him that he was conquering, but midday came—the hour of their former meetings and the hour when he had met her carrying the grass—and he went to the forest. Thus five days of torment passed. He only saw her from a distance, and did not once encounter her.

  XVI

  Liza was gradually recovering, she could move about and was only uneasy at the change that had taken place in her husband, which she did not understand.

  Varvara Alexeyevna had gone away for a while, and the only visitor was Eugene’s uncle. Mary Pavlovna was as usual at home.

  Eugene was in his semi-insane condition when there came two days of pouring rain, as often happens after thunder in June. The rain stopped all work. They even ceased carting manure on account of the dampness and dirt. The peasants remained at home. The herdsmen wore themselves out with the cattle, and eventually drove them home. The cows and sheep wandered about in the pastureland and ran loose in the grounds. The peasant women, barefoot and wrapped in shawls, splashing through the mud, rushed about to seek the runaway cows. Streams flowed everywhere along the paths, all the leaves and all the grass were saturated with water, and streams flowed unceasingly from the spouts into the bubbling puddles.

  Eugene sat at home with his wife, who was particularly wearisome that day. She questioned Eugene several times as to the cause of his discontent, and he replied with vexation that nothing was the matter. She ceased questioning him but was still distressed.

  They were sitting after breakfast in the drawing room. His uncle for the hundredth time was recounting fabrications about his society acquaintances. Liza was knitting a jacket and sighed, complaining of the weather and of a pain in the small of her back. The uncle advised her to lie down, and asked for vodka for himself. It was terribly dull for Eugene in the house. Everything was weak and dull. He read a book and a magazine, but understood nothing of them.

  “I must go out and look at the rasping-machine they brought yesterday,” said he, and got up and went out.

  “Take an umbrella with you.”

  “Oh, no, I have a leather coat. And I am only going as far as the boiling-room.”

  He put on his boots and his leather coat and went to the factory; and he had not gone twenty steps before he met her coming towards him, with her skirts tucked up high above her white calves. She was walking, holding down the shawl in which her head and shoulders were wrapped.

  “Where are you going?” said he, not recognizing her the first instant. When he recognized her it was already too late. She stopped, smiling, and looked long at him.

  “I am looking for a calf. Where are you off to in such weather?” said she, as if she were seeing him every day.

  “Come to the shed,” said he suddenly, without knowing how he said it. It was as if someone else had uttered the words.

  She bit her s
hawl, winked, and ran in the direction which led from the garden to the shed, and he continued his path, intending to turn off beyond the lilac bush and go there too.

  “Master,” he heard a voice behind him. “The mistress is calling you, and wants you to come back for a minute.”

  This was Misha, his manservant.

  “My God! This is the second time you have saved me,” thought Eugene, and immediately turned back. His wife reminded him that he had promised to take some medicine at the dinner hour to a sick woman, and he had better take it with him.

  While they were getting the medicine some five minutes elapsed, and then, going away with the medicine, he hesitated to go direct to the shed lest he should be seen from the house, but as soon as he was out of sight he promptly turned and made his way to it. He already saw her in imagination inside the shed smiling gaily. But she was not there, and there was nothing in the shed to show that she had been there.

  He was already thinking that she had not come, had not heard or understood his words—he had muttered them through his nose as if afraid of her hearing them—or perhaps she had not wanted to come. “And why did I imagine that she would rush to me? She has her own husband; it is only I who am such a wretch as to have a wife, and a good one, and to run after another.” Thus he thought sitting in the shed, the thatch of which had a leak and dripped from its straw. “But how delightful it would be if she did come—alone here in this rain. If only I could embrace her once again, then let happen what may. But I could tell if she has been here by her footprints,” he reflected. He looked at the trodden ground near the shed and at the path overgrown by grass, and the fresh print of bare feet, and even of one that had slipped, was visible.

  “Yes, she has been here. Well, now it is settled. Wherever I may see her I shall go straight to her. I will go to her at night.” He sat for a long time in the shed and left it exhausted and crushed. He delivered the medicine, returned home, and lay down in his room to wait for dinner.

  XVII

  Before dinner Liza came to him and, still wondering what could be the cause of his discontent, began to say that she was afraid he did not like the idea of her going to Moscow for her confinement, and that she had decided that she would remain at home and on no account go to Moscow. He knew how she feared both her confinement itself and the risk of not having a healthy child, and therefore he could not help being touched at seeing how ready she was to sacrifice everything for his sake. All was so nice, so pleasant, so clean, in the house; and in his soul it was so dirty, despicable, and foul. The whole evening Eugene was tormented by knowing that notwithstanding his sincere repulsion at his own weakness, notwithstanding his firm intention to break off—the same thing would happen again tomorrow.

  “No, this is impossible,” he said to himself, walking up and down in his room. “There must be some remedy for it. My God! What am I to do?”

  Someone knocked at the door as foreigners do. He knew this must be his uncle. “Come in,” he said.

  The uncle had come as a self-appointed ambassador from Liza.

  “Do you know, I really do notice that there is a change in you,” he said, “and Liza—I understand how it troubles her. I understand that it must be hard for you to leave all the business you have so excellently started, but que veux-tu? I should advise you to go away. It will be more satisfactory both for you and for her. And do you know, I should advise you to go to the Crimea. The climate is beautiful and there is an excellent accoucheur there, and you would be just in time for the best of the grape season.”

  “Uncle,” Eugene suddenly exclaimed. “Can you keep a secret? A secret that is terrible to me, a shameful secret.”

  “Oh, come—do you really feel any doubt of me?”

  “Uncle, you can help me. Not only help, but save me!” said Eugene. And the thought of disclosing his secret to his uncle whom he did not respect, the thought that he should show himself in the worst light and humiliate himself before him, was pleasant. He felt himself to be despicable and guilty, and wished to punish himself.

  “Speak, my dear fellow, you know how fond I am of you,” said the uncle, evidently well content that there was a secret and that it was a shameful one, and that it would be communicated to him, and that he could be of use.

  “First of all I must tell you that I am a wretch, a good-for-nothing, a scoundrel—a real scoundrel.”

  “Now what are you saying . . .” began his uncle, as if he were offended.

  “What! Not a wretch when I—Liza’s husband, Liza’s! One has only to know her purity, her love—and that I, her husband, want to be untrue to her with a peasant woman!”

  “What is this? Why do you want to—you have not been unfaithful to her?”

  “Yes, at least just the same as being untrue, for it did not depend on me. I was ready to do so. I was hindered, or else I should . . . now. I do not know what I should have done . . .”

  “But please, explain to me . . .”

  “Well, it is like this. When I was a bachelor I was stupid enough to have relations with a woman here in our village. That is to say, I used to have meetings with her in the forest, in the field . . .”

  “Was she pretty?” asked his uncle.

  Eugene frowned at this question, but he was in such need of external help that he made as if he did not hear it, and continued:

  “Well, I thought this was just casual and that I should break it off and have done with it. And I did break it off before my marriage. For nearly a year I did not see her or think about her.” It seemed strange to Eugene himself to hear the description of his own condition. “Then suddenly, I don’t myself know why—really one sometimes believes in witchcraft—I saw her, and a worm crept into my heart; and it gnaws. I reproach myself, I understand the full horror of my action, that is to say, of the act I may commit any moment, and yet I myself turn to it, and if I have not committed it, it is only because God preserved me. Yesterday I was on my way to see her when Liza sent for me.”

  “What, in the rain?”

  “Yes. I am worn out, Uncle, and have decided to confess to you and to ask your help.”

  “Yes, of course, it’s a bad thing on your own estate. People will get to know. I understand that Liza is weak and that it is necessary to spare her, but why on your own estate?”

  Again Eugene tried not to hear what his uncle was saying, and hurried on to the core of the matter.

  “Yes, save me from myself. That is what I ask of you. Today I was hindered by chance. But tomorrow or next time no one will hinder me. And she knows now. Don’t leave me alone.”

  “Yes, all right,” said his uncle—“but are you really so much in love?”

  “Oh, it is not that at all. It is not that, it is some kind of power that has seized me and holds me. I do not know what to do. Perhaps I shall gain strength, and then . . .”

  “Well, it turns out as I suggested,” said his uncle. “Let us be off to the Crimea.”

  “Yes, yes, let us go, and meanwhile you will be with me and will talk to me.”

  XVIII

  The fact that Eugene had confided his secret to his uncle, and still more the sufferings of his conscience and the feeling of shame he experienced after that rainy day, sobered him. It was settled that they would start for Yalta in a week’s time. During that week Eugene drove to town to get money for the journey, gave instructions from the house and from the office concerning the management of the estate, again became gay and friendly with his wife, and began to awaken morally.

  So without having once seen Stepanida after that rainy day he left with his wife for the Crimea. There he spent an excellent two months. He received so many new impressions that it seemed to him that the past was obliterated from his memory. In the Crimea they met former acquaintances and became particularly friendly with them, and they also made new acquaintances. Life in the Crimea was a continual holiday for Eugene, besides being instructive and beneficial. They became friendly there with the former Marshal of the Nobility of t
heir province, a clever and liberal-minded man who became fond of Eugene and coached him, and attracted him to his party.

  At the end of August Liza gave birth to a beautiful, healthy daughter, and her confinement was unexpectedly easy.

  In September they returned home, the four of them, including the baby and its wet nurse, as Liza was unable to nurse it herself. Eugene returned home entirely free from the former horrors and quite a new and happy man. Having gone through all that a husband goes through when his wife bears a child, he loved her more than ever. His feeling for the child when he took it in his arms was a funny, new, very pleasant and, as it were, a tickling feeling. Another new thing in his life now was that, besides his occupation with the estate, thanks to his acquaintance with Dumchin (the ex-Marshal) a new interest occupied his mind, that of the zemstvo14—partly an ambitious interest, partly a feeling of duty. In October there was to be a special assembly, at which he was to be elected. After arriving home he drove once to town and another time to Dumchin.

  Of the torments of his temptation and struggle he had forgotten even to think, and could with difficulty recall them to mind. It seemed to him something like an attack of insanity he had undergone.

  To such an extent did he now feel free from it that he was not even afraid to make inquiries on the first occasion when he remained alone with the steward. As he had previously spoken to him about the matter he was not ashamed to ask.

  “Well, and is Sidor Pechnikov still away from home?” he inquired.

  “Yes, he is still in town.”

  “And his wife?”

  “Oh, she is a worthless woman. She is now carrying on with Zenovi. She has gone quite on the loose.”

  “Well, that is all right,” thought Eugene. “How wonderfully indifferent to it I am! How I have changed.”

  XIX

  All that Eugene had wished had been realized. He had obtained the property, the factory was working successfully, the beet crops were excellent, and he expected a large income; his wife had borne a child satisfactorily, his mother-in-law had left, and he had been unanimously elected to the zemstvo.