An Anonymous Story
- A.P. Chekhov
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIV When, a
little afterwards, we went out of the house, it was dark and
deserted in the street. Wet snow was falling and a damp wind
lashed in one's face. I remember it was the beginning of March;
a thaw had set in, and for some days past the cabmen had been
driving on wheels. Under the impression of the back stairs, of
the cold, of the midnight darkness, and the porter in his
sheepskin who had questioned us before letting us out of the
gate, Zinaida Fyodorovna was utterly cast down and dispirited.
When we got into the cab and the hood was put up, trembling all
over, she began hurriedly saying how grateful she was to me.
"I do not doubt your good-will, but I am ashamed that you should
be troubled," she muttered. "Oh, I understand, I understand. . .
. When Gruzin was here to-day, I felt that he was lying and
concealing something. Well, so be it. But I am ashamed, anyway,
that you should be troubled."
She still had her doubts. To dispel them finally, I asked the
cabman to drive through Sergievsky Street; stopping him at
Pekarsky's door, I got out of the cab and rang. When the porter
came to the door, I asked aloud, that Zinaida Fyodorovna might
hear, whether Georgy Ivanitch was at home.
"Yes," was the answer, "he came in half an hour ago. He must be
in bed by now. What do you want?"
Zinaida Fyodorovna could not refrain from putting her head out.
"Has Georgy Ivanitch been staying here long?" she asked.
"Going on for three weeks."
"And he's not been away?"
"No," answered the porter, looking at me with surprise.
"Tell him, early to-morrow," I said, "that his sister has
arrived from Warsaw. Good-bye."
Then we drove on. The cab had no apron, the snow fell on us in
big flakes, and the wind, especially on the Neva, pierced us
through and through. I began to feel as though we had been
driving for a long time, that for ages we had been suffering,
and that for ages I had been listening to Zinaida Fyodorovna's
shuddering breath. In semi-delirium, as though half asleep, I
looked back upon my strange, incoherent life, and for some
reason recalled a melodrama, "The Parisian Beggars," which I had
seen once or twice in my childhood. And when to shake off that
semi-delirium I peeped out from the hood and saw the dawn, all
the images of the past, all my misty thoughts, for some reason,
blended in me into one distinct, overpowering thought:
everything was irrevocably over for Zinaida Fyodorovna and for
me. This was as certain a conviction as though the cold blue sky
contained a prophecy, but a minute later I was already thinking
of something else and believed differently.
"What am I now?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, in a voice husky with
the cold and the damp. "Where am I to go? What am I to do?
Gruzin told me to go into a nunnery. Oh, I would! I would change
my dress, my face, my name, my thoughts . . . everything --
everything, and would hide myself for ever. But they will not
take me into a nunnery. I am with child."
"We will go abroad together to-morrow," I said.
"That's impossible. My husband won't give me a passport."
"I will take you without a passport."
The cabman stopped at a wooden house of two storeys, painted a
dark colour. I rang. Taking from me her small light basket --
the only luggage we had brought with us -- Zinaida Fyodorovna
gave a wry smile and said:
"These are my bijoux."
But she was so weak that she could not carry these bijoux.
It was a long while before the door was opened. After the third
or fourth ring a light gleamed in the windows, and there was a
sound of steps, coughing and whispering; at last the key grated
in the lock, and a stout peasant woman with a frightened red
face appeared at the door. Some distance behind her stood a thin
little old woman with short grey hair, carrying a candle in her
hand. Zinaida Fyodorovna ran into the passage and flung her arms
round the old woman's neck.
"Nina, I've been deceived," she sobbed loudly. "I've been
coarsely, foully deceived! Nina, Nina!"
I handed the basket to the peasant woman. The door was closed,
but still I heard her sobs and the cry "Nina!"
I got into the cab and told the man to drive slowly to the
Nevsky Prospect. I had to think of a night's lodging for myself.
Next day towards evening I went to see Zinaida Fyodorovna. She
was terribly changed. There were no traces of tears on her pale,
terribly sunken face, and her expression was different. I don't
know whether it was that I saw her now in different
surroundings, far from luxurious, and that our relations were by
now different, or perhaps that intense grief had already set its
mark upon her; she did not strike me as so elegant and well
dressed as before. Her figure seemed smaller; there was an
abruptness and excessive nervousness about her as though she
were in a hurry, and there was not the same softness even in her
smile. I was dressed in an expensive suit which I had bought
during the day. She looked first of all at that suit and at the
hat in my hand, then turned an impatient, searching glance upon
my face as though studying it.
"Your transformation still seems to me a sort of miracle," she
said. "Forgive me for looking at you with such curiosity. You
are an extraordinary man, you know."
I told her again who I was, and why I was living at Orlov's, and
I told her at greater length and in more detail than the day
before. She listened with great attention, and said without
letting me finish:
"Everything there is over for me. You know, I could not refrain
from writing a letter. Here is the answer."
On the sheet which she gave there was written in Orlov's hand:
"I am not going to justify myself. But you must own that it was
your mistake, not mine. I wish you happiness, and beg you to
make haste and forget.
"Yours sincerely,
"G. O.
"P. S. -- I am sending on your things."
The trunks and baskets despatched by Orlov were standing in the
passage, and my poor little portmanteau was there beside them.
"So . . ." Zinaida Fyodorovna began, but she did not finish.
We were silent. She took the note and held it for a couple of
minutes before her eyes, and during that time her face wore the
same haughty, contemptuous, proud, and harsh expression as the
day before at the beginning of our explanation; tears came into
her eyes -- not timid, bitter tears, but proud, angry tears.
"Listen," she said, getting up abruptly and moving away to the
window that I might not see her face. "I have made up my mind to
go abroad with you tomorrow."
"I am very glad. I am ready to go to-day."
"Accept me as a recruit. Have you read Balzac?" she asked
suddenly, turning round. "Have you? At the end of his novel 'P?e
Goriot' the hero looks down upon Paris from the top of a hill
and threatens the town: 'Now we shall settle our account,' and
after this he begins a new life. So when I look out of the train
window at Petersburg for the last time, I shall say, 'Now we
shall settle our account!' "
Saying this, she smiled at her jest, and for some reason
shuddered all over.
|
