Chapter 4

Dunyasha first flushed crimson, then she gave a forced laugh, then she burst into tears; but Kirillovna made her attack so artfully, made the girl feel her own position in the house so clearly, so tactfully hinted at the presentable appearance, the wealth and blind devotion of Akim and finally mentioned so significantly the wishes of their mistress that Dunyasha went out of the room with a look of hesitation on her face and meeting Akim only gazed intently into his face and did not turn away. The indescribably lavish presents of the love-sick man dissipated her last doubts. Lizaveta Prohorovna, to whom Akim in his joy took a hundred peaches on a large silver dish, gave her consent to the marriage, and the marriage took place. Akim spared no expense--and the bride, who on the eve of her wedding at her farewell party to her girl friends sat looking a figure of misery, and who cried all the next morning while Kirillovna was dressing her for the wedding, was soon comforted.... Her mistress gave her her own shawl to wear in the church and Akim presented her the same day with one like it, almost superior.

And so Akim was married, and took his young bride home.... They began their life together.... Dunyasha turned out to be a poor housewife, a poor helpmate to her husband. She took no interest in anything, was melancholy and depressed unless some officer sitting by the big samovar noticed her and paid her compliments; she was often absent, sometimes in the town shopping, sometimes at the mistress's house, which was only three miles from the inn. There she felt at home, there she was surrounded by her own people; the girls envied her finery. Kirillovna regaled her with tea; Lizaveta Prohorovna herself talked to her. But even these visits did not pass without some bitter experiences for Dunyasha.... As an innkeeper's wife, for instance, she could not wear a hat and was obliged to tie up her head in a kerchief, "like a merchant's lady," said sly Kirillovna, "like a working woman," thought Dunyasha to herself.

More than once Akim recalled the words of his only relation, an uncle who had lived in solitude without a family for years: "Well, Akimushka, my lad," he had said, meeting him in the street, "I hear you are getting married."

"Why, yes, what of it?"

"Ech, Akim, Akim. You are above us peasants now, there's no denying that; but you are not on her level either."

"In what way not on her level?"

"Why, in that way, for instance," his uncle had answered, pointing to Akim's beard, which he had begun to clip in order to please his betrothed, though he had refused to shave it completely.... Akim looked down; while the old man turned away, wrapped his tattered sheepskin about him and walked away, shaking his head.

Yes, more than once Akim sank into thought, cleared his throat and sighed.... But his love for his pretty wife was no less; he was proud of her, especially when he compared her not merely with peasant women, or with his first wife, to whom he had been married at sixteen, but with other serf girls; "look what a fine bird we have caught," he thought to himself.... Her slightest caress gave him immense pleasure. "Maybe," he thought, "she will get used to it; maybe she will get into the way of it." Meanwhile her behaviour was irreproachable and no one could say anything against her.

Several years passed like this. Dunyasha really did end by growing used to her way of life. Akim's love for her and confidence in her only increased as he grew older; her girl friends, who had been married not to peasants, were suffering cruel hardships, either from poverty or from having fallen into bad hands.... Akim went on getting richer and richer. Everything succeeded with him--he was always lucky; only one thing was a grief: God had not given him children. Dunyasha was by now over five and twenty; everyone addressed her as Avdotya Arefyevna. She never became a real housewife, however--but she grew fond of her house, looked after the stores and superintended the woman who worked in the house. It is true that she did all this only after a fashion; she did not keep up a high standard of cleanliness and order; on the other hand, her portrait painted in oils and ordered by herself from a local artist, the son of the parish deacon, hung on the wall of the chief room beside that of Akim. She was depicted in a white dress with a yellow shawl with six strings of big pearls round her neck, long earrings, and a ring on every finger. The portrait was recognisable though the artist had painted her excessively stout and rosy--and had made her eyes not grey but black and even slightly squinting.... Akim's was a complete failure, the portrait had come out dark--_à la_ Rembrandt--so that sometimes a visitor would go up to it, look at it and merely give an inarticulate murmur. Avdotya had taken to being rather careless in her dress; she would fling a big shawl over her shoulders, while the dress under it was put on anyhow: she was overcome by laziness, that sighing apathetic drowsy laziness to which the Russian is only too liable, especially when his livelihood is secure....

With all that, the fortunes of Akim and his wife prospered exceedingly; they lived in harmony and had the reputation of an exemplary pair. But just as a squirrel will wash its face at the very instant when the sportsman is aiming at it, man has no presentiment of his troubles, till all of a sudden the ground gives way under him like ice.

One autumn evening a merchant in the drapery line put up at Akim's inn. He was journeying by various cross-country roads from Moscow to Harkov with two loaded tilt carts; he was one of those travelling traders whose arrival is sometimes awaited with such impatience by country gentlemen and still more by their wives and daughters. This travelling merchant, an elderly man, had with him two companions, or, speaking more correctly, two workmen, one thin, pale and hunchbacked, the other a fine, handsome young fellow of twenty. They asked for supper, then sat down to tea; the merchant invited the innkeeper and his wife to take a cup with him, they did not refuse. A conversation quickly sprang up between the two old men (Akim was fifty-six); the merchant inquired about the gentry of the neighbourhood and no one could give him more useful information about them than Akim; the hunchbacked workman spent his time looking after the carts and finally went off to bed; it fell to Avdotya to talk to the other one.... She sat by him and said little, rather listening to what he told her, but it was evident that his talk pleased her; her face grew more animated, the colour came into her cheeks and she laughed readily and often. The young workman sat almost motionless with his curly head bent over the table; he spoke quietly, without haste and without raising his voice; but his eyes, not large but saucily bright and blue, were rivetted on Avdotya; at first she turned away from them, then she, too, began looking him in the face. The young fellow's face was fresh and smooth as a Crimean apple; he often smiled and tapped with his white fingers on his chin covered with soft dark down. He spoke like a merchant, but very freely and with a sort of careless self-confidence and went on looking at her with the same intent, impudent stare.... All at once he moved a little closer to her and without the slightest change of countenance said to her: "Avdotya Arefyevna, there's no one like you in the world; I am ready to die for you."

Avdotya laughed aloud.

"What is it?" asked Akim.

"Why, he keeps saying such funny things," she said, without any particular embarrassment.

The old merchant grinned.

"Ha, ha, yes, my Naum is such a funny fellow, don't listen to him."

"Oh! Really! As though I should," she answered, and shook her head.

"Ha, ha, of course not," observed the old man. "But, however," he went on in a singsong voice, "we will take our leave; we are thoroughly satisfied, it is time for bed, ..." and he got up.

"We are well satisfied, too," Akim brought out and he got up, "for your entertainment, that is, but we wish you a good night. Avdotyushka, come along."

Avdotya got up as it were unwillingly. Naum, too, got up after her ... the party broke up. The innkeeper and his wife went off to the little lobby partitioned off, which served them as a bedroom. Akim was snoring immediately. It was a long time before Avdotya could get to sleep.... At first she lay still, turning her face to the wall, then she began tossing from side to side on the hot feather bed, throwing off and pulling up the quilt alternately ... then she sank into a light doze. Suddenly she heard from the yard a loud masculine voice: it was singing a song of which it was impossible to distinguish the words, prolonging each note, though not with a melancholy effect. Avdotya opened her eyes, propped herself on her elbows and listened.... The song went on.... It rang out musically in the autumn air.

Akim raised his head.

"Who's that singing?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered.

"He sings well," he added, after a brief pause. "Very well. What a strong voice. I used to sing in my day," he went on. "And I sang well, too, but my voice has gone. That's a fine voice. It must be that young fellow singing, Naum is his name, isn't it?" And he turned over on the other side, gave a sigh and fell asleep again.

It was a long time before the voice was still ... Avdotya listened and listened; all at once it seemed to break off, rang out boldly once more and slowly died away.... Avdotya crossed herself and laid her head on the pillow.... Half an hour passed.... She sat up and softly got out of bed.

"Where are you going, wife?" Akim asked in his sleep.

She stopped.

"To see to the little lamp," she said, "I can't get to sleep."

"You should say a prayer," Akim mumbled, falling asleep.

Avdotya went up to the lamp before the ikon, began trimming it and accidentally put it out; she went back and lay down. Everything was still.

Early next morning the merchant set off again on his journey with his companions. Avdotya was asleep. Akim went half a mile with them: he had to call at the mill. When he got home he found his wife dressed and not alone. Naum, the young man who had been there the night before, was with her. They were standing by the table in the window talking. When Avdotya saw Akim, she went out of the room without a word, and Naum said that he had come for his master's gloves which the latter, he said, had left behind on the bench; and he, too, went away.

We will now tell the reader what he has probably guessed already: Avdotya had fallen passionately in love with Naum. It is hard to say how it could have happened so quickly, especially as she had hitherto been irreproachable in her behaviour in spite of many opportunities and temptations to deceive her husband. Later on, when her intrigue with Naum became known, many people in the neighbourhood declared that he had on the very first evening put a magic potion that was a love spell in her tea (the efficacy of such spells is still firmly believed in among us), and that this could be clearly seen from the appearance of Avdotya who, so they said, soon after began to pine away and look depressed.

However that may have been, Naum began to be frequently seen in Akim's yard. At first he came again with the same merchant and three months later arrived alone, with wares of his own; then the report spread that he had settled in one of the neighbouring district towns, and from that time forward not a week passed without his appearing on the high road with his strong, painted cart drawn by two sleek horses which he drove himself. There was no particular friendship between Akim and him, nor was there any hostility noticed between them; Akim did not take much notice of him and only thought of him as a sharp young fellow who was rapidly making his way in the world. He did not suspect Avdotya's real feelings and went on believing in her as before.

Two years passed like this.

One summer day it happened that Lizaveta Prohorovna--who had somehow suddenly grown yellow and wrinkled during those two years in spite of all sorts of unguents, rouge and powder--about two o'clock in the afternoon went out with her lap dog and her folding parasol for a stroll before dinner in her neat little German garden. With a faint rustle of her starched petticoats, she walked with tiny steps along the sandy path between two rows of erect, stiffly tied-up dahlias, when she was suddenly overtaken by our old acquaintance Kirillovna, who announced respectfully that a merchant desired to speak to her on important business. Kirillovna was still high in her mistress's favour (in reality it was she who managed Madame Kuntse's estate) and she had some time before obtained permission to wear a white cap, which gave still more acerbity to the sharp features of her swarthy face.

"A merchant?" said her mistress; "what does he want?"

"I don't know what he wants," answered Kirillovna in an insinuating voice, "only I think he wants to buy something from you."

Lizaveta Prohorovna went back into the drawing-room, sat down in her usual seat--an armchair with a canopy over it, upon which a climbing plant twined gracefully--and gave orders that the merchant should be summoned.

Naum appeared, bowed, and stood still by the door.

"I hear that you want to buy something of me," said Lizaveta Prohorovna, and thought to herself, "What a handsome man this merchant is."

"Just so, madam."

"What is it?"

"Would you be willing to sell your inn?"

"What inn?"

"Why, the one on the high road not far from here."

"But that inn is not mine, it is Akim's."

"Not yours? Why, it stands on your land."

"Yes, the land is mine ... bought in my name; but the inn is his."

"To be sure. But wouldn't you be willing to sell it to me?"

"How could I sell it to you?"

"Well, I would give you a good price for it."

Lizaveta Prohorovna was silent for a space.

"It is really very queer what you are saying," she said. "And what would you give?" she added. "I don't ask that for myself but for Akim."

"For all the buildings and the appurtenances, together with the land that goes with it, of course, I would give two thousand roubles."

"Two thousand roubles! That is not enough," replied Lizaveta Prohorovna.

"It's a good price."

"But have you spoken to Akim?"

"What should I speak to him for? The inn is yours, so here I am talking to you about it."

"But I have told you.... It really is astonishing that you don't understand me."

"Not understand, madam? But I do understand."

Lizaveta Prohorovna looked at Naum and Naum looked at Lizaveta Prohorovna.

"Well, then," he began, "what do you propose?"

"I propose ..." Lizaveta Prohorovna moved in her chair. "In the first place I tell you that two thousand is too little and in the second ..."

"I'll add another hundred, then."

Lizaveta Prohorovna got up.

"I see that you are talking quite off the point. I have told you already that I cannot sell that inn--am not going to sell it. I cannot ... that is, I will not."

Naum smiled and said nothing for a space.

"Well, as you please, madam," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I beg to take leave." He bowed and took hold of the door handle.

Lizaveta Prohorovna turned round to him.

"You need not go away yet, however," she said, with hardly perceptible agitation. She rang the bell and Kirillovna came in from the study. "Kirillovna, tell them to give this gentleman some tea. I will see you again," she added, with a slight inclination of her head.

Naum bowed again and went out with Kirillovna. Lizaveta Prohorovna walked up and down the room once or twice and rang the bell again. This time a page appeared. She told him to fetch Kirillovna. A few moments later Kirillovna came in with a faint creak of her new goatskin shoes.

"Have you heard," Lizaveta Prohorovna began with a forced laugh, "what this merchant has been proposing to me? He is a queer fellow, really!"

"No, I haven't heard. What is it, madam?" and Kirillovna faintly screwed up her black Kalmuck eyes.

"He wants to buy Akim's inn."

"Well, why not?"

"But how could he? What about Akim? I gave it to Akim."

"Upon my word, madam, what are you saying? Isn't the inn yours? Don't we all belong to you? And isn't all our property yours, our mistress's?"

"Good gracious, Kirillovna, what are you saying?" Lizaveta Prohorovna pulled out a batiste handkerchief and nervously blew her nose. "Akim bought the inn with his own money."

"His own money? But where did he get the money? Wasn't it through your kindness? He has had the use of the land all this time as it is. It was all through your gracious permission. And do you suppose, madam, that he would have no money left? Why, he is richer than you are, upon my word, he is!"

"That's all true, of course, but still I can't do it.... How could I sell the inn?"

"And why not sell it," Kirillovna went on, "since a purchaser has luckily turned up? May I ask, madam, how much he offers you?"

"More than two thousand roubles," said Lizaveta Prohorovna softly.

"He will give more, madam, if he offers two thousand straight off. And you will arrange things with Akim afterwards; take a little off his yearly duty or something. He will be thankful, too."

"Of course, I must remit part of his duty. But no, Kirillovna, how can I sell it?" and Lizaveta Prohorovna walked up and down the room. "No, that's out of the question, that won't do ... no, please don't speak of it again ... or I shall be angry."

But in spite of her agitated mistress's warning, Kirillovna did continue speaking of it and half an hour later she went back to Naum, whom she had left in the butler's pantry at the samovar.

"What have you to tell me, good madam?" said Naum, jauntily turning his tea-cup wrong side upwards in the saucer.

"What I have to tell you is that you are to go in to the mistress; she wants you."

"Certainly," said Naum, and he got up and followed Kirillovna into the drawing-room.

The door closed behind them.... When the door opened again and Naum walked out backwards, bowing, the matter was settled: Akim's inn belonged to him. He had bought it for 2800 paper roubles. It was arranged that the legal formalities should take place as quickly as possible and that till then the matter should not be made public. Lizaveta Prohorovna received a deposit of a hundred roubles and two hundred went to Kirillovna for her assistance. "It has not cost me much," thought Naum as he got into his coat, "it was a lucky chance."

While the transaction we have described was going forward in the mistress's house, Akim was sitting at home alone on the bench by the window, stroking his beard with a discontented expression. We have said already that he did not suspect his wife's feeling for Naum, although kind friends had more than once hinted to him that it was time he opened his eyes; it is true that he had noticed himself that of late his wife had become rather difficult, but we all know that the female sex is capricious and changeable. Even when it really did strike him that things were not going well in his house, he merely dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand; he did not like the idea of a squabble; his good nature had not lessened with years and indolence was asserting itself, too. But on that day he was very much out of humour; the day before he had overheard quite by chance in the street a conversation between their servant and a neighbouring peasant woman.

The peasant woman asked the servant why she had not come to see her on the holiday the day before. "I was expecting you," she said.

"I did set off," replied the servant, "but as ill-luck would have it, I ran into the mistress ... botheration take her."

"Ran into her?" repeated the peasant woman in a sing-song voice and she leaned her cheek on her hand. "And where did you run into her, my good girl?"

"Beyond the priest's hemp-patch. She must have gone to the hemp-patch to meet her Naum, but I could not see them in the dusk, owing to the moon, maybe, I don't know; I simply dashed into them."

"Dashed into them?" the other woman repeated. "Well, and was she standing with him, my good girl?"

"Yes, she was. He was standing there and so was she. She saw me and said, 'Where are you running to? Go home.' So I went home."

"You went home?" The peasant woman was silent. "Well, good-bye, Fetinyushka," she brought out at last, and trudged off.

This conversation had an unpleasant effect on Akim. His love for Avdotya had cooled, but still he did not like what the servant had said. And she had told the truth: Avdotya really had gone out that evening to meet Naum, who had been waiting for her in the patch of dense shade thrown on the road by the high motionless hemp. The dew bathed every stalk of it from top to bottom; the strong, almost overpowering fragrance hung all about it. A huge crimson moon had just risen in the dingy, blackish mist. Naum heard the hurried footsteps of Avdotya a long way off and went to meet her. She came up to him, pale with running; the moon lighted up her face.

"Well, have you brought it?" he asked.

"Brought it--yes, I have," she answered in an uncertain voice. "But, Naum Ivanitch----"

"Give it me, since you have brought it," he interrupted her, and held out his hand.

She took a parcel from under her shawl. Naum took it at once and thrust it in his bosom.

"Naum Ivanitch," Avdotya said slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on him, "oh, Naum Ivanitch, you will bring my soul to ruin."

It was at that instant that the servant came up to them.

And so Akim was sitting on the bench discontentedly stroking his beard. Avdotya kept coming into the room and going out again. He simply followed her with his eyes. At last she came into the room and after taking a jerkin from the lobby was just crossing the threshold, when he could not restrain himself and said, as though speaking to himself:

"I wonder," he began, "why it is women are always in a fuss? It's no good expecting them to sit still. That's not in their line. But running out morning or evening, that's what they like. Yes."

Avdotya listened to her husband's words without changing her position; only at the word "evening," she moved her head slightly and seemed to ponder.

"Once you begin talking, Semyonitch," she commented at last with vexation, "there is no stopping you."

And with a wave of her hand she went away and slammed the door. Avdotya certainly did not appreciate Akim's eloquence and often in the evenings when he indulged in conversation with travellers or fell to telling stories she stealthily yawned or went out of the room. Akim looked at the closed door. "Once you begin talking," he repeated in an undertone.... "The fact is, I have not talked enough to you. And who is it? A peasant like any one of us, and what's more...." And he got up, thought a little and tapped the back of his head with his fist.

Several days passed in a rather strange way. Akim kept looking at his wife as though he were preparing to say something to her, and she, for her part, looked at him suspiciously; meanwhile, they both preserved a strained silence. This silence, however, was broken from time to time by some peevish remark from Akim in regard to some oversight in the housekeeping or in regard to women in general. For the most part Avdotya did not answer one word. But in spite of Akim's good-natured weakness, it certainly would have come to a decisive explanation between him and Avdotya, if it had not been for an event which rendered any explanation useless.