UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 THE TALES OF CHEKHOV 
 
 THE PARTY 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 ^o, ^4,1 1
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 KKW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 THE PARTY 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 ANTON CHEKHOV 
 
 FROM THE RUSSIAN 
 
 By CONSTANCE GARNETT 
 
 WILLEY BOOK COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 
 
 . ♦
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 COPYHIGHT, 1917 
 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 191T. 
 
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 FERRIS PKINTINQ COMPANY 
 NEW YORK CITy
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Party 3 
 
 Terror 63 
 
 A Woman's Kingdom (82!)V** 
 
 A Problem 159 
 
 The Kiss ^^ILM 
 
 " Anna ON THE Neck " ^^^^^^ 
 
 The Teacher of Literature (23^ W « 
 
 Not Wanted 277 
 
 Typhus 291 
 
 A Misfortune 305 
 
 A Trifle from Life 331
 
 THE PARTY
 
 THE PARTY 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 THE PARTY 
 
 I 
 
 After the festive dinner with its eight courses and 
 its endless conversation, Olga Mihalovna, whose 
 husband's name-day was being celebrated, went out 
 into the garden. The duty of smiling and talking 
 incessantly, the clatter of the crockery, the stupidity 
 of the servants, the long intervals between the 
 courses, and the stays she had put on to conceal her 
 condition from the visitors, wearied her to exhaus- 
 tion. She longed to get away from the house, to 
 sit in the shade and rest her heart with thoughts of 
 the baby which was to be born to her in another two 
 months. She was used to these thoughts coming to 
 her as she turned to the left out of the big avenue 
 into the narrow path. Here in the thick shade of 
 the plums and cherry-trees the dry branches used 
 to scratch her neck and shoulders; a spider's web 
 would settle on her face, and there would rise up in 
 
 3
 
 4 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 her mind the image of a little creature of undeter- 
 mined sex and undefined features, and it began to 
 seem as though it were not the spider's web that 
 tickled her face and neck caressingly, but that little 
 creature. When, at the end of the path, a thin 
 wicker hurdle came into sight, and behind it podgy 
 beehives with tiled roofs; when in the motionless, 
 stagnant air there came a smell of hay and honey, 
 and a soft buzzing of bees was audible, then the 
 little creature would take complete possession of 
 Olga Mihalovna. She used to sit down on a bench 
 near the shanty woven of branches, and fall to 
 thinking. 
 
 This time, too, she went on as far as the seat, sat 
 down, and began thinking; but instead of the little 
 creature there rose up in her imagination the figures 
 of the grown-up people whom she had just left. 
 She felt dreadfully uneasy that she, the hostess, had 
 deserted her guests, and she remembered how her 
 husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, and her uncle, Nikolay 
 Nikolaitch, had argued at dinner about trial by jury, 
 about the press, and about the higher education of 
 women. Her husband, as usual, argued in order 
 to show off his Conservative ideas before his visitors 
 — and still more in order to disagree with her uncle, 
 whom he disliked. Her uncle contradicted him and 
 wrangled over every word he uttered, so as to show 
 the company that he. Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch, still
 
 The Party 5 
 
 retained his youthful freshness of spirit and free- 
 thinking in spite of his fifty-nine years. And to- 
 wards the end of dinner even Olga Mihalovna her- 
 self could not resist taking part and unskilfully 
 attempting to defend university education for women 
 — not that that education stood in need of her de- 
 fence, but simply because she wanted to annoy her 
 husband, who to her mind was unfair. The guests 
 were wearied by this discussion, but they all thought 
 it necessary to take part in it, and talked a great 
 deal, although none of them took any interest in 
 trial by jury or the higher education of women. . . . 
 
 Olga Mihalovna was sitting on the nearest side 
 of the hurdle near the shanty. The sun was hidden 
 behind the clouds. The trees and the air were over- 
 cast as before rain, but in spite of that it was hot 
 and stifling. The hay cut under the trees on the 
 previous day was lying ungathered, looking melan- 
 choly, with here and there a patch of colour from 
 the faded flowers, and from it came a heavy, sickly 
 scent. It was still. The other side of the hurdle 
 there was a monotonous hum of bees. . . . 
 
 Suddenly she heard footsteps and voices; some 
 one was coming along the path towards the bee- 
 house. 
 
 "How stifling it is!" said a feminine voice. 
 *' What do you think — is it going to rain, or not? " 
 
 " It is going to rain, my charmer, but not before
 
 6 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 night," a very familiar male voice answered 
 languidly. " There will be a good rain." 
 
 Olga Mihalovna calculated that if she made haste 
 to hide in the shanty they would pass by without 
 seeing her, and she would not have to talk and to 
 force herself to smile. She picked up her skirts, 
 bent down and crept into the shanty. At once she 
 felt upon her face, her neck, her arms, the hot air as 
 heavy as steam. If It had not been for the stuffiness 
 and the close smell of rye bread, fennel, and brush- 
 wood, which prevented her from breathing freely, it 
 would have been delightful to hide from her visitors 
 here under the thatched roof in the dusk, and to think 
 about the little creature. It was cosy and quiet. 
 
 "What a pretty spot!" said a feminine voice. 
 " Let us sit here, Pyotr Dmitritch." 
 
 Olga Mihalovna began peeping through a crack 
 between two branches. She saw her husband, Pyotr 
 Dmitritch, and Lubotchka Sheller, a girl of seven- 
 teen who had not long left boarding-school. Pyotr 
 Dmitritch, with his hat on the back of his head, 
 languid and indolent from having drunk so much at 
 dinner, slouched by the hurdle and raked the hay into 
 a heap with his foot; Lubotchka, pink with the heat 
 and pretty as ever, stood with her hands behind her, 
 watching the lazy movements of his big handsome 
 person. 
 
 Olga Mihalovna knew that her husband was at-
 
 The Party 7 
 
 tractive to women, and did not like to see him with 
 them. There was nothing out of the way in Pyotr 
 Dmitritch's lazily raking together the hay in order 
 to sit down on it with Lubotchka and chatter to her 
 of trivialities; there was nothing out of the way, 
 either, in pretty Lubotchka's looking at him with her 
 soft eyes; but yet Olga Mihalovna felt vexed with 
 her husband and frightened and pleased that she 
 could listen to them. 
 
 " Sit down, enchantress," said Pyotr Dmitritch, 
 sinking down on the hay and stretching. " That's 
 right. Come, tell me something." 
 
 " What next ! If I begin telling you anything you 
 will go to sleep." 
 
 " Me go to sleep? Allah forbid! Can I go to 
 sleep while eyes like yours are watching me? " 
 
 In her husband's words, and in the fact that he 
 was lolling with his hat on the back of his head 
 in the presence of a lady, there was nothing out of 
 the way either. He was spoilt by women, knew 
 that they found him attractive, and had adopted with 
 them a special tone which every one said suited 
 him. With Lubotchka he behaved as with all 
 women. But, all the same, Olga Mihalovna was 
 jealous. 
 
 " Tell me, please," said Lubotchka, after a brief 
 silence — " is it true that you are to be tried for 
 something? "
 
 8 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " I ? Yes, I am . . . numbered among the 
 transgressors, my charmer." 
 
 "But what for?" 
 
 " For nothing, but just . . . it's chiefly a question 
 of poHtlcs," yawned Pyotr Dmitritch — " the antag- 
 onisms of Left and Right. I, an obscurantist and 
 reactionary, ventured in an official paper to make 
 use of an expression offensive in the eyes of such im- 
 maculate Gladstones as Vladimir Pavlovitch Vladi- 
 mirov and our local justice of the peace — Kuzma 
 Grigoritch Vostryakov." 
 
 Pytor Dmitritch yawned again and went on: 
 
 " And it is the way with us that you may express 
 disapproval of the sun or the moon, or anything you 
 like, but God preserve you from touching the Lib- 
 erals! Heaven forbid! A Liberal is like the 
 poisonous dry fungus which covers you with a cloud 
 of dust if you accidentally touch it with your finger." 
 
 " What happened to you? " 
 
 " Nothing particular. The whole flare-up started 
 from the merest trifle. A teacher, a detestable per- 
 son of clerical associations, hands to Vostryakov a 
 petition against a tavern-keeper, charging him with 
 insulting language and behaviour in a public place. 
 Everything showed that both the teacher and the 
 tavern-keeper were drunk as cobblers, and that they 
 behaved equally badly. If there had been insulting 
 behaviour, the insult had anyway been mutual.
 
 The Party 9 
 
 Vostryakov ought to have fined them both for a 
 breach of the peace and have turned them out of the 
 court — that is all. But that's not our way of doing 
 things. With us what sbands first is not the person 
 — not the fact itself, but the trade-mark and label. 
 However great a rascal a teacher may be, he is 
 always in the right because he is a teacher; a tavern- 
 keeper is always in the wrong because he is a tavern- 
 keeper and a money-grubber. Vostryakov placed 
 the tavern-keeper under arrest. The man appealed 
 to the Circuit Court; the Circuit Court triumphantly 
 upheld Vostryakov's decision. Well, I stuck to my 
 own opinion. . . . Got a little hot. . . . That was 
 all." 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch spoke calmly with careless irony. 
 In reality the trial that was hanging over him wor- 
 ried him extremely. Olga Mihalovna remembered 
 how on his return from the unfortunate session he 
 had tried to conceal from his household how troubled 
 he was, and how dissatisfied with himself. As an 
 intelligent man he could not help feeling that he had 
 gone too far in expressing his disagreement; and how 
 much lying had been needful to conceal that feeling 
 from himself and from others! How many un- 
 necessary conversations there had been! How 
 much grumbling and insincere laughter at what was 
 not laughable! When he learned that he was to be 
 brought up before the Court, he seemed at once
 
 10 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 harassed and depressed; he began to si\icp badly, 
 stood oftener than ever at the windows, drumming 
 on the panes with his fingers. And he was ashamed 
 to let his wife see that he was worried, and it vexed 
 her. ••" 
 
 " They say you have been in the province of 
 Poltava? " Lubotchka questioned him. 
 
 " Yes," answered Pyotr Dmitritch. " I came 
 back the day before yesterday." i 
 
 " I expect it is very nice there." 
 
 " Yes, it is very nice, very nice indeed; in fact, I 
 arrived just in time for the haymaking, I must tell 
 you, and in the Ukraine the haymaking is the most 
 poetical moment of the year. Here we have a big 
 house, a big garden, a lot of servants, and a lot 
 going on, so that you don't see the haymaking; here 
 it all passes unnoticed. There> at the farm, I have 
 a meadow of forty-five acres as flat as my hand. 
 You can see the men mowing from any window you 
 stand at. They are mowing in the meadow, they 
 are mowing in the garden. There are no visitors, 
 no fuss nor hurry either, so that you can't help seeing, 
 feeling, hearing nothing but the haymaking. There 
 is a smell of hay indoors and outdoors. There's the 
 sound of the scythes from sunrise to sunset. Alto- 
 gether Little Russia is a charming country. Would 
 you believe it, when I was drinking water from the 
 rustic wells and filthy vodka in some Jew's tavern,
 
 The Party 11 
 
 when orirqLuet evenings the strains of the Little Rus- 
 sian fiddle and the tambourines reached me, I was 
 terppted by a fascinating idea — to settle down on my 
 place and live there as long as I chose, far away from 
 Circuit Courts, intellectual conversations, philoso- 
 phizing women, long dinners. . . ." 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch was not lying. He was unhappy 
 and really longed to rest. And he had visited his 
 ^oltava property simply to avoid seeing his study, 
 his servants, his acquaintances, and everything that 
 could remind him of his wounded vanity and his 
 mistakes. 
 
 Lubotchka suddenly jumped up and waved her 
 hands about In horror. 
 
 " Oh! A bee, a bee! " she shrieked. " It will 
 sting! " 
 
 " Nonsense; it won't sting," said Pyotr Dmitritch. 
 " What a coward you are ! " 
 
 " Xo, no, no," cried Lubotchka; and looking 
 round at the bees, she walked rapidly back. 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch walked away after her, looking 
 at her with a softened and melancholy face. He 
 was probably thinking, as he looked at her, of his 
 farm, of solitude, and — who knows? — perhaps he 
 was even thinking how snug and cosy life would be 
 at the farm if his wife had been this girl — young, 
 pure, fresh, not corrupted by higher education, not 
 with child. . . .
 
 12 The Party and Other Stones 
 
 When the sound of their footsteps had died away, 
 Olga Mihalovna came out of the shanty and turned 
 towards the house. She wanted to cry. She was 
 by now acutely jealous. She could understand that 
 her husband was worried, dissatisfied with himself 
 and ashamed, and when people are ashamed they 
 hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and 
 are unreserved wtih strangers; she could understand, 
 also, that she had nothing to fear from Lubotchka 
 or from those women who were now drinking coffee 
 indoors. But everything in general was terrible, 
 incomprehensible, and it already seemed to Olga 
 Mihalovna that Pyotr Dmitritch only ha]f_belonged 
 to her. . . . 
 
 " He has no right to do it! " she muttered, trying 
 to formulate her jealousy and her vexation with her 
 husband. *' He has no right at all. I will tell him 
 so plainly! " 
 
 She made up her mind to find her husband at once 
 and tell him all about it: it was disgusting, absolutely 
 disgusting, that he was attractive to other women 
 and sought their admiration as though it were some 
 heavenly manna; it was unjust and dishonourable 
 that he should give to others what belonged by right 
 to his wife, that he should hide his soul and his con- 
 science from his wife to reveal them to the first pretty 
 face he came across. What harm had his wife done 
 him? How was she to blame? Long ago she had
 
 The Party 13 
 
 been sickened by his lying: he was for ever posing, 
 flirting, saying what he did not think, and trying to 
 seem different from what he was and what he ought 
 to be. Why this falsity? Was it seemly in a decent 
 man? If he lied he was demeaning himself and 
 those to whom he lied, and slighting what he lied 
 about. Could he not understand that if he swag- 
 gered and posed at the judicial table, or held forth 
 at dinner on the prerogatives of Government, that 
 he, simply to provoke her uncle, was showing thereby 
 that he had not a ha'p'orth of respect for the Court, 
 or himself, or any of the people who were listening 
 and looking at him? 
 
 Coming out into the big avenue, Olga Mihalovna 
 assumed an expression of face as though she had just 
 gone away to look after some domestic matter. In 
 the verandah the gentlemen were drinking liqueur 
 and eating strawberries: one of them, the Examining 
 Magistrate — a stout elderly man, hlagueur and wit 
 — must have been telling some rather free anecdote, 
 for, seeing their hostess, he suddenly clapped his 
 hands over his fat lips, rolled his eyes, and sat down. 
 Olga Mihalovna did not like the local officials. She 
 did not care for their clumsy, ceremonious wives, 
 their scandal-mongering, their frequent visits, their 
 flattery of her husband, whom they all hated. Now, 
 when they were drinking, were replete with food and 
 showed no signs of going away, she felt their prcs-
 
 14 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 ence an agonizing weariness; but not to appear im- 
 polite, she smiled cordially to the Magistrate, and 
 shook her finger at him. She walked across the 
 dining-room and drawing-room smiling, and looking 
 as though she had gone to give some order and make 
 some arrangement. " God grant no one stops me," 
 she thought, but she forced herself to stop in the 
 drawing-room to listen from politeness to a young 
 man who was sitting at the piano playing: after 
 standing for a minute, she cried, " Bravo, bravo, M. 
 Georges! " and clapping her hands twice, she went 
 on. 
 
 She found her husband in his study. He was 
 sitting at the table, thinking of something. His face 
 looked stern, thoughtful, and guilty. This was not 
 the same Pyotr Dmitritch who had been arguing at 
 dinner and whom his guests knew, but a different 
 man — wearied, feeling guilty and dissatisfied with 
 himself, whom nobody knew but his wife. He must 
 have come to the study to get cigarettes. Before 
 him lay an open cigarette-case full of cigarettes, and 
 one of his hands was in the table drawer; he had 
 paused and sunk into thought as he was taking the 
 cigarettes. 
 
 Olga Mihalovna felt sorry for him. It was as 
 clear as day that this man was harassed, could find 
 no rest, and was perhaps struggling with himself. 
 Olga Mihalovna went up to the table in silence:
 
 The Party 15 
 
 wanting to show that she had forgotten the argument 
 at dinner and was not cross, she shut the cigarette- 
 case and put it in her husband's coat pocket, 
 
 " What should I say to him? " she wondered; " I 
 shall say that lying is like a forest — the further one 
 goes into it the more difficult it is to get out of it. I 
 will say to him, ' You have been carried away by 
 the false part you are playing; you have insulted 
 people who were attached to you and have done you 
 no harm. Go and apologize to them, laugh at your- 
 self, and you will feel better. And if you want 
 peace and solitude, let us go away together.' " 
 
 Meeting his wife's gaze, Pyotr Dmitritch's face 
 immediately assumed the expression it had worn at 
 dinner and in the garden — indifferent and slightly 
 ironical. He yawned and got up. 
 
 " It's past five," he said, looking at his watch. 
 " If our visitors are merciful and leave us at eleven, 
 even then we have another six hours of it. It's a 
 cheerful prospect, there's no denying! " 
 
 And whistling something, he walked slowly out of 
 the study with his usual dignified gait. She could 
 hear him with dignified firmness cross the dining- 
 room, then the drawing-room, laugh with dignified 
 assurance, and say to the young man who was play- 
 ing, *' Bravo ! bravo 1 " Soon his footsteps died 
 away: he must have gone out into the garden. And 
 now not jealousy, not vexation, but real hatred of
 
 l6 The Party and Other Stones 
 
 his footsteps, his insincere laugh and voice, took pos- 
 session of Olga Mihalovna. She went to the win- 
 dow and looked out into the garden. Pyotr Dmi- 
 tritch was already walking along the avenue. Put- 
 ting one hand in his pocket and snapping the. 
 fingers of the other, he walked with confident swing- 
 ing steps, throwing his head back a little, and look- 
 ing as though he were very well satisfied with him- 
 self, with his dinner, with his digestion, and with 
 nature. . . . 
 
 Two little schoolboys, the children of Madame 
 Tchizhevsky, who had only just arrived, made their 
 appearance in the avenue, accompanied by their 
 tutor, a student wearing a white tunic and very nar- 
 row trousers. When they reached Pyotr Dmitritch, 
 the boys and the student stopped, and probably con- 
 gratulated him on his name-day. With a graceful 
 swing of his shoulders, he patted the children on 
 their cheeks, and carelessly offered the student his 
 hand without looking at him. The student must 
 have praised the weather and compared it with the 
 climate of Petersburg, for Pyotr Dmitritch said in 
 a loud voice, in a tone as though he were not speak- 
 ing to a guest, but to an usher of the court or a 
 witness: 
 
 "What! It's cold in Petersburg? And here, 
 my good sir, we have a salubrious atmosphere and 
 the fruits of the earth in abundance. Eh? What? "
 
 The Party 17 
 
 And thrusting one hand in his pocket and snap- 
 ping the fingers of the other, he walked on. Till 
 he had disappeared behind the nut bushes, Olga 
 Mihalovna watched the back of his head in per- 
 plexity. How had this man of thirty-four come by 
 the dignified deportment of a general? How had 
 he come by that impressive, elegant manner? 
 Where had he got that vibration of authority in his 
 voice? Where had he got these " what's," " to be 
 sure's," and " my good sir's " ? 'y 
 
 Olga JNIihalovna remembered how In the first 
 months of her marriage she had felt dreary at home 
 alone and had driven into the town to the Circuit 
 Court, at which Pyotr Dmitritch had sometimes pre- 
 sided in place of her godfather, Count Alexey Petro- 
 vitch. In the presidential chair, wearing his uni- 
 form and a chain on his breast, he was completely 
 changed. Stately gestures, a voice of thunder, 
 " what," " to be sure," careless tones. . • . Every- 
 thing, all that was ordinary and human, all that was 
 individual and personal to himself that Olga Miha- 
 lovna was accustomed to seeing in him at home, 
 vanished in grandeur, and in the presidential chair 
 there sat not Pyotr Dmitritch, but another man 
 whom every one called Mr. President. This con- 
 sciousness of power prevented him from sitting still 
 in his place, and he seized every opportunity to 
 ring his bell, to glance sternly at the public, to
 
 i8 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 shout. . . . Where had he got his short-sight and 
 his deafness when he suddenly began to see and hear 
 with difficulty, and, frowning majestically, insisted 
 on people speaking louder and coming closer to the 
 table? From the height of his grandeur he could 
 hardly distinguish faces or sounds, so that it seemed 
 that if Olga Mihalovna herself had gone up to him 
 he would have shouted even to her, " Your name? " 
 Peasant witnesses he addressed familiarly, he 
 shouted at the public so that his voice could be heard 
 even in the street, and behaved incredibly with the 
 lawyers. If a lawyer had to speak to him, Pyotr 
 Dmitritch, turning a little away from him, looked 
 with half-closed eyes at the ceiling, meaning to sig- 
 nify thereby that the lawyer was utterly superfluous 
 and that he was neither recognizing him nor listen- 
 ing to him; if a badly-dressed lawyer spoke, Pyotr 
 Dmitritch pricked up his ears and looked the man up 
 and down with a sarcastic, annihilating stare as 
 though to say: "Queer sort of lawyers nowa- 
 days! " 
 
 " What do you mean by that? " he would inter- 
 rupt. 
 
 If a would-be eloquent lawyer mispronounced a 
 foreign word, saying, for instance, " factitious " 
 instead of " fictitious," Pyotr Dmitritch brightened 
 up at once and asked, *' What? How? Factitious? 
 What does that mean? " and then observed impres-
 
 The Party 19 
 
 sively: " Don't make use of words you do not un- 
 derstand." And the lawyer, finishing his speech, 
 would walk away from the table, red and perspiring, 
 while Pyotr Dmitritch, with a self-satisfied smile, 
 would lean back in his chair triumphant. In his 
 manner with the lawyers he imitated Count Alexey 
 Petrovitch a little, but when the latter said, for in- 
 stance, " Counsel for the defence, you keep quiet 
 for a little ! " it sounded paternally good-natured and 
 natural, while the same words in Pyotr Dmitritch's 
 mouth were rude and artificial. 
 
 II 
 
 There were sounds of applause. The young man 
 had finished playing. Olga Mihalovna remembered 
 her guests and hurried into the drawing-room. 
 
 ** I have so enjoyed your playing," she said, going 
 up to the piano. " I have so enjoyed it. You have 
 a wonderful talent ! But don't you think our piano's 
 out of tune? " 
 
 At that moment the two schoolboys walked into 
 the room, accompanied by the student. 
 
 " My goodness ! Mitya and Kolya," Olga Miha- 
 lovna drawled joyfully, going to meet them: 
 " How big they have grown ! One would not know 
 you! But where is your mamma? " 
 
 " I congratulate you on the name-day," the stu-
 
 20 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 dent began in a free-and-easy tone, " and I wish you 
 all happiness. Ekaterina Andreyevna sends her con- 
 gratulations and begs you to excuse her. She is not 
 very well." 
 
 " How unkind of her ! I have been expecting her 
 all day. Is it long since you left Petersburg? " Olga 
 Mihalovna asked the student. "What kind of 
 weather have you there now? " And without wait- 
 ing for an answer, she looked cordially at the school- 
 boys and repeated: 
 
 " How tall they have grown ! It is not long since 
 they used to come with their nurse, and they are at 
 school already! The old grow older while the 
 young grow up. . . . Have you had dinner? " 
 
 " Oh, please don't trouble ! " said the student. 
 
 " Why, you have not had dinner? " 
 
 *' For goodness' sake, don't trouble ! " 
 
 "But I suppose you are hungry?" Olga Miha- 
 lovna said it in a harsh, rude voice, with impatience 
 and vexation — it escaped her unawares, but at once 
 she coughed, smiled, and flushed crimson. " How 
 tall they have grown! " she said softly. 
 
 " Please don't trouble ! " the student said once 
 
 more. 
 
 The student begged her not to trouble; the boys 
 said nothing; obviously all three of them were hun- 
 gry. Olga Mihalovna took them into the dining- 
 room and told Vassily to lay the table.
 
 The Party 21 
 
 *' How unkind of your mamma ! " she said as she 
 made them sit down. " She has quite forgotten me. 
 Unkind, unkind, unkind . . . you must tell her so. 
 What are you studying? " she asked the stu- 
 dent. 
 
 " Medicine." 
 
 " Well, I have a weakness for doctors, only fancy. 
 I am very sorry my husband is not a doctor. What 
 courage any one must have to perform an opera- 
 tion or dissect a corpse, for instance ! Horrible ! 
 Aren't you frightened? I believe I should die of 
 terror! Of course, you drink vodka?" 
 
 •' Please don't trouble." 
 
 " After your journey you must have something to 
 drink. Though I am a woman, even I drink some- 
 times. And Mitya and Kolya will drink Malaga. 
 It's not a strong wine; you need not be afraid of it. 
 What fine fellows they are, really! They'll be 
 thinking of getting married next." 
 
 Olga Mihalovna talked without ceasing; she knew 
 by experience that when she had guests to entertain 
 it was far easier and more comfortable to talk than 
 to listen. When you talk there is no need to strain 
 your attention to think of answers to questions, and 
 to change your expression of face. But unawares 
 she asked the student a serious question; the stu- 
 dent began a lengthy speech and she was forced to 
 listen. The student knew that she had once been
 
 n ") 
 
 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 at the University, and so tried to seem a serious per- 
 son as he talked to her. 
 
 *' What subject are you studying? " she asked, for- 
 getting that she had already put that question to 
 him. 
 
 " Medicine." 
 
 Olga Mihalovna now remembered that she had 
 been away from the ladies for a long while. 
 
 "Yes? Then I suppose you are going to be a 
 doctor?" she said, getting up. "That's splendid. 
 I am sorry I did not go in for medicine myself. So 
 you will finish your dinner here, gentlemen, and then 
 come into the garden. I will introduce you to the 
 young ladies." 
 
 She went out and glanced at her watch: it was 
 five minutes to six. And she wondered that the time 
 had gone so slowly, and thought with horror that 
 there were six more hours before midnight, when the 
 party would break up. How could she get through 
 those six hours? What phrases could she utter? 
 How should she behave to her husband? 
 
 There was not a soul in the drawing-room or on 
 the verandah. All the guests were sauntering about 
 the garden. 
 
 " I shall have to suggest a walk in the birch- 
 wood before tea, or else a row in the boats," thought 
 Olga Mihalovna, hurrying to the croquet ground, 
 from which came the sounds of voices and laughter.
 
 The Party 23 
 
 " And sit the old people down to vint. . . ." 
 She met Grigory the footman coming from the 
 croquet ground with empty bottles. 
 
 "Where are the ladies? " she asked. 
 
 " Among the raspberry-bushes. The master's 
 there, too." 
 
 "Oh, good heavens! " some one on the croquet 
 lawn shouted with exasperation. " I have told you 
 a thousand times over! To know the Bulgarians 
 you must see them! You can't judge from the 
 papers! " 
 
 Either because of the outburst or for some other 
 reason, Olga Mihalovna was suddenly aware of a 
 terrible weakness all over, especially in her legs and 
 in her shoulders. She felt she could not bear to 
 speak, to listen, or to move. 
 
 " Grigory," she said faintly and with an effort, 
 " when you have to serve tea or anything, please 
 don't appeal to me, don't ask me anything, don't 
 speak of anything. . . . Do it all yourself, and . . . 
 and don't make a noise with your feet, I entreat 
 you. ... I can't, because . . ." 
 
 Without finishing, she walked on towards the 
 croquet lawn, but on the way she thought of the 
 ladies, and turned towards the raspberry-bushes. 
 The sky, the air, and the trees looked gloomy again 
 and threatened rain; it was hot and stifling. An im- 
 mense flock of crows, foreseeing a storm, flew caw-
 
 24 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 ing over the garden. The paths- were more over- 
 grown, darker, and narrower as they got nearer the 
 kitchen garden. In one of them, buried in a thick 
 tangle of wild pear, crab-apple, sorrel, young oaks, 
 and hopbine, clouds of tiny black flies swarmed round 
 Olga Mihalovna. She covered her face with her 
 hands and began forcing herself to think of the little 
 creature. . . . There floated through her imagina- 
 tion the figures of Grigory, Mitya, Kolya, the faces 
 of the peasants who had come in the morning to 
 present their congratulations. . . . 
 
 She heard footsteps, and she opened her eyes. 
 Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch was coming rapidly 
 towards her. 
 
 " It's you, dear? I am very glad . . ." he be- 
 gan, breathless. " A couple of words. . . ." He 
 mopped with his handkerchief his red shaven chin, 
 then suddenly stepped back a pace, flung up his 
 hands and opened his eyes wide. '* My dear girl, 
 how long is this going on? " he said rapidly, splut- 
 tering, " I ask you: is there no limit to it? I say 
 nothing of the demoralizing effect of his martinet 
 views on all around him, of the way he insults all that 
 is sacred and best in me and In every honest think- 
 ing man — I will say nothing about that, but he 
 might at least behave decently! Why, he shouts, he 
 bellows, gives himself airs, poses as a sort of Bona- 
 parte, does not let one say a word. ... I don't
 
 The Party 25 
 
 know what the devil's the matter with him! These 
 lordly gestures, this condescending tone; and laugh- 
 ing like a general ! Who is he, allow me to ask you ? 
 I ask you, who is he? The husband of his wife, 
 with a few paltry acres and the rank of a titular 
 who has had the luck to marry an heiress! An up- 
 start and a junker, like so many others ! A type out 
 of Shtchedrin ! Upon my word, it's either that he's 
 suffering from megalomania, or that old rat in his 
 dotage. Count Alexey Petrovitch, is right when he 
 says that children and young people are a long time 
 growing up nowadays, and go on playing they are 
 cabmen and generals till they are forty! " 
 
 "That's true, that's true," Olga Mihalovna as- 
 sented. " Let me pass." 
 
 " Now just consider: what is it leading to? " her 
 uncle went on, barring her way. " How will this 
 playing at being a general and a Conservative end? 
 Already he has got into trouble! Yes, to stand his 
 trial ! I am very glad of it ! That's what his noise 
 and shouting has brought him to — to stand in the 
 prisoner's dock. And it's not as though it were 
 the Circuit Court or something: it's the Central 
 Court! Nothing worse could be imagined, T think! 
 And then he has quarrelled with every one! He is 
 celebrating his name-day, and look, Vostryakov's not 
 here, nor Yahontov, nor Vladimirov, nor Shcvud, 
 nor the Count. . . . There is no one, I imagine,
 
 26 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 more Conservative than Count Alexey Petrovitch, 
 yet even he has not come. And he never will come 
 again. He won't come, you will see 1 " 
 
 " INIy God ! but what has it to do with me ? " asked 
 Olga Mihalovna. 
 
 "What has it to do with you? Why, you are 
 his wife! You are clever, you have had a univer- 
 sity education, and it was in your power to make him 
 an honest worker! " 
 
 " At the lectures I went to they did not teach us 
 how to influence tiresome people. It seems as 
 though I should have to apologize to all of you for 
 having been at the University," said Olga Mihalovna 
 sharply. " Listen, uncle. If people played the 
 same scales over and over again the whole day long 
 in your hearing, you wouldn't be able to sit still and 
 listen, but would run away. I hear the same thing 
 over again for days together all the year round. 
 You must have pity on me at last." 
 
 Her uncle pulled a very long face, then looked at 
 her searchingly and twisted his lips into a mocking 
 smile. 
 
 " So that's how it is," he piped in a voice like an 
 old woman's. " I beg your pardon! " he said, and 
 made a ceremonious bow. " If you have fallen 
 under his influence yourself, and have abandoned 
 your convictions, you should have said so before. I 
 beg your pardon! "
 
 The Party 27 
 
 " Yes, I have abandoned my convictions," she 
 cried. " There ; make the most of it ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon! " 
 
 Her uncle for the last time made her a cere- 
 monious bow, a little on one side, and, shrinking 
 into himself, made a scrape with his foot and walked 
 back. 
 
 " Idiot ! " thought Olga Mihalovna. " I hope he 
 will go home." 
 
 She found the ladies and the young people among 
 the raspberries In the kitchen garden. Some were 
 eating raspberries; others, tired of eating raspber- 
 ries, were strolling about the strawberry beds or 
 foraging among the sugar-peas. A little on one 
 side of the raspberry bed, near a branching apple- 
 tree propped up by posts which had been pulled out 
 of an old fence, Pyotr Dmitritch was mowing the 
 grass. His hair was falling over his forehead, his 
 cravat was untied. His watch-chain was hanging 
 loose. Every step and every swing of the scythe 
 showed skill and the possession of Immense physical 
 strength. Near him were standing Lubotchka and 
 the daughters of a neighbour, Colonel Bukryeev — 
 two anaemic and unhealthily stout fair girls, Natalya 
 and Valentina, or, as they were always called, Nata 
 and Vata, both wearing white frocks and strikingly 
 like each other. Pyotr Dmitritch was teaching them 
 to mow.
 
 28 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " It's very simple," he said. " You have only to 
 know how to hold the scythe and not to get too hot 
 over it — that is, not to use more force than is neces- 
 sary! Like this. . . . Wouldn't you like to try?" 
 he said, offering the scythe to Lubotchka. 
 ♦'Come!" 
 
 Lubotchka took the scythe clumsily, blushed crim- 
 son, and laughed. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, Lubov Alexandrovna ! " cried 
 Olga Mihalovna, loud enough for all the ladies to 
 hear that she was with them. "Don't be afraid! 
 You must learn! If you marry a Tolstoyan he will 
 make you mow." 
 
 Lubotchka raised the scythe, but began laughing 
 again, and, helpless with laughter, let go of it at 
 once. She was ashamed and pleased at being talked 
 to as though grown up. Nata, with a cold, serious 
 face, with no trace of smiling or shyness, took the 
 scythe, swung it and caught it in the grass; Vata, 
 also without a smile, as cold and serious as her sister, 
 took the scythe, and silently thrust it into the earth. 
 Having done this, the two sisters linked arms and 
 walked in silence to the raspberries. 
 
 Pyotr Dmitrltch laughed and played about like a 
 boy, and this childish, frolicsome mood in which he 
 became exceedingly good-natured suited him far bet- 
 ter than any other. Olga Mihalovna loved him 
 when he was like that. But his boyishness did not
 
 The Party 29 
 
 usually last long. It did not this time ; after playing 
 with the scythe, he for some reason thought it neces- 
 sary to take a serious tone about it. 
 
 " When I am mowing, I feel, do you know, 
 healthier and more normal," he said. " If I were 
 forced to confine myself to an intellectual life I be- 
 lieve I should go out of my mind. I feel that I was 
 not born to be a man of culture! I ought to mow, 
 plough, sow, drive out the horses." 
 
 And Pyotr Dmitritch began a conversation with 
 the ladies about the advantages of physical labour, 
 about culture, and then about the pernicious effects 
 of money, of property. Listening to her husband, 
 Olga Mihalovna, for some reason, thought of her 
 dowry. 
 
 " And the time will come, I suppose," she thought, 
 " when he will not forgive me for being richer than 
 he. He is proud and vain. Maybe he will hate 
 me because he owes so much to me." 
 
 She stopped near Colonel Bukryeev, who was 
 eating raspberries and also taking part In the con- 
 versation. 
 
 " Come," he said, making room for Olga Miha- 
 lovna and Pyotr Dmitritch. " The ripest are 
 here. . . . And so, according to Proudhon," he 
 went on, raising his voice, " property is robbery. 
 But I must confess I don't bclic\c in Proudhon, and 
 don't consider him a philosopher. The French are
 
 30 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 not authorities, to my thinking — God bless them ! " 
 
 " Well, as for Proudhons and Buckles and the 
 rest of them, I am weak in that department," said 
 Pyotr Dmitritch. " For philosophy you must apply 
 to my wife. She has been at University lectures and 
 knows all your Schopenhauers and Proudhons by 
 heart. . . ." 
 
 Olga Mihalovna felt bored again. She walked 
 again along a little path by apple and pear trees, 
 and looked again as though she was on some very 
 important errand. She reached the gardener's cot- 
 tage. In the doorway the gardener's wife, Varvara, 
 was sitting together with her four little children with 
 big shaven heads. Varvara, too, was with child and 
 expecting to be confined on Elijah's Day. After 
 greeting her, Olga Mihalovna looked at her and the 
 children In silence and asked: 
 
 "Well, how do you feel?" 
 
 " Oh, all right. . . ." 
 
 A silence followed. The two women seemed to 
 understand each other without words. 
 
 " It's dreadful having one's first baby," said Olga 
 Mihalovna after a moment's thought. " I keep 
 feeling as though I shall not get through It, as 
 though I shall die." 
 
 " I fancied that, too, but here I am alive. . . . 
 One has all sorts of fancies." 
 
 Varvara, who was just going to have her fifth,
 
 The Party 31 
 
 looked down a little on her mistress from the height 
 of her experience and spoke in a rather didactic tone, 
 and Olga Mihalovna could not help feehng her au- 
 thority; she would have liked to have talked of her 
 fears, of the child, of her sensations, but she was 
 afraid it might strike Varvara as naive and trivial. 
 And she waited In silence for Varvara to say some- 
 thing herself. 
 
 " Olya, we are going indoors," Pyotr Dmitrltch 
 called from the raspberries. 
 
 Olga Mihalovna liked being silent, waiting and 
 watching Varvara. She would have been ready to 
 stay like that till night without speaking or having 
 any duty to perform. But she had to go. She had 
 hardly left the cottage when Lubotchka, Nata, and 
 Vata came running to meet her. The sisters 
 stopped short abruptly a couple of yards away; 
 Lubotchka ran right up to her and flung herself on 
 her neck. 
 
 *' You dear, darling, precious," she said, kissing 
 her face and her neck. " Let us go and have tea 
 on the island ! " 
 
 " On the island, on the Island ! " said the precisely 
 similar Nata and Vata, both at once, without a smile. 
 
 " But it's going to rain, my dears." 
 
 " It's not, it's not," cried Lubotchka with a woe- 
 begone face. "They've all agreed to go. Dear! 
 darling!"
 
 32 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " They are all getting ready to have tea on the 
 island," said Pyotr Dmitritch, coming up. " See to 
 arranging things. . . . We will all go in the boats, 
 and the samovars and all the rest of it must be sent 
 in the carriage with the servants." 
 
 He walked beside his wife and gave her his arm. 
 Olga Mihalovna had a desire to say something dis- 
 agreeable to her husband, something biting, even 
 about her dowry perhaps — the crueller the better, 
 she felt. She thought a little, and said: 
 
 " Why is it Count Alexey Petrovitch hasn't come? 
 What a pity! " 
 
 " I am very glad he hasn't come," said Pyotr 
 Dmitritch, lying. " I'm sick to death of that old 
 lunatic." 
 
 " But yet before dinner you were expecting him 
 so eagerly ! " 
 
 III 
 
 Half an hour later all the guests were crowding 
 on the bank near the pile to which the boats were 
 fastened. They were all talking and laughing, and 
 were in such excitement and commotion that they 
 could hardly get into the boats. Three boats were 
 crammed with passengers, while two stood empty. 
 The keys for unfastening these two boats had been 
 somehow mislaid, and messengers were continually
 
 The Party 33 
 
 running from the river to the house to look for 
 them. Some said Grigory had the keys, others that 
 the baihff had them, while others suggested sending 
 for a blacksmith and breaking the padlocks. And 
 all talked at once, interrupting and shouting one an- 
 other down. Pyotr Dmitritch paced impatiently to 
 and fro on the bank, shouting: 
 
 " What the devil's the meaning of It! The keys 
 ought always to be lying in the hall window! Who 
 has dared to take them away? The bailiff can get 
 a boat of his own if he wants one ! " 
 
 At last the keys were found. Then it appeared 
 that two oars were missing. Again there was a 
 great hullabaloo. Pyotr Dmitritch, who was weary 
 of pacing about the bank, jumped into a long, narrow 
 boat hollowed out of the trunk of a poplar, and, 
 lurching from side to side and almost falling into 
 the water, pushed off from the bank. The other 
 boats followed him one after another, amid loud 
 laughter and the shrieks of the young ladies. 
 
 The white cloudy sky, the trees on the riverside, 
 the boats with the people in them, and the oars, 
 were reflected in the water as in a mirror; under 
 the boats, far away below in the bottomless depths, 
 was a second sky with the birds flying across it. 
 The bank on which the house and gardens stood 
 was high, steep, and covered with trees; on the other, 
 which was sloping, stretched broad green water-
 
 34 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 meadows with sheets of water glistening In them. 
 The boats had floated a hundred yards when, behind 
 the mournfully drooping v»^illows on the sloping 
 banks, huts and a herd of cows came into sight; they 
 began to hear songs, drunken shouts, and the strains 
 of a concertina. 
 
 Here and there on the river fishing-boats were 
 scattered about, setting their nets for the night. In 
 one of these boats was the festive party, playing on 
 home-made violins and violoncellos. 
 
 Olga Mihalovna was sitting at the rudder; she 
 was smiling affably and talking a great deal to enter- 
 tain her visitors, while she glanced stealthily at her 
 husband. He was ahead of them all, standing up 
 punting with one oar. The light sharp-nosed canoe, 
 which all the guests called the " death-trap " — while 
 Pyotr Dmitritch, for some reason, called It Pende- 
 raklia — flew along quickly; it had a brisk, crafty 
 expression, as though it hated its heavy occupant and 
 was looking out for a favourable moment to glide 
 away from under his feet. Olga Mihalovna kept 
 looking at her husband, and she loathed his good 
 looks which attracted every one, the back of his 
 head, his attitude, his familiar manner with women; 
 she hated all the women sitting in the boat with her, 
 was jealous, and at the same time was trembling 
 every minute In terror that the frail craft would up- 
 set and cause an accident.
 
 The Party 35 
 
 "Take care, Pyotr! " she cried, while her heart 
 fluttered with terror. " Sit down ! We believe in 
 your courage without all that! " 
 
 She was worried, too, by the people who were 
 in the boat with her. They were all ordinary good 
 sort of people like thousands of others, but now each 
 one of them struck her as exceptional and evil. In 
 each one of them she saw nothing but falsity. 
 " That young man," she thought, " rowing, in gold- 
 rimmed spectacles, with chestnut hair and a nice- 
 looking beard: he is a mamma's darling, rich, and 
 well-fed, and always fortunate, and every one con- 
 siders him an honourable, free-thinking, advanced 
 man. It's not a year since he left the University 
 and came to live in the district, but he already talks 
 of himself as ' we active members of the Zemstvo.' 
 But in another year he will be bored like so many 
 others and go off to Petersburg, and to justify run- 
 ning away, will tell every one that the Zemstvos 
 arc good-for-nothing, and that he has been deceived 
 in them. While from the other boat his young wife 
 keeps her eyes fixed on him, and believes that he is 
 ' an active member of the Zemstvo,' just as in a 
 year she will believe that the Zemstvo is good-for- 
 nothing. And that stout, carefully shaven gentle- 
 man in the straw hat with the broad ribbon, with 
 an expensive cigar in his mouth: he is fond of say- 
 ing, ' It is time to put away dreams and set to workl '
 
 36 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 He has Yorkshire pigs, Butler's hives, rape-seed, 
 pine-apples, a dairy, a cheese factory, Italian book- 
 keeping by double entry; but every summer he sells 
 his timber and mortgages part of his land to spend 
 the autumn with his mistress in the Crimea. And 
 there's Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch, who has quar- 
 relled with Pyotr Dmitritch, and yet for some rea- 
 son does not go home." 
 
 Olga Mihalovna looked at the other boats, and 
 there, too, she saw only uninteresting, queer crea- 
 tures, affected or stupid people. She thought of 
 all the people she knew in the district, and could 
 not remember one person of whom one could say 
 or think anything good. They all seemed to her 
 mediocre, insipid, unintelligent, narrow, false, heart- 
 less; they all said what they did not think, and did 
 what they did not want to. Dreariness and despair 
 were stifling her; she longed to leave off smiling, to 
 leap up and cry out, " I am sick of you," and then 
 jump out and swim to the bank. 
 
 " I say, let's take Pyotr Dmitritch in tow! " some 
 one shouted. 
 
 " In tow, in tow! " the others chimed in. " Olga 
 Mihalovna, take your husband in tow." 
 
 To take him In tow, Olga Mihalovna, who was 
 steering, had to seize the right moment and to catch 
 hold of his boat by the chain at the beak. When
 
 The Party 37 
 
 she bent over to the chain Pyotr Dmitrltch frowned 
 and looked at her in alarm. 
 
 " I hope you won't catch cold," he said. 
 
 " If you are uneasy about me and the child, why 
 do you torment me ? " thought Olga Mihalovna. 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch acknowledged himself van- 
 quished, and, not caring to be towed, jumped from 
 the Penderaklia into the boat which was overful al- 
 ready, and jumped so carelessly that the boat lurched 
 violently, and every one cried out in terror. 
 
 " He did that to please the ladies," thought Olga 
 Mihalovna; " he knows it's charming." Her hands 
 and feet began trembling, as she supposed, from 
 boredom, vexation from the strain of smiling and 
 the discomfort she felt all over her body. And to 
 conceal this trembling from her guests, she tried to 
 talk more loudly, to laugh, to move. 
 
 " If I suddenly begin to cry," she thought, '* I 
 shall say I have toothache. . . ." 
 
 But at last the boats reached the " Island of Good 
 Hope," as they called the peninsula formed by a 
 bend in the river at an acute angle, covered with a 
 copse of old birch-trees, oaks, willows, and poplars. 
 The tables were already laid under the trees; the 
 samovars were smoking, and Vassily and Grigory, 
 in their swallow-tails and white knitted gloves, were 
 already busy with the tea-things. On the other
 
 38 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 bank, opposite the " Island of Good Hope," there 
 stood the carriages which had come with the pro- 
 visions. The baskets and parcels of provisions 
 were carried across to the island in a little boat like 
 the PenderakUa. The footmen, the coachmen, and 
 even the peasant who was sitting in the boat, had 
 the solemn expression befitting a name-day such as 
 one only sees In children and servants. 
 
 While Olga Mihalovna was making the tea and 
 pouring out the first glasses, the visitors were busy 
 with the liqueurs and sweet things. Then there 
 was the general commotion usual at picnics over 
 drinking tea, very wearisome and exhausting for the 
 hostess. Grigory and Vassily had hardly had time 
 to take the glasses round before hands were being 
 stretched out to Olga Mihalovna with empty glasses. 
 One asked for no sugar, another wanted it stronger, 
 another weak, a fourth declined another glass. And 
 all this Olga Mihalovna had to remember, and then 
 to call, " Ivan Petrovltch, is It without sugar for 
 you?" or, "Gentlemen, which of you wanted it 
 weak?" But the guest who had asked for weak 
 tea, or no sugar, had by now forgotten It, and, ab- 
 sorbed In agreeable conversation, took the first glass 
 that came. Depressed-looking figures wandered like 
 shadows at a little distance from the table, pretend- 
 ing to look for mushrooms in the grass, or reading 
 the labels on the boxes — these were those for whom
 
 The Party 39 
 
 there were not glasses enough, " Have you had 
 tea?" Olga Mihalovna kept asking, and the guest 
 so addressed begged her not to trouble, and said, 
 " I will wait," though it would have suited her 
 better for the visitors not to wait but to make 
 haste. 
 
 Some, absorbed In conversation, drank their tea 
 slowly, keeping their glasses for half an hour ; others, 
 especially some who had drunk a good deal at din- 
 ner, would not leave the table, and kept on drink- 
 ing glass after glass, so that Olga Mihalovna 
 scarcely had time to fill them. One jocular young 
 man sipped his tea through a lump of sugar, and 
 kept saying, " Sinful man that I am, I love to in- 
 dulge myself with the Chinese herb." He kept 
 asking with a hea\^ sigh: "Another tiny dish of 
 tea more, if you please." He drank a great deal, 
 nibbled his sugar, and thought It all very amusing 
 and original, and imagined that he was doing a 
 clever imitation of a Russian merchant. None of 
 them understood that these trifles were agonizing 
 to their hostess, and, indeed, it was hard to under- 
 stand it, as Olga Mihalovna went on all the time 
 smiling affably and talking nonsense. 
 
 But she felt ill. . . . She was irritated by the 
 crowd of people, the laughter, the questions, the 
 jocular young man, the footmen harassed and run 
 off their legs, the children who hung round the
 
 40 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 table; she was irritated at Vata's being like Nata, 
 at Kolya's being like Mitya, so that one could not 
 tell which of them had had tea and which of them 
 had not. She felt that her smile of forced affa- 
 bility was passing into an expression of anger, and 
 she felt every minute as though she would burst into 
 tears. 
 
 " Rain, my friends," cried some one. 
 
 Every one looked at the sky. 
 
 *' Yes, it really is rain . . ." Pyotr Dmitritch as- 
 sented, and wiped his cheek. 
 
 Only a few drops were falling from the sky — the 
 real rain had not begun yet; but the company aban- 
 doned their tea and made haste to get off. At first 
 they all wanted to drive home in the carriages, but 
 changed their minds and made for the boats. On 
 the pretext that she had to hasten home to give di- 
 rections about the supper, Olga Mihalovna asked to 
 be excused for leaving the others, and went home 
 in the carriage. 
 
 When she got into the carriage, she first of all 
 let her face rest from smiling. With an angry 
 face she drove through the village, and with an 
 angry face acknowledged the bows of the peasants 
 she met. When she got home, she went to the 
 bedroom by the back way and lay down on her hus- 
 band's bed. 
 
 " Merciful God ! " she whispered. " What is all
 
 The Party 41 
 
 this hard labour for? Why do all these people 
 hustle each other here and pretend that they are 
 enjoying themselves? Why do I smile and lie? I 
 don't understand it." 
 
 She heard steps and voices. The visitors had 
 come back. 
 
 " Let them come," thought Olga Mihalovna; " I 
 shall lie a little longer." 
 
 But a maid-servant came and said: 
 
 " Marya Grigoryevna is going, madam." 
 
 Olga Mihalovna jumped up, tidied her hair and 
 hurried out of the room. 
 
 " Marya Grigoryevna, what is the meaning of 
 this? " she began in an injured voice, going to meet 
 Marya Grigoryevna. " Why are you in such a 
 hurry?" 
 
 " I can't help it, darling! I've stayed too long 
 as it is; my children are expecting me home." 
 
 " It's too bad of you I Why didn't you bring your 
 children with you? " 
 
 *' If you will let me, dear, I will bring them on 
 some ordinary day, but to-day . . ." 
 
 "Oh, please do," Olga Mihalovna interrupted; 
 " I shall be delighted! Your children are so sweet! 
 Kiss them all for mc. . . . But, really, I am of- 
 fended with you! I don't understand why you arc 
 in such a hurry! " 
 
 " I really must, I really must. . . . Good-bye,
 
 42 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 dear. Take care of yourself. In your condition, 
 you know . . ." 
 
 And the ladies kissed each other. After seeing 
 the departing guest to her carriage, Olga Mihalovna 
 went In to the ladies in the drawing-room. There 
 the lamps were already lighted and the gentlemen 
 were sitting down to cards. 
 
 IV 
 
 The party broke up after supper about a quarter 
 past twelve. Seeing her visitors off, Olga Miha- 
 lovna stood at the door and said: 
 
 *' You really ought to take a shawl ! It's turn- 
 ing a little chilly. Please God, you don't catch 
 cold!" 
 
 " Don't trouble, Olga Mihalovna," the ladies an- 
 swered as they got into the carriage. " Well, 
 good-bye. Mind now, we are expecting you; don't 
 play us false! " 
 
 " Wo-o-o ! " the coachman checked the horses. 
 
 "Ready, Denis! Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna!" 
 
 " Kiss the children for me! " 
 
 The carriage started and immediately disappeared 
 Into the darkness. In the red circle of light cast 
 by the lamp In the road, a fresh pair or trio of 
 impatient horses, and the silhouette of a coachman 
 with his hands held out stiffly before him, would
 
 The Party 43 
 
 come into view. Again there began kisses, re- 
 proaches, and entreaties to come again or to take 
 a shawl. Pyotr Dmitritch kept running out and 
 helping the ladies into their carriages. 
 
 " You go now by Efremovshtchina," he directed 
 the coachman; "it's nearer through Mankino, but 
 the road is worse that way. You might have an 
 upset. . . . Good-bye, my charmer. Mille compli- 
 ments to your artist! " 
 
 "Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna, darling! Go in- 
 doors, or you will catch cold ! It's damp ! " 
 
 " Wo-o-o ! you rascal! " 
 
 " What horses have you got here? " Pyotr Dmit- 
 ritch asked. 
 
 " They were bought from Haidorov, in Lent," an- 
 swered the coachman. 
 
 " Capital horses. . . ." 
 
 And Pyotr Dmitritch patted the trace horse on 
 the haunch. 
 
 " Well, you can start 1 God give you good 
 luck!" 
 
 The last visitor was gone at last; the red circle on 
 the road quivered, moved aside, contracted and 
 went out, as Vassily carried away the lamp from 
 the entrance. On previous occasions when they had 
 seen off their visitors, Pyotr Dmitritch and Olga 
 Mihalovna had begun dancing about the drawing- 
 room, facing each other, clapping their hands and
 
 44 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 singing: "They've gone I They've gone!" But 
 now Olga Mihalovna was not equal to that. She 
 went to her bedroom, undressed, and got into bed. 
 
 She fancied she would fall asleep at once and 
 sleep soundly. Her legs and her shoulders ached 
 painfully, her head was heavy from the strain of 
 talking, and she was conscious, as before, of dis- 
 comfort all over her body. Covering her head over, 
 she lay still for three or four minutes, then peeped 
 out from under the bed-clothes at the lamp before 
 the ikon, listened to the silence, and smiled. 
 
 " It's nice, it's nice," she whispered, curling up 
 her legs, which felt as If they had grown longer from 
 so much walking. " Sleep, sleep. . . ." 
 
 Her legs would not get into a comfortable po- 
 sition; she felt uneasy all over, and she turned on 
 the other side. A big fly blew buzzing about the 
 bedroom and thumped against the ceiling. She 
 could hear, too, Grigory and Vassily stepping cau- 
 tiously about the drawing-room, putting the ch^rs 
 back in ilieir places; it seemed to Olga Mihalovna 
 that she could not go to sleep, nor be comfortable 
 till those sounds were hushed. And again she 
 turned over on the other side impatiendy. ^ 
 
 She heard her husband's voice in the drawing- 
 room. Some one must be staying the night, as 
 Pyotr Dmitritch was addressing some one and 
 speaking loudly:
 
 The Party 45 
 
 " I don't say that Count Alexey Petrovitch Is an 
 impostor. But he can't help seeming to be one, 
 because all of you gentlemen attempt to see in him 
 something different from what he really is. His 
 craziness is looked upon as originality, his familiar 
 manners as good-nature, and his complete absence 
 of opinions as Conservatism. Ev'en granted that he 
 is a Conservative of the stamp of '84, what after 
 all is Conservatism? " 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch, angry with Count Alexey Petro- 
 vitch, his visitors, and himself, was relieving his 
 heart. He abused both the Count and his visitors, 
 and in his vexation with himself was ready to speak 
 out and to hold forth upon anything. After seeing 
 his guest to his room, he walked up and down the 
 drawing-room, walked through the dining-room, 
 down the corridor, then into his study, then again 
 went into the drawing-room, and came into the bed- 
 room. Olga Mihalovna was lying on her back, with 
 the bed-clothes only to her waist (by nov she felt 
 hot), and with an angry face, watched the fly that 
 was thumping against the ceiling. 
 
 " Is some 9ne staying ti z night?" she asked. 
 
 " Yegorov." 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch undressed and gut into his bed. 
 Without speaking, he lighted a cigarette, and he, too, 
 fell to watching the fly. There was an uneasy ancl 
 forbidding look in his eyes. Olga i.lihalovna
 
 46 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 looked at his handsome profile for five minutes in 
 silence. It seemed to her for some reason that if 
 her husband were suddenly to turn facing her, and 
 to say, " Olga, I am unhappy," she would cry or 
 laugh, and she would be at ease. She fancied that 
 her legs were aching and her body was uncomfort- 
 able all over because of the strain on her feelings, 
 
 " Pyotr, what are you thinking of? " she said. 
 
 " Oh, nothing . . ." her husband answered. 
 
 " You have taken to having secrets from me of 
 late : that's not right." 
 
 " Why is it not right? " answered Pyotr Dmitritch 
 drily and not at once. " We all have our personal 
 life, every one of us, and we are bound to have our 
 secrets." 
 
 " Personal life, our secrets . . . that's all words! 
 Understand you are wounding me ! " said Olga 
 Mihalovna, sitting up in bed. " If you have a load 
 on your heart, why do you hide it from me? And 
 why do you find it more suitable to open your heart 
 to women who are nothing to you, instead of to 
 your wife? I overheard your outpourings to Lu- 
 botchka by the bee-house to-day." 
 
 " Well, I congratulate you. I am glad you did 
 overhear it." 
 
 This meant " Leave me alone and let me think." 
 Olga Mihalovna was indignant. Vexation, hatred, 
 and wrath, which had been accumulating within her
 
 The Party 47 
 
 during the whole day, suddenly boiled over; she 
 wanted at once to speak out, to hurt her husband 
 without putting it off till to-morrow, to wound him, 
 to punish him. . . . Making an effort to control 
 herself and not to scream, she said: 
 
 " Let me tell you, then, that it's all loathsome, 
 loathsome, loathsome! I've been hating you all 
 day; you see what you've done." 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch, too, got up and sat on the bed. 
 
 " It's loathsome, loathsome, loathsome," Olga 
 Mihalovna went on, beginning to tremble all over. 
 " There's no need to congratulate me; you had bet- 
 ter congratulate yourself! It's a shame, a disgrace. 
 You have wrapped yourself in lies till you are 
 ashamed to be alone in the room with your wife! 
 You are a deceitful man! I see through you and 
 understand every step you take! " 
 
 *' Olya, I wish you would please warn me when 
 you are out of humour. Then I will sleep in the 
 study." 
 
 Saying this, Pyotr Dmitritch picked up his pillow 
 and walked out of the bedroom. Olga Mihalovna 
 had not foreseen this. For some minutes she re- 
 mained silent with her mouth open, trembling all 
 over and looking at the door by which her husband 
 had gone out, and trying to understand what it 
 meant. Was this one of the devices to which de- 
 ceitful people have recourse when they arc in the
 
 48 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 wrong, or was it a deliberate insult aimed at her 
 pride? How was she to take it? Olga Mihalovna 
 remembered her cousin, a lively young officer, who 
 often used to tell her, laughing, that when " his 
 spouse nagged at him " at night, he usually picked 
 up his pillow and went whistling to spend the night 
 in his study, leaving his wife in a foolish and ridicu- 
 lous position. This officer was married to a rich, 
 capricious, and foolish woman whom he did not re- 
 spect but simply put up with. 
 
 Olga Mihalovna jumped out of bed. To her 
 mind there was only one thing left for her to do 
 now; to dress with all possible haste and to leave 
 the house forever. The house was her own, but 
 so much the worse for Pyotr Dmitritch. Without 
 pausing to consider whether this was necessary or 
 not, she went quickly to the study to inform her 
 husband of her intention ("Feminine logic!" 
 flashed through her mind), and to say something 
 wounding and sarcastic at parting. . . . 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch was lying on the sofa and pre- 
 tending to read a newspaper. There was a candle 
 burning on a chair near him. His face could not 
 be seen behind the newspaper. 
 
 " Be so kind as to tell me what this means? I 
 am asking you." 
 
 " Be so kind . . ." Pyotr Dmitritch mimicked 
 her, not showing his face. "It's sickening, Olga I
 
 The Party 49 
 
 Upon my honour, I am exhausted and not up to 
 it. . . . Let us do our quarrelling to-morrow." 
 
 "No, I understand you perfectly!" Olga Miha- 
 lovna went on. " You hate me ! Yes, yes ! You 
 hate me because I am richer than you! You will 
 never forgive me for that, and will always be lying 
 to me! " (" Feminine logic! " flashed through her 
 mind again.) " You are laughing at me now. . . . 
 I am convinced, in fact, that you only married me 
 in order to have property qualifications and those 
 wretched horses. . . . Oh, I am miserable ! " 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch dropped the newspaper and got 
 up. The unexpected insult overwhelmed him. 
 With a childishly helpless smile he looked desper- 
 ately at his wife, and holding out his hands to her 
 as though to ward off blows, he said imploringly: 
 
 " Olya ! " 
 
 And expecting her to say something else awful, 
 he leaned back in his chair, and his huge figure 
 seemed as helplessly childish as his smile. 
 
 " Olya, how could you say it? " he whispered. 
 
 Olga Mihalovna came to herself. She was sud- 
 denly aware of her passionate love for this man, 
 remembered that he^Aias^her husband, Pyotr Dmit- 
 ritch, without whom she could not live for a day, 
 and who loved her passionately, too. She burst 
 into loud sobs that sounded strange and unlike her, 
 and ran back to her bedroom.
 
 50 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 She fell on the bed, and short hysterical sobs, 
 choking her and making her arms and legs twitch, 
 filled the bedroom. Remembering there was a vis- 
 itor sleeping three or four rooms away, she buried 
 her head under the pillow to stifle her sobs, but the 
 pillow rolled on to the floor, and she almost fell on 
 the floor herself when she stooped to pick it up. 
 She pulled the quilt up to her face, but her hands 
 would not obey her, but tore convulsively at every- 
 thing she clutched. 
 
 She thought that everything was lost, that the 
 falsehood she had told to wound her husband had 
 shattered her life into fragments. Her husband 
 would not forgive her. The insult she had hurled 
 at him was not one that could be effaced by any 
 caresses, by any vows. . . . How could she con- 
 vince her husband that she did not believe what she 
 had said? 
 
 " It's all over, it's all over! " she cried, not no- 
 ticing that the pillow had slipped on to the floor 
 again. " For God's sake, for God's sake! " 
 
 Probably roused by her cries, the guest and the 
 servants were now awake; next day all the neigh- 
 bourhood would know that she had been in hysterics 
 and would blame Pyotr Dmitritch. She made an 
 effort to restrain herself, but her sobs grew louder 
 and louder every minute. 
 
 " For God's sake," she cried in a voice not like
 
 The Party ^l 
 
 her own, and not knowing why she cried it. " For 
 God's sake!" 
 
 She felt as though the bed were heaving under 
 her and her feet were entangled in the bed-clothes. 
 Pyotr Dmitritch, in his dressing-gown, with a can- 
 dle in his hand, came into the bedroom. 
 
 "Olya, hush! "he said. 
 
 She raised herself, and kneeling up in bed, screw- 
 ing up her eyes at the light, articulated through her 
 sobs: 
 
 "Understand . . . understand! . . ." 
 
 She wanted to tell him that she was tired to death 
 by the party, by his falsity, by her own falsity, that 
 it had all worked together, but she could only articu- 
 late : 
 
 "Understand . . . understand!" 
 
 " Come, drink! " he said, handing her some wa- 
 ter. 
 
 She took the glass obediently and began drinking, 
 but the water splashed over and was spilt on her 
 arms, her throat and knees. 
 
 " I must look horribly unseemly," she thought. 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch put her back in bed without a 
 word, and covered her with the quilt, then he took 
 the candle and went out. 
 
 " For God's sake! " Olga Mihalovna cried again. 
 " Pyotr, understand, understand ! " 
 
 Suddenly something gripped her in the lower
 
 52 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 part of her body and back with such violence that 
 her wailing was cut short, and she bit the pillow 
 from the pain. But the pain let her go again at 
 once, and she began sobbing again. 
 
 The maid came in, and arranging the quilt over 
 her, asked in alarm: 
 
 " Mistress, darling, what is the matter? " 
 
 " Go out of the room," said Pyotr Dmitritch 
 sternly, going up to the bed. 
 
 "Understand . . . understand! . . ." Olga Mi- 
 halovna began. 
 
 " Olya, I entreat you, calm yourself," he said. 
 " I did not mean to hurt you. I would not have gone 
 out of the room if I had known it would have hurt 
 you so much; I simply felt depressed. I tell you, 
 on my honour . . ." 
 
 "Understand! . . . You were lying, I was ly- 
 ing. . . ." 
 
 " I understand. . . . Come, come, that's enough! 
 I understand," said Pyotr Dmitritch tenderly, sitting 
 down on her bed. " You said that in anger; I quite 
 understand. I swear to God I love you beyond any- 
 thing on earth, and when I married you I never once 
 thought of your being rich. I loved you immensely, 
 and that's all ... I assure you. I have never been 
 in want of money or felt the value of it, and so I 
 cannot feel the difference between your fortune and
 
 The Party 53 
 
 mine. It always seemed to me we were equally well 
 off. And that I have been deceitful in little things, 
 that ... of course, is true. My life has hitherto 
 been arranged in such a frivolous way that it has 
 somehow been impossible to get on without paltry 
 lying. It weighs on me, too, now. . . . Let us 
 leave off talking about it, for goodness' sake ! " 
 
 Olga Mihalovna again felt in acute pain, and 
 clutched her husband by the sleeve. 
 
 " I am in pain, in pain, in pain . . ." she said rap- 
 idly. "Oh, what pain!" 
 
 "Damnation take those visitors!" muttered 
 Pyotr Dmitritch, getting up. " You ought not to 
 have gone to the island to-day! " he cried. " What 
 an idiot I was not to prevent you! Oh, my God! " 
 
 He scratched his head in vexation, and, with a 
 wave of his hand, walked out of the room. 
 
 Then he came into the room several times, sat 
 down on the bed beside her, and talked a great deal, 
 sometimes tenderly, sometimes angrily, but she 
 hardly heard him. Her sobs were continually inter- 
 rupted by fearful attacks of pain, and each time the 
 pain was more acute and prolonged. At first she 
 held her breath and bit the pillow during the pain, 
 hut then she began screaming on an unseemly pierc- 
 ing note. Once seeing her husband near her, she 
 remembered that she had insulted him, and without
 
 54 The Party and Otlier Stories 
 
 pausing to think, whether it were really Pyotr Dmit- 
 ritch or whether she were in delirium, clutched his 
 hand in both hers and began kissing it. 
 
 " You were lying, I was lying . . ." she began 
 justifying herself. " Understand, understand. . . . 
 They have exhausted me, driven me out of all pa- 
 tience." 
 
 " Olya, we are not alone," said Pyotr Dmitritch. 
 
 Olga Mihalovna raised her head and saw Var- 
 vara, who was kneeling by the chest of drawers 
 and pulling out the bottom drawer. The top draw- 
 ers were already open. Then Varvara got up, red 
 from the strained position, and with a cold, solemn 
 face began trying to unlock a box. 
 
 " Marya, I can't unlock it ! " she said in a whisper. 
 " You unlock it, won't you? " 
 
 Marya, the maid, was digging a candle end out 
 of the candlestick with a pair of scissors, so as to 
 put in a new candle; she went up to Varvara and 
 helped her to unlock the box. 
 
 *' There should be nothing locked . . ." whis- 
 pered Varvara. " Unlock this basket, too, my good 
 girl. Master," she said, " you should send to Fa- 
 ther Mihail to unlock the holy gates! You mustl " 
 
 *' Do what you like," said Pyotr Dmitritch, breath- 
 ing hard, " only, for God's sake, make haste and 
 fetch the doctor or the midwife ! Has Vassily gone ? 
 Send some one else. Send your husband! "
 
 The Party ^S 
 
 "It's the birth," Olga Mlhalovna thought. 
 " Varvara," she moaned, " but he won't be born 
 ahve ! " 
 
 " It's all right, it's all right, mistress," whispered 
 Varvara. " Please God, he will be alive 1 he will 
 be alive!" 
 
 When Olga Mlhalovna came to herself again 
 after a pain she was no longer sobbing nor tossing 
 from side to side, but moaning. She could not re- 
 frain from moaning even In the Intervals between 
 the pains. The candles were still burning, but the 
 morning light was coming through the blinds. It 
 was probably about five o'clock in the morning. 
 At the round table there was sitting some unknown 
 woman with a very discreet air, wearing a white 
 apron. From her whole appearance it was evident 
 she had been sitting there a long time. Olga Ml- 
 halovna guessed that she v.as the midwife. 
 
 "Will it soon be over?" she asked, and in her 
 voice she heard a peculiar and unfamiliar note which 
 had never been there before. " I must be dying 
 in childbirth," she thought. 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch came cautiously into the bed- 
 room, dressed for the day, and stood at the win- 
 dow with his back to his wife. He lifted the blind 
 and looked out of window. 
 
 "What rain!" he said. 
 
 "What time is it?" asked Olga Mlhalovna, in
 
 5-6 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 order to hear the unfamiliar note in her voice again. 
 
 " A quarter to six," answered the midwife. 
 
 "And what if I really am dying? " thought Olga 
 Mihalovna, looking at her husband's head and the 
 window-panes on which the rain was beating. 
 " How will he live without me ? With whom will 
 he have tea and dinner, talk in the evenings, sleep? " 
 
 And he seemed to her like a forlorn child; she 
 felt sorry for him and wanted to say something 
 nice, caressing and consolatory. She remembered 
 how in the spring he had meant to buy himself some 
 harriers, and she, thinking it a cruel and dangerous 
 sport, had prevented him from doing it. 
 
 " Pyotr, buy yourself harriers," she moaned. 
 
 He dropped the blind and went up to the bed, and 
 would have said something; but at that moment the 
 pain came back, and Olga Mihalovna uttered an un- 
 seemly, piercing scream. 
 
 The pain and the constant screaming and moan- 
 ing stupefied her. She heard, saw, and sometimes 
 spoke, but hardly understood anything, and was 
 only conscious that she was in pain or was just go- 
 ing to be in pain. It seemed to her that the name- 
 day party had been long, long ago — not yesterday, 
 but a year ago perhaps; and that her new life of 
 agony had lasted longer than her childhood, her 
 school-days, her time at the University, and her 
 marriage, and would go on for a long, long time,
 
 The Party 57 
 
 endlessly. She saw them bring tea to the midwife, 
 and summon her at midday to lunch and afterwards 
 to dinner; she saw Pyotr Dmitritch grow used to 
 coming in, standing for long intervals by the win- 
 dow, and going out again; saw strange men, the 
 maid, Varvara, come in as though they were at 
 home. . . . Varvara said nothing but, " He will, 
 he will," and was angry when any one closed the 
 drawers and the chest. Olga Mihalovna saw the 
 light change in the room and in the windows : at one 
 time it was twilight, then thick like fog, then bright 
 daylight as it had been at dinner-time the day before, 
 then again twilight . . . and each of these changes 
 lasted as long as her childhood, her school-days, her 
 life at the University. . . . 
 
 In the evening two doctors — one bony, bald, with 
 a big red beard; the other with a swarthy Jewish 
 face and cheap spectacles — performed some sort 
 of operation on Olga Mihalovna. To these un- 
 known men touching her body she felt utterly in- 
 different. By now she had no feeling of shame, no 
 will, and any one might do what he would with her. 
 If any one had rushed at her with a knife, or had 
 insulted Pyotr Dmitritch, or had robbed her of her 
 right to the little creature, she would not have said 
 a word. 
 
 They gave her chloroform during the operation. 
 When she came to again, the pain was still there
 
 58 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 and insufferable. It was night. And Olga Miha- 
 lov-na remembered that there had been just such a 
 night with the stilhiess, the lamp, with the midwife 
 sitting motionless by the bed, with the drawers of 
 the chest pulled out, with Pyotr Dmitritch standing 
 by the window, but some time very, very long 
 ago. . . . 
 
 " I am not dead . . ." thought Olga Mihalovna 
 when she began to understand her surroundings 
 again, and when the pain was over. 
 
 A bright summer day looked in at the widely 
 open windows; in the garden below the windows, 
 the sparrows and the magpies never ceased chat- 
 tering for one instant. 
 
 The drawers were shut now, her husband's bed 
 had been made. There was no sign of the mid- 
 wife or of the maid, or of Varvara in the room, 
 only Pyotr Dmitritch was standing, as before, mo- 
 tionless by the window looking into the garden. 
 There was no sound of a child's crying, no one was 
 congratulating her or rejoicing, it was evident that 
 the little creature had not been born alive. 
 
 "Pyotr!" 
 
 Olga Mihalovna called to her husband. 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch looked round. It seemed as
 
 The Party '^g 
 
 though a long time must have passed since the 
 last guest had departed and Olga Mihalovna had 
 insulted her husband, for Pyotr Dmitritch was per- 
 ceptibly thinner and hollow-eyed. 
 
 " What is it? " he asked, coming up to the bed. 
 
 He looked away, moved his lips and smiled with 
 childlike helplessness. 
 
 " Is it all over? " asked Olga Mihalovna. 
 
 Pyotr Dmitritch tried to make some answer, but 
 his lips quivered and his mouth worked like a tooth- 
 less old man's, like Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch's. 
 
 " Olya," he said, wringing his hands; big tears 
 suddenly dropping from his eyes. " Olya, I don't 
 care about your property qualification, nor the Cir- 
 cuit Courts . . ." (he gave a sob) "nor particular 
 views, nor those visitors, nor your fortune. ... I 
 don't care about anything! Why didn't we take 
 care of our child? Oh, it's no good talking! " 
 
 With a despairing gesture he went out of the bed- 
 room. 
 
 But nothing mattered to Olga Mihalovna now, 
 there was a mistiness in her brain from the chloro- 
 form, an emptiness in her soul. . . . The dull in- 
 difference to life which had overcome her when the 
 two doctors were performing the operation still had 
 possession of her.
 
 TERROR
 
 TERROR 
 
 My Friend's Story 
 
 Dmitri Petrovitch Silin had taken his degree and 
 entered the government service in Petersburg, but'' 
 at thirty he gave up his post and went in for agricul- 
 ture. His farming was fairly successful, and yet 
 it always seemed to me that he was not in his proper- 
 place, and that he would do well to go back to Peters- 
 burg. When sunburnt, grey with dust, exhausted 
 with toil, he met me near the gates or at the en- 
 trance, and then at supper struggled with sleepiness 
 and his wife took him off to bed as though he were 
 a baby; or when, overcoming his sleepiness, he be- 
 gan in his soft, cordial, almost imploring voice, to 
 talk about his really excellent ideas, I saw him not 
 as a farmer nor an agriculturist, but only as a wor- 
 ried and exhausted man, and it was clear to me that 
 he did not really care for farming, but that all he 
 wanted was for the day to be over and " Thank God 
 for it." 
 
 I liked to be with him, and I used to stay on 
 his farm for two or three days at a time. 1 liked 
 his house, and his park, and his big fruit garden, 
 
 63
 
 64 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 and the river — and his philosophy, which was clear, 
 though rather spiritless and rhetorical. I suppose 
 I was fond of him on his own account, though I 
 can't say that for certain, as I have not up to now 
 succeeded in analysing my feelings at that time. He 
 was an intelligent, kind-hearted, genuine man, and 
 not a bore, bih I remember that when he confided 
 to me his most treasured secrets and spoke of our 
 relation to each other as friendship, it disturbed me 
 unpleasantly, and I was conscious of awkwardness. 
 In his affection for me there was something inappro- 
 priate, tiresome, and I should have greatly preferred 
 commonplace friendly relations. 
 
 The fact is that I was extremely attracted by his 
 j^wife, Marya Sergeyevna. I was not in love with 
 ^ her, but I was attracted by her face, her eyes, her 
 / voice, her walk. I missed her when I did not see 
 her for a long time, and my imagination pictured no 
 one at that time so eagerly as that young, beautiful, 
 elegant woman. I had no definite designs in regard 
 to her, and did not dream of anything of the sort, 
 V yet for some reason, whenever we were left alone, 
 I remembered that her husband looked upon me as 
 his friend, and I felt awkward. When she played 
 my favourite pieces on the piano or told me some- 
 thing interesting, I listened with pleasure, and yei^ 
 at the same time for some reason the reflection that 
 she loved her husband, that he was my friend, and
 
 Terror 65 
 
 that she herself looked upon me as his friend, ob- 
 truded themselv^es upon me, my spirits flagged, and 
 I became listless, awkward, and dull. She noticed 
 this change and would usually say: 
 
 " You are dull without your friend. We must 
 send out to the fields for him." 
 
 And when Dmitri Petrovitch came in, she would 
 say: 
 
 " Well, here is your friend now. Rejoice." 
 
 So passed a year and a half. 
 
 It somehow happened one July Sunday that 
 Dmitri Petrovitch and I, having nothing to do, 
 drove to the big village of Klushino to buy things 
 for supper. While we were going from one shop 
 to another the sun set and the evening came on — 
 the evening which I shall probably never forget 
 in my life. After buying cheese that smelt like 
 soap, and petrified sausages that smelt of tar, we 
 went to the tavern to ask whether they had any beer. 
 Our coachman went off to the blacksmith to get our 
 horses shod, and we told him we would wait for him 
 near the church. We walked, talked, laughed over 
 our purchases, while a man who was known In the 
 district by a very strange nickname, " Forty Mar- 
 tyrs," followed us all the while in silence with a 
 mysterious air like a detective. This Forty Mar- 
 tyrs was no other than Gavril Syeverov, or more 
 simply Gavryushka, who had been for a short time
 
 66 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 in my service as a footman and had been dismissed 
 by me for drunkenness. He had been in Dmitri 
 Petrovitch's service, too, and by him had been dis- 
 missed for the same vice. He was an inveterate 
 drunkard, and indeed his whole hfe was as drunk and 
 disorderly as himself. His father had been a priest 
 and his mother of noble rank, so by birth he be- 
 longed to the privileged class; but however care- 
 fully I scrutinized his exhausted, respectful, and al- 
 ways perspiring face, his red beard now turning grey, 
 his pitifully torn reefer jacket and his red shirt, 
 I could not discover in him the faintest trace of 
 anything we associate with privilege. He spoke of 
 himself as a man of education, and used to say that 
 he had been In a clerical school, but had not finished 
 his studies there, as he had been expelled for smok- 
 ing; then he had sung In the bishop's choir and lived 
 for two years In a monastery, from which he was 
 also expelled, but this time not for smoking but for 
 *' his weakness." He had walked all over two prov- 
 inces, had presented petitions to the Consistory, and 
 to various government offices, and had been four 
 times on his trial. At last, being stranded in our 
 district, he had served as a footman, as a forester, 
 as a kennelman, as a sexton, had married a cook who 
 was a widow and rather a loose character, and had 
 so hopelessly sunk into a menial position, and had 
 grown so used to filth and dirt, that he even spoke
 
 Terror 67 
 
 of his privileged origin with a certain scepticismT^ 
 as of some myth. At the time I am describing, he 
 was hanging about without a job, calling himself 
 a carrier and a huntsman, and his wife had dis- 
 appeared and made no sign. 
 
 From the tavern we went to the church and sat 
 in the porch, waiting for the coachman. Forty 
 Martyrs stood a little way off and put his hand 
 before his mouth in order to cough in it respect- 
 fully if need be. By now it was dark; there was 
 a strong smell of evening dampness, and the moon 
 was on the point of rising. There were only two 
 clouds in the clear starry sky exactly over our heads : 
 one big one and one smaller; alone in the sky they 
 were racing after one another like mother and child, 
 in the direction where the sunset was glowing. 
 
 " What a glorious day! " said Dmitri Petrovitch. 
 
 " In the extreme ..." F^orty Martyrs assented, 
 and he coughed respectfully into his hand. " How 
 was it, Dmitri Petrovitch, you thought to visit these 
 parts?" he asked in an ingratiating voice, evidently 
 anxious to get up a conversation. 
 
 Dmitri Petrovitch made no answer. Forty Mar- 
 tyrs heaved a deep sigh and said softly, not looking 
 at us: 
 
 " I suffer solely through a cause to which I must 
 answer to Almighty God. No doubt about it, I am\^ 
 a hopeless and incompetent man; but believe me, on
 
 68 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 my conscience, I am without a crust of bread and 
 worse off than a dog. . . . Forgive me, Dmitri Pet- 
 rovitch." 
 
 Sihn was not listening, but sat musing with his 
 head propped on his fists. The church stood at 
 the end of the street on the high river-bank, and 
 through the trellis gate of the enclosure we could 
 see the river, the water-meadows on the near side 
 of it, and the crimson glare of a camp fire about 
 which black figures of men and horses were moving. 
 And beyond the fire, further away, there were other 
 lights, where there was a little village. They were 
 singing there. On the river, and here and there on 
 the meadows, a mist was rising. High narrow coils 
 of mist, thick and white as milk, were trailing over 
 the river, hiding the reflection of the stars and hover- 
 ing over the willows. Every minute they changed 
 the ir form, and it seemed as though some were em- 
 bracing, others were bowing, others lifting up their 
 arms to heaven with wide sleeves like priests, as 
 though they were praying. . . . Probably they re- 
 minded Dmitri Petrovitch of ghosts and of the dead, 
 for he turned facing me and asked with a mournful 
 smile : 
 
 " Tell me, my dear fellow, why is It that when we 
 want to tell some terrible, mysterious, and fantastic 
 story, we draw our material, not from life, but in-
 
 Terror 69 
 
 variably from the world of ghosts and of the shad- 
 ows beyond the grave." 
 
 " We are frightened of what we don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 " And do you understand life ? Tell me : do you 
 understand life better than the world beyond the 
 grave ? " 
 
 Dmitri Petrovitch was sitting quite close to me, 
 so that I felt his breath upon my cheek. In the 
 evening twilight his pale, lean face seemeii. paler 
 than ever and his lark beard was black as soot. 
 His eyes were sad, truthful, and a little frightened, 
 as though h e were about to tell me something hor- 
 rible. He looked into my eyes and went on in his 
 habitual imploring voice: 
 
 " Our life and the life beyond the grave are 
 equ ally incomprehensible and horrible. If any one 
 is afraid of ghosts he ought to be afraid, too, of 
 me, and of those lights and of the sky, seeing that, 
 if you come to reflect, all that is no less fantastic 
 and beyond our grasp than apparitions from the 
 other world. Prince Hamlet did not kill himself 
 because he was afraid of the visions that might --^ 
 haunt his dreams after death. I like that famous 
 soliloquy of his, but, to be candid, it never touched 
 my soul. I will confess to you as a friend that in 
 moments of depression I have sometimes pictured
 
 70 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 to myself the hour of my death. My fancy invented 
 thousands of the gloomiest visions, and I have suc- 
 ceeded in working myself up to an agonizing exalta- 
 tion, to a state of nightmare, and I assure you that 
 that did not seem to me more terrible than reality. 
 What I mean is, apparitions are terrible, but l[fe 
 is terrible, too. I don't understand life and I am 
 afraid of it, my dear boy; I don't know. Perhaps 
 I am a morbid person, unhinged. It seems to a 
 sound, healthy man that he understands everything 
 he sees and hears, but that ' seeming ' is lost to me, 
 and from day to day I am poisoning myself with ter- 
 ror. There is a disease, the fear of open spaces, 
 but my disease is the fear of life. When I lie on 
 the grass and watch a little beetle which was born 
 yesterday and understands nothing, i t seems _to me 
 that its life consists of nothing else but fear, and in 
 It I see myself." 
 
 "What is it exactly you are frightened of?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " I am afraid of everything. I am not by nature 
 a profound thinker, and I take little interest in such 
 questions as the life beyond the grave, the destiny 
 of humanity, and, in fact, I am rarely carried away 
 to the heights. What chiefly frightens me is the 
 common routine of life from which none of us can 
 escape. I am incapable of distinguishing what is
 
 Terror 71 
 
 true and what Is false in my actions, and they worry 
 me. I recognize that education and the conditions 
 of life have Imprisoned me in a narrow circle of 
 falsity, that my whole life is nothing else than a 
 daily effort to deceive myself and other people, and 
 to avoid noticing it; and I am frightened at the 
 thought that to the day of my death I shall not es- 
 cape from this falsity. To-day I do something and 
 to-morrow I do not understand why I did it. I en- 
 tered the service in Petersburg and took fright; I 
 came here to work on the land, and here, too, I am 
 frightened. ... I see that we know very little and 
 so make mistakes every day. We are unjust, we 
 slander one another and spoil each other's lives, 
 we waste all our powers on trash which we do not 
 need and which hinders us from living; and that 
 frightens me, because I don't understand why and 
 for whom It Is necessary. I don't understand men, 
 my dear fellow, and I am afraid of them. It fright- 
 ens me to look at the peasants, and I don't know 
 for what higher objects they are suffering and what 
 they are living for. If life is an enjoyment, then 
 they are unnecessary, superfluous people; if the ob- 
 ject and meaning of life is to be found in poverty 
 and unending, hopeless ignorance, I can't understand 
 for whom and what this torture is necessary. I un- 
 dcstand no one and nothing. Kindly try to under-
 
 72 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 stand this specimen, for instance," said Dmitri Pet- 
 rovitch, pointing to Forty Martyrs. " Think of 
 himl" 
 
 Noticing that we were looking at him. Forty Mar- 
 tyrs coughed deferentially into his fist and said: 
 
 " I was always a faithfid servant with good mas- 
 ters, but the great trouble has been spirituous liquor. 
 If a poor fellow like me were shown consideration 
 and given a place, I would kiss the ikon. My 
 word's my bond," 
 
 The sexton walked by, looked at us in amazement, 
 and began pulling the rope. The bell, abruptly 
 breaking upon the stillness of the evening, struck ten 
 with a slow and prolonged note. 
 
 " It's ten o'clock, though," said Dmitri Petro- 
 vitch. " It's time we were going. Yes, my dear 
 fellow," he sighed, " if only you knew how afraid 
 I am of my ordinary everyday thoughts, in which 
 one iyould have thought there should be nothing 
 dreadful. To prevent myself thinking I distract my 
 mind with work and try to tire myself out that I may 
 sleep sound at night. Children, a wife — all that 
 seems ordinary with other people; but how that 
 weighs upon me, my dear fellow! " 
 
 He rubbed his face with his hands, cleared his 
 throat, and laughed. 
 
 " If I could only tell you how I have played the 
 fool in my life ! " he said. *' They all tell me that I
 
 Terror 73 
 
 have a sweet wife, charming children, and that I am 
 a good husband and father. They think I am very- 
 happy and envy me. But since it has come to that, 
 I will tell you in secret: my happy family life is only 
 a grievous misunderstanding, and I am afraid of it." 
 
 His pale face was distorted by a wry smile. He 
 put his arm round my waist and went on in an under- 
 tone: 
 
 "You are my true friend; I believe in you and 
 have a deep respect for you. Heaven gave us 
 friendship that we may open our hearts and escape 
 from the secrets that weigh upon us. Let me take 
 advantage of your friendly feeling for me and tell 
 you the whole truth. My home life, which seems to 
 you so enchanting, is my chief misery and my chief 
 terror. I got married in a strange and stupid way. 
 I must tell you that I was madly in love with Masha 
 before I married her, and was courting her for two 
 years. I asked her to marry me five times, and she 
 refused me because she did not care for me in the 
 least. The sixth, when burning with passion I 
 crawled on my knees before her and implored her to 
 take a beggar and marry me, she consented. . . . 
 What she said to me was: ' I don't love you, but I 
 will be true to you. . . .' I accepted that condition 
 with rapture. At the time I understood wliat that 
 meant, but I swear to God I don't understand it now. 
 ' I don't love you, but I will be true to you.' What
 
 74 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 does that mean? It's a fog, a darkness. I love her 
 now as intensely as I did the day we were married, 
 while she, I believe. Is as indifferent as ever, and I 
 believe she is glad when I go away from home. I 
 don't know for certain whether she cares for me or 
 not — I don't know, I don't know; but, as you see, 
 we live under the same roof, call each other ' thou,' 
 sleep together, have children, our property is in com- 
 mon. . . . What does it mean, what does it mean? 
 What is the object of it? And do you understand it 
 at all, my dear fellow ? It's cruel torture ! Because 
 I don't understand our relations, I hate, sometimes 
 her, sometimes myself, sometimes both at once. 
 Everything is in a tangle in my brain; I torment my- 
 self and grow stupid. And as though to spite me, 
 she grows more beautiful every day, she is getting 
 more wonderful. ... I fancy her hair is marvel- 
 lous, and her smile is like no other woman's. I 
 love her, and I know that my love is hopeless. 
 Hopeless love for a woman by whom one has two 
 children! Is that Intelligible? And isn't it ter- 
 rible? Isn't it more terrible than ghosts? " 
 
 He was in the mood to have talked on a good deal 
 longer, biat luckily we heard the coachman's voice. 
 Our horses had arrived. We got into the carriage, 
 and Forty Martyrs, taking off his cap, helped us 
 both Into the carriage with an expression that sug- 
 gested that he had long been waiting for an oppor-
 
 Terror 75 
 
 tunlty to come in contact with our precious persons. 
 
 " Dmitri Petrovitch, let me come to you," he said, 
 blinking furiously and tilting his head on one side. 
 " Show divine mercy! I am dying of hunger! " 
 
 " Very well," said Silin. " Come, you shall stay 
 three days, and then we shall see." 
 
 " Certainly, sir," said Forty Martyrs, overjoyed. 
 " I'll come today, sir." 
 
 It was a five miles' drive home. Dmitri Petro- 
 vitch, glad that he had at last opened his heart to 
 his friend, kept his arm round my waist all the way; 
 and speaking now, not with bitterness and not with 
 apprehension, but quite cheerfully, told me that if. 
 everything had been satisfactory in his home life, he 
 should have returned to Petersburg and taken up 
 scientific work there. The movement which had 
 driven so many gifted young men into the country 
 was, he said, a deplorable movement. We had 
 plenty of rye and wheat in Russia, but absolutely no 
 cultured people. The strong and gifted among the 
 young ought to take up science, art, and politics; to 
 act otherwise meant being wasteful. He general- 
 ized with pleasure and expressed regret that he~ 
 would be parting from me early next morning, as he 
 had to go to a sale of timber. 
 
 And I felt awkward and depressed, and it seemed 
 to me that I was deceiving the man. And at the 
 same time it was pleasant to me. I gazed at the
 
 76 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 immense crimson moon which was rising, and pic- 
 tured the tall, graceful, fair woman, with her pale 
 face, always well-dressed and fragrant with some 
 special scent, rather like musk, and for some reason 
 it pleased me to think she did not love her husband. 
 
 On reaching home, we sat down to supper. 
 Marya Sergeyevna, laughing, regaled us with our 
 purchases, and I thought that she certainly had won- 
 derful hair and that her smile was unlike any other 
 woman's. I watched her, and I wanted to detect in 
 every look and movement that she did not love her 
 husband, and I fancied that I did see it. 
 
 Dmitri Petrovitch was soon struggling with sleep. 
 After supper he sat with us for ten minutes and said: 
 
 " Do as you please, my friends, but I have to be 
 up at three o'clock tomorrow morning. Excuse my 
 leaving you." 
 
 He kissed his wife tenderly, pressed my hand 
 with warmth and gratitude, and made me promise 
 that I would certainly come the following week. 
 That he might not oversleep next morning, he went 
 to spend the night in the lodge. 
 
 Marya Sergeyevna always sat up late, in the 
 Petersburg fashion, and for some reason on this occa- 
 sion I was glad of it. 
 
 *' And now," I began when we were left alone, 
 " and now you'll be kind and play me something." 
 
 I felt no desire for music, but I did not know how
 
 Terror 77 
 
 to begin the conversation. She sat down to the 
 piano and played, I don't remember what. I sat 
 down beside her and looked at her plump white 
 hands and tried to read something on her cold, in- 
 different face. Then she smiled at something and 
 looked at me. 
 
 " You are dull without your friend," she said. 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 *' It would be enough for friendship to be here 
 once a month, but I turn up oftener than once a 
 week." 
 
 Saying this, I got up and walked from one end of 
 the room to the other. She too got up and walked 
 away to the fireplace. 
 
 " What do you mean to say by that? " she said, 
 raising her large, clear eyes and looking at me. 
 
 I made no answer. 
 
 " What you say is not true," she went on, after 
 a moment's thought. " You only come here on 
 account of Dmitri Petrovitch. Well, I am very 
 glad. One does not often see such friendships now- 
 adays." 
 
 *' Aha ! " I thought, and, not knowing what to say, 
 I asked: "Would you care for a turn in the 
 garden? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 I went out upon the verandah. Nervous shud- 
 ders were running over my head and I felt chilly
 
 78 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 with excitement. I was convinced now that our con- 
 versation would be utterly trivial, and that there was 
 nothing particular we should be able to say to one 
 another, but that, that night, what I did not dare to 
 dream of was bound to happen — that it was bound 
 to be that night or never. 
 
 " What lovely weather! " I said aloud. 
 
 " It makes absolutely no difference to me," she 
 answered. 
 
 I went Into the drawing-room. Marya Serge- 
 yevna was standing, as before, near the fireplace, 
 with her hands behind her back, looking away and 
 thinking of something. 
 
 "Why does it make no difference to you?" I 
 asked. 
 
 *' Because I am bored. You are only bored with- 
 out your friend, but I am always bored. However 
 . . . that is of no interest to you." 
 
 I sat down to the piano and struck a few chords, 
 waiting to hear what she would say. 
 
 " Please don't stand on ceremony," she said, look- 
 ing angrily at me, and she seemed as though on the 
 point of crying with vexation. " If you are sleepy, 
 go to bed. Because you are Dmitri Petrovitch's 
 friend, you are not in dqty bound to be bored with 
 his wife's company. I don't want a sacrifice. 
 Please go." 
 
 I did not, of course, go to bed. She went out on
 
 Terror 79 
 
 the verandah while I remained in the drawing-room 
 and spent five minutes turning over the music. 
 Then I went out, too. We stood close together in 
 the shadow of the curtains, and below us were the 
 steps bathed in moonlight. The black shadows of 
 the trees stretched across the flower beds and the 
 yellow sand of the paths. 
 
 " I shall have to go away tomorrow, too," I said. 
 
 *' Of course, if my husband's not at home you can't 
 stay here," she said sarcastically. " I can imagine 
 how miserable you would be if you were in love with 
 me! Wait a bit: one day I shall throw myself on 
 your neck. ... I shall see with what horror you 
 will run away from me. That would be interesting." 
 
 Her words and her pale face were angry, but her/ 
 eyes were full of tender passionate love. I already ) 
 looked upon this lovely creature as my property, and 
 then for the first time I noticed that she had golden 
 eyebrows, exquisite eyebrows. I had never seen such 
 eyebrows before. The thought that I might at once 
 press her to my heart, caress her, touch her wonder- 
 ful hair, seemed to me such a miracle that I laughed 
 and shut my eyes. 
 
 " It's bed-time now. ... A peaceful night," she 
 said. ^^ 
 
 " I don't want a peaceful night," I said, laughing, 
 following her Into the drawing-room. "I shall 
 curse this night if it Is a peaceful one."
 
 8o The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Pressing her hand, and escorting her to the door, 
 I saw by her face that she understood me, and was 
 glad that I understood her, too. 
 
 I went to my room. Near the books on the table 
 lay Dmitri Petrovitch's cap, and that reminded me 
 of his affection for me. I took my stick and went 
 out into the garden. The mist had risen here, too, 
 and the same tall, narrow, ghostly shapes which I 
 had seen earlier on the river were trailing round the 
 trees and bushes and wrapping about them. What 
 a pity I could not talk to them I 
 
 In the extraordinarily transparent air, each leaf, 
 each drop of dew stood out distinctly; it was all 
 smiling at me in the stillness half asleep, and as I 
 passed the green seats I recalled the words in some 
 play of Shakespeare's: "How sweetly falls the 
 moonlight on yon seat I " 
 
 There was a mound in the garden; I went up it and 
 sat down. I was tormented by a delicious feeling. 
 I knew for certain that in a moment I should hold in 
 my arms, should press to my heart her magnificent 
 body, should kiss her golden eyebrows; and I wanted 
 to disbelieve it, to tantalize myself, and was sorry 
 that she had cost me so little trouble and had yielded 
 so soon. 
 
 But suddenly I heard heavy footsteps. A man of 
 medium height appeared in the avenue, and I recog- 
 nized him at once as Forty Martyrs. He sat down
 
 Terror 81 
 
 on the bench and heaved a deep sigh, then crossed 
 himself three times and lay down. A minute later 
 he got up and lay on the other side. The gnats and 
 the dampness of the night prevented his sleeping. 
 
 " Oh, life! " he said. " Wretched, bitter Hfe! " 
 
 Looking at his bent, wasted body and hearing his 
 heavy, noisy sighs, I thought of an unhappy, bitter 
 life of which the confession had been made to me 
 that day, and I felt uneasy and frightened at my 
 blissful mood. I came down the knoll and went to 
 the house. 
 \ " Life, as he thinks, is terrible," I thought, " so 
 don't stand on ceremony with it, bend it to your will, 
 and until it crushes you, snatch all you can wring 
 from it." 4- 
 
 Marya Sergeyevna was standing on the verandah. 
 I put my arms round her without a word, and began 
 greedily kissing her eyebrows, her temples, her 
 neck. . . . 
 
 In my room she told me she had loved me for a 
 long time, more than a year. She vowed eternal 
 love, cried and begged me to take her away with me. 
 I repeatedly took her to the window to look at her 
 face in the moonlight, and she seemed to me a lovely 
 dream, and I made haste to hold her tight to con- 
 vince myself of the truth of it. It was long since I 
 had known such raptures. . . . Yet somewhere far 
 away at the bottom of my heart I felt an awkward-
 
 82 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 ness, and I was ill at ease. In her love for me there 
 was something incongruous and burdensome, just as 
 in Dmitri Petrovitch's friendship. It was a great, 
 serious passion with tears and vows, and I wanted 
 nothing serious in it — no tears, no vows, no talk of 
 the future. Let that^. mgonligh t night flash through 
 our lives like a meteor and — basta! 
 
 At three o'clock she went out of my room, and, 
 while I was standing in the doorway, looking after 
 her, at the end of the corridor Dmitri Petrovitch 
 suddenly made his appearance; she started and stood 
 aside to let him pass, and her whole figure was ex- 
 pressive- of repulsion. He gave a strange smile, 
 coughed, and came into my room. 
 
 " I forgot my cap here yesterday," he said without 
 looking at me. 
 
 He found it and, holding it in both hands, put it 
 on his head; then he looked at my ^Qllfused face, at 
 my slippers, and said in a strange, husky voice unlike 
 his own : 
 
 " I suppose it must be my fate that I should under- 
 stand nothing. ... If you understand anything, I 
 congratulate you. It's all darkness before my eyes." 
 
 And he went out, clearing his throat. After- 
 wards from the window I saw him by the stable, 
 harnessing the horses with his own hands. His 
 hands were trembling, he was in nervous haste and 
 kept looking round at the house; probably he was
 
 Terror 83 
 
 feeling terror. Then he got into the gig, and, with 
 a strange expression as though afraid of being pur- 
 sued, lashed the horses. 
 
 Shortly afterwards I set off, too. The sun was 
 already rising, and the mist of the previous day clung 
 timidly to the bushes and the hillocks. On the box 
 of the carriage was sitting Forty Martyrs; he had 
 already succeeded in getting drunk and was mutter- 
 ing tipsy nonsense. 
 
 " I am a free man," he shouted to the horses. 
 *' Ah, my honeys, I am a nobleman in my own right, 
 if you care to know ! " 
 
 The terror of Dmitri Petrovitch, the thought of 
 whom I could not get out of my head, infected me. 
 I thought of what had happened and could make 
 nothing of it. I looked at the rooks, and it seemed 
 so strange and terrible that they were flying. 
 
 " Why have I done this? " I kept asking myself in 
 bewilderment and despair. " Why has it turned out 
 like this and not differently? To whom and for 
 what was it necessary that she should love me in 
 earnest, and that he should come into my room to 
 fetch his cap? What had a cap to do with it? " 
 
 I set off for Petersburg that day, and I have not 
 seen Dmitri Petrovitch nor his wife since. I am told 
 that they are still living together.
 
 A WOMAN'S KINGDOM
 
 A WOiMAN'S KINGDOM 
 
 I 
 
 Christmas Eve 
 
 Here was a thick roll of notes. It came from the 
 bailiff at the forest villa; he wrote that he was send- 
 ing fifteen hundred roubles, which he had been 
 awarded as damages, having won an appeal. Anna 
 Akimovna disliked and feared such words as 
 " awarded damages " and " won the suit." She 
 knew that it was impossible to do without the law, 
 but for some reason, whenever Nazaritch, the man- 
 ager of the factory, or the bailiff of her villa in the 
 country, both of whom frequently went to law, used 
 to win lawsuits of some sort for her benefit, she 
 always felt uneasy and, as it were, ashamed. On 
 this occasion, too, she felt uneasy and awkward, and 
 wanted to put that fifteen hundred roubles further 
 away that it might be out of her sight. 
 
 She thought with vexation that other girls of her 
 age — she was in her twenty-sixth year — were now 
 busy looking after their households, were weary and 
 would sleep sound, and would wake up tomorrow 
 
 87
 
 88 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 morning in holiday mood; many of them had long 
 been married and had children. Only she, for some 
 reason, was compelled to sit like an old woman over 
 these letters, to make notes upon them, to write 
 answers, then to do nothing the whole evening till 
 midnight, but wait till she was sleepy; and tomorrow 
 they would all day long be coming with Christmas 
 greetings and asking for favours; and the day after 
 tomorrow there would certainly be some scandal at 
 the factory — some one would be beaten or would 
 die of drinking too much vodka, and she would be 
 fretted by pangs of conscience ; and after the holidays 
 Nazaritch would turn off some twenty of the work- 
 people for absence from work, and all of the twenty 
 would hang about at the front door, without their 
 caps on, and she would be ashamed to go out to 
 them, and they would be driven away like dogs. 
 And all her acquaintances would say behind her back, 
 and write to her in anonymous letters, that she was 
 a millionaire and exploiter — that she was devour- 
 ing other men's lives and sucking the blood of the 
 workers. 
 
 Here there lay a heap of letters read through and 
 laid aside already. They were all begging letters. 
 They were from people who were hungry, drunken, 
 dragged down by large families, sick, degraded, de- 
 spised. . . . Anna Akimovna had already noted on 
 each letter, three roubles to be paid to one, five to
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 89 
 
 another; these letters would go the same day to the 
 office, and next the distribution of assistance would 
 take place, or, as the clerks used to say, the beasts 
 would be fed. 
 
 They would distribute also in small sums four hun- 
 dred and seventy roubles — the interest on a sum be- 
 queathed by the late Akim Ivanovitch for the relief 
 of the poor and needy. There would be a hideous 
 crush. From the gates to the doors of the office 
 there would stretch a long file of strange people with 
 brutal faces, in rags, numb with cold, hungry and 
 already drunk, in husky voices calling down blessings 
 upon Anna Akimovna, their benefactress, and her 
 parents: those at the back would press upon those in 
 front, and those in front would abuse them with bad 
 language. The clerk would get tired of the noise, 
 the swearing, and the sing-song whining and bless- 
 ing; would fly out and give some one a box on the 
 ear to the delight of all. And her own people, the 
 factory hands, who received nothing at Christmas 
 but their wages, and had already spent every farthing 
 of it, would stand in the middle of the yard, looking 
 on and laughing — some enviously, others ironically. 
 
 *' Merchants, and still more their wives, are fon- 
 der of beggars than they are of their own work- 
 people," thought Anna Akimovna. " It's always 
 
 so." 
 
 Her eye fell upon the roll of money. It would
 
 90 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 be nice to distribute that hateful, useless money 
 among the workpeople tomorrow, but it did not do 
 to give the workpeople anything for nothing, or they 
 would demand it again next time. And what would 
 be the good of fifteen hundred roubles when there 
 were eighteen hundred workmen in the factory be- 
 sides their wives and children? Or she might, per- 
 haps, pick out one of the writers of those begging 
 letters — some luckless man who had long ago lost 
 all hope of anything better, and give him the fifteen 
 hundred. The money would come upon the poor 
 creature like a thunder-clap, and perhaps for the first 
 time in his life he would feel happy. This idea 
 struck Anna Akimovna as original and amusing, and 
 it fascinated her. She took one letter at random out 
 of the pile and read it. Some petty ofHcial called 
 Tchalikov had long been out of a situation, was ill, 
 and living in Gushtchin's Buildings; his wife was in 
 consumption, and he had five little girls. Anna 
 Akimovna knew well the four-storeyed house, Gusht- 
 chin's Buildings, in which Tchalikov lived. Oh, it 
 was a horrid, foul, unhealthy house! 
 
 " Well, I will give it to that Tchalikov," she de- 
 cided. " I won't send it; I had better take it myself 
 to prevent unnecessary talk. Yes," she reflected, as 
 she put the fifteen hundred roubles in her pocket, 
 ** and I'll have a look at them, and perhaps I can do 
 something for the little girls."
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 91 
 
 She felt light-hearted; she rang the bell and or- 
 dered the horses to be brought round. 
 
 When she got into the sledge it was past six o'clock 
 in the evening. The windows in all the blocks of 
 buildings were brightly lighted up, and that made 
 the huge courtyard seem very dark: at the gates, 
 and at the far end of the yard near the warehouses 
 and the workpeople's barracks, electric lamps were 
 gleaming. 
 
 Anna Akimovna disliked and feared those huge 
 dark buildings, warehouses, and barracks where the 
 workmen lived. She had only once been in the main 
 building since her father's death. The high ceilings 
 with iron girders; the multitude of huge, rapidly 
 turning wheels, connecting straps and levers; the 
 shrill hissing; the clank of steel; the rattle of the 
 trolleys; the harsh puffing of steam; the faces — 
 pale, crimson, or black with coal-dust; the shirts 
 soaked with sweat; the gleam of steel, of copper, 
 and of fire; the smell of oil and coal; and the 
 draught, at times very hot and at times very cold — 
 gave her an impression of hell. It seemed to her as 
 though the wheels, the levers, and the hot hissing 
 cylinders were trying to tear themselves away from 
 their fastenings to crush the men, while the men, not 
 hearing one another, ran about with anxious faces, 
 and busied themselves about the machines, trying to 
 stop their terrible movement. They showed Anna
 
 92 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Akimovna something and respectfully explained it to 
 her. She remembered how in the forge a piece of 
 red-hot iron was pulled out of the furnace; and how 
 an old man with a strap round his head, and another, 
 a young man in a blue shirt with a chain on his breast, 
 and an angry face, probably one of the foremen, 
 struck the piece of iron with hammers; and how the 
 golden sparks had been scattered in all directions; 
 and how, a little afterwards, they had dragged out a 
 huge piece of sheet-iron with a clang. The old man 
 had stood erect and smiled, while the young man had 
 wiped his face with his sleeve and explained some- 
 thing to her. And she remembered, too, how in 
 another department an old man with one eye had 
 been filing a piece of iron, and how the iron filings 
 were scattered about; and how a red-haired man in 
 black spectacles, with holes in his shirt, had been 
 working at a lathe, making something out of a piece 
 of steel: the lathe roared and hissed and squeaked, 
 and Anna Akimovna felt sick at the sound, and it 
 seemed as though they were boring into her ears. 
 She looked, listened, did not understand, smiled gra- 
 ciously, and felt ashamed. To get hundreds of 
 thousands of roubles from a business which one does 
 not understand and cannot like — how strange it isl 
 And she had not once been in the workpeople's 
 barracks. There, she was told, it was damp; there 
 were bugs, debauchery, anarchy. It was an aston-
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 93 
 
 ishing thing: a thousand roubles were spent annually 
 on keeping the barracks in good order, yet, if she 
 were to believe the anonymous letters, the condition 
 of the workpeople was growing worse and worse 
 every year. 
 
 " There was more order in my father's day," 
 thought Anna Akimovna, as she drove out of the 
 yard, " because he had been a workman himself. I 
 know nothing about it and only do silly things." 
 
 She felt depressed again, and was no longer glad 
 that she had come, and the thought of the lucky man 
 upon whom fifteen hundred roubles would drop from 
 heaven no longer struck her as original and amusing. 
 To go to some Tchalikov or other, when at home a 
 business worth a million was gradually going to 
 pieces and being ruined, and the workpeople in the 
 barracks were living worse than convicts, meant 
 doing something silly and cheating her conscience. 
 Along the highroad and across the fields near it, 
 workpeople from the neighbouring cotton and paper 
 factories were walking towards the lights of the 
 town. There was the sound of talk and laughter in 
 the frosty air. Anna Akimovna looked at the 
 women and young people, and she suddenly felt a 
 longing for a plain rough life among a crowd. She 
 recalled vividly that far-away time when she used to 
 be called Anyutka, when she was a little girl and used 
 to lie under the same quilt with her mother, while a
 
 94 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 washerwoman who lodged with them used to wash 
 clothes in the next room ; while through the thin walls 
 there came from the neighbouring flats sounds of 
 laughter, swearing, children's crying, the accordion, 
 and the whirr of carpenters' lathes and sewing-ma- 
 chines; while her father, Akim Ivanovitch, who was 
 clever at almost every craft, would be soldering 
 something near the stove, or drawing or planing, 
 taking no notice whatever of the noise and stuffiness. 
 And she longed to wash, to iron, to run to the shop 
 and the tavern as she used to do every day when she 
 lived with her mother. She ought to have been a 
 work-girl and not the factory owner! Her big 
 house with its chandeliers and pictures; her footman 
 Mishenka, with his glossy moustache and swallow- 
 tail coat; the devout and dignified Varvarushka, and 
 smooth-tongued Agafyushka; and the young people 
 of both sexes who came almost every day to ask her 
 for money, and with whom she always for some rea- 
 son felt guilty; and the clerks, the doctors, and the 
 ladies who were charitable at her expense, who flat- 
 tered her and secretly despised her for her humble 
 origin — how wearisome and alien It all was to her! 
 Here was the railway crossing and the city gate; 
 then came houses alternating with kitchen gardens; 
 and at last the broad street where stood the re- 
 nowned Gushtchin's Buildings. The street, usually 
 quiet, was now on Christmas Eve full of life and
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 95 
 
 movement. The eating-houses and beer-shops were 
 noisy. If some one who did not belong to that 
 quarter but lived in the centre of the town had driven 
 through the street now, he would have noticed noth- 
 ing but dirty, drunken, and abusive people; but Anna 
 Akimovna, who had lived in those parts all her hfe, 
 was constantly recognizing in the crowd her own 
 father or mother or uncle. Her father was a soft 
 fluid character, a little fantastical, frivolous, and 
 irresponsible. He did not care for money, respect- 
 ability, or power; he used to say that a working man 
 had no time to keep the holy-days and go to church; 
 and if it had not been for his wife, he would probably 
 never have gone to confession, taken the sacrament 
 or kept the fasts. While her uncle, Ivan Ivano- 
 vitch, on the contrary, was like flint; in everything 
 relating to religion, politics, and morality, he was 
 harsh and relentless, and kept a strict watch, not only 
 over himself, but also over all his servants and ac- 
 quaintances, God forbid that one should go into his 
 room without crossing oneself before the ikon! 
 The luxurious mansion in which Anna Akimovna 
 now lived he had always kept locked up, and only 
 opened it on great holidays for important visitors, 
 while he lived himself in the oflicc, In a little room 
 covered with ikons. He had leanings towards the 
 Old Believers, and was continually entertaining 
 priests and bishops of the old ritual, though he had
 
 96 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 been christened, and married, and had buried his 
 wife in accordance with the Orthodox rites. He 
 disliked Akim, his only brother and his heir, for his 
 frivolity, which he called simpleness and folly, and 
 for his indifference to religion. He treated him as 
 an inferior, kept him in the position of a workman, 
 paid him sixteen roubles a month. Akim addressed 
 his brother with formal respect, and on the days of 
 asking forgiveness, he and his wife and daughter 
 bowed down to the ground before him. But three 
 years before his death Ivan Ivanovitch had drawn 
 closer to his brother, forgave his shortcomings, and 
 ordered him to get a governess for Anyutka. 
 
 There was a dark, deep, evil-smelling archway un- 
 der Gushtchin's Buildings; there was a sound of men 
 coughing near the walls. Leaving the sledge in the 
 street, Anna Akimovna went in at the gate and there 
 inquired how to get to No. 46 to see a clerk called 
 Tchalikov. She was directed to the furthest door 
 on the right in the third story. And in the court- 
 yard and near the outer door, and even on the stairs, 
 there was still the same loathsome smell as under the 
 archway. In Anna Akimovna's childhood, when her 
 father was a simple workman, she used to live in a 
 building like that, and afterwards, when their cir- 
 cumstances were different, she had often visited them 
 in the character of a Lady Bountiful. The narrow
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 97 
 
 stone staircase with its steep dirty steps, with land- 
 ings at every story; the greasy swinging lanterns; 
 the stench; the troughs, pots, and rags on the land- 
 ings near the doors, — all this had been familiar to 
 her long ago. . . . One door was open, and within 
 could be seen Jewish tailors in caps, sewing. Anna 
 Akimovna met people on the stairs, but it never 
 entered her head that people might be rude to her. 
 She was no more afraid of peasants or workpeople, 
 drunk or sober, than of her acquaintances of the ed- 
 ucated class. 
 
 There was no entry at No. 46; the door opened 
 straight into the kitchen. As a rule the dwellings of 
 workmen and mechanics smell of varnish, tar, hides, 
 smoke, according to the occupation of the tenant; 
 the dwellings of persons of noble or official class who 
 have come to poverty may be known by a peculiar 
 rancid, sour smell. This disgusting smell enveloped 
 Anna Akimovna on all sides, and as yet she was only 
 on the threshold. A man in a black coat, no doubt 
 Tchalikov himself, was sitting in a corner at the 
 table with his back to the door, and with him were 
 five little girls. The eldest, a broad-faced thin girl 
 with a comb in her hair, looked about fifteen, while 
 the youngest, a chubby child with hair that stood up 
 like a hcdgc-hog, was not more than three. All the 
 six were eating. Near the stove stood a very thin
 
 98 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 little woman with a yellow face, far gone in preg- 
 nancy. She was wearing a skirt and a white blouse, 
 and had an oven fork in her hand. 
 
 " I did not expect you to be so disobedient, Liza," 
 the man was saying reproachfully. " Fie, fie, for 
 shame ! Do you want papa to whip you — eh? " 
 
 Seeing an unknown lady in the doorway, the thin 
 woman started, and put down the fork. 
 
 " Vassily Nikititch! " she cried, after a pause, in 
 a hollow voice, as though she could not believe her 
 eyes. 
 
 The man looked round and jumped up. He was 
 a flat-chested, bony man with narrow shoulders and 
 sunken temples. His eyes were small and hollow 
 with dark rings round them, he had a wide mouth, 
 and a long nose like a bird's beak — a little bit bent 
 to the right. His beard was parted in the mid- 
 dle, his moustache was shaven, and this made him 
 look more like a hired footman than a government 
 clerk. 
 
 "Does Mr. Tchalikov live here?" asked Anna 
 Akimovna. 
 
 " Yes, madam," Tchalikov answered severely, but 
 immediately recognizing Anna Akimovna, he cried: 
 " Anna Akimovna! " and all at once he gasped and 
 clasped his hands as though in terrible alarm. 
 " Benefactress! " 
 
 With a moan he ran to her, grunting inarticulately
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 99 
 
 as though he were paralyzed — there was cabbage 
 on his beard and he smelt of vodka — pressed his 
 forehead to her muff, and seemed as though he were 
 in a swoon. 
 
 "Your hand, your holy hand! " he brought out 
 breathlessly. "It's a dream, a glorious dream! 
 Children, awaken me ! " 
 
 He turned towards the table and said in a sobbing 
 voice, shaking his fists: 
 
 "Providence has heard us! Our saviour, our 
 angel, has come! We are saved! Children, down 
 on your knees ! on your knees I " 
 
 MadameTchalikov and the little girls, except the 
 youngest one, began for some reason rapidly clearing 
 the table. 
 
 " You wrote that your wife was very ill," said 
 Anna Akimovna, and she felt ashamed and an- 
 noyed. " I am not going to give them the fifteen 
 hundred," she thought. 
 
 " Here she Is, my wife," said Tchalikov in a thin 
 feminine voice, as though his tears had gone to his 
 head. " Here she is, unhappy creature ! With one 
 foot in the grave I But we do not complain, madam. 
 Better death than such a life. Better die, unhappy 
 woman ! " 
 
 " Why is he playing these antics? " thought Anna 
 Akimovna with annoyance. " One can see at once 
 he is used to dealing with merchants."
 
 100 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " Speak to me like a human being," she said. " I 
 don't care for farces." 
 
 " Yes, madam; five bereaved children round their 
 mother's coffin with funeral candles — that's a 
 farce? Eh?" said Tchalikov bitterly, and turned 
 away. 
 
 *' Hold your tongue," whispered his wife, and she 
 pulled at his sleeve. " The place has not been tidied 
 up, madam," she said, addressing Anna Akimovna; 
 " please excuse it . . . you know what it is where 
 there are children. A crowded hearth, but har- 
 mony." 
 
 " I am not going to give them the fifteen hun- 
 dred," Anna Akimovna thought again. 
 
 And to escape as soon as possible from these 
 people and from the sour smell, she brought out her 
 purse and made up her mind to leave them twenty- 
 five roubles, not more; but she suddenly felt ashamed 
 that she had come so far and disturbed people for 
 so little. 
 
 "If you give me paper and ink, I will write at once 
 to a doctor who is a friend of mine to come and see 
 you," she said, flushing red. " He is a very good 
 doctor. And I will leave you some money for med- 
 
 icme. 
 
 Madame Tchalikov was hastening to wipe the 
 table. 
 
 " It's messy here ! What are you doing? " hissed
 
 A Woman's Kingdom lOl 
 
 Tchalikov, looking at her wrathfully. " Take her 
 to the lodger's room! I make bold to ask you, 
 madam, to step into the lodger's room," he said, 
 addressing Anna Akimovna. " It's clean there." 
 
 " Osip Ilyitch told us not to go into his room! " 
 said one of the little girls, sternly. 
 
 But they had already led Anna Akimovna out of 
 the kitchen, through a narrow passage room between 
 two bedsteads: it was evident from the arrangement 
 of the beds that in one two slept lengthwise, and in 
 the other three slept across the bed. In the lodger's 
 room, that came next, it really was clean. A neat- 
 looking bed with a red woollen quilt, a pillow in a 
 white pillow-case, even a slipper for the watch, a 
 table covered with a hempen cloth and on it, an ink- 
 stand of milky-looking glass, pens, paper, photo- 
 graphs in frames — everything as it ought to be; and 
 another table for rough work, on which lay tidily 
 arranged a watchmaker's tools and watches taken 
 to pieces. On the walls hung hammers, pliers, awls, 
 chisels, nippers, and so on, and there were three 
 hanging clocks which were ticking; one was a big 
 clock with thick weights, such as one sees in eating- 
 houses. 
 
 As she sat down to write the letter, Anna Aki- 
 movna saw facing her on the table the photographs 
 of her father and of herself. That surprised 
 her.
 
 102 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 (( 
 
 Who lives here with you? " she asked. 
 
 " Our lodger, madam, Pimcnov, He works in 
 your factory." 
 
 " Oh, I thought he must be a watchmaker." 
 
 " He repairs watches privately, in his leisure 
 hours. He is an amateur." 
 
 After a brief silence during which nothing could 
 be heard but the ticking of the clocks and the scratch- 
 ing of the pen on the paper, Tchalikov heaved a sigh 
 and said ironically, with indignation: 
 
 " It's a true saying: gentle birth and a grade in the 
 service won't put a coat on your back. A cockade 
 in your cap and a noble title, but nothing to eat. To 
 my thinking, if any one of humble class helps the 
 poor he is much more of a gentleman than any 
 Tchalikov who has sunk into poverty and vice." 
 
 To flatter Anna Akimovna, he uttered a few more 
 disparaging phrases about his gentle birth, and it was 
 evident that he was humbling himself because he con- 
 sidered himself superior to her. Meanwhile she 
 had finished her letter and had sealed it up. The 
 letter would be thrown away and the money would 
 not be spent on medicine — that she knew, but she 
 put twenty-five roubles on the table all the same, and 
 after a moment's thought, added two more red notes. 
 She saw the wasted, yellow hand of Madame Tchali- 
 kov, like the claw of a hen, dart out and clutch the 
 money tight.
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 103 
 
 " You have graciously given this for medicine," 
 said Tchalikov in a quivering voice, " but hold out 
 a helping hand to me also . . . and the children! " 
 he added with a sob. " My unhappy children! I 
 am not afraid for myself; it is for my daughters I 
 fear ! It's the hydra of vice that I fear ! " 
 
 Trying to open her purse, the catch of which had 
 gone wrong, Anna Akimovna was confused and 
 turned red. She felt ashamed that people should be 
 standing before her, looking at her hands and wait- 
 ing, and most hkely at the bottom of their hearts 
 laughing at her. At that instant some one came 
 into the kitchen and stamped his feet, knocking the 
 snow off. 
 
 " The lodger has come in," said Madame Tchal- 
 ikov. 
 
 Anna Akimovna grew even more confused. She 
 did not want any one from the factory to find her in 
 this ridiculous position. As ill-luck would have it, 
 the lodger came in at the very moment when, having 
 broken the catch at last, she was giving Tchalikov 
 some notes, and Tchalikov, grunting as though he 
 were paraylzed, Avas feeling about with his lips where 
 he could kiss her. In the lodger she recognized the 
 workman who had once clanked the sheet-iron before 
 her in the forge, and had explained things to her. 
 Iwidcntly he had come in straight from the factory; 
 liis face looked dark and grimy, and on one cheek
 
 104 Tlie Party and Other Stories 
 
 near his nose was a smudge of soot. His hands 
 were perfectly black, and his unbelted shirt shone 
 with oil and grease. He was a man of thirty, of 
 medium height, with black hair and broad shoulders, 
 and a look of great physical strength. At the first 
 glance Anna Akimovna perceived that he must be a 
 foreman, who must be receiving at least thirty-five 
 roubles a month, and a stern, loud-voiced man who 
 struck the workmen in the face; all this was evident 
 from his manner of standing, from the attitude he 
 involuntarily assumed at once on seeing a lady in his 
 room, and most of all from the fact that he did not 
 wear top-boots, that he had breast pockets, and a 
 pointed, picturesquely clipped beard. Her father, 
 Akim Ivanovitch, had been the brother of the fac- 
 tory owner, and yet he had been afraid of foremen 
 like this lodger and had tried to win their favour. 
 
 " Excuse me for having come in here in your 
 absence," said Anna Akimovna. 
 
 The workman looked at her in surprise, smiled in 
 confusion and did not speak. 
 
 " You must speak a little louder, madam . . ." 
 said Tchalikov softly. " When Mr. Pimenov comes 
 home from the factory in the evenings he is a little 
 hard of hearing." 
 
 But Anna Akimovna was by now relieved that 
 there was nothing more for her to do here; she
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 105 
 
 nodded to them and went rapidly out of the room. 
 Pimenov went to see her out. 
 
 " Have you been long In our employment? " she 
 asked In a loud voice, without turning to him. 
 
 " From nine years old. I entered the factory in 
 your uncle's time." 
 
 " That's a long while ! My uncle and my father 
 knew all the workpeople, and I know hardly any of 
 them. I had seen you before, but I did not know 
 your name was Pimenov." 
 
 Anna Akimovna felt a desire to justify herself 
 before him, to pretend that she had just given the 
 money not seriously, but as a joke. 
 
 " Oh, this poverty," she sighed. " We give char- 
 ity on hohdays and working days, and still there Is 
 no sense in it. I believe It is useless to help such 
 people as this Tchallkov." 
 
 *' Of course it is useless," he agreed. " However 
 much you give him, he will drink It all away. And 
 now the husband and wife will be snatching It from 
 one another and fighting all night," he added with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Yes, one must admit that our philanthropy is 
 useless, boring, and absurd. But still, you must 
 agree, one can't sit with one's hand in one's lap; one 
 must do something. What's to be done with the 
 Tchallkovs, for instance? "
 
 io6 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 She turned to Pimenov and stopped, expecting 
 an answer from him; he, too, stopped and slowly, 
 without speaking, shrugged his shoulders. Obvi- 
 ously he knew what to do with the Tchalikovs, but 
 the treatment would have been so coarse and inhu- 
 man that he did not venture to put it Into words. 
 And the Tchalikovs were to him so utterly uninter- 
 esting and worthless, that a moment later he had for- 
 gotten them; looking into Anna Akimovna's eyes, he 
 smiled with pleasure, and his face wore an expres- 
 sion as though he were dreaming about something 
 very pleasant. Only, now standing close to him, 
 Anna Akimovna saw from his face, and especially 
 from his eyes, how exhausted and sleepy he was. 
 
 " Here, I ought to give him the fifteen hundred 
 roubles!" she thought, but for some reason this 
 idea seemed to her incongruous and insulting to 
 Pimenov. 
 
 " I am sure you are aching all over after your 
 work, and you come to the door with me," she said 
 as they went down the stairs. " Go home." 
 
 But he did not catch her words. When they 
 came out into the street, he ran on ahead, unfastened 
 the cover of the sledge, and helping Anna Akimovna 
 in, said: 
 
 " I wish you a happy Christmas! "
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 107 
 
 II 
 
 Christmas Morning 
 
 "They have left off ringing ever so long! It's 
 dreadful; you won't be there before the service is 
 over! Get up! " 
 
 " Two horses are racing, racing . . ," said Anna 
 Akimovna, and she woke up; before her, candle in 
 hand, stood her maid, red-haired Masha. " Well, 
 what is it?" 
 
 " Service is over already," said Masha with de- 
 spair. *' I have called you three times! Sleep till 
 evening for me, but you told me yourself to call 
 you!" 
 
 Anna Akimovna raised herself on her elbow and 
 glanced towards the window. It was still quite dark 
 outside, and only the lower edge of the window- 
 frame was white with snow. She could hear a low, 
 mellow chime of bells; it was not the parish church, 
 but somewhere further away. The watch on the 
 little table showed three minutes past six. 
 
 " Very well, Masha. ... In three minutes . . ." 
 said Anna Akimovna in an imploring voice, and she 
 snuggled under the bed-clothes. 
 
 She imagined the snow at the front door, the 
 sledge, the dark sky, the crowd in the church, and
 
 io8 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 the smell of juniper, and she felt dread at the 
 thought; but all the same, she made up her mind 
 that she would get up at once and go to early service. 
 And while she was warm in bed and struggling with 
 sleep — which seems, as though to spite one, partic- 
 ularly sweet when one ought to get up — and while 
 she had visions of an immense garden on a mountain 
 and then Gushtchin's Buildings, she was worried all 
 the time by the thought that she ought to get up that 
 very minute and go to church. 
 
 But when she got up it was quite light, and it 
 turned out to be half-past nine. There had been a 
 heavy fall of snow in the night; the trees were 
 clothed in white, and the air was particularly light, 
 transparent, and tender, so that when Anna Akim- 
 ovna looked out of the window her first impulse was 
 to draw a deep, deep breath. And when she had 
 washed, a relic of far-away childish feelings — joy 
 that today was Christmas — suddenly stirred within 
 her; after that she felt light-hearted, free and pure 
 in soul, as though her soul, too, had been washed or 
 plunged in the white snow. Masha came in, dressed 
 up and tightly laced, and wished her a happy Christ- 
 mas; then she spent a long time combing her mis- 
 tress's hair and helping her to dress. The fragrance 
 and feeling of the new, gorgeous, splendid dress, its 
 faint rustle, and the smell of fresh scent, excited 
 Anna Akimovna.
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 109 
 
 " Well, it's Christmas," she said gaily to Masha. 
 " Now we will try our fortunes." 
 
 " Last year, I was to marry an old man. It 
 turned up three times the same." 
 
 " Well, God is merciful." 
 
 " Well, Anna Akimovna, what I think is, rather 
 than neither one thing nor the other, I'd marry an 
 old man," said Masha mournfully, and she heaved a 
 sigh. " I am turned twenty; it's no joke." 
 
 Every one in the house knew that red-haired 
 Masha was in love with Mishenka, the footman, and 
 this genuine, passionate, hopeless love had already 
 lasted three years. 
 
 " Come, don't talk nonsense," Anna Akimovna 
 consoled her. " I am going on for thirty, but I am 
 still meaning to marry a young man." 
 
 While his mistress was dressing, Mishenka, In a 
 new swallow-tail and polished boots, walked about 
 the hall and drawing-room and waited for her to 
 come out, to wish her a happy Christmas. He had 
 a peculiar walk, stepping softly and delicately; look- 
 ing at his feet, his hands, and the bend of his head, 
 it might be imagined that he was not simply walking, 
 but learning to dance the first figure of a quadrille. 
 In spite of his fine velvety moustache and handsome, 
 rather flashy appearance, he was steady, prudent, 
 and devout as an old man. He said his prayers, 
 bowing down to the ground, and liked burning in-
 
 no The Party and Other Stories 
 
 cense in his room. He respected people of wealth 
 and rank and had a reverence for them; he despised 
 poor people, and all who came to ask favours of any 
 kind, with all the strength of his cleanly flunkey soul. 
 Under his starched shirt he wore a flannel, winter 
 and summer alike, being very careful of his health; 
 his ears were plugged with cotton-wool. 
 
 When Anna Akimovna crossed the hall with 
 Masha, he bent his head downwards a little and said 
 in his agreeable, honeyed voice: 
 
 " I have the honour to congratulate you, Anna 
 Akimovna, on the most solemn feast of the birth of 
 our Lord." 
 
 Anna Akimovna gave him five roubles, while poor 
 Masha was numb with ecstasy. His holiday get-up, 
 his attitude, his voice, and what he said, impressed 
 her by their beauty and elegance ; as she followed her 
 mistress she could think of nothing, could see noth- 
 ing, she could only smile, first blissfully and then bit- 
 terly. The upper story of the house was called the 
 best or visitors' half, while the name of the business 
 part — old people's or simply women's part — was 
 given to the rooms on the lower story where Aunt 
 Tatyana Ivanovna kept house. In the upper part 
 the gentry and educated visitors were entertained; in 
 the lower story, simpler folk and the aunt's personal 
 friends. Handsome, plump, and healthy, still 
 young and fresh, and feeling she had on a magnifi-
 
 A Woman's Kingdom ill 
 
 cent dress which seemed to her to diffuse a sort of 
 radiance all about her, Anna Akimovna went down 
 to the lower story. Here she was met with re- 
 proaches for forgetting God now that she was so 
 highly educated, for sleeping too late for the service, 
 and for not coming downstairs to break the fast, and 
 they all clasped their hands and exclaimed with per- 
 fect sincerity that she was lovely, wonderful; and she 
 believed it, laughed, kissed them, gave one a rouble, 
 another three or five according to their position. 
 She liked being downstairs. Wherever one looked 
 there were shrines, ikons, little lamps, portraits of 
 ecclesiastical personages — the place smelt of 
 monks; there was a rattle of knives in the kitchen, 
 and already a smell of something savoury, exceed- 
 ingly appetizing, was pervading all the rooms. The 
 yellow-painted floors shone, and from the doors 
 narrow rugs with bright blue stripes ran like little 
 paths to the ikon corner, and the sunshine was simply 
 pouring in at the windows. 
 
 In the dining-room some old women, strangers, 
 were sitting; in Varvarushka's room, too, there were 
 old women, and with them a deaf and dumb girl, who 
 seemed abashed about something and kept saying, 
 " Bli, bll ! . . ." Two skinny-looking little girls 
 who had been brought out of the orphanage for 
 Christmas came up to kiss Anna Akimovna's hand, 
 and stood before her transfixed with admiration of
 
 112 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 her splendid dress; she noticed that one of the girls 
 squinted, and in the midst of her light-hearted holi- 
 day mood she felt a sick pang at her heart at the 
 thought that young men would despise the girl, and 
 that she would never marry. In the cook Agafya's 
 room, five huge peasants in new shirts were sitting 
 round the samovar; these were not workmen from 
 the factory, but relations of the cook. Seeing Anna 
 Akimovna, all the peasants jumped up from their 
 seats, and from regard for decorum, ceased munch- 
 ing, though their mouths were full. The cook 
 Stepan, in a white cap, with a knife in his hand, came 
 into the room and gave her his greetings; porters in 
 high felt boots came in, and they, too, offered their 
 greetings. The water-carrier peeped in with icicles 
 on his beard, but did not venture to come in. 
 
 Anna Akimovna walked through the rooms fol- 
 lowed by her retinue — the aunt, Varvarushka, 
 Nikandrovna, the sewing-maid Marfa Petrovna, 
 and the downstairs Masha. Varvarushka — a tall, 
 thin, slender woman, taller than any one in the 
 house, dressed all in black, smelling of cypress and 
 coffee — crossed herself in each room before the 
 ikon, bowing down from the waist. And whenever 
 one looked at her one was reminded that she had 
 already prepared her shroud and that lottery tickets 
 were hidden away by her in the same box. 
 
 *' Anyutinka, be merciful at Christmas," she said,
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 113 
 
 opening the door into the kitchen. *' Forgive him, 
 bless the man! Have done with it! " 
 
 The coachman Panteley, who had been dismissed 
 for drunkenness in November, was on his knees in 
 the middle of the kitchen. He was a good-natured 
 man, but he used to be unruly when he was drunk, 
 and could not go to sleep, but persisted in wandering 
 about the buildings and shouting in a threatening 
 voice, " I know all about it! " Now from his beefy 
 and bloated face and from his bloodshot eyes it could 
 be seen that he had been drinking continually from 
 November till Christmas. 
 
 " Forgive me, Anna Akimovna," he brought out 
 in a hoarse voice, striking his forehead on the floor 
 and showing his bull-like neck. 
 
 " It was Auntie dismissed you; ask her." 
 
 "What about auntie?" said her aunt, walking 
 into the kitchen, breathing heavily; she was very 
 stout, and on her bosom one might have stood a 
 tray of teacups and a samovar. " What about 
 auntie now? You are mistress here, give your own 
 orders; though these rascals might be all dead for 
 all I care. Come, get up, you hog! " she shouted 
 at Panteley, losing patience. " Get out of my sight! 
 It's the last time I forgive you, but if you transgress 
 again — don't ask for mercy! " 
 
 Then they went into the dining-room to coffee. 
 But they had hardly sat down, when the downstairs
 
 114 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Masha rushed headlong in, saying with horror, 
 " The singers ! " And ran baclc again. They 
 heard some one blowing his nose, a low bass cough, 
 and footsteps that sounded like horses' iron-shod 
 hoofs tramping about the entry near the hall. For 
 half a minute all was hushed. . . . The singers 
 burst out so suddenly and loudly that every one 
 started. While they were singing, the priest from 
 the almshouses with the deacon and the sexton ar- 
 rived. Putting on the stole, the priest slowly said 
 that when they were ringing for matins it was snow- 
 ing and not cold, but that the frost was sharper to- 
 wards morning, God bless it! and now there must 
 be twenty degrees of frost. 
 
 " Many people maintain, though, that winter is 
 healthier than summer," said the deacon; then im- 
 mediately assumed an austere expression and 
 chanted after the priest. " Thy Birth, O Christ 
 our Lord. . . ." 
 
 Soon the priest from the workmen's hospital came 
 with the deacon, then the Sisters from the hospital, 
 children from the orphanage, and then singing could 
 be heard almost uninterruptedly. They sang, had 
 lunch, and went away. 
 
 About twenty men from the factory came to offer 
 their Christmas greetings. They were only the 
 foremen, mechanicians, and their assistants, the pat- 
 tern-makers, the accountant, and so on — all of good
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 115 
 
 appearance, in new black coats. They were all first- 
 rate men, as it were picked men; each one knew his 
 value — that is, knew that if he lost his berth to- 
 day, people would be glad to take him on at another 
 factory. Evidently they liked Auntie, as they be-' 
 haved freely in her presence and even smoked, and 
 when they had all trooped in to have something to 
 eat, the accountant put his arm round her immense 
 waist. They were free-and-easy, perhaps, partly 
 also because Varvarushka, who under the old mas- 
 ters had wielded great power and had kept watch 
 over the morals of the clerks, had now no authority 
 whatever in the house; and perhaps because many of 
 them still remembered the time when Auntie Tat- 
 yana Ivanovna, whose brothers kept a strict hand 
 over her, had been dressed like a simple peasant 
 woman like Agafya, and when Anna Akimovna used 
 to run about the yard near the factory buildings and 
 every one used to call her Anyutya. 
 
 The foremen ate, talked, and kept looking with 
 amazement at Anna Akimovna, how she had grown 
 up and how handsome she had become! But this 
 elegant girl, educated by governesses and teachers, 
 was a stranger to them; they could not understand 
 her, and they instinctively kept closer to " Auntie," 
 who called them by their names, continually pressed 
 them to eat and drink, and, clinking glasses with 
 them, had already drunk two wineglasses of rowan-
 
 Ii6 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 berry wine with them. Anna Akimovna was ahvays 
 afraid of their thinking her proud, an upstart, or a 
 crow in peacock's feathers; and now while the fore- 
 men were crowding round the food, she did not 
 leave the dining-room, but took part in the conver- 
 sation. She asked Pimenov, her acquaintance of 
 the previous day: 
 
 " Why have you so many clocks in your room? " 
 
 "I mend clocks," he answered. "I take the 
 work up between times, on holidays, or when I can't 
 sleep." 
 
 " So if my watch goes wrong I can bring it to 
 you to be repaired? " Anna Akimovna asked, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 " To be sure, I will do it with pleasure," said 
 Pimenov, and there was an expression of tender 
 devotion in his face, when, not herself knowing 
 why, she unfastened her magnificent watch from 
 Its chain and handed it to him; he looked at It 
 in silence and gave It back. " To be sure, I will 
 do It with pleasure," he repeated. " I don't mend 
 watches now. My eyes are weak, and the doctors 
 have forbidden me to do fine work. But for you 
 I can make an exception." 
 
 " Doctors talk nonsense," said the accountant. 
 They all laughed. " Don't you believe them," he 
 went on, flattered by the laughing; "last year a 
 tooth flew out of a cylinder and hit old Kalmykov
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 117 
 
 such a crack on the head that you could see his 
 brains, and the doctor said he would die; but he is 
 alive and working to this day, only he has taken 
 to stammering since that mishap." 
 
 " Doctors do talk nonsense, they do, but not so 
 much," sighed Auntie. " Pyotr Andreyitch, poor 
 dear, lost his sight. Just like you, he used to work 
 day in day out at the factory near the hot furnace, 
 and he went blind. The eyes don't like heat. But 
 what are we talking about? " she said, rousing her- 
 self. " Come and have a drink. My best wishes 
 for Christmas, my dears. I never drink with any 
 one else, but I drink with you, sinful woman as I 
 am. Please God! " 
 
 Anna Akimovna fancied that after yesterday Pi- 
 menov despised her as a philanthropist, but was 
 fascinated by her as a woman. She looked at him 
 and thought that he behaved very charmingly and 
 was nicely dressed. It is true that the sleeves of 
 his coat were not quite long enough, and the coat 
 itself seemed short-waisted, and his trousers were 
 not wide and fashionable, but his tie was tied care- 
 lessly and with taste and was not as gaudy as the 
 others'. And he seemed to be a good-natured man, 
 for he ate submissively whatever Auntie put on his 
 plate. She remembered how black he had been the 
 day before, and how sleepy, and the thought of it for 
 some reason touched her.
 
 li8 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 When the men were preparing to go, Anna Aki- 
 movna put out her hand to PImenov. She wanted 
 to ask him to come in sometimes to see her, with- 
 out ceremony, but she did not know how to — her 
 tongue would not obey her; and that they might not 
 think she was attracted by Pimenov, she shook hands 
 with his companions, too. 
 
 Then the boys from the school of which she was 
 a patroness came. They all had their heads closely 
 cropped and all wore grey blouses of the same pat- 
 tern. The teacher — a tall, beardless young man 
 with patches of red on his face — was visibly agi- 
 tated as he formed the boys into rows; the boys 
 sang in tune, but with harsh, disagreeable voices. 
 The manager of the factory, Nazaritch, a bald, 
 sharp-eyed Old Believer, could never get on with 
 the teachers, but the one who was now anxiously 
 waving his hands he despised and hated, though 
 he could not have said why. He behaved rudely 
 and condescendingly to the young man, kept back 
 his salary, meddled with the teaching, and had finally 
 tried to dislodge him by appointing, a fortnight be- 
 fore Christmas, as porter to the school a drunken 
 peasant, a distant relation of his wife's, who dis- 
 obeyed the teacher and said rude things to him be- 
 fore the boys. 
 
 Anna Akimovna was aware of all this, but she 
 could be of no help, for she was afraid of Nazaritch
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 119 
 
 herself. Now she wanted at least to be very nice 
 to the schoolmaster, to tell him she was very much 
 pleased with him; but when after the singing he 
 began apologizing for something in great confusion, 
 and Auntie began to address him familiarly as she 
 drew him without ceremony to the table, she felt, 
 for some reason, bored and awkward, and giving 
 orders that the children should be given sweets, went 
 upstairs. 
 
 " In reality there is something cruel in these 
 Christmas customs," she said a little while after- 
 wards, as it were to herself, looking out of window 
 at the boys, who were flocking from the house ^to 
 the gates and shivering with cold, putting their 
 coats on as they ran. " At Christmas one wants 
 to rest, to sit at home with one's own people, and 
 the poor boys, the teacher, and the clerks and fore- 
 men, are obliged for some reason to go through the 
 frost, then to offer their greetings, show their re- 
 spect, be put to confusion . . ." 
 
 Mishenka, who was standing at the door of the 
 drawing-room and overheard this, said: 
 
 " It has not come from us, and it will not end 
 with us. Of course, I am not an educated man, 
 Anna Akimovna, but I do understand that the poor 
 must always respect the rich. It is well said, ' God 
 marks the rogue.' In prisons, night refuges, and 
 pot-houses you never see any but the poor, while
 
 120 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 decent people, you may notice, are always rich. It 
 has been said of the rich, ' Deep calls to deep.' " 
 
 " You always express yourself so tediously and in- 
 comprehensibly," said Anna Akimovna, and she 
 walked to the other end of the big drawing-room. 
 
 It was only just past eleven. The stillness of the 
 big room, only broken by the singing that floated up 
 from below, made her yawn. The bronzes, the 
 albums, and the pictures on the walls, representing 
 a ship at sea, cows in a meadow, and views of the 
 Rhine, were so absolutely stale that her eyes simply 
 glided over them without observing them. The 
 holiday mood was already growing tedious. As be- 
 fore, Anna Akimovna felt that she was beautiful, 
 good-natured, and wonderful, but now it seemed to 
 her that that was of no use to any one; it seemed to 
 her that she did not know for whom and for what 
 she had put on this expensive dress, too, and, as al- 
 ways happened on all holidays, she began to be 
 fretted by loneliness and the persistent thought that 
 her beauty, her health, and her wealth, were a mere 
 cheat, since she was not wanted, was of no use to 
 any one, and nobody loved her. She walked through 
 all the rooms, humming and looking out of window; 
 stopping in the drawing-room, she could not resist 
 beginning to talk to Mishenka. 
 
 " I don't know what you think of yourself,
 
 A Woman's Kinsdom 121 
 
 to' 
 
 Misha," she said, and heaved a sigh. " Really, 
 God might punish you for it." 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " You know what I mean. Excuse my meddling 
 in your affairs. But it seems you are spoiling your 
 own life out of obstinacy. You'll admit that it is 
 high time you got married, and she is an excellent 
 and deserving girl. You will never find any one 
 better. She's a beauty, clever, gentle, and devoted. 
 . . . And her appearance ! ... If she belonged to 
 our circle or a higher one, people would be falling in 
 love with her for her red hair alone. See how beau- 
 tifully her hair goes with her complexion. Oh, 
 goodness ! You don't understand anything, and 
 don't know what you want," Anna Akimovna said 
 bitterly, and tears came into her eyes. " Poor girl, 
 I am so sorry for her! I know you want a wife 
 with money, but I have told you already I will give 
 Masha a dowry." 
 
 Mishenka could not picture his future spouse in 
 his Imagination except as a tall, plump, substantial, 
 pious woman, stepping like a peacock, and, for some 
 reason, with a long shawl over her shoulders; while 
 Masha was thin, slender, tightly laced, and walked 
 with little steps, and, worst of all, she was too fasci- 
 nating and at times extremely attractive to Mishenka, 
 and that, in his opinion, was incongruous with matri-
 
 122 The Party and Other Stones 
 
 mony and only in keeping with loose behaviour. 
 When Anna Akimovna had promised to give Masha 
 a dowry, he had hesitated for a time ; but once a poor 
 student in a brown overcoat over his uniform, com- 
 ing with a letter for Anna Akimovna, was fascinated 
 by Masha, and could not resist embracing her near 
 the hat-stand, and she had uttered a faint shriek; 
 Mishenka, standing on the stairs above, had seen 
 this, and from that time had begun to cherish a 
 feeling of disgust for Masha. A poor student I 
 Who knows, if she had been embraced by a rich 
 student or an officer the consequences might have 
 been different. 
 
 "Why don't you wish it?" Anna Akimovna 
 asked. " What more do you want? " 
 
 Mishenka was silent and looked at the arm-chair 
 fixedly, and raised his eyebrows. 
 
 *' Do you love some one else? " 
 
 Silence. The red-haired Masha came in with let- 
 ters and visiting cards on a tray. Guessing that they 
 were talking about her, she blushed to tears. 
 
 " The postmen have come," she muttered. " And 
 there is a clerk called Tchalikov waiting below. He 
 says you told him to come to-day for something." 
 
 " What insolence! " said Anna Akimovna, moved 
 to anger. " I gave him no orders. Tell him to 
 take himself off; say I am not at home! " 
 
 A ring was heard. It was the priests from her
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 123 
 
 parish. They were always shown Into the aristo- 
 cratic part of the house — that is, upstairs. After 
 the priests, Nazaritch, the manager of the factory, 
 came to pay his visit, and then the factory doctor; 
 then Mishenka announced the inspector of the ele- 
 mentary schools. Visitors kept arriving. 
 
 When there was a moment free, Anna Akimovna 
 sat down in a deep arm-chair In the drawing-room, 
 and shutting her eyes, thought that her loneliness was 
 quite natural because she had not married and never 
 would marry. . . . But that was not her fault. 
 Fate itself had flung her out of the simple working- 
 class surroundings in which, if she could trust her 
 memory, she had felt so snug and at home, into these 
 immense rooms, where she could never think what 
 to do with herself, and could not understand why so 
 many people kept passing before her eyes. What 
 was happening now seemed to her trivial, useless, 
 since it did not and could not give her happiness for 
 one minute. 
 
 *' If I could fall in love," she thought, stretch- 
 ing; the very thought of this sent a rush of warmth 
 to her heart. " And if I could escape from the 
 factory . . ." she mused, imagining how the weight 
 of those factory buildings, barracks, and schools 
 would roll off her conscience, roll off her mind. . . . 
 Then she remembered her father, and thought if 
 he had lived longer he would certainly have married
 
 124 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 her to a working man — to Pimenov, for instance. 
 He would have told her to marry, and that would 
 have been all about it. And it would have been a 
 good thing; then the factory would have passed into 
 capable hands. 
 
 She pictured his curly head, his bold profile, his 
 delicate, ironical lips and the strength, the tremen- 
 dous strength, in his shoulders, in his arms, in his 
 chest, and the tenderness with which he had looked 
 at her watch that day. 
 
 " Well," she said, " It would have been all right. 
 ... I would have married him." 
 
 " Anna Akimovna," said Mishenka, coming noise- 
 lessly into the drawing-room. 
 
 " How you frightened me! " she said, trembling 
 all over. " What do you want? " 
 
 " Anna Akimovna," he said, laying his hand on 
 his heart and raising his eyebrows, " you are my 
 mistress and my benefactress, and no one but you 
 can tell me what I ought to do about marriage, 
 for you are as good as a mother to me. . . . But 
 kindly forbid them to laugh and jeer at me down- 
 stairs. They won't let me pass without it." 
 
 " How do they jeer at you? " 
 
 " They call me Mashenka's Mishenka." 
 
 " Pooh, what nonsense! " cried Anna Akimovna 
 indignantly. " How stupid you all are ! What a
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 125 
 
 stupid you are, Misha I How sick I am of you ! I 
 can't bear the sight of you." 
 
 Ill 
 Dinner 
 
 Just as the year before, the last to pay her visits 
 were Krylin, an actual civil councillor, and Lyse- 
 vitch, a well-known barrister. It was already dark 
 when they arrived. Krylin, a man of sixty, with a 
 wide mouth and with grey whiskers close to his ears, 
 with a face like a lynx, was wearing a uniform with 
 an Anna ribbon, and white trousers. He held Anna 
 Akimovna's hand in both of his for a long while, 
 looked intently in her face, moved his lips, and at 
 last said, drawling upon one note: 
 
 " I used to respect your uncle . . . and your fa- 
 ther, and enjoyed the privilege of their friendship. 
 Now I feel It an agreeable duty, as you see, to pre- 
 sent my Christmas wishes to their honoured heiress 
 . . . in spite of my Infirmities and the distance I 
 have to come. . . . And I am very glad to see you 
 in good health." 
 
 The lawyer Lysevltch, a tall, handsome fair man, 
 with a slight sprinkling of grey on his temples and 
 beard, was distinguished by exceptionally elegant
 
 126 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 manners; he walked with a swaying step, bowed as 
 it were reluctantly, and shrugged his shoulders as 
 he talked, and all this with an indolent grace, like 
 a spoiled horse fresh from the stable. He was well 
 fed, extremely healthy, and very well oft; on one 
 occasion he had won forty thousand roubles, but con- 
 cealed the fact from his friends. He was fond of 
 good fare, especially cheese, truffles, and grated rad- 
 ish with hemp oil; while in Paris he had eaten, so he 
 said, baked but unwashed guts. He spoke smoothly, 
 fluently, without hesitation, and only occasionally, 
 for the sake of effect, permitted himself to hesitate 
 and snap his fingers as if picking up a word. He 
 had long ceased to believe in anything he had to say 
 in the law courts, or perhaps he did believe in it, but 
 attached no kind of significance to it; it had all so 
 long been familiar, stale, ordinary. . . . He be- 
 lieved In nothing but what was original and unusual. 
 A copy-book moral in an original form would move 
 him to tears. Both his notebooks were filled with 
 extraordinary expressions which he had read in va- 
 rious authors; and when he needed to look iip any 
 expression, he would search nervously In both books, 
 and usually failed to find it. Anna Akimovna's fa- 
 ther had in a good-humoured moment ostentatiously 
 appointed him legal adviser in matters concerning the 
 factory, and had assigned him a salary of twelve 
 thousand roubles. The legal business of the factory
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 127 
 
 had been confined to two or three trivial actions for 
 recovering debts, which Lysevitch handed to his as- 
 sistants. 
 
 Anna Akimovna knew that he had nothing to do 
 at the factory, but she could not dismiss him — she 
 had not the moral courage ; and besides, she was used 
 to him. He used to call himself her legal adviser, 
 and his salary, which he invariably sent for on the 
 first of the month punctually, he used to call " stern 
 prose." Anna Akimovna knew that when, after her 
 father's death, the timber of her forest was sold for 
 railway sleepers, Lysevitch had made more than fif- 
 teen thousand out of the transaction, and had shared 
 it with Nazaritch. When first she found out they 
 had cheated her she had wept bitterly, but after- 
 wards she had grown used to it. 
 
 Wishing her a happy Christmas, and kissing both 
 her hands, he looked her up and down, and frowned. 
 
 " You mustn't," he said with genuine disappoint- 
 ment. " I have told you, my dear, you mustn't! " 
 
 " What do you mean, Viktor NIkoIaltch? " 
 
 " I have told you you mustn't get fat. All your 
 iamily have an unfortunate tendency to grow fat. 
 You mustn't," he repeated in an imploring voice, and 
 kissed her hand. "You are so handsome! You 
 are so splendid! Here, your Excellency, let me in- 
 troduce the one woman In tlic world whom I have 
 ever seriously loved."
 
 128 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " There is nothing surprising in that. To know 
 Anna Akimovna at your age and not to be in love 
 with her, that would be impossible." 
 
 " I adore her," the lawyer continued with perfect 
 sincerity, but with his usual indolent grace. " I love 
 her, but not because I am a man and she is a woman. 
 When I am with her I always feel as though she be- 
 longs to some third sex, and I to a fourth, and we 
 float away together into the domain of the subtlest 
 shades, and there we blend into the spectrum. Le- 
 conte de Lisle defines such relations better than any 
 one. He has a superb passage, a marvellous pas- 
 sage. . . ." 
 
 Lysevitch rummaged in one notebook, then In the 
 other, and, not finding the quotation, subsided. 
 They began talking of the weather, of the opera, of 
 the arrival, expected shortly, of Duse. Anna Aki- 
 movna remembered that the year before Lysevitch 
 and, she fancied, Krylin had dined with her, and 
 now when they were getting ready to go away, she 
 began with perfect sincerity pointing out to them in 
 an imploring voice that as they had no more visits 
 to pay, they ought to remain to dinner with her. 
 After some hesitation the visitors agreed. 
 
 In addition to the family dinner, consisting of 
 cabbage soup, sucking pig, goose with apples, and 
 so on, a so-called " French " or " chef's " dinner
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 129 
 
 used to be prepared in the kitchen on great holidays, 
 in case any visitor in the upper story wanted a meal. 
 When they heard the clatter of crockery in the dining- 
 room, Lysevitch began to betray a noticeable excite- 
 ment; he rubbed his hands, shrugged his shoulders, 
 screwed up his eyes, and described with feeling what 
 dinners her father and uncle used to give at one 
 time, and a marvellous matelote of turbots the cook 
 here could make : it was not a matelote, but a veri- 
 table revelation ! He was already gloating over the 
 dinner, already eating it in imagination and enjoying 
 it. When Anna Akimovna took his arm and led 
 him to the dining-room, he tossed off a glass of vodka 
 and put a piece of salmon in his mouth; he positively 
 purred with pleasure. He munched loudly, disgust- 
 ingly, emitting sounds from his nose, while his eyes 
 grew oily and rapacious. 
 
 The hors d'a'iivres were superb; among other 
 things, there were fresh white mushrooms stewed 
 in cream, and sauce provenqale made of fried oys- 
 ters and crayfish, strongly flavoured with some bitter 
 pickles. The dinner, consisting of elaborate holiday 
 dishes, was excellent, and so were the wines. Mi- 
 shenka waited at table with enthusiasm. When he 
 laid some new dish on the table and lifted the shin- 
 ing cover, or poured out the wine, he did it with 
 the solemnity of a professor of black magic, and,
 
 130 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 looking at his face and his movements suggesting 
 the first figure of a quadrille, the lawyer thought 
 several times, " What a fool! " 
 
 After the third course Lysevitch said, turning to 
 Anna Akimovna : 
 
 " The jjti de Steele woman — I mean when she is 
 young, and of course wealthy — must be independ- 
 ent, clever, elegant, intellectual, bold, and a little 
 depraved. Depraved within limits, a little; for ex- 
 cess, you know, is wearisome. You ought not to 
 vegetate, my dear; you ought not to live like every 
 one else, but to get the full savour of life, and a 
 slight flavour of depravity is the sauce of life. 
 Revel among flowers of intoxicating fragrance, 
 breathe the perfume of musk, eat hashish, and best 
 of all, love, love, love. . . . To begin with, in your 
 place I would set up seven lovers — one for each day 
 of the week; and one I would call Monday, one 
 Tuesday, the third Wednesday, and so on, so that 
 each might know his day." 
 
 This conversation troubled Anna Akimovna; she 
 ate nothing and only drank a glass of wine. 
 
 " Let me speak at last," she said. " For myself 
 personally, I can't conceive of love without family 
 life. I am lonely, lonely as the moon in the sky, 
 and a waning moon, too; and whatever you may say, 
 I am convinced, I feel that this waning can only be 
 restored by love in its ordinary sense. It seems to
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 131 
 
 me that such love would define my duties, my work, 
 make clear my conception of life. I want from love 
 peace of soul, tranquillity; I want the very opposite 
 of musk, and spiritualism, and fin de siecle ... In 
 short" — she grew embarrassed — " a husband and 
 children." 
 
 "You want to be married? Well, you can do 
 that, too," Lysevitch assented. " You ought to 
 have all experiences: marriage, and jealousy, and 
 the sweetness of the first Infidelity, and even chil- 
 dren. . . . But make haste and live — make haste, 
 my dear: time is passing; it won't wait." 
 
 " Yes, I'll go and get married! " she said, looking 
 angrily at his well-fed, satisfied face. " I will marry 
 in the simplest, most ordinary way and be radiant 
 with happiness. And, would you believe It, I will 
 marry some plain working man, some mechanic or 
 draughtsman." 
 
 " There is no harm In that, either. The Duchess 
 Josiana loved Gwinplin, and that was permissible 
 for her because she was a grand duchess. Every- 
 thing Is permissible for you, too, because you are 
 an exceptional woman: If, my dear, you want to 
 love a negro or an Arab, don't scruple; send for a 
 negro. Don't deny yourself anything. You ought 
 to be as bold as your desires; don't fall short of 
 them." 
 
 "Can it be so hard to understand me?" Anna
 
 132 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Akimovna asked with amazement, and her eyes were 
 bright with tears. " Understand, I have an immense 
 business on my hands — two thousand workmen, for 
 whom I must answer before God. The men who 
 work for me grow blind and deaf. I am afraid to 
 go on like this; I am afraid! I am wretched, and 
 you have the cruelty to talk to me of negroes and 
 . . . and you smile ! " Anna Akimovna brought 
 her fist down on the table. " To go on living the 
 life I am living now, or to marry some one as idle 
 and incompetent as myself, would be a crime. I 
 can't go on living like this," she said hotly, " I can- 
 not!" 
 
 " How handsome she Is! " said Lysevitch, fasci- 
 nated by her. "My God, how handsome she is! 
 But why are you angry, my dear? Perhaps I am 
 wrong; but surely you don't imagine that if, for the 
 sake of ideas for which I have the deepest respect, 
 you renounce the joys of life and lead a dreary exist- 
 ence, your workmen will be any the better for it? 
 Not a scrap! No, frivolity, frivolity! " he said de- 
 cisively. "It's essential for you; it's your duty to 
 be frivolous and depraved! Ponder that, my dear, 
 ponder it." 
 
 Anna Akimovna was glad she had spoken out, 
 and her spirits rose. She was pleased she had 
 spoken so well, and that her ideas were so fine and 
 just, and she was already convinced that if Pimenov,
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 133 
 
 for instance, loved her, she would marry him with 
 pleasure. 
 
 Mishenka began to pour out champagne. 
 
 " You make me angry, Viktor Nikolaitch," she 
 said, clinking glasses with the lawyer. " It seems 
 to me you give advice and know nothing of life your- 
 self. According to you, if a man be a mechanic or 
 a draughtsman, he is bound to be a peasant and an 
 ignoramus! But they are the cleverest people! 
 Extraordinary people ! " 
 
 " Your uncle and father ... I knew them and 
 respected them . . ." Krylin said, pausing for em- 
 phasis (he had been sitting upright as a post, and 
 had been eating steadily the whole time), "were 
 people of considerable intelligence and . . . of lofty 
 spiritual qualities." 
 
 " Oh, to be sure, we know all about their quali- 
 ties," the lawyer muttered, and asked permission to 
 smoke. 
 
 When dinner was over Krylin was led away for 
 a nap. Lysevitch finished his cigar, and, stagger- 
 ing from repletion, followed Anna Akimovna into 
 her study. Cosy corners with photographs and 
 fans on the walls, and the inevitable pink or pale 
 blue lanterns in the middle of the ceiling, he did 
 not like, as the expression of an insipid and unorig- 
 inal character; besides, the memory of certain of 
 his love affairs of which he was now ashamed was
 
 134 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 associated with such lanterns. Anna Akimovna's 
 study with its bare walls and tasteless furniture 
 pleased him exceedingly. It was snug and comfort- 
 able for him to sit on a Turkish divan and look at 
 Anna Akimovna, who usually sat on the rug before 
 the fire, clasping her knees and looking into the fire 
 and thinking of something; and at such moments it 
 seemed to him that her peasant Old Believer blood 
 was stirring within her. 
 
 Every time after dinner when coffee and liqueurs 
 were handed, he grew livelier and began telling her 
 various bits of literary gossip. He spoke with elo- 
 quence and inspiration, and was carried away by his 
 own stories; and she listened to him and thought 
 every time that for such enjoyment it was worth 
 paying not only twelve thousand, but three times 
 that sum, and forgave him everything she disliked 
 in him. He sometimes told her the story of some 
 tale or novel he had been reading, and then two or 
 three hours passed unnoticed like a minute. Now 
 he began rather dolefully In a failing voice with his 
 eyes shut. 
 
 " It's ages, my dear, since I have read anything," 
 he said when she asked him to tell her something. 
 *' Though I do sometimes read Jules Verne." 
 
 *' I was expecting you to tell me something new." 
 
 "H'm! . . . new," Lysevitch muttered sleepily, 
 and he settled himself further back in the corner
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 135 
 
 of the sofa. *' None of the new literature, my dear, 
 is any use for you or me. Of course, It is bound 
 to be such as It Is, and to refuse to recognize It Is 
 to refuse to recognize — would mean refusing to 
 recognize the natural order of things, and I do 
 recognize It, but . . ." Lysevltch seemed to have 
 fallen asleep. But a minute later his voice was 
 heard again: 
 
 " All the new literature moans and howls like 
 the autumn wind in the chimney. ' Ah, unhappy 
 wretch! Ah, your life may be likened to a prison! 
 Ah, how damp and dark it Is In your prison! Ah, 
 you win certainly come to ruin, and there Is no chance 
 of escape for you ! ' That's very fine, but I should 
 prefer a literature that would tell us how to escape 
 from prison. Of all contemporary writers, how- 
 ever, I prefer Maupassant." Lysevltch opened his 
 eyes. "A fine writer, a perfect writer! " Lysevltch 
 shifted in his seat. "A wonderful artist! A ter- 
 rible, prodigious, supernatural artist!" Lysevltch 
 got up from the sofa and raised his right arm. 
 " Maupassant! " he said rapturously. " My dear, 
 read Maupassant! one page of his gives you more 
 than all the riches of the earth! Every line Is a 
 new horizon. The softest, tenderest impulses of 
 the soul alternate with violent tempestuous sensa- 
 tions; your soul, as though under the weight of forty 
 thousand atmospheres, is transformed Into the most
 
 136 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 insignificant little bit of some great thing of an un- 
 defined rosy hue which I fancy, if one could put it 
 on one's tongue, would yield a pungent, voluptuous 
 taste. What a fury of transitions, of motives, of 
 melodies! You rest peacefully on the lilies and the 
 roses, and suddenly a thought — a terrible, splen- 
 did, irresistible thought — swoops down upon you 
 like a locomotive, and bathes you in hot steam and 
 deafens you with its whistle. Read Maupassant, 
 dear girl; I insist on it." 
 
 Lysevitch waved his arms and paced from cor- 
 ner to corner in violent excitement. 
 
 " Yes, it is inconceivable," he pronounced, as 
 though in despair; "his last thing overwhelmed 
 me, intoxicated me 1 But I am afraid you will not 
 care for it. To be carried away by It you must 
 savour it, slowly suck the juice from each line, drink 
 it in. . . . You must drink it in! . . ." 
 
 After a long introduction, containing many words 
 such as daemonic sensuality, a network of the most 
 delicate nerves, simoom, crystal, and so on, he be- 
 gan at last telling the story of the novel. He did 
 not tell the story so whimsically, but told it in minute 
 detail, quoting from memory whole descriptions and 
 conversations; the characters of the novel fascinated 
 him, and to describe them he threw himself into atti- 
 tudes, changed the expression of his face and voice 
 like a real actor. He laughed with delight at one
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 137 
 
 moment in a deep bass, and at another, on a high 
 shrill note, clasped his hands and clutched at his 
 head with an expression which suggested that it was 
 just going to burst. Anna Akimovna listened en- 
 thralled, though she had already read the novel, 
 and it seemed to her ever so much finer and more 
 subtle in the lawyer's version than in the book it- 
 self. He drew her attention to various subtleties, 
 and emphasized the felicitous expressions and the 
 profound thoughts, but she saw in it, only life, life, 
 life and herself, as though she had been a character 
 in the novel. Her spirits rose, and she, too, laugh- 
 ing and clasping her hands, thought that she could 
 not go on living such a life, that there was no need 
 to have a wretched life when one might have a splen- 
 did one. She remembered her words and thoughts 
 at dinner, and was proud of them; and when Pi- 
 menov suddenly rose up in her imagination, she felt 
 happy and longed for him to love her. 
 
 When he had finished the story, Lysevitch sat 
 down on the sofa, exhausted. 
 
 " How splendid you are! How handsome! " he 
 began, a little while afterwards in a faint voice as if 
 he were ill. " 1 am happy near you, dear girl, but 
 why am I forty-two instead of thirty? Your tastes 
 and mine do not coincide: you ought to be depraved, 
 and I have long passed that phase, and want a love 
 as delicate and immaterial as a ray of sunshine —
 
 138 The Party and Other Stones 
 
 that is, from the point of view of a woman of your 
 age, I am of no earthly use." 
 
 In his own words, he loved Turgenev, the singer 
 of virginal love and purity, of youth, and of the 
 melancholy Russian landscape; but he loved vir- 
 ginal love, not from knowledge but from hearsay, 
 as something abstract, existing outside real life. 
 Now he assured himself that he loved Anna Aki- 
 movna platonically, ideally, though he did not know 
 what those words meant. But he felt comfortable, 
 snug, warm. Anna Akimovna seemed to him en- 
 chanting, original, and he imagined that the pleasant 
 sensation that was aroused in him by these surround- 
 ings was the very thing that was called platonic love. 
 
 He laid his cheek on her hand and said in the tone 
 commonly used in coaxing little children: 
 
 " My precious, why have you punished me? " 
 
 "How? When?" 
 
 " I have had no Christmas present from you." 
 
 Anna Akimovna had never heard before of their 
 sending a Christmas box to the lawyer, and now 
 she was at a loss how much to give him. But she 
 must give him something, for he was expecting It, 
 though he looked at her with eyes full of love. 
 
 " I suppose Nazaritch forgot it," she said, " but 
 It Is not too late to set it right." 
 
 She suddenly remembered the fifteen hundred she 
 had received the day before, which was now lying
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 139 
 
 In the toilet drawer in her bedroom. And when she 
 brought that ungrateful money and gave it to the 
 lawyer, and he put it in his coat pocket with Indolent 
 grace, the whole Incident passed off charmingly and 
 naturally. The sudden reminder of a Christmas box 
 and this fifteen hundred was not unbecoming In 
 Lysevltch. 
 
 " Mercl," he said, and kissed her finger. 
 
 Krylln came In with blissful, sleepy face, but with- 
 out his decorations. 
 
 Lysevltch and he stayed a little longer and drank 
 a glass of tea each, and began to get ready to go. 
 Anna Akimovna was a little embarrassed. . . . She 
 had utterly forgotten In what department Krylin 
 served, and whether she had to give him money or 
 not; and If she had to, whether to give It now or send 
 It afterwards In an envelope. 
 
 " Where does he serve? " she whispered to Lyse- 
 vltch. 
 
 " Goodness knows," muttered Lysevltch, yawn- 
 ing. 
 
 She reflected that if Krylin used to visit her fa- 
 ther and her uncle and respected them, it was prob- 
 ably not for nothing: apparently he had been chari- 
 table at their expense, serving in sonic charitable 
 institution. As she said good-bye she slipped three 
 hundred roubles into his hantl; he seemed taken 
 aback, and looked at her for a minute In silence with
 
 140 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 his pewtery eyes, but then seemed to understand and 
 said : 
 
 *' The receipt, honoured Anna Akimovna, you can 
 only receive on the New Year." 
 
 Lysevitch had become utterly limp and heavy, 
 and he staggered when Mishenka put on his over- 
 coat. 
 
 As he went downstairs he looked like a man in 
 the last stage of exhaustion, and it was evident that 
 he would drop asleep as soon as he got into his 
 sledge. 
 
 " Your Excellency," he said languidly to Krylin, 
 stopping in the middle of the staircase, *' has it 
 ever happened to you to experience a feeling as 
 though some unseen force were drawing you out 
 longer and longer? You are drawn out and turn 
 into the finest wire. Subjectively this finds expres- 
 sion in a curious voluptuous feeling which is impos- 
 sibc to compare with anything." 
 
 Anna Akimovna, standing at the top of the stairs, 
 saw each of them give Mishenka a note. 
 
 " Good-bye I Come again! " she called to them, 
 and ran into her bedroom. 
 
 She quickly threw off her dress, that she was weary 
 of already, put on a dressing-gown, and ran down- 
 stairs; and as she ran downstairs she laughed and 
 thumped with her feet like a school-boy; she had a 
 great desire for mischief. 
 
 1
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 141 
 
 IV 
 
 Evening 
 
 Auntie, in a loose print blouse, Varvarushka 
 and two old women, were sitting in the dining- 
 room having supper. A big piece of salt meat, a 
 ham, and various savouries, were lying on the table 
 before them, and clouds of steam were rising from 
 the meat, which looked particularly fat and appe- 
 tizing. Wine was not served on the lower story, 
 but they made up for it with a great number of 
 spirits and home-made liqueurs. Agafyushka, the 
 fat, white-skinned, well-fed cook, was standing with 
 her arms crossed in the doorway and talking to the 
 old women, and the dishes were being handed by 
 the downstairs Masha, a dark girl with a crimson 
 ribbon in her hair. The old women had had enough 
 to eat before the morning was over, and an hour 
 before supper had had tea and buns, and so they 
 were now eating with effort — as it were, from a 
 sense of duty. 
 
 "Oh, my girl!" sighed Auntie, as Anna Aki- 
 movna ran into the dining-room and sat down be- 
 side her. "You've frightened me to death! " 
 
 Every one in the house was pleased when Anna 
 Akimovna was in good spirits and played pranks; 
 this always reminded them that the old men were
 
 142 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 dead and that the old women had no authority in 
 the house, and any one could do as he liked without 
 any fear of being sharply called to account for it. 
 Only the two old women glanced askance at Anna 
 Akimovna with amazement: she was humming, and 
 it was a sin to sing at table. 
 
 " Our mistress, our beauty, our picture," Agaf- 
 yushka began chanting with sugary sweetness. 
 " Our precious jewel! The people, the people that 
 have come to-day to look at our queen. Lord have 
 mercy upon us! Generals, and officers and gentle- 
 men. ... I kept looking out of window and count- 
 ing and counting till I gave it up." 
 
 " I'd as soon they did not come at all," said 
 Auntie; she looked sadly at her niece and added: 
 " They only waste the time for my poor orphan 
 girl." 
 
 Anna Akimovna felt hungry, as she had eaten 
 nothing since the morning. They poured her out 
 some very bitter liqueur; she drank it off, and tasted 
 the salt meat with mustard, and thought it extraor- 
 dinarily nice. Then the downstairs Masha brought 
 in the turkey, the pickled apples and the gooseberries. 
 And that pleased her, too. There was only one 
 thing that was disagreeable : there was a draught of 
 hot air from the tiled stove; it was stiflingly close 
 and every one's cheeks were burning. After sup-
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 143 
 
 per the cloth was taken off and plates of peppermint 
 biscuits, walnuts, and raisins were brought in. 
 
 " You sit down, too ... no need to stand 
 there ! " said Auntie to the cook. 
 
 Agafyushka sighed and sat down to the table; 
 Masha set a wineglass of liqueur before her, too, 
 and Anna Akimovna began to feel as though Agaf- 
 yushka's white neck were giving out heat like the 
 stove. They were all talking of how difficult it was 
 nowadays to get married, and saying that in old 
 days, if men did not court beauty, they paid atten- 
 tion to money, but now there was no making out 
 what they wanted; and while hunchbacks and crip- 
 ples used to be left old maids, nowadays men would 
 not have even the beautiful and wealthy. Auntie 
 began to set this down to immorality, and said that 
 people had no fear of God, but she suddenly re- 
 membered that Ivan Ivanitch, her brother, and Var- 
 varushka — both people of holy life — had feared 
 God, but all the same had had children on the sly, 
 and had sent them to the Foundling Asylum. She 
 pulled herself up and changed the conversation, tell- 
 ing them about a suitor she had once had, a factory 
 hand, and how she had loved him, but her brothers 
 had forced her to marry a widower, an ikon-painter, 
 who, thank God, had died two years after. The 
 downstairs Masha sat down to the table, too, and
 
 144 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 told them with a mysterious air that for the last week 
 some unknown man with a black moustache, in a 
 great-coat with an astrachan collar, had made his 
 appearance every morning in the yard, had stared 
 at the windows of the big house, and had gone on 
 further — to the buildings; the man was all right, 
 nice-looking. . . . 
 
 All this conversation made Anna Akimovna sud- 
 denly long to be married — long intensely, painfully; 
 she felt as though she would give half her life and 
 all her fortune only to know that upstairs there was 
 a man who was closer to her than any one in the 
 world, that he loved her warmly and was missing 
 her; and the thought of such closeness, ecstatic and 
 Inexpressible In words, troubled her soul. And the 
 instinct of youth and health flattered her with lying 
 assurances that the real poetry of life was not over 
 but still to come, and she believed it, and leaning 
 back in her chair (her hair fell down as she did so), 
 she began laughing, and, looking at her, the others 
 laughed, too. And It was a long time before this 
 causeless laughter died down in the dining-room. 
 
 She was Informed that the Stinging Beetle had 
 come. This was a pilgrim woman called Pasha or 
 Splridonovna — a thin little woman of fifty, In a 
 black dress with a white kerchief, with keen eyes, 
 sharp nose, and a sharp chin; she had sly, viperish 
 eyes and she looked as though she could see right
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 145 
 
 through every one. Her lips were shaped like a 
 heart. Her viperishness and hostility to every one 
 had earned her the nickname of the Stinging Beetle. 
 
 Going into the dining-room without looking at 
 any one, she made for the Ikons and chanted in a 
 high voice " Thy Holy Birth," then she sang " The 
 Virgin today gives birth to the Son," then " Christ 
 is born," then she turned round and bent a piercing 
 gaze upon all of them. 
 
 " A happy Christmas," she said, and she kissed 
 Anna Akimovna on the shoulder. " It's all I could 
 do, all I could do to get to you, my kind friends." 
 She kissed x'\untie on the shoulder. " I should have 
 come to you this morning, but I went in to some good 
 people to rest on the way. ' Stay, Spiridonovna, 
 stay,' they said, and I did not notice that evening 
 was coming on." 
 
 As she did not eat meat, they gave her salmon 
 and caviare. She ate looking from under her eye- 
 lids at the company, and drank three glasses of 
 vodka. When she had finished she said a prayer 
 and bowed down to Anna Akimovna's feet. 
 
 They began to play a game of " kings," as they 
 had done the year before, and the year before 
 that, and all the servants in both stories crowded 
 in at the doors to watch the game. Anna Akimovna 
 fancied she caught a glimpse once or twice of Mi- 
 shcnka, with a patronizing smile on his face, among
 
 146 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 the crowd of peasant men and women. The first 
 to be king was Stinging Beetle, and Anna Akimovna 
 as the soldier paid her tribute; and then Auntie was 
 king and Anna Akimovna was peasant, which ex- 
 cited general delight, and Agafyushka was prince, 
 and was quite abashed with pleasure. Another 
 game was got up at the other end of the table — 
 played by the two Mashas, Varvarushka, and the 
 sewing-maid Marfa Ptrovna, who was waked on 
 purpose to play " kings," and whose face looked 
 cross and sleepy. 
 
 While they were playing they talked of men, 
 and of how difficult it was to get a good husband 
 nowadays, and which state was to be preferred — 
 that of an old maid or a widow. 
 
 " You are a handsome, healthy, sturdy lass," said 
 Stinging Beetle to Anna Akimovna. " But I can't 
 make out for whose sake you are holding back." 
 
 " What's to be done if nobody will have me? " 
 
 " Or maybe you have taken a vow to remain 
 a maid?" Stinging Beetle went on, as though she 
 did not hear. " Well, that's a good deed. . . . Re- 
 main one," she repeated, looking intently and ma- 
 liciously at her cards. " All right, my dear, remain 
 one. . . . Yes . . . only maids, these saintly maids, 
 are not all alike." She heaved a sigh and played the 
 king. "Oh, no, my girl, they are not all alike! 
 Some really watch over themselves like nuns, and
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 147 
 
 butter would not melt In their mouths; and If such 
 a one does sin In an hour of weakness, she Is worried 
 to death, poor thing! so It would be a sin to condemn 
 her. While others will go dressed In black and sew 
 their shroud, and yet love rich old men on the sly. 
 Yes, y-es, my canary birds, some hussies will bewitch 
 an old man and rule over him, my doves, rule over 
 him and turn his head; and when they've saved up 
 money and lottery tickets enough, they will bewitch 
 him to his death." 
 
 Varvarushka's only response to these hints was 
 to heave a sigh and look towards the Ikons. There 
 was an expression of Christian meekness on her 
 countenance. 
 
 " I know a maid like that, my bitterest enemy," 
 Stinging Beetle went on, looking round at every one 
 in triumph; "she is always sighing, too, and look- 
 ing at the ikons, the she-devil. When she used to 
 rule In a certain old man's house, if one went to 
 her she would give one a crust, and bid one bow 
 down to the ikons while she would sing: ' In con- 
 ception Thou dost abide a Virgin . . . ! ' On holi- 
 days she will give one a bite, and on working days 
 she will reproach one for It. But nowadays I will 
 make merry over her! I will make as merry as I 
 please, my jewel." 
 
 Varvarushka glanced at the ikons again and 
 crossed herself.
 
 148 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " But no one will have me, Spiridonovna," said 
 Anna Akimovna to change the conversation. 
 " What's to be done ? " 
 
 " It's your own fault. You keep waiting for 
 highly educated gentlemen, but you ought to marry 
 one of your own sort, a merchant." 
 
 " We don't want a merchant," said Auntie, all 
 in a flutter. "Queen of Heaven, preserve usl A 
 gentleman will spend your money, but then he will 
 be kind to you, you poor little fool. But a merchant 
 will be so strict that you won't feel at home in your 
 own house. You'll be wanting to fondle him and 
 he will be counting his money, and when you sit down 
 to meals with him, he'll grudge you every mouthful, 
 though it's your own, the lout! . . . Marry a gen- 
 tleman." 
 
 They all talked at once, loudly interrupting one 
 another, and Auntie tapped on the table with the 
 nutcrackers and said, flushed and angry: 
 
 " We won't have a merchant; we won't have one! 
 If you choose a merchant I shall go to an almshouse." 
 
 "Sh . . . Sh! . . . Hush! " cried Stinging Bee- 
 tle; when all were silent she screwed up one eye and 
 said: " Do you know what, Annushka, my bir- 
 die .. .? There is no need for you to get mar- 
 ried really like every one else. You're rich and 
 free, you are your own mistress; but yet, my child, 
 it doesn't seem the right thing for you to be an old
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 149 
 
 maid. I'll find you, you know, some trumpery and 
 simple-witted man. You'll marry him for appear- 
 ances and then have your fling, bonny lass! You 
 can hand him five thousand or ten maybe, and pack 
 him off where he came from, and you will be mis- 
 tress in your own house — you can love whom you 
 like and no one can say anything to you. And then 
 you can love your highly educated gentleman. 
 You'll have a jolly time ! " Stinging Beetle snapped 
 her fingers and gave a whistle. 
 
 *' It's sinful," said Auntie. 
 
 " Oh, sinful," laughed Stinging Beetle. " She is 
 educated, she understands. To cut some one's 
 throat or bewitch an old man — that's a sin, that's 
 true; but to love some charming young friend Is 
 not a sin at all. And what is there in it, really? 
 There's no sin in it at all! The old pilgrim women 
 have invented all that to make fools of simple folk. 
 I, too, say everywhere it's a sin; I don't know my- 
 self why it's a sin." Stinging Beetle emptied her 
 glass and cleared her throat. " Have your fling, 
 bonny lass," this time evidently addressing herself. 
 " P^or thirty years, wenches, I have thought of noth- 
 ing but sins and been afraid, but now I see I have 
 wasted my time, I've let it slip by like a ninny I Ah, 
 I have been a fool, a fool!" She sighed. "A 
 woman's time is short and every day is precious. 
 You are handsome, Annushka, and very rich; but as
 
 150 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 soon as thirty-five or forty strikes for you your time 
 is up. Don't listen to any one, my girl ; live, have 
 your fling till you are forty, and then you will have 
 time to pray forgiveness — there will be plenty of 
 time to bow down and to sew your shroud, A can- 
 dle to God and a poker to the devil! You can do 
 both at once! Well, how is it to be? Will you 
 make some little man happy? " 
 
 " I will," laughed Anna Akimovna. " I don't 
 care now; I tvould marry a working man." 
 
 "Well, that would do all right! Oh, what a 
 fine fellow you would choose then ! " Stinging 
 Beetle scicwed up her eyes and shook her head. 
 "0 — — oh!" 
 
 *' I te'.( her myself," said Auntie, " it's no good 
 waiting for a gentleman, so she had better marry, 
 iiot a gentleman, but some one humbler; anyway 
 we should have a man in the house to look after 
 things. And there are lots of good men. She 
 might have some one out of the factory. They 
 are all sober, steady men. . . ." 
 
 " I should think so," Stinging Beetle agreed. 
 " They are capital fellows. If you like, Aunt, I 
 will make a match for her with Vassily Lebedin- 
 sky?" 
 
 " Oh, Vasya's legs are so long," said Auntie seri- 
 ously. " He is so lanky. He has no looks." 
 
 There was laughter in the crowd by the door.
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 151 
 
 " Well, Pimenov ? Would you like to marry Pi- 
 menov? " Stinging Beetle asked Anna Akimovna. 
 
 " Very good. Make a match for me with Pi- 
 menov." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " Yes, do ! " Anna Akimovna said resolutely, and 
 she struck her fist on the table. " On my honour, 
 I will marry him." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 Anna Akimovna suddenly felt ashamed that her 
 cheeks were burning and that every one was looking 
 at her; she flung the cards together on the table and 
 ran out of the room. As she ran up the stairs and, 
 reaching the upper story, sat down to the piano 
 in the drawing-room, a murmur of sound reached 
 her from below like the roar of the sea; most likely 
 they were talking of her and of Pimenov, and per- 
 haps Stinging Beetle was taking advantage of her 
 absence to insult Varvarushka and was putting no 
 check on her language. 
 
 The lamp in the big room was the only light 
 burning in the upper story, and it sent a glimmer 
 through the door into the dark drawing-room. It 
 was between nine and ten, not later. Anna Aki- 
 movna played a waltz, then another, then a third; 
 she went on playing without stopping. She looked 
 into the dark corner beyond the piano, smiled, and 
 inwardly called to it, and the idea occurred to her
 
 152 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 that she might drive off to the town to see some one, 
 Lysevitch for instance, and tell him what was pass- 
 ing in her heart. She wanted to talk without ceas- 
 ing, to laugh, to play the fool, but the dark corner 
 was sullenly silent, and all round In all the rooms 
 of the upper story it was still and desolate. 
 
 She was fond of sentimental songs, but she had 
 a harsh, untrained voice, and so she only played 
 the accompaniment and sang hardly audibly, just 
 above her breath. She sang in a whisper one song 
 after another, for the most part about love, separa- 
 tion, and frustrated hopes, and she imagined how 
 she would hold out her hands to him and say with 
 entreaty, with tears, " Pimenov, take this burden 
 from me ! " And then, just as though her sins had 
 been forgiven, there would be joy and comfort In 
 her soul, and perhaps a free, happy life would be- 
 gin. In an anguish of anticipation she leant over the 
 keys, with a passionate longing for the change In her 
 life to come at once without delay, and was terrified 
 at the thought that her old life would go on for some 
 time longer. Then she played again and sang 
 hardly above her breath, and all was stillness about 
 her. There was no noise coming from downstairs 
 now, they must have gone to bed. It had struck 
 ten some time before. A long, solitary, wearisome 
 night was approaching. 
 
 Anna Akimovna walked through all the rooms,
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 153 
 
 lay down for a while on the sofa, and read in her 
 study the letters that had come that evening; there 
 were twelve letters of Christmas greetings and three 
 anonymous letters. In one of them some workman 
 complained in a horrible, almost illegible handwrit- 
 ing that Lenten oil sold in the factory shop was ran- 
 cid and smelt of paraffin; in another, some one re- 
 spectfully informed her that over a purchase of iron 
 Nazaritch had lately taken a bribe of a thousand 
 roubles from some one; in a third she was abused 
 for her inhumanity. 
 
 The excitement of Christmas was passing off, and 
 to keep it up Anna Akimovna sat down at the piano 
 again and softly played one of the new waltzes, then 
 she remembered how cleverly and creditably she had 
 spoken at dinner today. She looked round at the 
 dark windows, at the walls with the pictures, at the 
 faint light that came from the big room, and all at 
 once she began suddenly crying, and she felt vexed 
 that she was so lonely, and that she had no one to 
 talk to and consult. To cheer herself she tried to 
 picture Pimenov in her imagination, but it was un- 
 successful. 
 
 It struck twelve. Mishenka, no longer wearing 
 his swallowtail but in his reefer jacket, came in, 
 and without speaking lighted two candles; then he 
 went out and returned a minute later with a cup of 
 tea on a tray.
 
 154 The Party and Other Stones 
 
 " What are you laughing at? " she asked, noticing 
 a smile on his face. 
 
 " I was downstairs and heard the jokes you were 
 making about Pimenov . . ." he said, and put his 
 hand before his laughing mouth. " If he were sat 
 down to dinner today with Viktor Nikolaevitch and 
 the general, he'd have died of fright." Mishenka's 
 shoulders were shaking with laughter. " He doesn't 
 know even how to hold his fork, I bet." 
 
 The footman's laughter and words, his reefer 
 jacket and moustache, gave Anna Akimovna a feel- 
 ing of uncleanness. She shut her eyes to avoid see- 
 ing him, and, against her own will, imagined Pimenov 
 dining with Lysevitch and Krylin, and his timid, un- 
 intellectual figure seemed to her pitiful and helpless, 
 and she felt repelled by it. And only now, for the 
 first time in the whole day, she realized clearly that 
 all she had said and thought about Pimenov and mar- 
 rying a workman was nonsense, folly, and wilful- 
 ness. To convince herself of the opposite, to over- 
 come her repulsion, she tried to recall what she had 
 said at dinner, but now she could not see anything 
 in it: shame at her own thoughts and actions, and 
 the fear that she had said something improper dur- 
 ing the day, and disgust at her own lack of spirit, 
 overwhelmed her completely. She took up a candle 
 and, as rapidly as if some one were pursuing her, 
 ran downstairs, woke Spiridonovna, and began as-
 
 A Woman's Kingdom 155 
 
 suring her she had been joking. Then she went to 
 her bedroom. Red-haired Masha, who was dozing 
 in an arm-chair near the bed, jumped up and began 
 shaking up the pillows. Her face was exhausted 
 and sleepy, and her magnificent hair had fallen on 
 one side. 
 
 " Tchalikov came again this evening," she said, 
 yawning, "but I did not dare to announce him; 
 he was very drunk. He says he will come again 
 tomorrow." 
 
 " What does he want with me? " said Anna Aki- 
 movna, and she flung her comb on the floor. " I 
 won't see him, I won't." 
 
 She made up her mind she had no one left in 
 life but this Tchalikov, that he would never leave 
 off persecuting her, and would remind her every day 
 how uninteresting and absurd her life was. So all 
 she was fit for was to help the poor. Oh, how 
 stupid it was ! 
 
 She lay down without undressing, and sobbed 
 with shame and depression: what seemed to her 
 most vexatious and stupid of all was that her 
 dreams that day about Pimenov had been right, 
 lofty, honourable, but at the same time she felt that 
 Lysevitch and even Krylin were nearer to her than 
 Pimenov and all the workpeople taken together. 
 She thought that if the long day she had just spent 
 could have been represented in a picture, all that
 
 156 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 had been bad and vulgar — as, for instance, the 
 dinner, the lawyer's talk, the game of " kings " — 
 would have been true, while her dreams and talk 
 about Pimenov would have stood out from the whole 
 as something false, as out of drawing; and she 
 thought, too, that it was too late to dream of happi- 
 ness, that everything was over for her, and It was 
 impossible to go back to the life when she had slept 
 under the same quilt with her mother, or to devise 
 some new special sort of life. 
 
 Red-haired Masha was kneeling before the bed, 
 gazing at her in mournful perplexity; then she, too, 
 began crying, and laid her face against her mis- 
 tress's arm, and without words it was clear why she 
 was so wretched. 
 
 " We are fools ! " said Anna Akimovna, laugh- 
 ing and crying. "We are fools! Oh, what fools 
 we are ! "
 
 A PROBLEM
 
 A PROBLEM 
 
 The strictest measures were taken that the Us- 
 kovs' family secret might not leak out and become 
 generally known. Half of the servants were sent 
 off to the theatre or the circus; the other half were 
 sitting in the kitchen and not allowed to leave it. 
 Orders were given that no one was to be admitted. 
 The wife of the Colonel, her sister, and the gover- 
 ness, though they had been initiated into the secret, 
 kept up a pretence of knowing nothing; they sat in 
 the dining-room and did not show themselves in the 
 drawing-room or the hall. 
 
 Sasha Uskov, the young man of twenty-five who 
 was the cause of all the commotion, had arrived 
 some time before, and by the advice of kind-hearted 
 Ivan Markovitch, his uncle, who was taking his part, 
 he sat meekly in the hall by the door leading to the 
 study, and prepared himself to make an open, can- 
 did explanation. 
 
 The other side of the door, in the study, a family 
 council was being held. The subject under discus- 
 sion was an exceedingly disagreeable and delicate 
 one. Sasha L'skov had cashed at one of the banks 
 
 159
 
 i6o The Party and Other Stories 
 
 a false promissory note, and it had become due ror 
 payment three days before, and now his two paternal 
 uncles and Iv-an Markovitch, the brother of his dead 
 mother, were deciding the question whether they 
 should pay the money and save the family honour, 
 or wash their hands of it and leave the case to go 
 for trial. 
 
 To outsiders who have no personal interest in the 
 matter such questions seem simple; for those who are 
 so unfortunate as to have to decide them in earnest 
 they are extremely difficult. The uncles had been 
 talking for a long time, but the problem seemed no 
 nearer decision. 
 
 " My friends! " said the uncle who was a colonel, 
 and there was a note of exhaustion and bitterness 
 in his voice. " Who says that family honour is a 
 mere convention? I don't say that at all. I am 
 only warning you against a false view; I am point- 
 ing out the possibility of an unpardonable mistake. 
 How can you fail to see it? I am not speaking 
 Chinese; I am speaking Russian! " 
 
 " My dear fellow, we do understand," Ivan 
 Markovitch protested mildly. 
 
 " How can you understand if you say that I don't 
 believe in family honour? I repeat once more: fa- 
 mil-y ho-nour fal-sely un-der-stood is a prejudice! 
 Falsely understood! That's what I say: whatever 
 may be the motives for screening a scoundrel, who-
 
 A Problem i6l 
 
 ever he may be, and helping him to escape punish- 
 ment, it is contrary to law and unworthy of a gentle- 
 man. It's not saving the family honour; it's civic 
 cowardice! Take the army, for instance. . . . The 
 honour of the army is more precious to us than any 
 other honour, yet we don't screen our guilty mem- 
 bers, but condemn them. And does the honour of 
 the army suffer in consequence? Quite the oppo- 
 site! " 
 
 The other paternal uncle, an official in the Treas- 
 ury, a taciturn, dull-witted, and rheumatic man, sat 
 silent, or spoke only of the fact that the Uskovs' 
 name would get into the newspapers if the case went 
 for trial. His opinion was that the case ought to 
 be hushed up from the first and not become public 
 property; but, apart from publicity In the newspa- 
 pers, he advanced no other argument in support of 
 this opinion. 
 
 The maternal uncle, kind-hearted Ivan Marko- 
 vitch, spoke smoothly, softly, and with a tremor in 
 his voice. He began with saying that youth has 
 its rights and its peculiar temptations. Which of 
 us has not been young, and who has not been led 
 astray? To say nothing of ordinary mortals, even 
 great men have not escaped errors and mistakes in 
 their youth. Take, for instance, the biography of 
 great writers. Did not every one of them gamble, 
 drink, and draw down upon himself the anger of
 
 i62 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 right-thinking people in his young days? If Sasha's 
 error bordered upon crime, they must remember that 
 Sasha had received practically no education; he had 
 been expelled from the high school in the fifth class; 
 he had lost his parents in early childhood, and so 
 had been left at the tenderest age without guidance 
 and good, benevolent influences. He was nervous, 
 excitable, had no firm ground under his feet, and, 
 above all, he had been unlucky. Even if he were 
 guilty, anyway he deserved indulgence and the sym- 
 pathy of all compassionate souls. He ought, of 
 course, to be punished, but he was punished as it 
 was by his conscience and the agonies he was en- 
 during now while awaiting the sentence of his rela- 
 tions. The comparison with the army made by the 
 Colonel was delightful, and did credit to his lofty 
 intelligence; his appeal to their feeling of public 
 duty spoke for the chivalry of his soul, but they 
 must not forget that in each individual the citizen 
 is closely linked with the Christian. . . . 
 
 " Shall we be false to civic duty," Ivan Marko- 
 vitch exclaimed passionately, " if instead of punish- 
 ing an erring boy we hold out to him a helping 
 hand?" 
 
 Ivan Markovitch talked further of family honour. 
 He had not the honour to belong to the Uskov fam- 
 ily himself, but he knew their distinguished family 
 went back to the thirteenth century; he did not forget
 
 A Problem 163 
 
 for a minute, either, that his precious, beloved sister 
 had been the wife of one of the representatives of 
 that name. In short, the family was dear to him 
 for many reasons, and he refused to admit the idea 
 that, for the sake of a paltry fifteen hundred roubles, 
 a blot should be cast on the escutcheon that was be- 
 yond all price. If all the motives he had brought 
 forward were not sufficiently convincing, he, Ivan 
 JNIarkovItch, in conclusion, begged his listeners to 
 ask themselves what was meant by crime? Crime 
 is an immoral act founded upon ill-will. But Is the 
 will of man free? Philosophy has not yet given a 
 positive answer to that question. Different views 
 were held by the learned. The latest school of Lom- 
 broso, for instance, denies the freedom of the will, 
 and considers every crime as the product of the 
 purely anatomical peculiarities of the individual. 
 
 " Ivan Markovitch," said the Colonel, in a voice 
 of entreaty, " we arc talking seriously about an Im- 
 portant matter, and you bring In Lombroso, you 
 clever fellow. Think a little, what are you saying 
 all this for? Can you Imagine that all your thun- 
 derlngs and rhetoric will furnish an answer to the 
 question? " 
 
 Sasha Uskov sat at the door and listened. He 
 felt neither terror, shame, nor depression, but only 
 weariness and inward emptiness. It seemed to him 
 that it made absolutely no difference to him whether
 
 164 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 they forgave him or not; he had come here to hear 
 his sentence and to explain himself simply because 
 kind-hearted Ivan Markovitch had begged him to 
 do so. He was not afraid of the future. It made 
 no difference to him where he was: here in the hall, 
 in prison, or in Siberia. 
 
 " If Siberia, then let it be Siberia, damn it all! " 
 
 He was sick of life and found it insufferably hard. 
 He was inextricably involved in debt; he had not 
 a farthing in his pocket; his family had become de- 
 testable to him; he would have to part from his 
 friends and his women sooner or later, as they had 
 begun to be too contemptuous of his sponging on 
 them. The future looked black. 
 
 Sasha was indifferent, and was only disturbed by 
 one circumstance; the other side of the door they 
 were calling him a scoundrel and a criminal. Every 
 minute he was on the point of jumping up, bursting 
 into the study and shouting in answer to the detest- 
 able metallic voice of the Colonel: 
 
 " You are lying! " 
 
 "Criminal" is a dreadful word — that is what 
 murderers, thieves, robbers are; in fact, wicked and 
 morally hopeless people. And Sasha was very far 
 from being all that. ... It was true he owed a 
 great deal and did not pay his debts. But debt is 
 not a crime, and it is unusual for a man not to be
 
 A Problem 165 
 
 in debt. The Colonel and Ivan Markovitch were 
 both in debt. . . . 
 
 " What have I done wrong besides? " Sasha won- 
 dered. 
 
 He had discounted a forged note. But all the 
 young men he knew did the same. Handrikov and 
 Von Burst always forged lOU's from their parents 
 or friends when their allowances were not paid at 
 the regular time, and then when they got their 
 money from home they redeemed them before they 
 became due. Sasha had done the same, but had not 
 redeemed the lOU because he had not got the money 
 which Handrikov had promised to lend him. He 
 was not to blame; it was the fault of circumstances. 
 It was true that the use of another person's signa- 
 ture was considered reprehensible; but, still, it was 
 not a crime but a generally accepted dodge, an ugly 
 formality which injured no one and was quite harm- 
 less, for in forging the Colonel's signature Sasha had 
 had no intention of causing anybody damage or loss. 
 
 " No, it doesn't mean that I am a criminal . . ." 
 thought Sasha. " And it's not in my character to 
 bring myself to commit a crime. I am soft, emo- 
 tional. . . . When I have the money I help the 
 poor. . . ." 
 
 Sasha was musing after this fashion while they 
 went on talking the other side of the door.
 
 i66 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " But, my friends, this is endless," the Colonel 
 declared, getting excited. " Suppose we were to for- 
 give him and pay the money. You know he would 
 not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering 
 money, making debts, going to our tailors and order- 
 ing suits in our names! Can you guarantee that 
 this will be his last prank? As far as I am con- 
 cerned, I have no faith whatever in his reforming! " 
 
 The official of the Treasury muttered something 
 in reply; after him Ivan Markovitch began talking 
 blandly and suavely again. The Colonel moved his 
 chair impatiently and drowned the other's words with 
 his detestable metallic voice. At last the door 
 opened and Ivan Markovitch came out of the study; 
 there were patches of red on his lean shaven face. 
 
 " Come along," he said, taking Sasha by the hand. 
 " Come and speak frankly from your heart. With- 
 out pride, my dear boy, humbly and from your 
 heart." 
 
 Sasha went into the study. The official of the 
 Treasury was sitting down; the Colonel was stand- 
 ing before the table with one hand in his pocket and 
 one knee on a chair. It was smoky and stifling 
 in the study. Sasha did not look at the official or 
 the Colonel; he felt suddenly ashamed and uncom- 
 fortable. He looked uneasily at Ivan Markovitch 
 and muttered: 
 
 " I'll pay it . . . I'll give it back. . . ."
 
 A Problem 167 
 
 " What did you expect when you discounted the 
 lOU? " he heard a metallic voice. 
 
 " I . . . Handrikov promised to lend me the 
 money before now." 
 
 Sasha could say no more. He went out of the 
 study and sat down again on the chair near the door. 
 He would have been glad to go away altogether at 
 once, but he was choking with hatred and he awfully 
 wanted to remain, to tear the Colonel to pieces, to 
 say something rude to him. He sat trying to think 
 of something violent and effective to say to his hated 
 uncle, and at that moment a woman's figure, shrouded 
 in the twilight, appeared at the drawing-room door. 
 It was the Colonel's wife. She beckoned Sasha to 
 her, and, wringing her hands, said, weeping: 
 
 " Alexandre, I know you don't like me, but . . . 
 listen to me; listen, I beg you. . . . But, my dear, 
 how can this have happened? Why, it's awful, aw- 
 ful! For goodness' sake, beg them, defend your- 
 self, entreat them." 
 
 Sasha looked at her quivering shoulders, at the 
 big tears that were rolling down her cheeks, heard 
 behind his back the hollow, nervous voices of wor- 
 ried and exhausted people, and shrugged his shoul- 
 ders. He had not in the least expected that his 
 aristocratic relations would raise such a tempest over 
 a paltry fifteen hundred roubles! He could not un- 
 derstand her tears nor the quiver of their voices.
 
 i68 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 An hour later he heard that the Colonel was get- 
 ting the best of it; the uncles were finally inclining 
 to let the case go for trial. 
 
 " The matter's settled," said the Colonel, sigh- 
 ing. " Enough." 
 
 After this decision all the uncles, even the em- 
 phatic Colonel, became noticeably depressed. A si- 
 lence followed. 
 
 " Merciful Heavens! " sighed Ivan Marlcovitch. 
 " My poor sister! " 
 
 And he began saying in a subdued voice that most 
 likely his sister, Sasha's mother, was present unseen 
 in the study at that moment. He felt in his soul 
 how the unhappy, saintly woman was weeping, griev- 
 ing, and begging for her boy. For the sake of her 
 peace beyond the grave, they ought to spare Sasha. 
 
 The sound of a muffled sob was heard. Ivan 
 Markovitch was weeping and muttering something 
 which it was impossible to catch through the door. 
 The Colonel got up and paced from corner to corner. 
 The long conversation began over again. 
 
 But then the clock in the drawing-room struck 
 two. The family council was over. To avoid see- 
 ing the person who had moved him to such wrath, 
 the Colonel went from the study, not into the hall, 
 but into the vestibule. . . . Ivan Markovitch came 
 out into the hall. . . . He was agitated and rubbing 
 his hands joyfully. His tear-stained eyes looked
 
 A Problem 169 
 
 good-humoured and his mouth was twisted into a 
 smile. 
 
 "Capital," he said to Sasha. "Thank God! 
 You can go home, my dear, and sleep tranquilly. 
 We have decided to pay the sum, but on condition 
 that you repent and come with me tomorrow into 
 the country and set to work." 
 
 A minute later Ivan Markovitch and Sasha in 
 their great-coats and caps were going down the 
 stairs. The uncle was muttering something edify- 
 ing. Sasha did not listen, but felt as though some 
 uneasy weight were gradually slipping off his shoul- 
 ders. They had forgiven him; he was free! A 
 gust of joy sprang up within him and sent a sweet 
 chill to his heart. He longed to breathe, to move 
 swiftly, to live! Glancing at the street lamps and 
 the black sky, he remembered that Von Burst was 
 celebrating his name-day that evening at the " Bear," 
 and again a rush of joy flooded his scul. . . . 
 
 " 1 am going! " he decided. 
 
 But then he remembered he had not a farthing, 
 that the companions he was going to would despise 
 him at once for his empty pockets. He must get 
 hold of some money, come what may! 
 
 " Uncle, lend me a hundred roubles," he said to 
 Ivan Markovitch. 
 
 His uncle, surprised, looked into his face and 
 backed against a lamp-post.
 
 lyo The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " Give It to me," said Sasha, shifting impatiently 
 from one foot to the other and beginning to pant. 
 " Uncle, 1 entreat you, give me a hundred roubles." 
 
 His face worked; he trembled, and seemed on the 
 point of attacking his uncle. . . . 
 
 "Won't you?" he kept asking, seeing that his 
 uncle was still amazed and did not understand. 
 " Listen. If you don't, I'll give myself up tomor- 
 row ! I won't let you pay the lOUl I'll present 
 another false note tomorrow! " 
 
 Petrified, muttering something incoherent in his 
 horror, Ivan Markovitch took a hundred-rouble note 
 out of his pocket-book and gave it to Sasha. The 
 young man took it and walked rapidly away from 
 him. . . . 
 
 Taking a sledge, Sasha grew calmer, and felt a 
 rush of joy within him again. The " rights of 
 youth " of which kind-hearted Ivan Markovitch had 
 spoken at the family council woke up and asserted 
 themselves. Sasha pictured the drinking-party be- 
 fore him, and, among the bottles, the women, and his 
 friends, the thought flashed through his mind: 
 
 " Now I see that I am a criminal; yes, I am a 
 criminal."
 
 THE KISS
 
 THE KISS 
 
 At eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth 
 
 of May all the six batteries of the N Reserve 
 
 Artillery Brigade halted for the night in the village 
 of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the 
 general commotion was at its height, while some 
 officers were busily occupied around the guns, while 
 others, gathered together in the square near the 
 church enclosure, were listening to the quartermas- 
 ters, a man in civilian dress, riding a strange horse, 
 came into sight round the church. The little dun- 
 coloured horse with a good neck and a short tail 
 came, moving not straight forward, but as it were 
 sideways, with a sort of dance step, as though it 
 were being lashed about the legs. When he reached 
 the officers the man on the horse took off his hat and 
 said: 
 
 " His Excellency Lieutenant-General von Rabbek 
 invites the gentlemen to drink tea with him this min- 
 ute. . . ." 
 
 The horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; 
 the messenger raised his hat once more, and in an 
 instant disappeared with his strange horse behind 
 the church. 
 
 173
 
 174 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " What the devil does it mean? " grumbled some 
 of the officers, dispersing to their quarters. " One 
 is sleepy, and here this Von Rabbek. with his tea I 
 We know what tea means." 
 
 The officers of all the six batteries remembered 
 vividly an incident of the previous year, when dur- 
 ing manoeuvres they, together with the officers of a 
 Cossack regiment, were in the same way invited to 
 tea by a count who had an estate in the neighbour- 
 hood and was a retired army officer: the hospitable 
 and genial count made much of them, fed them, and 
 gave them drink, refused to let them go to their 
 quarters in the village and made them stay the night. 
 All that, of course, was very nice — nothing better 
 could be desired, but the worst of it was, the old 
 army officer was so carried away by the pleasure of 
 the young men's company that till sunrise he was tell- 
 ing the officers anecdotes of his glorious past, tak- 
 ing them over the house, showing them expensive 
 pictures, old engravings, rare guns, reading them 
 autograph letters from great people, while the weary 
 and exhausted officers looked and listened, longing 
 for their beds and yawning in their sleeves; when 
 at last their host let them go, it was too late for 
 sleep. 
 
 Might not this Von Rabbek be just such another? 
 Whether he were or not, there was no help for it. 
 The officers changed their uniforms, brushed them-
 
 The Kiss 175 
 
 selves, and went all together In search of the gen- 
 tleman's house. In the square by the church they 
 were told they could get to His Excellency's by the 
 lower path — going down behind the church to the 
 river, going along the bank to the garden, and there 
 an avenue would taken them to the house; or by the 
 upper way — straight from the church by the road 
 which, half a mile from the village, led right up to 
 His Excellency's granaries. The officers decided to 
 go by the upper way. 
 
 " What Von Rabbek Is it? " they wondered on the 
 way. " Surely not the one who was In command 
 of the N cavalry division at Plevna? " 
 
 " No, that was not Von Rabbek, but simply 
 Rabbe and no ' von.' " 
 
 *' What lovely weather! " 
 
 At the first of the granaries the road divided In 
 two: one branch went straight on and vanished In 
 the evening darkness, the other led to the owner's 
 house on the right. The officers turned to the right 
 and began to speak more softly. . . . On both sides 
 of the road stretched stone granaries with red roofs, 
 heavy and sullcn-looking, very much like barracks 
 of a district town. Ahead of them gleamed the 
 windows of the manor-house. 
 
 "A good omen, gentlemen," said one of the offi- 
 cers. " Our setter is the foremost of all; no doubt 
 he scents game ahead of us! . . ."
 
 176 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Lieutenant Lobytko, who was walking in front, 
 a tall and stalwart fellow, though entirely without 
 moustache (he was over five-and-twenty, yet for 
 some reason there was no sign of hair on his round, 
 well-fed face), renowned in the brigade for his pe- 
 culiar faculty for divining the presence of women at 
 a distance, turned round and said: 
 
 " Yes, there must be women here; I feel that by 
 instinct." 
 
 On the threshold the officers were met by Von 
 Rabbek himself, a comely-looking man of sixty in 
 civilian dress. Shaking hands with his guests, he 
 said that he was very glad and happy to see them, 
 but begged them earnestly for God's sake to excuse 
 him for not asking them to stay the night; two sisters 
 with their children, some brothers, and some neigh- 
 bours, had come on a visit to him, so that he had not 
 one spare room left. 
 
 The General shook hands with every one, made 
 his apologies, and smiled, but it was evident by his 
 face that he was by no means so delighted as their 
 last year's count, and that he had invited the officers 
 simply because, in his opinion, it was a social obliga- 
 tion to do so. And the officers themselves, as they 
 walked up the softly carpeted stairs, as they lis- 
 tened to him, felt that they had been invited to this 
 house simply because it would have been awkward 
 not to invite them; and at the sight of the footmen.
 
 The Kiss 177 
 
 who hastened to light the lamps in the entrance be- 
 low and in the anteroom above, they began to feel 
 as though they had brought uneasiness and discom- 
 fort into the house with them. In a house in which 
 two sisters and their children, brothers, and neigh- 
 bours were gathered together, probably on account 
 of some family festivity, or event, how could the 
 presence of nineteen unknown officers possibly be 
 welcome? 
 
 At the entrance to the drawing-room the officers 
 were met by a tall, graceful old lady with black 
 eyebrows and a long face, very much like the Em- 
 press Eugenie. Smiling graciously and majestically, 
 she said she was glad and happy to see her guests, 
 and apologized that her husband and she were on 
 this occasion unable to invite messieurs les officiers 
 to stay the night. From her beautiful majestic 
 smile, which instantly vanished from her face every 
 time she turned away from her guests, it was evi- 
 dent that she had seen numbers of officers in her day, 
 that she was in no humour for them now, and if she 
 invited them to her house and apologized for not 
 doing more, it was only because her breeding and 
 position in society required it of her. 
 
 When the officers went into the big dining-room, 
 there were about a dozen people, men and ladies, 
 young and old, sitting at tea at the end of a long 
 table. A group of men was dimly visible behind
 
 lyS The Party and Other Stories 
 
 their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and 
 in the midst of them stood a lanky young man with 
 red whiskers, talking loudly, with a lisp, in English. 
 Through a door beyond the group could be seen a 
 light room with pale blue furniture. 
 
 " Gentlemen, there are so many of you that it is 
 Impossible to introduce you all! " said the General 
 in a loud voice, trying to sound very cheerful. 
 " Make each other's acquaintance, gentlemen, with- 
 out any ceremony! " 
 
 The officers — some with very serious and even 
 stern faces, others with forced smiles, and all feel- 
 ing extremely awkward — somehow made their 
 bows and sat down to tea. 
 
 The most ill at ease of them all was Ryabovitch — 
 a little officer in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, 
 and whiskers like a lynx's. While some of his 
 comrades assumed a serious expression, while others 
 wore forced smiles, his face, his lynx-like whiskers, 
 and spectacles seemed to say: " I am the shyest, 
 most modest, and most undistinguished officer in the 
 whole brigade! " At first, on going into the room 
 and sitting down to the table, he could not fix his 
 attention on any one face or object. The faces, the 
 dresses, the cut-glass decanters of brandy, the steam 
 from the glasses, the moulded cornices — all blended 
 in one general impression that inspired in Ryabo- 
 vitch alarm and a desire to hide his head. Like a
 
 The Kiss 179 
 
 lecturer making his first appearance before the pub- 
 lic, he saw everything that was before his eyes, but 
 apparently only had a dim understanding of it 
 (among physiologists this condition, when the sub- 
 ject sees but does not understand, is called psychical 
 blindness). After a little while, growing accus- 
 tomed to his surroundings, Ryabovitch saw clearly 
 and began to observe. As a shy man, unused to so- 
 ciety, what struck him first was that in which he had 
 always been deficient — namely, the extraordinary 
 boldness of his new acquaintances. Von Rabbek, 
 his wife, two elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac 
 dress, and the young man with the red whiskers, 
 who was, it appeared, a younger son of Von Rab- 
 bek, very cleverly, as though they had rehearsed it 
 beforehand, took seats between the ofScers, and at 
 once got up a heated discussion in which the visitors 
 could not help taking part. The lilac young lady 
 hotly asserted that the artillery had a much better 
 time than the cavalry and the infantry, while Von 
 Rabbek and the elderly ladies maintained the oppo- 
 site. A brisk interchange of talk followed. Ryabo- 
 vitch watched the lilac young lady who argued so 
 hotly about what was unfamiliar and utterly unin- 
 teresting to her, and watched artificial smiles come 
 and go on her face. 
 
 Von Rabbek and his family skilfully drew the ofli- 
 cers into the discussion, and meanwhile kept a sharp
 
 i8o The Party and Other Stories 
 
 lookout over their glasses and mouths, to see whether 
 all of them were drinking, whether all had enough 
 sugar, why some one was not eating cakes or not 
 drinking brandy. And the longer Ryabovitch 
 watched and listened, the more he was attracted by 
 this insincere but splendidly disciplined family. 
 
 After tea the officers went into the drawing-room. 
 Lieutenant Lobytko's instinct had not deceived him. 
 There were a great number of girls and young mar- 
 ried ladies. The " setter " lieutenant was soon 
 standing by a very young, fair girl in a black dress, 
 and, bending down to her jauntily, as though leaning 
 on an unseen sword, smiled and shrugged his shoul- 
 ders coquettishly. He probably talked very inter- 
 esting nonsense, for the fair girl looked at his 
 well-fed face condescendingly and asked indiffer- 
 ently, "Really?" And from that uninterested 
 " Really? " the setter, had he been intelligent, might 
 have concluded that she would never call him to 
 heel. 
 
 The piano struck up; the melancholy strains of 
 a valse floated out of the wide open windows, and 
 every one, for some reason, remembered that it was 
 spring, a May evening. Every one was conscious 
 of the fragrance of roses; of lilac, and of the young 
 leaves of the poplar. Ryabovitch, in whom the 
 brandy he had drunk made itself felt, under the in- 
 fluence of the music stole a glance towards the win-
 
 The Kiss 181 
 
 dow, smiled, and began watching the movements of 
 the women, and it seemed to him that the smell of 
 roses, of poplars, and lilac came not from the gar- 
 den, but from the ladies' faces and dresses. 
 
 Von Rabbek's son invited a scragg)^-lookIng young 
 lady to dance, and waltzed round the room twice 
 with her. Lobytko, gliding over the parquet floor, 
 flew up to the lilac young lady and whirled her away. 
 Dancing began. . . . Ryabovitch stood near the 
 door among those who were not dancing and looked 
 on. He had never once danced in his whole life, 
 and he had never once in his life put his arm round 
 the waist of a respectable woman. He was highly 
 delighted that a man should in the sight of all take 
 a girl he did not know round the waist and offer her 
 his shoulder to put her hand on, but he could not 
 imagine himself in the position of such a man. 
 There were times when he envied the boldness and 
 swagger of his companions and was Inwardly 
 wretched; the consciousness that he was timid, that 
 he was round-shouldered and uninteresting, that 
 he had a long waist and lynx-like whiskers, had 
 deeply mortified him, but with years he had grown 
 used to this feeling, and now, looking at his com- 
 rades dancing or loudly talking, he no longer envied 
 them, but only felt touched and mournful. 
 
 When the quadrille began, young Von Rabbek 
 came up to those who were not dancing and invited
 
 i82 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 two officers to have a game at billiards. The offi- 
 cers accepted and went with him out of the drawing- 
 room. Ryabovitch, having nothing to do and wish- 
 ing to take part in the general movement, slouched 
 after them. From the big drawing-room they went 
 into the little drawing-room, then into a narrow cor- 
 ridor with a glass roof, and thence into a room in 
 which on their entrance three sleepy-looking footmen 
 jumped up quickly from the sofa. At last, after 
 passing through a long succession of rooms, young 
 Von Rabbek and the officers came into a small room 
 where there was a billiard-table. They began to 
 play. 
 
 Ryabovitch, who had never played any game but 
 cards, stood near the billiard-table and looked in- 
 differently at the players, while they in unbuttoned 
 coats, with cues in their hands, stepped about, made 
 puns, and kept shouting out unintelligible words. 
 
 The players took no notice of him, and only now 
 and then one of them, shoving him with his elbow 
 or accidentally touching him with the end of his cue, 
 would turn round and say " Pardon! " Before the 
 first game was over he was weary of it, and began 
 to feel he was not wanted and in the way. . . . He 
 felt disposed to return to the drawing-room, and he 
 went out. 
 
 On his way back he met with a little adventure. 
 When he had gone half-way he noticed he had taken
 
 The Kiss 183 
 
 a wrong turning. He distinctly remembered that 
 he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his way, 
 but he had passed five or six rooms, and those sleepy 
 figures seemed to have vanished into the earth. No- 
 ticing his mistake, he walked back a little way and 
 turned to the right; he found himself in a little dark 
 room which he had not seen on his way to the bil- 
 liard-room. After standing there a little while, he 
 resolutely opened the first door that met his eyes and 
 walked into an absolutely dark room. Straight in 
 front could be seen the crack in the doorway through 
 which there was a gleam of vivid light; from the 
 other side of the door came the muffled sound of a 
 melancholy mazurka. Here, too, as in the draw- 
 ing-room, the windows were wide open and there was 
 a smell of poplars, lilac and roses. . . . 
 
 Ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. ... At that 
 moment, to his surprise, he heard hurried footsteps 
 and the rustling of a dress, a breathless feminine 
 voice whispered "At last!" And two soft, fra- 
 grant, unmistakably feminine arms were clasped 
 about his neck; a warm cheek was pressed to his 
 cheek, and simultaneously there was the sound of a 
 kiss. But at once the bestower of the kiss uttered 
 a faint shriek and skipped back from him, as It 
 seemed to Ryabovitch, with aversion. He, too, al- 
 most shrieked and rushed towards the gleam of liglit 
 at the door. . . .
 
 184 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 When he went back into the drawing-room his 
 heart was beating and his hands were trembhng so 
 noticeably that he made haste to hide them behind 
 his back. At first he was tormented by shame and 
 dread that the whole drawing-room knew that he 
 had just been kissed and embraced by a woman. 
 He shrank into himself and looked uneasily about 
 him, but as he became convinced that people were 
 dancing and talking as calmly as ever, he gave him- 
 self up entirely to the new sensation which he had 
 never experienced before In his life. Something 
 strange was happening to him. . . . His neck, round 
 which soft, fragrant arms had so lately been clasped, 
 seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on his left 
 cheek near his moustache where the unknown had 
 kissed him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation 
 as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed 
 the place the more distinct was the chilly sensation; 
 all over, from head to foot, he was full of a strange 
 new feeling which grew stronger and stronger. . . . 
 He wanted to dance, to talk, to run Into the garden, 
 to laugh aloud. . . . He quite forgot that he was 
 round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had 
 lynx-like whiskers and an " undistinguished appear- 
 ance " (that was how his appearance had been de- 
 scribed by some ladies whose conversation he had 
 accidentally overheard) . When Von Rabbek's wife 
 happened to pass by him, he gave her such a broad
 
 ' The Kiss 185 
 
 and friendly smile that she stood still and looked 
 at him inquiringly. 
 
 "I like your house immensely! " he said, setting 
 his spectacles straight. 
 
 The General's wife smiled and said that the house 
 had belonged to her father; then she asked whether 
 his parents were living, whether he had long been 
 in the army, why he was so thin, and so on. . . . 
 After receiving answers to her questions, she went 
 on, and after his conversation with her his smiles 
 were more friendly than ever, and he thought he was 
 surrounded by splendid people. . . . 
 
 At supper Ryabovitch ate mechanically every- 
 thing offered him, drank, and without listening to 
 anything, tried to understand what had just hap- 
 pened to him. . . . The adventure was of a mys- 
 terious and romantic character, but it was not diffi- 
 cult to explain it. No doubt some girl or young 
 married lady had arranged a tryst with some one in 
 the dark room; had waited a long time, and being 
 nervous and excited had taken Ryabovitch for her 
 hero; this was the more probable as Ryabovitch had 
 stood still hesitating in the dark room, so that he, 
 too, had seemed like a person expecting something. 
 . . . This was how Ryabovitch explained to himself 
 the kiss he had received. 
 
 " And who is she? " he wondered, looking round 
 at the women's faces. " She must be young, for
 
 i86 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 elderly ladies don't give rendezvous. That she was 
 a lady, one could tell by the rustic of her dress, her 
 perfume, her voice. ..." ^ 
 
 His eyes rested on the lilac young lady, and he 
 thought her very attractive; she had beautiful shoul- 
 ders and arms, a clever face, and a delightful voice. 
 Ryabovitch, looking at her, hoped that she and no 
 one else was his unknown. . . . But she laughed 
 somehow artificially and wrinkled up her long nose, 
 which seemed to him to make her look old. Then 
 he turned his eyes upon the fair girl in a black dress. 
 She was younger, simpler, and more genuine, had 
 a charming brow, and drank very daintily out of her 
 wineglass. Ryabovitch now hoped that it was she. 
 But soon he began to think her face flat, and fixed 
 his eyes upon the one next her. 
 
 " It's difficult to guess," he thought, musing. " If 
 one takes the shoulders and arms of the lilac one 
 only, adds the brow of the fair one and the eyes of 
 the one on the left of Lobytko, then . . ." 
 
 He made a combination of these things in his mind 
 and so formed the image of the girl who had kissed 
 him, the image that he wanted her to have, but could 
 not find at the table. . . . 
 
 After supper, replete and exhilarated, the officers 
 began to take leave and say thank you. Von Rab- 
 bek and his wife began again apologizing that they 
 could not ask them to stay the night.
 
 The Kiss 187 
 
 *' Very, very glad to have met you, gentlemen," 
 said Von Rabbek, and this time sincerely (probably 
 because people are far more sincere and good- 
 humoured at speeding their parting guests than on 
 meeting them). "Delighted. I hope you will 
 come on your way back ! Don't stand on ceremony ! 
 Where are you going? Do you want to go by the 
 upper way? No, go across the garden; it's nearer 
 here by the lower way." 
 
 The officers went out into the garden. After 
 the bright light and the noise the garden seemed 
 very dark and quiet. They walked in silence all 
 the way to the gate. They were a little drunk, 
 pleased, and in good spirits, but the darkness and 
 silence made them thoughtful for a minute. Prob- 
 ably the same idea occurred to each one of them as 
 to Ryabovitch: would there ever come a time for 
 them when, like Von Rabbek, they would have a 
 large house, a family, a garden — when they, too, 
 would be able to welcome people, even though in- 
 sincerely, feed them, make them drunk and con- 
 tented? 
 
 Going out of the garden gate, they all began talk- 
 ing at once and laughing loudly about nothing. 
 They were walking now along the little path that 
 led down to the river, and then ran along the water's 
 edge, winding round the bushes on the bank, the 
 pools, and the willows that overhung the water.
 
 l88 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 The bank and the path were scarcely visible, and 
 the other bank was entirely plunged in darkness. 
 Stars were reflected here and there on the dark 
 water; they quivered and were broken up on the sur- 
 face — and from that alone it could be seen that the 
 river was flowing rapidly. It was still. Drowsy 
 curlews cried plaintively on the further bank, and 
 in one of the bushes on the nearest side a nightingale 
 was trilling loudly, taking no notice of the crowd of 
 ofl'icers. The officers stood round the bush, touched 
 it, but the nightingale went on singing. 
 
 "What a fellow!" they exclaimed approvingly. 
 " We stand beside him and he takes not a bit of no- 
 tice! What a rascal! " 
 
 At the end of the way the path went uphill, and, 
 sk'^rting the church enclosure, turned into the road. 
 Here the officers, tired v/dh walking uphill, sat down 
 and lighted their cigarettes. On the other side of 
 the river a murky red fire came into sight, and hav- 
 ing nothing better to do, th?y spent a long time in 
 discussing whether it was a caMip fire or a light in a 
 window, or something else. . . . Ryabovitch, too, 
 looked at the light, and he fancied that the light 
 looked and winked at him, as though it knew about 
 the kiss. 
 
 On reaching his quarters, Ryabovitch undressed as 
 quickly as possible and got into bed. Lobytko and
 
 The Kiss 189 
 
 Lieutenant Merzlyakov — a peaceable, silent fel- 
 low, who was considered in his own circle a highly 
 educated officer, and was always, whenever it was 
 possible, reading the " Vyestnik Evropi," which he 
 carried about with him everywhere — were quar- 
 tered in the same hut with Ryabovitch. Lobytko 
 undressed, walked up and down the room for a long 
 while with the air of a man who has not been satis- 
 fied, and sent his orderly for beer. Merzlyakov 
 got into bed, put a candle by his pillow and plunged 
 into reading the " Vyestnik Evropi." 
 
 " Who was she? " Ryabovitch wondered, looking 
 at the smoky ceiling. 
 
 His neck still felt as though he }iad been anointed 
 with oil, and there was still the chilly sensation near 
 his mouth as though from peppermint drops. The 
 shoulders and arms of the young lady in lilac, the 
 brow and the truthful eyes of the fair girl in black, 
 waists, dresses, and brooches, floated through his 
 imagination. He tried to fix his attention on these 
 images, but they danced about, broke up and flick- 
 ered. When these images vanished altogether from 
 the broad dark background which every man sees 
 when he closes his eyes, he began to hear hurried 
 footsteps, the rustle of skirts, the sound of a kiss and 
 — an intense groundless joy took possession of him. 
 . . . Abandoning himself to this joy, he heard the
 
 190 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 orderly return and announce that there was no beer. 
 Lobytko was terribly indignant, and began pacing up 
 and down again. 
 
 "Well, isn't he an idiot?" he kept saying, stop- 
 ping first before Ryabovitch and then before Merz- 
 lyakov. " What a fool and a dummy a man must 
 be not to get hold of any beer! Eh? Isn't he a 
 scoundrel? " 
 
 " Of course you can't get beer here," said Merz- 
 lyakov, not removing his eyes from the " Vyestnik 
 Evropi." 
 
 " Oh ! Is that your opinion ? " Lobytko persisted. 
 " Ljord have mercy upon us, if you dropped me on 
 the moon I'd find you beer and women directly I 
 I'll go and find some at once. . . . You may call me 
 an impostor if I don't! " 
 
 He spent a long time in dressing and pulling on 
 his high boots, then finished smoking his cigarette in 
 silence and went out. 
 
 " Rabbek, Grabbek, Labbek," he muttered, stop- 
 ping in the outer room. " I don't care to go alone, 
 damn it all! Ryabovitch, wouldn't you like to go 
 for a walk? Eh?" 
 
 Receiving no answer, he returned, slowly un- 
 dressed and got into bed. Merzlyakov sighed, put 
 the " Vyestnik Evropi " away, and put out the light. 
 
 " H'm! . . ." muttered Lobytko, lighting a ciga- 
 rette in the dark.
 
 The Kiss 191 
 
 Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, 
 curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together 
 the floating images in his mind and to combine them 
 into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon 
 fell asleep, and his last thought was that some one 
 had caressed him and made him happy — that some- 
 thing extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delight- 
 ful, had come into his life. The thought did not 
 leave him even in his sleep. 
 
 When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck 
 and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, 
 but joy flooded his heart just as the day before. He 
 looked enthusiastically at the window-frames, gilded 
 by the light of the rising sun, and listened to the 
 movement of the passers-by in the street. People 
 were talking loudly close to the window. Lebedet- 
 sky, the commander of Ryabovitch's battery, who 
 had only just overtaken the brigade, was talking to 
 his sergeant at the top of his voice, being always 
 accustomed to shout. 
 
 " What else? " shouted the commander. 
 
 " When they were shoeing yesterday, your high 
 nobility, they drove a nail into Pigeon's hoof. The 
 vet. put on clay and vinegar; they are leading him 
 apart now. And also, your honour, Artemyev got 
 drunk yesterday, and the lieutenant ordered him to 
 be put in the limber of a spare gun-carriage." 
 
 The sergeant reported that Karpov had forgotten
 
 192 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 the new cords for the trumpets and the rings for the 
 tents, and that their honours, the officers, had spent 
 the previous evening visiting General Von Rabbek. 
 In the middle of this conversation the red-bearded 
 face of Lebedetslvy appeared in the window. He 
 screwed up his short-sighted eyes, looking at the 
 sleepy faces of the officers, and said good-morning to 
 them. 
 
 " Is everything all right? " he asked. 
 
 *' One of the horses has a sore neck from the new 
 collar," answered Lobytko, yawning. 
 
 The commander sighed, thought a moment, and 
 said in a loud voice: 
 
 " I am thinking of going to see Alexandra Yev- 
 grafovna. I must call on her. Well, good-bye. I 
 shall catch you up in the evening." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later the brigade set off on 
 its way. When it was moving along the road by the 
 granaries, Ryabovitch looked at the house on the 
 right. The blinds were down in all the windows. 
 Evidently the household was still asleep. The one 
 who had kissed Ryabovitch the day before was 
 asleep, too. He tried '■o imagine her asleep. The 
 wide-open windows uf the bedroom, the green 
 branches peeping in, the morning freshness, the scent 
 of the poplars, lilac, and roses, the bed, a chair, and 
 on it the skirts that had rustled the day before, the 
 little slippers, the little watch on the table — all this
 
 The Kiss 193 
 
 he pictured to himself clearly and distinctly, but the 
 features of the face, the sweet sleepy smile, just what 
 was characteristic and important, slipped through 
 his imagination like quiclvsilver through the fingers. 
 When he had ridden on half a mile, he looked back: 
 the yellow church, the house, and the river, were all 
 bathed in light; the river with its bright green banks, 
 with the blue sky reflected in it and glints of silver 
 in the sunshine here and there, was very beautiful. 
 Ryabovitch gazed for the last time at Myestetchki, 
 and he felt as sad as though he were parting with 
 something very near and dear to him. 
 
 And before him on the road lay nothing but long 
 familiar, uninteresting pictures. . . . To right and 
 to left, fields of young rye and buckwheat with rooks 
 hopping about in them. If one looked ahead, one 
 saw dust and the backs of men's heads; if one looked 
 back, one saw the same dust and faces. . . . Fore- 
 most of all marched four men with sabres — this 
 was the vanguard. Next, behind, the crowd of 
 singers, and behind them the trumpeters on horse- 
 back. The vanguard and the chorus of singers, like 
 torch-bearers in a funeral procession, often forgot 
 to keep the regulation distance and pushed a long 
 way ahead. . . . Ryabovitch was with the first can- 
 non of the fifth battery. He could see all the four 
 batteries moving in front of him. For any one not 
 a military man this long tedious procession of a
 
 194 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 moving brigade seems an intricate and unintelligible 
 muddle; one cannot understand why there are so 
 many people round one cannon, and why it is drawn 
 by so many horses in such a strange network of har- 
 ness, as though it really were so terrible and heavy. 
 To Ryabovitch it was all perfectly comprehensible 
 and therefore uninteresting. He had known for 
 ever so long why at the head of each battery there 
 rode a stalwart bombardier, and why he was called 
 a bombardier; immediately behind this bombardier 
 could be seen the horsemen of the first and then of 
 the middle units. Ryabovitch knew that the horses 
 on which they rode, those on the left, were called one 
 name, while those on the right were called another 
 — it was extremely uninteresting. Behind the 
 horsemen came two shaft-horses. On one of them 
 sat a rider with the dust of yesterday on his back and 
 a clumsy and funny-looking piece of wood on his leg. 
 Ryabovitch knew the object of this piece of wood, 
 and did not think it funny. All the riders waved 
 their whips mechanically and shouted from time to 
 time. The cannon itself was ugly. On the fore 
 part lay sacks of oats covered with canvas, and the 
 cannon itself was hung all over with kettles, soldiers' 
 knapsacks, bags, and looked like some small harm- 
 less animal surrounded for some unknown reason by 
 men and horses. To the leeward of it marched six 
 men, the gunners, swinging their arms. After the
 
 The Kiss 195 
 
 cannon there came again more bombardiers, riders, 
 shaft-horses, and behind them another cannon, as 
 ugly and unimpressive as the first. After the second 
 followed a third, a fourth; near the fourth an officer, 
 and so on. There were six batteries In all In the 
 brigade, and four cannons in each battery. The 
 procession covered half a mile; it ended in a string 
 of wagons near which an extremely attractive 
 creature — the ass, Magar, brought by a battery 
 commander from Turkey — paced pensively with 
 his long-eared head drooping. 
 
 Ryabovltch looked indifferently before and behind, 
 at the backs of heads and at faces; at any other 
 time he would have been half asleep, but now he 
 was entirely absorbed In his new agreeable thoughts. 
 At first when the brigade was setting off on the 
 march he tried to persuade himself that the incident 
 of the kiss could only be interesting as a mysterious 
 little adventure, that it was In reality trivial, and to 
 think of it seriously, to say the least of it, was stupid; 
 but now he bade farewell to logic and gave himself 
 up to dreams. ... At one moment he imagined 
 himself in Von Rabbek's drawing-room beside a girl 
 who was like the young lady in lilac and the fair 
 girl in black; then he would close his eyes and see 
 himself with another, entirely unknown girl, whose 
 features were very vague. In his Imagination he 
 talked, caressed her, leaned on her shoulder, pic-
 
 196 The Party and Other Stones 
 
 tured war, separation, then meeting again, supper 
 with his wife, children. . . . 
 
 "Brakes on!" the word of command rang out 
 every time they went downhill. 
 
 He, too, shouted " Brakes on! " and was afraid 
 this shout would disturb his reverie and bring him 
 back to reality. . . . 
 
 As they passed by some landowner's estate Ryabo- 
 vitch looked over the fence into the garden. A long 
 avenue, straight as a ruler, strewn with yellow sand 
 and bordered with young birch-trees, met his eyes. 
 . . . With the eagerness of a man given up to 
 dreaming, he pictured to himself little feminine feet 
 tripping along yellow sand, and quite unexpectedly 
 had a clear vision in his imagination of the girl who 
 had kissed him and whom he had succeeded in pic- 
 turing to himself the evening before at supper. 
 This image remained in his brain and did not desert 
 him again. 
 
 At midday there was a shout in the rear near the 
 string of wagons: 
 
 " Easy ! Eyes to the left ! Officers ! " 
 
 The general of the brigade drove by in a carriage 
 with a pair of white horses. He stopped near the 
 second battery, and shouted something which no one 
 understood. Several officers, among them Ryabo« 
 vltch, galloped up to them.
 
 The Kiss 197 
 
 "Well?" asked the general, blinking his red 
 eyes. " Are there any sick? " 
 
 Receiving an answer, the general, a little skinny 
 man, chewed, thought for a moment and said, ad- 
 dressing one of the officers: 
 
 " One of your drivers of the third cannon has 
 taken off his leg-guard and hung it on the fore part 
 of the cannon, the rascal. Reprimand him." 
 
 He raised his eyes to Ryabovitch and went on: 
 
 " It seems to me your front strap is too long." 
 
 Making a few other tedious remarks, the general 
 looked at Lobytko and grinned. 
 
 " You look very melancholy today, Lieutenant 
 Lobytko," he said. " Are you pining for Madame 
 Lopuhov? Eh? Gentlemen, he is pining for 
 Madame Lopuhov." 
 
 The lady in question was a very stout and tall per- 
 son who had long passed her fortieth year. The 
 general, who had a predilection for solid ladies, 
 whatever their ages, suspected a similar taste in his 
 officers. The officers smiled respectfully. The gen- 
 eral, delighted at having said something very amus- 
 ing and biting, laughed loudly, touched his coach- 
 man's back, and saluted. The carriage rolled 
 on. . . . 
 
 " All I am dreaming about now which seems to me 
 so impossible and unearthly is really quite an ordi-
 
 198 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 nary thing," thought Ryabovitch, looking at the 
 clouds of dust racing after the general's carriage. 
 " It's all very ordinary, and every one goes through 
 it. . . . That general, for instance, has once been in 
 love; now he is married and has children. Captain 
 Vahter, too, is married and beloved, though the nape 
 of his neck is very red and ugly and he has no waist. 
 . . . Salmanov is coarse and very Tatar, but he has 
 had a love affair that has ended in marriage. ... I 
 am the same as every one else, and I, too, shall have 
 the same experience as every one else, sooner or 
 later. . . ." 
 
 And the thought that he was an ordinary person, 
 and that his life was ordinary, delighted him and 
 gave him courage. He pictured her and his happi- 
 ness as he pleased, and put no rein on his imagina- 
 tion. . . . 
 
 When the brigade reached their halting-place in 
 the evening, and the officers were resting in their 
 tents, Ryabovitch, Merzlyakov, and Lobytko were 
 sitting round a box having supper. Merzlyakov ate 
 without haste, and, as he munched deliberately, read 
 the " Vyestnik Evropi," which he held on his knees. 
 Lobytko talked incessantly and kept filling up his 
 glass with beer, and Ryabovitch, whose head was 
 confused from dreaming all day long, drank and said 
 nothing. After three glasses he got a little drunk,
 
 The Kiss 199 
 
 felt weak, and had an irresistible desire to impart his 
 new sensations to his comrades. 
 
 " A strange thing happened to me at those Von 
 Rabbels:s'," he began, trying to put an indifferent 
 and ironical tone into his voice. " You know I 
 went into the billiard-room. . . ." 
 
 He began describing very minutely the incident of 
 the kiss, and a moment later relapsed into silence. 
 ... In the course of that moment he had told every- 
 thing, and it surprised him dreadfully to find how 
 short a time it took him to tell it. He had imagined 
 that he could have been telling the story of the kiss 
 till next morning. Listening to him, Lobytko, who 
 was a great liar and consequently believed no one, 
 looked at him sceptically and laughed. Merzlyakov 
 twitched his eyebrows and, without removing his 
 eyes from the " Vyestnik Evropi," said: 
 
 "That's an odd thing! How strange! . . . 
 throws herself on a man's neck, without addressing 
 him by name. . . . She must be some sort of hys- 
 terical neurotic." 
 
 " Yes, she must," Ryabovitch agreed. 
 
 "A similar thing once happened to me," said 
 Lobytko, assuming a scared expression. " I was 
 going last year to Kovno. ... I took a second-class 
 ticket. The train was crammed, and It was impos- 
 sible to sleep, I gave the guard half a rouble; he
 
 200 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 took my luggage and led me to another compart- 
 ment. ... 1 lay down and covered myself with a 
 rug. ... It was dark, you understand. Suddenly 
 I felt some one touch me on the shoulder and breathe 
 in my face. I made a movement with my hand and 
 felt somebody's elbow. ... I opened my eyes and 
 only imagine — a woman. Black eyes, lips red as a 
 prime salmon, nostrils breathing passionately — a 
 bosom like a buffer. . . ." 
 
 " Excuse me," Merzlyakov interrupted calmly, 
 " I understand about the bosom, but how could you 
 see the lips if it was dark? " 
 
 Lobytko began trying to put himself right and 
 laughing at Merzlyakov's unimaginativeness. It 
 made Ryabovitch wince. He walked away from the 
 box, got into bed, and vowed never to confide again. 
 
 Camp life began. . . . The days flowed by, one 
 very much like another. All those days Ryabovitch 
 felt, thought, and behaved as though he were in 
 love. Every morning when his orderly handed him 
 water to wash with, and he sluiced his head with cold 
 water, he thought there was something warm and 
 delightful in his life. 
 
 In the evenings when his comrades began talking 
 of love and women, he would listen, and draw up 
 closer; and he wore the expression of a soldier when 
 he hears the description of a battle in which he has 
 taken part. And on the evenings when the officers,
 
 The Kiss 201 
 
 out on the spree with the setter — Lobytko — at 
 their head, made Don Juan excursions to the 
 " suburb," and Ryabovitch took part in such excur- 
 sions, he always was sad, felt profoundly guilty, and 
 inwardly begged her forgiveness. ... In hours of 
 leisure or on sleepless nights, when he felt moved 
 to recall his childhood, his father and mother — 
 everything near and dear, in fact, he invariably 
 thought of Myestetchki, the strange horse, Von 
 Rabbek, his wife who was like the Empress 
 Eugenie, the dark room, the crack of light at the 
 door. . . . 
 
 On the thirty-first of August he went back from the 
 camp, not with the whole brigade, but with only two 
 batteries of it. He was dreaming and excited all the 
 way, as though he were going back to his native 
 place. He had an intense longing to see again the 
 strange horse, the church, the insincere family of the 
 Von Rabbeks, the dark room. The " inner voice," 
 which so often deceives lovers, whispered to him for 
 some reason that he would be sure to see her . . . 
 and he was tortured by the questions. How he should 
 meet her? What he would talk to her about? 
 Whether she had forgotten the kiss? If the worst 
 came to the worst, he thought, even If he did not 
 meet her, it would be a pleasure to him merely to 
 go through the dark room and recall the past. . . . 
 
 Towards evening there appeared on the horizon
 
 202 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 the familiar church and white granaries. Ryabo- 
 vitch's heart beat. . . . He did not hear the officer 
 who was riding beside him and saying something to 
 him, he forgot everything, and looked eagerly at the 
 river shining in the distance, at the roof of the 
 house, at the dovecote round which the pigeons were 
 circling in the light of the setting sun. 
 
 When they reached the church and were listening 
 to the billeting orders, he expected every second that 
 a man on horseback would come round the church 
 enclosure and invite the officers to tea, but . . . the 
 billeting orders were read, the officers were in haste 
 to go on to the village, and the man on horseback did 
 not appear. 
 
 " Von Rabbek will hear at once from the peasants 
 that we have come and will send for us," thought 
 Ryabovitch, as he went into the hut, unable to un- 
 derstand why a comrade was lighting a candle and 
 why the orderlies were hurriedly setting samo- 
 vars. . . . 
 
 A painful uneasiness took possession of him. He 
 lay down, then got up and looked out of the window 
 to see whether the messenger were coming. But 
 there was no sign of him. 
 
 He lay down again, but half an hour later he got 
 up, and, unable to restrain his uneasiness, went into 
 the street and strode towards the church. It was 
 dark and deserted in the square near the church. . . .
 
 The Kiss 203 
 
 Three soldiers were standing silent in a row where 
 the road began to go downhill. Seeing Ryabovitch, 
 they roused themselves and saluted. He returned 
 the salute and began to go down the familiar path. 
 
 On the further side of the river the whole sky was 
 flooded with crimson: the moon was rising; two 
 peasant women, talking loudly, were picking cabbage 
 in the kitchen garden; behind the kitchen garden 
 there were some dark huts. . . . And everything on 
 the near side of the river was just as it had been in 
 May: the path, the bushes, the willows overhanging 
 the water . . . but there was no sound of the brave 
 nightingale, and no scent of poplar and fresh grass. 
 
 Reaching the garden, Ryabovitch looked in at the 
 gate. The garden was dark and still. . . . He 
 could see nothing but the white stems of the nearest 
 birch-trees and a little bit of the avenue; all the rest 
 melted together into a dark blur. Ryabovitch 
 looked and listened eagerly, but after waiting for a 
 quarter of an hour without hearing a sound or catch- 
 ing a glimpse of a light, he trudged back. . . . 
 
 He went down to the river. The General's bath- 
 house and the bath-sheets on the rail of the little 
 bridge showed white before him. . . . He went on 
 to the bridge, stood a little, and, quite unnecessarily, 
 touched the sheets. They felt rough and cold. He 
 looked down at the water. . . . The river ran rap- 
 idly and with a faintly audible gurgle round the piles
 
 204 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 of the bath-house. The red moon was reflected near 
 the left bank; little ripples ran over the reflection, 
 stretching it out, breaking it into bits, and seemed 
 trying to carry it away. . . . 
 
 " How stupid, how stupid! " thought Ryabovitch, 
 looking at the running water. " How unintelligent 
 it all is!" 
 
 Now that he expected nothing, the incident of the 
 kiss, his impatience, his vague hopes and disappoint- 
 ment, presented themselves in a clear light. It no 
 longer seemed to him strange that he had not seen 
 the General's messenger, and that he would never see 
 the girl who had accidentally kissed him instead of 
 some one else; on the contrary, it would have been 
 strange if he had seen her. . . . 
 
 The water was running, he knew not where or 
 why, just as it did in May. In May it had flowed 
 into the great river, from the great river into the 
 sea; then it had risen in vapour, turned into rain, 
 and perhaps the very same water was running now 
 before Ryabovitch's eyes again. . . . What for? 
 Why? 
 
 And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed 
 to Ryabovitch an unintelligible, aimless jest. . . . 
 And turning his eyes from the water and looking at 
 the sky, he remembered again how fate in the person 
 of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him, 
 he remembered his summer dreams and fancies, and
 
 The Kiss 205 
 
 his life struck him as extraordinarily meagre, pov- 
 erty-stricken, and colourless. . . . 
 
 When he went back to his hut he did not find one 
 of his comrades. The orderly informed him that 
 they had all gone to " General von Rabbek's, who 
 had sent a messenger on horseback to Invite 
 them. . . ." 
 
 For an instant there was a flash of joy In Ryabo- 
 vitch's heart, but he quenched it at once, got Into bed, 
 and In his wrath with his fate, as though to spite It, 
 did not go to the General's.
 
 ''ANNA ON THE NECK"
 
 I
 
 " ANNA ON THE NECK " 
 
 I 
 
 After the wedding they had not even light refresh- 
 ments; the happy pair simply drank a glass of cham- 
 pagne, changed into their travelling things, and 
 drove to the station. Instead of a gay wedding ball 
 and supper, instead of music and dancing, they went 
 on a journey to pray at a shrine a hundred and fifty 
 miles away. Many people commended this, saying 
 that Modest Alexeitch was a man high up in the 
 service and no longer young, and that a noisy wed- 
 ding might not have seemed quite suitable; and music 
 is apt to sound dreary when a government official of 
 fifty-two marries a girl who is only just eighteen. 
 People said, too, that Modest Alexeitch, being a 
 man of principle, had arranged this visit to the mon- 
 astery expressly in order to make his young bride 
 realize that even in marriage he put religion and 
 morality above everything. 
 
 The happy pair were seen off at the station. The 
 crowd of relations and colleagues in the service 
 stood, with glasses in their hands, waiting for the 
 train to start to shout " Hurrah! " and the bride's 
 
 r 
 
 ' « 209
 
 210 The Party and Other Stones 
 
 father, Pyotr Leontyitch, wearing a top-hat and the 
 uniform of a teacher, already drunk and very pale, 
 kept craning towards the window, glass in hand and 
 saying in an imploring voice : 
 
 " Anyuta ! Anya, Anya ! one word! " 
 Anna bent out of the window to him, and he whis- 
 pered something to her, enveloping her in a stale 
 smell of alcohol, blew into her ear — she could make 
 out nothing — and made the sign of the cross over 
 her face, her bosom, and her hands; meanwhile he 
 was breathing in gasps and tears were shining in his 
 eyes. And the schoolboys, Anna's brothers, Petya 
 and Andrusha, pulled at his coat from behind, whis- 
 pering in confusion: 
 
 " Father, hush! . . . Father, that's enough. . . ." 
 When the train started, Anna saw her father run 
 a little way after the train, staggering and spilling 
 his wine, and what a kind, guilty, pitiful face he had: 
 " Hurra — ah ! " he shouted. 
 The happy pair were left alone. Modest Alexe- 
 itch looked about the compartment, arranged their 
 things on the shelves, and sat down, smiling, opposite 
 his young wife. He was an official of medium 
 height, rather stout and puffy, who looked exceed- 
 ingly well nourished, with long whiskers and no 
 moustache. His clean-shaven, round, sharply de- 
 fined chin looked like the heel of a foot. The most 
 characteristic point in his face was the absence of
 
 "Anna on the Neck" 21 1 
 
 moustache, the bare, freshly shaven place, which 
 gradually passed into the fat cheeks, quivering like 
 jelly. His deportment was dignified, his movements 
 were deliberate, his manner was soft. 
 
 " I cannot help remembering now one circum- 
 stance," he said, smiling. " When, five years ago, 
 Kosorotov received the order of St. Anna of the 
 second grade, and went to thank His Excellency, His 
 Excellency expressed himself as follows : ' So now 
 you have three Annas: one in your buttonhole and 
 two on your neck.' And it must be explained that 
 at that time Kosorotov's wife, a quarrelsome and 
 frivolous person, had just returned to him, and that 
 her name was Anna. I trust that when I receive 
 the Anna of the second grade His Excellency will 
 not have occasion to say the same thing to me." 
 
 He smiled with his little eyes. And she, too, 
 smiled, troubled at the thought that at any moment 
 this man might kiss her with his thick damp lips, 
 and that she had no right to prevent his doing so. 
 The soft movements of his fat person frightened 
 her; she felt both fear and disgust. He got up, 
 without haste took off the order from his neck, took 
 off his coat and waistcoat, and put on his dressing- 
 gown. 
 
 " That's better," he said, sitting down beside 
 Anna. 
 
 Anna remembered wliat agony the wedding had
 
 212 Tlie Party and Other Stories 
 
 been, when it had seemed to her that the priest, and 
 the guests, and every one in church had been looking 
 at her sorrowfully and asking why, why was she, 
 such a sweet, nice girl, marrying such an elderly, 
 uninteresting gentleman. Only that morning she 
 was delighted that everything had been satisfactorily 
 arranged, but at the time of the wedding, and now 
 in the railway carriage, she felt cheated, guilty, and 
 ridiculous. Here she had married a rich man and 
 yet she had no money, her wedding-dress had been 
 bought on credit, and when her father and brothers 
 had been saying good-bye, she could see from their 
 faces that they had not a farthing. Would they 
 have any supper that day? And tomorrow? And 
 for some reason It seemed to her that her father and 
 the boys were sitting tonight hungry without her, 
 and feeling the same misery as they had the day after 
 their mother's funeral. 
 
 " Oh, how unhappy I am ! " she thought. " Why 
 am I so unhappy? " 
 
 With the awkwardness of a man with settled hab' 
 its, unaccustomed to deal with women. Modest 
 Alexeitch touched her on the waist and patted her on 
 the shoulder, while she went on thinking about 
 money, about her mother and her mother's death. 
 When her mother died, her father, Pyotr Leontyltch, 
 a teacher of drawing and writing In the high school, 
 had taken to drink, Impoverishment had followed,
 
 "Anna on the Neck" 213 
 
 the boys had not had boots or goloshes, their father 
 had been hauled up before the magistrate, the war- 
 rant officer had come and made an Inventory of the 
 furniture. . . . What a disgrace ! Anna had had 
 to look after her drunken father, darn her brothers' 
 stockings, go to market, and when she was compli- 
 mented on her youth, her beauty, and her elegant 
 manners, it seemed to her that every one was looking 
 at her cheap hat and the holes In her boots that were 
 inked over. And at night there had been tears and 
 a haunting dread that her father would soon, very 
 soon, be dismissed from the school for his weakness, 
 and that he would not survive it, but would die, too, 
 like their mother. But ladies of their acquaintance 
 had taken the matter in hand and looked about for a 
 good match for Anna. This Modest Alexevltch, 
 who was neither young nor good-looking but had 
 money, was soon found. He had a hundred thou- 
 sand in the bank and the family estate, which he had 
 let on lease. He was a man of principle and stood 
 well with His Excellency; it would be nothing to him, 
 so they told Anna, to get a note from His Excellency 
 to the directors of the high school, or even to the 
 Education Commissioner, to prevent Pyotr Leon- 
 tyitch from being dismissed. 
 
 While she was recalling these details, she sud- 
 denly heard strains of music which floated in at the 
 window, together with the sound of voices. The
 
 214 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 train was stopping at a station. In the crowd be- 
 yond the platform an accordion and a cheap squeaky 
 fiddle were being briskly played, and the sound of a 
 military band came from beyond the villas and the 
 tall birches and poplars that lay bathed in the moon- 
 light; there must have been a dance in the place. 
 Summer visitors and townspeople, who used to come 
 out here by train in fine weather for a breath of fresh 
 air, were parading up and down on the platform. 
 Among them was the wealthy owner of all the sum- 
 mer villas — a tall, stout, dark man called Artynov. 
 He had prominent eyes and looked like an Armenian. 
 He wore a strange costume; his shirt was unbut- 
 toned, showing his chest; he wore high boots with 
 spurs, and a black cloak hung from his shoulders and 
 dragged on the ground like a train. Two boar- 
 hounds followed him with their sharp noses to the 
 ground. 
 
 Tears were still shining in Anna's eyes, but she 
 was not thinking now of her mother, nor of money, 
 nor of her marriage; but shaking hands with school- 
 boys and officers she knew, she laughed gaily and 
 said quickly: 
 
 " How do you do ? How are you ? " 
 
 She went out on to the platform between the car- 
 riages into the moonlight, and stood so that they 
 could all see her in her new splendid dress and hat. 
 
 *' Why are we stopping here? " she asked.
 
 "Anna on the Neck" 215 
 
 " This is a junction. They are waiting for the 
 mail train to pass." 
 
 Seeing that Artynov was looking at her, she 
 screwed up her eyes coquettishly and began talking 
 aloud in French; and because her voice sounded so 
 pleasant, and because she heard music and the moon 
 was reflected in the pond, and because Artynov, the 
 notorious Don Juan and spoiled child of fortune, was 
 looking at her eagerly and with curiosity, and be- 
 cause every one was in good spirits — she suddenly 
 felt joyful, and when the train started and the offi- 
 cers of her acquaintance saluted her, she was hum- 
 ming the polka the strains of which reached her from 
 the military band playing beyond the trees; and she 
 returned to her compartment feeling as though it 
 had been proved to her at the station that she would 
 certainly be happy in spite of everything. 
 
 The happy pair spent two days at the monastery, 
 then went back to town. They lived in a rent-free 
 flat. When Modest Alexevitch had gone to the 
 oflfice, Anna played the piano, or shed tears of de- 
 pression, or lay down on a couch and read novels or 
 looked through fashion papers. At dinner Modest 
 Alexevitch ate a great deal and talked about poli- 
 tics, about appointments, transfers, and promotions 
 in the service, about the necessity of hard work, and 
 said that, family life not being a pleasure but a duty, 
 if you took care of the kopecks the roubles would
 
 2i6 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 take care of themselves, and that he put religion and 
 morality before everything else in the world. And 
 holding his knife in his fist as though it were a sword, 
 he would say: 
 
 " Every one ought to have his duties ! " 
 And Anna listened to him, was frightened, and 
 could not eat, and she usually got up from the table 
 hungry. After dinner her husband lay down for a 
 nap and snored loudly, while Anna went to see her 
 own people. Her father and the boys looked at her 
 in a peculiar way, as though just before she came in 
 they had been blaming her for having married for 
 money a tedious, wearisome man she did not love; 
 her rustling skirts, her bracelets, and her general air 
 of a married lady, offended them and made them un- 
 comfortable. In her presence they felt a little em- 
 barrassed and did not know what to talk to her 
 about; but yet they still loved her as before, and were 
 not used to having dinner without her. She sat 
 down with them to cabbage soup, porridge, and fried 
 potatoes, smelling of mutton dripping. Pyotr 
 Leontyitch filled his glass from the decanter with a 
 trembling hand and drank it off hurriedly, greedily, 
 with repulsion, then poured out a second glass and 
 then a third. Petya and Andrusha, thin, pale boys 
 with big eyes, would take the decanter and say des- 
 perately: 
 
 " You mustn't, father. . . . Enough, father. . . ."
 
 "Anna on the Neck" 217 
 
 And Anna, too, was troubled and entreated him to 
 drink no more; and he would suddenly fly into a rage 
 and beat the table with his fists : 
 
 " I won't allow any one to dictate to me ! " he 
 would shout. " Wretched boys ! wretched girl ! 
 I'll turn you all out! " 
 
 But there was a note of weakness, of good-nature 
 in his voice, and no one was afraid of him. After 
 dinner he usually dressed in his best. Pale, with a 
 cut on his chin from shaving, craning his thin neck, 
 he would stand for half an hour before the glass, 
 prinking, combing his hair, twisting his black mous- 
 tache, sprinkling himself with scent, tying his cravat 
 in a bow; then he would put on his gloves and his top- 
 hat, and go off to give his private lessons. Or if it 
 was a holiday he would stay at home and paint, or 
 play the harmonium, which wheezed and growled; 
 he would try to wrest from it pure harmonious 
 sounds and would sing to it; or would storm at the 
 boys: 
 
 "Wretches! Good-for-nothing boys ! You have 
 spoiled the instrument! " 
 
 In the evening Anna's husband played cards with 
 his colleagues, who lived under the same roof in the 
 government quarters. The wives of these gentle- 
 men would come in — ugly, tastelessly dressed 
 women, as coarse as cooks — and gossip would begin 
 in the flat as tasteless and unattractive as the ladles
 
 2i8 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 themselves. Sometimes Modest Alexevitch would 
 take Anna to the theatre. In the Intervals he would 
 never let her stir a step from his side, but walked 
 about arm in arm with her through the corridors and 
 the foyer. When he bowed to some one, he imme- 
 diately whispered to Anna: "A civil councillor 
 . . . visits at His Excellency's"; or, "A man of 
 means . . . has a house of his own." When they 
 passed the buffet Anna had a great longing for some- 
 thing sweet; she was fond of chocolate and apple 
 cakes, but she had no money, and she did not like to 
 ask her husband. He would take a pear, pinch it 
 with his fingers, and ask uncertainly: 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 " Twenty-five kopecks! " 
 
 " I say! " he would reply, and put it down; but 
 as It was awkward to leave the buffet without buying 
 anything, he would order some seltzer-water and 
 drink the whole bottle himself, and tears would come 
 into his eyes. And Anna hated him at such times. 
 
 And suddenly flushing crimson, he would say to 
 her rapidly: 
 
 "Bow to that old lady!" 
 
 " But I don't know her." 
 
 " No matter. That's the wife of the director of 
 the local treasury! Bow, I tell you," he would 
 grumble Insistently. " Your head won't drop off." 
 
 Anna bowed and her head certainly did not drop
 
 "Anna on the Neck" 219 
 
 off, but it was agonizing. She did everything her 
 husband wanted her to, and was furious with her- 
 self for having let him deceive her like the veriest 
 idiot. She had only married him for his money, and 
 yet she had less money now than before her mar- 
 riage. In old days her father would sometimes give 
 her twenty kopecks, but now she had not a farthing. 
 To take money by stealth or ask for it, she could not; 
 she was afraid of her husband, she trembled before 
 him. She felt as though she had been afraid of him 
 for years. In her childhood the director of the 
 high school had always seemed the most impressive 
 and terrifying force in the world, sweeping down 
 like a thunderstorm or a steam-engine ready to crush 
 her; another similar force of which the whole family 
 talked, and of which they were for some reason 
 afraid, was His Excellency; then there were a dozen 
 others, less formidable, and among them the teachers 
 at the high school, with shaven upper lips, stern, 
 implacable; and now finally, there was Modest 
 Alexeitch, a man of principle, who even resembled 
 the director in the face. And in Anna's imagina- 
 tion all these forces blended together into one, and, 
 in the form of a terrible, huge white bear, menaced 
 the weak and erring such as her father. And she 
 was afraid to say anything in opposition to her hus- 
 band, and ga\e a forced smile, and tried to make a 
 show of pleasure when she was coarsely caressed
 
 220 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 and defiled by embraces that excited her terror. 
 
 Only once Pyotr Leontyitch had the temerity to 
 ask for a loan of fifty roubles In order to pay some 
 very irksome debt, but what an agony it had been 1 
 
 "Very good; I'll give it to you," said Modest 
 Alexeitch after a moment's thought; "but I warn 
 you I won't help you again till you give up drink- 
 ing. Such a failing Is disgraceful In a man in the 
 government service ! I must remind you of the well- 
 known fact that many capable people have been 
 ruined by that passion, though they might possibly, 
 with temperance, have risen In time to a very high 
 position." 
 
 And long-winded phrases followed: "inasmuch 
 as . . .,"" following upon which proposition . . .," 
 "in view of the aforesaid contention . . ."; and 
 Pyotr Leontyitch was In agonies of humiliation and 
 felt an Intense craving for alcohol. 
 
 And when the boys came to visit Anna, generally 
 In broken boots and threadbare trousers, they, too, 
 had to listen to sermons. 
 
 " Every man ought to have his duties ! " Mod- 
 est Alexeitch would say to them. 
 
 And he did not give them money. But he did 
 give Anna bracelets, rings, and brooches, saying 
 that these things would come In useful for a rainy 
 day. And he often unlocked her drawer and made 
 an Inspection to see whether they were all safe.
 
 cc 
 
 Anna on the Neck" 221 
 
 II 
 
 Meanwhile winter came on. Long before Christ- 
 mas there was an announcement in the local papers 
 that the usual winter ball would take place on the 
 twenty-ninth of December in the Hall of Nobility. 
 Every evening after cards Modest Alexeitch was 
 excitedly whispering with his colleagues' wives and 
 glancing at Anna, and then paced up and down the 
 room for a long while, thinking. At last, late one 
 evening, he stood still, facing Anna, and said: 
 
 " You ought to get yourself a ball dress. Do 
 you understand? Only please consult Marya Gri- 
 gorycvna and Natalya Kuzminishna." 
 
 And he gave her a hundred roubles. She took 
 the money, but she did not consult any one when 
 she ordered the ball dress; she spoke to no one but 
 her father, and tried to imagine how her mother 
 would have dressed for a ball. Her mother had 
 always dressed in the latest fashion and had always 
 taken trouble over Anna, dressing her elegantly 
 like a doll, and had taught her to speak French 
 and dance the mazurka superbly (she had been a 
 governess for five years before her marriage). 
 Like her mother, Anna could make a new dress out 
 of an old one, clean gloves with benzine, hire jew- 
 els; and, like her mother, she knew how to screw 
 up her eyes, lisp, assume graceful attitudes, fly into
 
 222 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 raptures when necessary, and throw a mournful and 
 enigmatic look into her eyes. And from her fa- 
 ther she had inherited the dark colour of her hair 
 and eyes, her highly-strung nerves, and the habit of 
 always making herself look her best. 
 
 When, half an hour before setting off for the ball, 
 Modest Alexeitch went into her room without his 
 coat on, to put his order round his neck before her 
 pler-glass, dazzled by her beauty and the splendour 
 of her fresh, ethereal dress, he combed his whiskers 
 complacently and said: 
 
 " So that's what my wife can look like ... so 
 that's what you can look like ! Anyuta ! " he went 
 on, dropping Into a tone of solemnity, " I have made 
 your fortune, and now I beg you to do something for 
 mine. I beg you to get Introduced to the wife of 
 His Excellency! For God's sake, do! Through 
 her I may get the post of senior reporting clerk ! " 
 
 They went to the ball. They reached the Hall 
 of Nobility, the entrance with the hall porter. They 
 came to the vestibule with the hat-stands, the fur 
 coats; footmen scurrying about, and ladles with low 
 necks putting up their fans to screen themselves from 
 the draughts. There was a smell of gas and of 
 soldiers. When Anna, walking upstairs on her hus- 
 band's arm, heard the music and saw herself full 
 length In the looking-glass In the full glow of the 
 lights, there was a rush of joy In her heart, and she
 
 <c 
 
 Anna on the Neck" 223 
 
 felt the same presentiment of happiness as in the 
 moonlight at the station. She walked In proudly, 
 confidently, for the first time feeling herself not a 
 girl but a lady, and unconsciously Imitating her 
 mother In her walk and in her manner. And for the 
 first time In her life she felt rich and free. Even 
 her husband's presence did not oppress her, for as 
 she crossed the threshold of the hall she had guessed 
 instinctively that the proximity of an old husband did 
 not detract from her in the least, but, on the con- 
 trary, gave her that shade of piquant mystery that 
 is so attractive to men. The orchestra was already 
 playing and the dances had begun. After their flat 
 Anna was overwhelmed by the lights, the bright col- 
 ours, the music, the noise, and looking round the 
 room, thought, "Oh, how lovely!" She at once 
 distinguished in the crowd all her acquaintances, 
 every one she had met before at parties or on picnics 
 — all the officers, the teachers, the lawyers, the offi- 
 cials, the landowners, His Excellency, Artynov, and 
 the ladles of the highest standing, dressed up and 
 very dccollelces, handsome and ugly, who had al- 
 ready taken up their positions In the stalls and pa- 
 vilions of the charity bazaar, to begin selling things 
 for the benefit of the poor. A huge officer In epau- 
 lettes — she had been introduced to him In Staro- 
 Kievsky Street when she was a schoolgirl, but now 
 she could not remember his name — seemed to
 
 224 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 spring from out of the ground, begging her for a 
 waltz, and she flew away from her husband, feeling 
 as though she were floating away in a sailing-boat 
 in a violent storm, while her husband was left far 
 away on the shore. She danced passionately, with 
 fervour, a waltz, then a polka and a quadrille, being 
 snatched by one partner as soon as she was left by 
 another, dizzy with music and the noise, mixing 
 Russian with French, lisping, laughing, and with no 
 thought of her husband or anything else. She ex- 
 cited great admiration among the men — that was 
 evident, and indeed it could not have been otherwise; 
 she was breathless with excitement, felt thirsty, and 
 convulsively clutched her fan. Pyotr Leontyitch, 
 her father, in a crumpled dress-coat that smelt of 
 benzine, came up to her, offering her a plate of pink 
 ice. 
 
 " You are enchanting this evening," he said, look- 
 ing at her rapturously, " and I have never so much 
 regretted that you were in such a hurry to get mar- 
 ried. . . . What was it for? I know you did it for 
 our sake, but . . ." With a shaking hand he drew 
 out a roll of notes and said: " I got the money for 
 my lessons today, and can pay your husband what I 
 owe him." 
 
 She put the plate back into his hand, and was 
 pounced upon by some one and borne off to a dis- 
 tance. She caught a glimpse over her partner's
 
 "Anna on the Neck" 225 
 
 shoulder of her father gliding over the floor, putting 
 his arm round a lady and whirling down the ball- 
 room with her. 
 
 "How sweet he is when he is sober!" she 
 thought. 
 
 She danced the mazurka with the same huge offi- 
 cer; he moved gravely, as heavily as a dead carcase 
 in a uniform, twitched his shoulders and his chest, 
 stamped his feet very languidly — he felt fearfully 
 disinclined to dance. She fluttered round him, pro- 
 voking him by her beauty, her bare neck; her eyes 
 glowed defiantly, her movements were passionate, 
 while he became more and more indifferent, and held 
 out his hands to her as graciously as a king. 
 
 " Bravo, bravo! " said people watching them. 
 
 But little by little the huge officer, too, broke 
 out; he grew lively, excited, and, overcome by her 
 fascination, was carried away and danced lightly, 
 youthfully, while she merely moved her shoulders 
 and looked slyly at him as though she were now 
 the queen and he were her slave; and at that mo- 
 ment it seemed to her that the whole room was 
 looking at them, and that everybody was thrilled 
 and envied them. Ihc huge officer had hardly had 
 time to thank her for the dance, when the crowd 
 suddenly parted and the men drew themselves up 
 in a strange way, with their hands at their sides. 
 His Excellency, with two stars on his dress-coat, was
 
 226 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 walking up to her. Yes, His Excellency was walk- 
 ing straight towards her, for he was staring directly 
 at her with a sugary smile, while he licked his lips 
 as he always did when he saw a pretty woman. 
 
 " Delighted, delighted . . ." he began. " I shall 
 order your husband to be clapped In a lock-up for 
 keeping such a treasure hidden from us till now. 
 I've come to you with a message from my wife," he 
 went on, offering her his arm. " You must help 
 us. . . . M-m-yes. . . . We ought to give you the 
 prize for beauty as they do In America. . . . 
 M-m-yes. . . . The Americans. . . . My wife is 
 expecting you Impatiently." 
 
 He led her to a stall and presented her to a mid- 
 dle-aged lady, the lower part of whose face was dis- 
 proportionately large, so that she looked as though 
 she were holding a big stone In her mouth. 
 
 " You must help us," she said through her nose 
 in a sing-song voice. " All the pretty women are 
 working for our charity bazaar, and you are the 
 only one enjoying yourself. Why won't you help 
 us?" 
 
 She went away, and Anna took her place by the 
 cups and the silver samovar. She was soon doing 
 a lively trade. Anna asked no less than a rouble 
 for a cup of tea, and made the huge officer drink 
 three cups. Artynov, the rich man with prominent 
 eyes, who suffered from asthma, came up, too; he
 
 ce 
 
 Anna on the Neck" 227 
 
 was not dressed in the strange costume in which 
 Anna had seen him in the summer at the station, but 
 wore a dress-coat hke every one else. Keeping his 
 eyes fixed on Anna, he drank a glass of champagne 
 and paid a hundred roubles for it, then drank some 
 tea and gave another hundred — all this without 
 saying a word, as he was short of breath through 
 asthma. . . . Anna invited purchasers and got 
 money out of them, firmly convinced by now that her 
 smiles and glances could not fail to afford these peo- 
 ple great pleasure. She realized now that she was 
 created exclusively for this noisy, brilliant, laughing 
 life, with its music, its dancers, its adorers, and her 
 old terror of a force that was sweeping down upon 
 her and menacing to crush her seemed to her ridicu- 
 lous: she was afraid of no one now, and only re- 
 gretted that her mother could not be there to rejoice 
 at her success. 
 
 Pyotr Leontyitch, pale by now but still steady 
 on his legs, came up to the stall and asked for a 
 glass of brandy. Anna turned crimson, expecting 
 him to say something inappropriate (she was al- 
 ready ashamed of having such a poor and ordinary 
 father) ; but he emptied his glass, took ten roubles 
 out of his roll of notes, flung it down, and walked 
 away with dignity without uttering a word. A 
 little later she saw him dancing in the grand chain, 
 and by now he was staggering and kept shouting
 
 228 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 something, to the great confusion of his partner; 
 and Anna remembered how at the ball three years 
 before he had staggered and shouted in the same 
 way, and it had ended in the police-sergeant's tak- 
 ing him home to bed, and next day the director had 
 threatened to dismiss him from his post. How in- 
 appropriate that memory was! 
 
 When the samovars were put out in the stalls 
 and the exhausted ladies handed over their takings 
 to the middle-aged lady with the stone in her mouth, 
 Artynov took Anna on his arm to the hall where 
 supper was served to all who had assisted at the 
 bazaar. There were some twenty people at supper, 
 not more, but it was very noisy. His Excellency 
 proposed a toast: 
 
 " In this magnificent dining-room it will be appro- 
 priate to drink to the success of the cheap dining- 
 rooms, which are the object of today's bazaar." 
 
 The brigadier-general proposed the toast: " To 
 the power by which even the artillery is vanquished," 
 and all the company clinked glasses with the ladles. 
 It was very, very gay. 
 
 When Anna was escorted home it was daylight 
 and the cooks were going to market. Joyful, in- 
 toxicated, full of new sensations, exhausted, she 
 undressed, dropped into bed, and at once fell 
 asleep. . . . 
 
 It was past one in the afternoon when the serv-
 
 a 
 
 Anna on the Neck " 229 
 
 ant waked her and announced that M. Artynov had 
 called. She dressed quickly and went down Into 
 the drawing-room. Soon after Artynov, His Ex- 
 cellency called to thank her for her assistance In the 
 bazaar. With a sugary smile, chewing his lips, he 
 kissed her hand, and asking her permission to come 
 again, took his leave, while she remained standing 
 In the middle of the drawing-room, amazed, en- 
 chanted, unable to believe that this change in her 
 life, this marvellous change, had taken place so 
 quickly; and at that moment Modest Alexeltch 
 walked In . . . and he, too, stood before her now 
 with the same Ingratiating, sugary, cringingly re- 
 spectful expression which she was accustomed to see 
 on his face In the presence of the great and powerful; 
 and with rapture, with Indignation, with contempt, 
 convinced that no harm would come to her from it, 
 she said, articulating distinctly each word: 
 
 "Be off, you blockhead I" 
 
 From this time forward Anna never had one day 
 free, as she was always taking part In picnics, expe- 
 ditions, performances. She returned home every 
 day after midnight, and went to bed on the floor In 
 the drawing-room, and afterwards used to tell every 
 one, touchingly, how she slept under flowers. She 
 needed a very great deal of money, but she was no 
 longer afraid of Modest Alexeltch, and spent his 
 money as though It were her own; and she did not
 
 230 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 ask, did not demand it, simply sent him in the bills. 
 " Give bearer two hundred roubles," or *' Pay one 
 hundred roubles at once." 
 
 At Easter Modest Alexeitch received the Anna 
 of the second grade. When he went to offer his 
 thanks. His Excellency put aside the paper he was 
 reading and settled himself more comfortably in his 
 chair, 
 
 " So now you have three Annas," he said, scru- 
 tinizing his white hands and pink nails — " one on 
 your buttonhole and two on your neck." 
 
 Modest Alexeitch put two fingers to his lips as a 
 precaution against laughing too loud and said: 
 
 " Now I have only to look forward to the arrival 
 of a little Vladimir. I make bold to beg your Ex- 
 cellency to stand godfather." 
 
 He was alluding to Vladimir of the fourth grade, 
 and was already imagining how he would tell every- 
 where the story of this pun, so happy in its readi- 
 ness and audacity, and he wanted to say something 
 equally happy, but His Excellency was buried again 
 in his newspaper, and merely gave him a nod. 
 
 And Anna went on driving about with three 
 horses, going out hunting with Artynov, playing in 
 one-act dramas, going out to supper, and was more 
 and more rarely with her own family; they dined 
 now alone. Pyotr Leontyitch was drinking more 
 heavily than ever; there was no money, and the har-
 
 "Anna on the Neck" 231 
 
 monium had been sold long ago for debt. The boys 
 did not let him go out alone in the street now, but 
 looked after him for fear he might fall down; and 
 whenever they met Anna driving in Staro-Kievsky 
 Street with a pair of horses and Artynov on the 
 box instead of a coachman, Pyotr Leontyitch took 
 off his top-hat, and was about to shout to her, but 
 Petya and Andrusha took him by the arm, and said 
 imploringly: 
 
 " You mustn't, father. Hush, father! "
 
 THE TEACHER OF LITERATURE
 
 THE TEACHER OF LITERATURE 
 
 I 
 
 There was the thud of horses' hoofs on the wooden 
 floor; they brought out of the stable the black horse, 
 Count Nulin; then the white, Giant; then his sister 
 Malka. They were all magnificent, expensive 
 horses. Old Shelestov saddled Giant and said, ad- 
 dressing his daughter Masha: 
 
 " Well, Marie Godefroi, come, get on ! Hopla I " 
 
 Masha Shelestov was the youngest of the family; 
 she was eighteen, but her family could not get used 
 to thinking that she was not a little girl, and so they 
 still called her Manya and Manyusa; and after there 
 had been a circus in the town which she had eagerly 
 visited, every one began to call her Marie Gode- 
 froi. 
 
 " Hop-la I " she cried, mounting Giant. Her sis- 
 ter Varya got on Maika, Nikitin on Count Nulin, 
 the officers on their horses, and the long picturesque 
 cavalcade, with the officers in white tunics and the 
 ladies in their riding habits, moved at a walking 
 pace out of the yard. 
 
 Nikitin noticed that when they were mounting 
 
 235
 
 236 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 the horses and afterwards riding out into the street, 
 Masha for some reason paid attention to no one 
 but himself. She looked anxiously at him and at 
 Count Nulin and said: 
 
 " You must hold him all the time on the curb, 
 Sergey Vassilitch. Don't let him shy. He's pre- 
 tending." 
 
 And either because her Giant was very friendly 
 with Count Nulin, or perhaps by chance, she rode 
 all the time beside Nikitin, as she had done the 
 day before, and the day before that. And he 
 looked at her graceful little figure sitting on the 
 proud white beast, at her delicate profile, at the 
 chimney-pot hat, which did not suit her at all and 
 made her look older than her age — looked at her 
 with joy, with tenderness, with rapture; listened to 
 her, taking in little of what she said, and thought: 
 
 " I promise on my honour, I swear to God, I 
 won't be afraid and I'll speak to her today." 
 
 It was seven o'clock in the evening — the time 
 when the scent of white acacia and lilac is so strong 
 that the air and the very trees seem heavy with the 
 fragrance. The band was already playing in the 
 town gardens. The horses made a resounding thud 
 on the pavement, on all sides there were sounds of 
 laughter, talk, and the banging of gates. The sol- 
 diers they met saluted the officers, the schoolboys 
 bowed to Nikitin, and all the people who were
 
 The Teacher of Literature 237 
 
 hurrying to the gardens to hear the band were 
 pleased at the sight of the party. And how warm 
 it was! How soft-looking were the clouds scat- 
 tered carelessly about the sky, how kindly and com- 
 forting the shadows of the poplars and the acacias, 
 which stretched across the street and reached as far 
 as the balconies and second stories of the houses on 
 the other side. 
 
 They rode on out of the town and set off at a 
 trot along the highroad. Here there v/as no scent 
 of lilac and acacia, no music of the band, but there 
 was the fragrance of the fields, there was the green 
 of young rye and wheat, the marmots were squeak- 
 ing, the rooks were cawing. Wherever one looked 
 it was green, with only here and there black patches 
 of bare ground, and far away to the left in the ceme- 
 tery a white streak of apple-blossom. 
 
 They passed the slaughter-houses, then the brew- 
 ery, and overtook a military band hastening to the 
 suburban gardens. 
 
 " Polyansky has a very fine horse, I don't deny 
 that," Masha said to Nikitin, with a glance towards 
 the officer who was riding beside Varya. " But it 
 has blemishes. That white patch on its left leg 
 ought not to be there, and, look, it tosses its head. 
 You can't train it not to now; it will toss its head till 
 the end of its days." 
 
 Masha was as passionate a lover of horses as her
 
 238 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 father. She felt a pang when she saw other people 
 with fine horses, and was pleased when she saw de- 
 fects in them. Nikitin knew nothing about horses; 
 it made absolutely no difference to him whether he 
 held his horse on the bridle or on the curb, whether 
 he trotted or galloped; he only felt that his position 
 was strained and unnatural, and that consequently 
 the officers who knew how to sit in their saddles 
 must please Masha more than he could. And he 
 was jealous of the officers. 
 
 As they rode by the suburban gardens some one 
 suggested their going In and getting some seltzer- 
 water. They went in. There were no trees but 
 oaks in the gardens; they had only just come Into 
 leaf, so that through the young foliage the whole 
 garden could still be seen with its platform, little 
 tables, and swings, and the crows' nests were visible, 
 looking like big hats. The party dismounted near 
 a table and asked for seltzer-water. People they 
 knew, walking about the garden, came up to them. 
 Among them the army doctor in high boots, and 
 the conductor of the band, waiting for the musicians. 
 The doctor must have taken Nikitin for a student, 
 for he asked: 
 
 *' Have you come for the summer holidays? " 
 
 " No, I am here permanently," answered Nikitin. 
 *' I am a teacher at the school." 
 
 "You don't say so?" said the doctor, with
 
 The Teacher of Literature 239 
 
 surprise. "So young and already a teacher?" 
 
 "Young, indeed! My goodness, I'm twenty- 
 six!" 
 
 " You have a beard and moustache, but yet one 
 would never guess you were more than twenty-two 
 or twenty-three. How young-looking you are ! " 
 
 "What a beast!" thought Nikitin. "He, too, 
 takes me for a whipper-snapper! " 
 
 He disliked it extremely when people referred 
 to his youth, especially in the presence of women 
 or the schoolboys. Ever since he had come to the 
 town as a master in the school he had detested his 
 own youthful appearance. The schoolboys were not 
 afraid of him, old people called him " young man," 
 ladies preferred dancing with him to listening to 
 his long arguments, and he would have given a great 
 deal to be ten years older. 
 
 From the garden they went on to the Shelestovs' 
 farm. There they stopped at the gate and asked 
 the bailiff's wife, Praskovya, to bring some new 
 milk. Nobody drank the milk; they all looked at 
 one another, laughed, and galloped back. As they 
 rode back the band was playing in the suburban gar- 
 den ; the sun was setting behind the cemetery, and 
 half the sky was crimson from the sunset. 
 
 Masha again rode beside Nikitin. He wanted 
 to tell her how passionately he loved her, but he 
 was afraid he would be overheard by the officers
 
 240 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 and Varya, and he was silent. Masha was silent, 
 too, and he felt why she was silent and why she 
 was riding beside him, and was so happy that the 
 earth, the sky, the lights of the town, the black 
 outline of the brewery — all blended for him into 
 something very pleasant and comforting, and it 
 seemed to him as though Count Nulin were stepping 
 on air and would climb up into the crimson sky. 
 
 They arrived home. The samovar was already 
 boiling on the table, old Shelestov was sitting with 
 his friends, officials In the Circuit Court, and as 
 usual he was criticizing something. 
 
 "It's loutishness! " he said. " Loutlshness and 
 nothing more. Yes!" 
 
 Since Nikitin had been In love with Masha, every- 
 thing at the Shelestovs' pleased him: the house, the 
 garden, and the evening tea, and the wickerwork 
 chairs, and the old nurse, and even the word " lout- 
 ishness," which the old man was fond of using. 
 The only thing he did not like was the number of 
 cats and dogs and the Egyptian pigeons, who moaned 
 disconsolately In a big cage In the verandah. There 
 were so many house-dogs and yard-dogs that he had 
 only learnt to recognize two of them in the course of 
 his acquaintance with the Shelestovs: Mushka and 
 Som. Mushka was a little mangy dog with a shaggy 
 face, spiteful and spoiled. She hated NikitIn: when 
 she saw him she put her head on one side, showed
 
 The Teacher of Literature 241 
 
 her teeth, and began: " Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga 
 . . . rrr . . . ! " Then she would get under his 
 chair, and when he would try to drive her away she 
 would go off into piercing yaps, and the family would 
 say: " Don't be frightened. She doesn't bite. 
 She is a good dog." 
 
 Som was a tall black dog with long legs and a 
 tail as hard as a stick. At dinner and tea he usually 
 moved about under the table, and thumped on peo- 
 ple's boots and on the legs of the table with his tail. 
 He was a good-natured, stupid dog, but Nikitin could 
 not endure him because he had the habit of putting 
 his h^ad on people's knees at dinner and messing 
 their trousers with saliva. Nikitin had more than 
 once tried to hit him on his head with a knife-handle, 
 to flip him on the nose, had abused him, had com- 
 plained of him, but nothing saved his trousers. 
 
 After their ride the tea, jam, rusks, and butter 
 seemed very nice. They all drank their first glass 
 in silence and with great relish; over the second 
 they began an argument. It was always Varya who 
 started the arguments at tea; she was good-looking, 
 handsomer than Masha, and was considered the 
 cleverest and most cultured person in the house, and 
 she behaved with dignity and severity, as an eldest 
 daughter should who has taken the place of her dead 
 mother in the house. As the mistress of the house, 
 she felt herself entitled to wear a dressing-gown
 
 242 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 in the presence of her guests, and to call the officers 
 by their surnames; she looked on Masha as a little 
 girl, and talked to her as though she were a school- 
 mistress. She used to speak of herself as an old 
 maid — so she was certain she would marry. 
 
 Every conversation, even about the weather, she 
 invariably turned into an argument. She had a pas- 
 sion for catching at words, pouncing on contradic- 
 tions, quibbling over phrases. You would begin 
 talking to her, and she would stare at you and sud- 
 denly interrupt: "Excuse me, excuse me, Petrov, 
 the other day you said the very opposite ! " 
 
 Or she would smile ironically and say: " I no- 
 tice, though, you begin to advocate the principles 
 of the secret police. I congratulate you." 
 
 If you jested or made a pun, you would hear her 
 voice at once: " That's stale," " That's pointless." 
 If an officer ventured on a joke, she would make a 
 contemptuous grimace and say, "An army joke!" 
 
 And she rolled the r so Impressively that Mushka 
 invariably answered from under a chair, " Rrr . . . 
 nga-nga-nga ... I " 
 
 On this occasion at tea the argument began with 
 Nikitin's mentioning the school examinations. 
 
 " Excuse me, Sergey Vassilitch," Varya inter- 
 rupted him. " You say it's difficult for the boys. 
 And whose fault is that, let me ask you? For in- 
 stance, you set the boys In the eighth class an essay
 
 The Teacher of Literature 243 
 
 on ' Pushkin as a Psychologist.' To begin with, 
 you shouldn't set such a difficult subject; and, sec- 
 ondly, Pushkin was not a psychologist. Shtchedrin 
 now, or Dostoevsky let us say, is a different matter, 
 but Pushkin is a great poet and nothing more." 
 
 " Shtchedrin is one thing, and Pushkin is an- 
 other," Nikitin answered sulkily. 
 
 " I know you don't think much of Shtchedrin at 
 the high school, but that's not the point. Tell me, 
 in what sense is Pushkin a psychologist? " 
 
 " Why, do you mean to say he was not a psy- 
 chologist? If you like, PU give you examples." 
 
 And Nikitin recited several passages from " On- 
 yegin " and then from " Boris Godunov." 
 
 " I see no psychology in that." Varya sighed. 
 " The psychologist is the man who describes the 
 recesses of the human soul, and that's fine poetry 
 and nothing more." 
 
 " I know the sort of psychology you want," said 
 Nikitin, offended. " You want some one to saw 
 my finger with a blunt saw while I howl at the top 
 of my voice — that's what you mean by psychol- 
 
 ogy." 
 
 "That's poorl But still you haven't shown me 
 in what sense Pushkin is a psychologist? " 
 
 When Nikitin had to argue against anything that 
 seemed to him narrow, conventional, or something 
 of that kind, he usually leaped up from his scat.
 
 244 ^^^^^ Party and Other Stories 
 
 clutched at his head with both hands, and began with 
 a moan, running from one end of the room to an- 
 other. And it was the same now: he jumped up, 
 clutched his head in his hands, and with a moan 
 walked round the table, then he sat down a little way 
 off. 
 
 The officers took his part. Captain Polyansky 
 began assuring Varya that Pushkin really was a psy- 
 chologist, and to prove it quoted two lines from 
 Lermontov; Lieutenant Gernet said that if Pushkin 
 had not been a psychologist they would not have 
 erected a monument to him in Moscow. 
 
 " That's loutishness! " was heard from the other 
 end of the table. " I said as much to the governor: 
 ' It's loutishness, your Excellency,' I said." 
 
 " I won't argue any more," cried Nikitin. " It's 
 unending. . . . Enough ! Ach, get away, you nasty 
 dog! " he cried to Som, who laid his head and paw 
 on his knee. 
 
 " Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga ! " came from under the 
 table. 
 
 "Admit that you are wrong!" cried Varya. 
 " Own up ! " 
 
 But some young ladies came in, and the argument 
 dropped of itself. They all went into the drawing- 
 room. Varya sat down at the piano and began 
 playing dances. They danced first a waltz, then a 
 polka, then a quadrille with a grand chain which
 
 The Teacher of Literature 245 
 
 Captain Polyansky led through all the rooms, then 
 a waltz again. 
 
 During the dancing the old men sat in the draw- 
 ing-room, smoking and looking at the young peo- 
 ple. Among them was Shebaldin, the director of 
 the municipal bank, who was famed for his love of 
 literature and dramatic art. He had founded the 
 local Musical and Dramatic Society, and took part 
 in the performances himself, confining himself, for 
 some reason, to playing comic footmen or to read- 
 ing in a sing-song voice " The Woman who was a 
 Sinner." His nickname in the town was " the 
 Mummy," as he was tall, very lean and scraggy, 
 and always had a solemn air and a fixed, lustreless 
 eye. He was so devoted to the dramatic art that 
 he even shaved his moustache and beard, and this 
 made him still more like a mummy. 
 
 After the grand chain, he shufiied up to Nikitin 
 sideways, coughed, and said: 
 
 " I had the pleasure of being present during the 
 argument at tea. I fully share your opinion. We 
 are of one mind, and it would be a great pleasure 
 to me to talk to you. Have you read Lessing on 
 the dramatic art of Hamburg? " 
 
 " No, I haven't." 
 
 Shebaldin was horrified, and waved his hands as 
 though he had burnt his fingers, and saying nothing 
 more, staggered back from Nikitin. Shcbaldin's
 
 246 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 appearance, his question, and his surprise, struck 
 Nikitin as funny, but he thought none the less: 
 
 *' It really is awkward. I am a teacher of litera- 
 ture, and to this day I've not read Lessing. I must 
 read him." 
 
 Before supper the whole company, old and young, 
 sat down to play " fate." They took two packs 
 of cards: one pack was dealt round to the company, 
 the other was laid on the table face downwards. 
 
 " The one who has this card in his hand," old 
 Shelestov began solemnly, lifting the top card of 
 the second pack, " is fated to go into the nursery 
 and kiss nurse." 
 
 The pleasure of kissing the nurse fell to the lot 
 of Shebaldin. They all crowded round him, took 
 him to the nursery, and laughing and clapping their 
 hands, made him kiss the nurse. There was a great 
 uproar and shouting. 
 
 "Not so ardently!" cried Shelestov with tears 
 of laughter. " Not so ardently 1 " 
 
 It was Nikitin's " fate " to hear the confessions 
 of all. He sat on a chair in the middle of the 
 drawing-room. A shawl was brought and put over 
 his head. The first who came to confess to him was 
 Varya. 
 
 " I know your sins," Nikitin began, looking in the 
 darkness at her stern profile. " Tell me, madam, 
 how do you explain your walking with Polyansky
 
 The Teacher of Literature 247 
 
 every day? Oh, it's not for nothing she walks with 
 an hussar! " 
 
 " That's poor," said Varya, and walked away. 
 
 Then under the shawl he saw the shine of big 
 motionless eyes, caught the lines of a dear profile 
 in the dark, together with a familiar, precious fra- 
 grance which reminded Nikitin of Masha's room. 
 
 " Marie Godefroi," he said, and did not know 
 his own voice, it was so soft and tender, " what are 
 your sins? " 
 
 Masha screwed up her eyes and put out the tip 
 of her tongue at him, then she laughed and went 
 away. And a minute later she was standing in the 
 middle of the room, clapping her hands and crying: 
 
 " Supper, supper, supper! " 
 
 And they all streamed into the dining-room. At 
 supper Varya had another argument, and this time 
 with her father. Polyansky ate stolidly, drank red 
 wine, and described to Nikitin how once in a winter 
 campaign he had stood all night up to his knees in 
 a bog; the enemy was so near that they were not 
 allowed to speak or smoke, the night was cold and 
 dark, a piercing wind was blowing. Nikitin listened 
 and stole sidc-glanccs at Masha. She was gazing at 
 him immovably, without blinking, as tliough she was 
 pondering something or was lost in a reverie. . . . 
 It was pleasure and agony to him both at once. 
 
 " Why does she look at me like that? " was the
 
 248 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 question that fretted him. " It's awkward. People 
 may notice it. Oh, how young, how naive she isl " 
 
 The party broke up at midnight. When Nikitin 
 went out at the gate, a window opened on the first- 
 floor, and Masha showed herself at it. 
 
 " Sergey Vassilitch! " she called. 
 
 "What Is it?" 
 
 " I tell you what . . ." said Masha, evidently 
 thinking of something to say. " I tell you what. 
 . . . Polyansky said he would come in a day or 
 two with his camera and take us all. We must meet 
 here." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 Masha vanished, the window was slammed, and 
 some one immediately began playing the piano in 
 the house. 
 
 " Well, it is a house ! " thought Nikitin while he 
 crossed the street. " A house in which there is no 
 moaning except from Egyptian pigeons, and they 
 only do it because they have no other means of ex- 
 pressing their joy! " 
 
 But the Shelestovs were not the only festive house- 
 hold. Nikitin had not gone two hundred paces be- 
 fore he heard the strains of a piano from another 
 house. A little further he met a peasant playing 
 the balalaika at the gate. In the gardens the band 
 struck up a potpourri of Russian songs.
 
 The Teacher of Literature 249 
 
 NIkitIn lived nearly half a mile from the Sheles- 
 tovs' in a flat of eight rooms at the rent of three 
 hundred roubles a year, which he shared with his 
 colleague Ippolit Ippolititch, a teacher of geography 
 and history. When Nikitin went in this Ippolit 
 Ippolititch, a snub-nosed, middle-aged man with a 
 reddish beard, with a coarse, good-natured, unintel- 
 lectual face like a workman's, was sitting at the table 
 correcting his pupils' maps. He considered that the 
 most important and necessary part of the study of 
 geeography was the drawing of maps, and of the 
 study of history the learning of dates: he would sit 
 for nights together correcting in blue pencil the maps 
 drawn by the boys and girls he taught, or making 
 chronological tables. 
 
 " What a lovely day It has been! " said Nikitin, 
 going in to him. " I wonder at you — how can you 
 sit indoors? " 
 
 Ippolit Ippolititch was not a talkative person; he 
 either remained silent or talked of things which 
 everybody knew already. Now what he answered 
 was: 
 
 " Yes, very fine weather. It's May now; we soon 
 shall have real summer. And summer's a very dif- 
 ferent thing from winter. In the winter you have 
 to heat the stoves, but In summer you can keep warm 
 without. In summer you have your window open
 
 250 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 at night and still are warm, and in winter you are 
 cold even with the double frames in." 
 
 Nikitin had not sat at the table for more than 
 one minute before he was bored. 
 
 " Good-night! " he said, getting up and yawning. 
 " I wanted to tell you something romantic concern- 
 ing myself, but you are — geography ! If one talks 
 to you of love, you will ask one at once, ' What was 
 the date of the Battle of Kalka? ' Confound you, 
 with your battles and your capes in Siberia I " 
 
 " What are you cross about? " 
 
 " Why, it is vexatious I " 
 
 And vexed that he had not spoken to Masha, and 
 that he had no one to talk to of his love, he went to 
 his study and lay down upon the sofa. It was dark 
 and still in the study. Lying gazing into the dark- 
 ness, Nikitin for some reason began thinking how 
 in two or three years he would go to Petersburg, 
 how Masha would see him off at the station and 
 would cry; in Petersburg he would get a long letter 
 from her In which she would entreat him to come 
 home as quickly as possible. And he would write 
 to her. . . . He would begin his letter like that: 
 " My dear little rat! " 
 
 " Yes, my dear little rat ! " he said, and he 
 laughed. 
 
 He was lying in an uncomfortable position. He 
 put his arms under his head and put his left leg over
 
 The Teacher of Literature 251 
 
 the back of the sofa. He felt more comfortable. 
 Meanwhile a pale light was more and more per- 
 ceptible at the windows, sleepy cocks crowed in the 
 yard. Nikitin went on thinking how he would come 
 back from Petersburg, how Masha would meet him 
 at the station, and with a shriek of delight would 
 fling herself on his neck; or, better still, he would 
 cheat her and come home by stealth late at night: 
 the cook would open the door, then he would go on 
 tiptoe to the bedroom, undress noiselessly, and jump 
 into bed ! And she would wake up and be overjoyed. 
 
 It was beginning to get quite hght. By now there 
 were no windows, no study. On the steps of the 
 brewery by which they had ridden that day Masha 
 was sitting, saying something. Then she took Niki- 
 tin by the arm and went with him to the suburban 
 garden. There he saw the oaks and the crows' 
 nests like hats. One of the nests rocked; out of it 
 peeped Shebaldin, shouting loudly: " You have not 
 read Lessing! " 
 
 Nikitin shuddered all over and opened his eyes. 
 Ippolit Ippolititch was standing before the sofa, and 
 throwing back his head, was putting on his cravat. 
 
 "Get up; it's time for school," he said, "You 
 shouldn't sleep in your clothes; it spoils your clothes. 
 You should sleep in your bed, undressed." 
 
 And as usual he began slowly and emphatically 
 saying what everybody knew.
 
 252 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Nikitin's first lesson was on Russian language In 
 the second class. When at nine o'clock punctually 
 he went Into the classroom, he saw written on the 
 blackboard two large letters — M. S. That, no 
 doubt, meant Masha Shelestov. 
 
 *' They've scented It out already, the rascals . . ." 
 thought Nikltin. " How Is It they know every- 
 thing? " 
 
 The second lesson was In the fifth class. And 
 there two letters, M. S., were written on the black- 
 board; and when he went out of the classroom at 
 the end of the lesson, he heard the shout behind him 
 as though from a theatre gallery: 
 
 " Hurrah for Masha Shelestov! " 
 
 His head was heavy from sleeping in his clothes, 
 his limbs were weighted down with inertia. The 
 boys, who were expecting every day to break up 
 before the examinations, did nothing, were restless, 
 and so bored that they got into mischief. Nikltin, 
 too, was restless, did not notice their pranks, and 
 was continually going to the window. He could see 
 the street brilliantly lighted up with the sun; above 
 the houses the blue limpid sky, the birds, and far, 
 far away, beyond the gardens and the houses, vast 
 Indefinite distance, the forests In the blue haze, the 
 smoke from a passing train. . . . 
 
 Here two officers in white tunics, playing with 
 their whips, passed In the street in the shade of
 
 The Teacher of Literature 253 
 
 the acacias. Here a lot of Jews, with grey beards, 
 and caps on, drove past in a waggonette. . . . The 
 governess walked by with the director's granddaugh- 
 ter. Som ran by in the company of two other dogs. 
 . . . And then Varya, wearing a simple grey dress 
 and red stoclcings, carrying the " Vyestnik Evropi " 
 in her hand, passed by. She must have been to the 
 town library. ... 
 
 And it would be a long time before lessons were 
 over at three o'clock! And after school he could 
 not go home nor to the Shelestovs', but must go to 
 give a lesson at Wolf's. This Wolf, a wealthy Jew 
 who had turned Lutheran, did not send his children 
 to the high school, but had them taught at home by 
 the high-school masters, and paid five roubles a les- 
 son. 
 
 He was bored, bored, bored. 
 
 At three o'clock he went to Wolf's and spent 
 there, as it seemed to him, an eternity. He left 
 there at five o'clock, and before seven he had to 
 be at the high school again to a meeting of the mas- 
 ters — to draw up the plan for the viva voce exami- 
 nation of the fourth and sixth classes. 
 
 When late in the evening he left the high school 
 and went to the Shelestovs', his heart was beating 
 and his face was flushed. A month before, even 
 a week before, he had, every time that he made up 
 his mind to speak to her, prepared a whole speech,
 
 254 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 with an introduction and a conclusion. Now he 
 had not one word ready; everything was in a mud- 
 dle in his head, and all he knew was that today he 
 would certainly declare himself, and that it was ut- 
 terly impossible to wait any longer. 
 
 " I will ask her to come to the garden," he 
 thought; "we'll walk about a little and I'll speak." 
 
 There was not a soul in the hall; he went into 
 the dining-room and then into the drawing-room. 
 . . . There was no one there either. He could hear 
 Varya arguing with some one upstairs and the clink 
 of the dressmaker's scissors in the nursery. 
 
 There was a little room in the house which had 
 three names: the little room, the passage room, and 
 the dark room. There was a big cupboard in it 
 where they kept medicines, gunpowder, and their 
 hunting gear. Leading from this room to the first 
 floor was a narrow wooden staircase where cats were 
 always asleep. There were two doors in it — one 
 leading to the nursery, one to the drawing-room. 
 When Nikitin went into this room to go upstairs, 
 the door from the nursery opened and shut with such 
 a bang that it made the stairs and the cupboard trem- 
 ble; Masha, in a dark dress, ran in with a piece of 
 blue material in her hand, and, not noticing Nikitin, 
 darted towards the stairs. 
 
 " Stay . . ." said Nikitin, stopping her. ' Good- 
 evening, Godefroi. . . . Allow me. . . ."
 
 The Teacher of Literature 255 
 
 He gasped, he did not know what to say; with 
 one hand he held her hand and with the other the 
 blue material. And she was half frightened, half 
 surprised, and looked at him with big eyes. 
 
 "Allow me . . ." Nikitin went on, afraid she 
 would go away. " There's something I must say to 
 you. . . . Only . . . it's inconvenient here. I can- 
 not, I am incapable. . . . Understand, Godefroi, I 
 can't — that's all. ..." 
 
 The blue material slipped on to the floor, and 
 Nikitin took Masha by the other hand. She turned 
 pale, moved her lips, then stepped back from Niki- 
 tin and found herself in the corner between the wall 
 and the cupboard. 
 
 " On my honour, I assure you . . ." he said 
 softly. " Masha, on my honour. . . ." 
 
 She threw back her head and he kissed her lips, 
 and that the kiss might last longer he put his fin- 
 gers to her cheeks; and it somehow happened that 
 he found himself in the corner between the cupboard 
 and the wall, and she put her arms round his neck 
 and pressed her head against his chin. 
 
 Then they both ran into the garden. The Sheles- 
 tovs had a garden of nine acres. There were about 
 twenty old maples and lime-trees in it; there was one 
 fir-tree, and all the rest were fruit-trees: cherries, 
 apples, pears, horse-chestnuts, silvery olive-trees. 
 . . . There were heaps of flowers, too.
 
 256 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Nikitin and Masha ran along the avenues in si- 
 lence, laughed, asked each other from time to time 
 disconnected questions which they did not answer. 
 A crescent moon was shining over the garden, and 
 drowsy tulips and irises were stretching up from the 
 dark grass in its faint light, as though entreating 
 for words of love for them, too. 
 
 When Nikitin and Masha went back to the house, 
 the officers and the young ladies were already as- 
 sembled and dancing the mazurka. Again Polyan- 
 sky led the grand chain through all the rooms, again 
 after dancing they played " fate." Before supper, 
 when the visitors had gone into the dining-room, 
 Masha, left alone with Nikitin, pressed close to him 
 and said: 
 
 " You must speak to papa and Varya yourself; I 
 am ashamed." 
 
 After supper he talked to the old father. After 
 listening to him, Shelestov thought a little and said : 
 
 " I am very grateful for the honour you do me 
 and my daughter, but let me speak to you as a friend. 
 I will speak to you, not as a father, but as one gen- 
 tleman to another. Tell me, why do you want to 
 be married so young? Only peasants are married 
 so young, and that, of course, is loutishness. But 
 why should you? Where's the satisfaction of put- 
 ting on the fetters at your age? "
 
 The Teacher of Literature 257 
 
 " I am not young! " said Nikitin, offended. " I 
 am in my twenty-seventh year." 
 
 " Papa, the farrier has come! " cried Varya from 
 the other room. 
 
 And the conversation broke off. Varya, Masha, 
 and Polyansky saw Nikitin home. When they 
 reached his gate, Varya said: 
 
 " Why is it your mysterious Metropolit Metro- 
 poHtitch never shows himself anywhere? He might 
 come and see us." 
 
 The mysterious Ippolit Ippolititch was sitting on 
 his bed, taking off his trousers, when Nikitin went 
 in to him. 
 
 " Don't go to bed, my dear fellow," said Nikitin 
 breathlessly. " Stop a minute; don't go to bed! " 
 
 Ippolit Ippolititch put on his trousers hurriedly 
 and asked in a flutter: 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " I am going to be married." 
 
 Nikitin sit down beside his companion, and look- 
 ing at him wonderingly, as though surprised at him- 
 self, said: 
 
 "Only fancy, I am going to be married! To 
 Masha Shclcstov! I made an offer today." 
 
 "Well? She seems a good sort of girl. Only 
 she is very young." 
 
 " Yes, she is young," sighed Nikitin, and shrugged
 
 258 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 his shoulders with a careworn air. " Very, very 
 young! " 
 
 " She was my pupil at the high school. I know 
 her. She wasn't bad at geography, but she was 
 no good at history. And she was inattentive in 
 class, too." 
 
 Nikitin for some reason felt suddenly sorry for 
 his companion, and longed to say something kind 
 and comforting to him. 
 
 " My dear fellow, why don't you get married? " 
 he asked. " Why don't you marry Varya, for in- 
 stance? She is a splendid, first-rate girl! It's true 
 she is very fond of arguing, but a heart . . . what 
 a heart! She was just asking about you. Marry 
 her, my dear boy! Eh? " 
 
 He knew perfectly well that Varya would not 
 marry this dull, snub-nosed man, but still persuaded 
 him to marry her — why? 
 
 " Marriage is a serious step," said Ippollt Ippo- 
 lititch after a moment's thought. *' One has to look 
 at it all round and weigh things thoroughly; it's 
 not to be done rashly. Prudence is always a good 
 thing, and especially in marriage, when a man, ceas- 
 ing to be a bachelor, begins a new life." 
 
 And he talked of what every one has known for 
 ages. Nikitin did not stay to listen, said good- 
 night, and went to his own room. He undressed 
 quickly and quickly got into bed, in order to be
 
 The Teacher of Literature 259 
 
 able to think the sooner of his happiness, of Masha, 
 of the future; he smiled, then suddenly recalled 
 that he had not read Lessing. 
 
 " I must read him," he thought. " Though, 
 after all, why should I ? Bother him ! " 
 
 And exhausted by his happiness, he fell asleep 
 at once and went on smiling till the morning. 
 
 He dreamed of the thud of horses' hoofs on a 
 wooden floor; he dreamed of the black horse Count 
 Nulin, then of the white Giant and its sister Maika, 
 being led out of the stable. 
 
 II 
 
 " It was very crowded and noisy in the church, 
 and once some one cried out, and the head priest, 
 who was marrying Masha and me, looked through 
 his spectacles at the crowd, and said severely: 
 * Don't move about the church, and don't make a 
 noise, but stand quietly and pray. You should have 
 the fear of God in your hearts.' 
 
 " My best men were two of my colleagues, and 
 Masha's best men were Captain Polyansky and 
 Lieutenant Gernet. The bishop's choir sang su- 
 perbly. The sputtering of the candles, the bril- 
 liant light, the gorgeous dresses, the officers, the 
 numbers of gay, happy faces, and a special ethereal 
 look in Masha, everything together — the surround-
 
 26o The Party and Other Stories 
 
 ings and the words of the wedding prayers — moved 
 me to tears and filled me with triumph. I thought 
 how my life had blossomed, how poetically It was 
 shaping itself I Two years ago I was still a student, 
 I was living in cheap furnished rooms, without 
 money, without relations, and, as I fancied then, 
 with nothing to look forward to. Now I am a 
 teacher in the high school in one of the best pro- 
 vincial towns, with a secure income, loved, spoiled. 
 It is for my sake, I thought, this crowd is collected, 
 for my sake three candelabra have been lighted, the 
 deacon is booming, the choir is doing its best; and 
 it's for my sake that this young creature, whom I 
 soon shall call my wife, is so young, so elegant, and 
 so joyful. I recalled our first meetings, our rides 
 into the country, my declaration of love and the 
 weather, which, as though expressly, was so exqui- 
 sitely fine all the summer; and the happiness which 
 at one time in my old rooms seemed to me possible 
 only in novels and stories, I was now experiencing 
 in reality — I was now, as it were, holding it in 
 my hands. 
 
 " After the ceremony they all crowded in dis- 
 order round Masha and me, expressed their genuine 
 pleasure, congratulated us and wished us joy. The 
 brigadier-general, an old man of seventy, confined 
 himself to congratulating Masha, and said to her
 
 The Teacher of Literature 261 
 
 in a squeaky, aged voice, so loud that it could be 
 heard all over the church: 
 
 " ' I hope that even after you are married you 
 may remain the rose you are now, my dear.' 
 
 " The officers, the director, and all the teachers 
 smiled from politeness, and I was conscious of an 
 agreeable artificial smile on my face, too. Dear 
 Ippolit Ippolititch, the teacher of history and geog- 
 raphy, who always says what every one has heard 
 before, pressed my hand warmly and said with feel- 
 ing: 
 
 " ' Hitherto you have been unmarried and have 
 lived alone, and now you are married and no longer 
 single.' 
 
 " From the church we went to a two-storied 
 house which I am receiving as part of the dowry. 
 Besides that house Masha is bringing me twenty 
 thousand roubles, as well as a piece of waste land 
 with a shanty on it, where I am told there are num- 
 bers of hens and ducks which are not looked after 
 and are turning wild. When I got home from the 
 church, I stretched myself at full length on the low 
 sofa in my new study and began to smoke; I felt 
 snug, cosy, and comfortable, as I never had in my 
 life before. And meanwhile the wedding party 
 were shouting ' Hurrah! ' while a wretched band in 
 the hall played flourishes and all sorts of trash.
 
 262 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Varya, Masha's sister, ran Into the study with a 
 wineglass in her hand, and with a queer, strained 
 expression, as though her mouth were full of water; 
 apparently she had meant to go on further, but she 
 suddenly burst out laughing and sobbing, and the 
 wineglass crashed on the floor. We took her by the 
 arms and led her away. 
 
 " ' Nobody can understand! ' she muttered after- 
 wards, lying on the old nurse's bed in a back room. 
 'Nobody, nobody! My God, nobody can under- 
 stand!' 
 
 *' But every one understood very well that she 
 was four years older than her sister Masha, and still 
 unmarried, and that she was crying, not from envy, 
 but from the melancholy consciousness that her time 
 was passing, and perhaps had passed. When they 
 danced the quadrille, she was back In the drawing- 
 room with a tear-stained and heavily powdered face, 
 and I saw Captain Polyansky holding a plate of ice 
 before her while she ate It with a spoon. 
 
 " It is past five o'clock In the morning. I took 
 up my diary to describe my complete and perfect 
 happiness, and thought I would write a good six 
 pages, and read It tomorrow to Masha; but, strange 
 to say, everything is muddled In my head and as 
 misty as a dream, and I can remember vividly noth- 
 ing but that episode with Varya, and I want to 
 write, ' Poor Varya ! ' I could go on sitting here
 
 The Teacher of Literature 263 
 
 and writing ' Poor Varya ! ' By the way, the trees 
 have begun rusthng; It will rain. The crows are 
 cawing, and my Masha, who has just gone to sleep, 
 has for some reason a sorrowful face." 
 
 For a long while afterwards Nikitin did not write 
 his diary. At the beginning of August he had the 
 school examinations, and after the fifteenth the 
 classes began. As a rule he set off for school before 
 nine in the morning, and before ten o'clock he was 
 looking at his watch and pining for his Masha and 
 his new house. In the lower forms he would set 
 some boy to dictate, and while the boys were writ- 
 ing, would sit In the window with his eyes shut, 
 dreaming; whether he dreamed of the future or re- 
 called the past, everything seemed to him equally de- 
 lightful, like a fairy tale. In the senior classes they 
 were reading aloud Gogol or Pushkin's prose works, 
 and that made him sleepy; people, trees, fields, 
 horses, rose before his imagination, and he would 
 say with a sigh, as though fascinated by the author: 
 
 "How lovely!" 
 
 At the midday recess Masha used to send him 
 lunch in a snow-white napkin, and he would eat It 
 slowly, with pauses, to prolong the enjoyment of 
 It; and Ippolit Ippolltitch, whose lunch as a rule 
 consisted of nothing but bread, looked at him with 
 respect and envy, and gave expression to some fa- 
 miliar fact, such as:
 
 264 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 *' Men cannot live without food." 
 
 After school Nikitin went straight to give his pri- 
 vate lessons, and when at last by six o'clock he got 
 home, he felt excited and anxious, as though he had 
 been away for a year. He would run upstairs 
 breathless, find Masha, throw his arms round her, 
 and kiss her and swear that he loved her, that he 
 could not live without her, declare that he had missed 
 her fearfully, and ask her in trepidation how she was 
 and why she looked so depressed. Then they would 
 dine together. After dinner he would lie on the 
 sofa in his study and smoke, while she sat beside 
 him and talked in a low voice. 
 
 His happiest days now were Sundays and holi- 
 days, when he was at home from morning till eve- 
 nine. On those days he took part in the naive but 
 extraordinarily pleasant life which reminded him of 
 a pastoral idyl. He was never weary of watching 
 how his sensible and practical Masha was arranging 
 her nest, and anxious to show that he was of some 
 use in the house, he would do something useless — 
 for instance, bring the chaise out of the stable and 
 look at it from every side. Masha had installed 
 a regular dairy with three cows, and in her cellar 
 she had many jugs of milk and pots of sour cream, 
 and she kept it all for butter. Sometimes, by way of 
 a joke, Nikitin would ask her for a glass of milk, 
 and she w^ould be quite upset because it was against
 
 The Teacher of Literature 265 
 
 her rules; but he would laugh and throw his arms 
 round her, saying: 
 
 " There, there; I was joking, my darling! I was 
 joking! " 
 
 Or he would laugh- at her strictness when, find- 
 ing in the cupboard some stale bit of cheese or 
 sausage as hard as a stone, she would say seriously: 
 
 " They will eat that in the kitchen." 
 
 He would observe that such a scrap was only 
 fit for a mousetrap, and she would reply warmly 
 that men knew nothing about housekeeping, and 
 that It was just the same to the servants if you were 
 to send down a hundredweight of savouries to the 
 kitchen. He would agree, and embrace her enthu- 
 siastically. Everything that was just in what she 
 said seemed to him extraordinary and amazing; and 
 what did not fit in with his convictions seemed to 
 him naive and touching. 
 
 Sometimes he was in a philosophical mood, and 
 he would begin to discuss some abstract subject 
 while she listened and looked at his face with curi- 
 osity. 
 
 " I am immensely happy with you, my joy," he 
 used to say, playing with her fingers or plaiting and 
 unplalting her hair. " But T don't look upon this 
 happiness of mine as something that has come to me 
 liy chance, as though it had dropped from heaven. 
 This happiness Is a perfectly natural, consistent, log-
 
 266 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 ical consequence. I believe that man Is the creator 
 of his own happiness, and now I am enjoying just 
 what I have myself created. Yes, I speak, without 
 false modesty: I have created this happiness myself 
 and 1 have a right to it. You know my past. My 
 unhappy childhood, without father or mother; my 
 depressing youth, poverty — all this was a struggle, 
 all this was the path by which I made my way to 
 happiness. . . ." 
 
 In October the school sustained a heavy loss: 
 Ippolit Ippolititch was taken ill with erysipelas on 
 the head and died. For two days before his death 
 he was unconscious and delirious, but even in his 
 delirium he said nothing that was not perfectly well 
 known to every one. 
 
 " The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea. . . . 
 Horses eat oats and hay. . . ." 
 
 There were no lessons at the high school on the 
 day of his funeral. His colleagues and pupils were 
 the coffin-bearers, and the school choir sang all the 
 way to the grave the anthem " Holy God." Three 
 priests, two deacons, all his pupils and the staff of 
 the boys' high school, and the bishop's choir in 
 their best kaftans, took part in the procession. 
 And passers-by who met the solemn procession, 
 crossed themselves and said: 
 
 " God grant us all such a death." 
 
 Returning home from the cemetery much moved,
 
 The Teacher of Literature 267 
 
 Nikitin got out his diary from the table and wrote: 
 " We have just consigned to the tomb Ippolit 
 Ippolititch Ryzhitsky. Peace to your ashes, mod- 
 est worker! Masha, Varya, and all the women at 
 the funeral, wept from genuine feeling, perhaps be- 
 cause they knew this uninteresting, humble man had 
 never been loved by a woman. I wanted to say a 
 warm word at my colleague's grave, but I was 
 warned that this might displease the director, as he 
 did not like our poor friend. I believe that this is 
 the first day since my marriage that my heart has 
 been heavy." 
 
 There was no other event of note in the scholastic 
 year. 
 
 The winter was mild, with wet snow and no frost; 
 on Epiphany Eve, for instance, the wind howled all 
 night as though it were autumn, and water trickled 
 off the roofs; and in the morning, at the ceremony of 
 the blessing of the water, the police allowed no one 
 to go on the river, because they said the ice was 
 swelling up and looked dark. But in spite of bad 
 weather Nikitin's life was as happy as in summer. 
 And, indeed, he acquired another source of pleasure; 
 he learned to play vint. Only one thing troubled 
 him, moved him to anger, and seemed to prevent him 
 from being perfectly happy: the cats and dogs which 
 formed part of his wife's dowry. The rooms, 
 especially in the morning, always smelt like a
 
 268 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 menagerie, and nothing could destroy the odour; the 
 cats frequently fought with the dogs. The spiteful 
 beast Mushka was fed a dozen times a day; she still 
 refused to recognize Nikitin and growled at him: 
 " Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga 1 " 
 
 One night in Lent he was returning home from the 
 club where he had been playing cards. It was dark, 
 raining, and muddy. Nikitin had an unpleasant 
 feeling at the bottom of his heart and could not ac- 
 count for it. He did not know whether it was be- 
 cause he had lost twelve roubles at cards, or whether 
 because one of the players, when they were settling 
 up, had said that of course Nikitin had pots of 
 money, with obvious reference to his wife's portion. 
 He did not regret the twelve roubles, and there was 
 nothing offensive in what had been said; but, still, 
 there was the unpleasant feeling. He did not even 
 feel a desire to go home. 
 
 " Foo, how horrid! " he said, standing still at a 
 lamp-post. 
 
 It occurred to him that he did not regret the twelve 
 roubles because he got them for nothing. If he had 
 been a working man he would have known the value 
 of every farthing, and would not have been so care- 
 less whether he lost or won. And his good-fortune 
 had all, he reflected, come to him by chance, for noth- 
 ing, and really was as superfluous for him as medicine 
 for the healthy. If, like the vast majority of people,
 
 The Teacher of Literature 269 
 
 he had been harassed by anxiety for his daily bread, 
 had been struggling for existence, if his back and 
 chest had ached from work, then supper, a warm 
 snug home, and domestic happiness, would have been 
 the necessity, the compensation, the crown of his life; 
 as it was, all this had a strange, indefinite significance 
 for him. 
 
 " Foo, how horrid! " he repeated, knowing per- 
 fectly well that these reflections were in themselves 
 a bad sign. 
 
 When he got home Masha wes In bed: she was 
 breathing evenly and smiling, and was evidently 
 sleeping with great enjoyment. Near her the white 
 cat lay curled up, purring. While Nikitin lit the 
 candle and lighted his cigarette, Masha woke up and 
 greedily drank a glass of water. 
 
 " I ate too many sweets," she said, and laughed. 
 " Have you been home? " she asked after a pause. 
 
 " No." 
 
 Nikitin knew already that Captain Polyansky, on 
 whom Varya had been building great hopes of late, 
 was being transferred to one of the western prov- 
 inces, and was already making his farewell visits in 
 the town, and so it was depressing at his father-in- 
 law's. 
 
 " Varya looked In this eve,rilng," said Masha, 
 sitting up. " She did not say anything, but one could 
 see from her face how wretched she is, poor darling 1
 
 270 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 I can't bear Polyansky. He Is fat and bloated, and 
 when he walks or dances his cheeks shake. . . . He 
 is not a man I would choose. But, still, I did think 
 he was a decent person." 
 
 " I think he is a decent person now," said Nikltin. 
 
 " Then why has he treated Varya so badly? " 
 
 "Why badly?" asked Nikitin, beginning to feel 
 Irritation against the white cat, who was stretching 
 and arching its back. " As far as I know, he has 
 made no proposal and has given her no promises." 
 
 *' Then why was he so often at the house? If he 
 didn't mean to marry her, he oughtn't to have come." 
 
 Nikitin put out the candle and got Into bed. But 
 he felt disinclined to lie down and to sleep. He felt 
 as though his head were Immense and empty as a 
 barn, and that new, peculiar thoughts were wander- 
 ing about In It like tall shadows. He thought that, 
 apart from the soft light of the ikon lamp, that 
 beamed upon their quiet domestic happiness, that 
 apart from this little world In which he and this cat 
 lived so peacefully and happily, there was another 
 world. . . . And he had a passionate, poignant 
 longing to be in that other world, to work himself at 
 some factory or big workshop, to address big audi- 
 ences, to write, to publish, to raise a stir, to exhaust 
 himself, to suffer. ... He wanted something that 
 would engross him till he forgot himself, ceased to 
 care for the personal happiness which yielded him
 
 The Teacher of Literature 271 
 
 only sensations so monotonous. And suddenly there 
 rose vividly before his imagination the figure of 
 Shebaldin with his clean-shaven face, saying to him 
 with horror: "You haven't even read Lessingl 
 You are quite behind the times! How you have 
 gone to seed! " 
 
 Masha woke up and again drank some water. 
 He glanced at her neck, at her plump shoulders and 
 throat, and remembered the word the brigadier- 
 general had used in church — " rose." 
 
 *' Rose," he muttered, and laughed. 
 
 His laugh was answered by a sleepy growl 
 from Mushka under the bed: " Rrr . . . nga-nga- 
 nga ... I " 
 
 A heavy anger sank like a cold weight on his 
 heart, and he felt tempted to say something rude 
 to Masha, and even to jump up and hit her; his heart 
 began throbbing. 
 
 " So then," he asked, restraining himself, ** since 
 I went to your house, I was bound in duty to marry 
 you?" 
 
 ' Of course. You know that very well." 
 
 " That's nice." And a minute later he repeated: 
 "That's nice." 
 
 To relieve the throbbing of his heart, and to avoid 
 saying too much, Nikitin went to his study and lay 
 down on the sofa, without a pillow; then he lay on 
 the floor on the carpet.
 
 272 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " What nonsense it is! " he said to reassure him- 
 self. " You are a teacher, you are working in the 
 noblest of callings. . . . What need have you of any 
 other world ? What rubbish ! " 
 
 But almost immediately he told himself with con- 
 viction that he was not a real teacher, but simply a 
 government employe, as commonplace and mediocre 
 as the Czech who taught Greek. He had never had 
 a vocation for teaching, he knew nothing of the the- 
 ory of teaching, and never had been interested in the 
 subject; he did not know how to treat children; he 
 did not understand the significance of what he taught, 
 and perhaps did not teach the right things. Poor 
 Ippolit Ippolititch had been frankly stupid, and all 
 the boys, as well as his colleagues, knew what he was 
 and what to expect from him; but he, Nikitin, like 
 the Czech, knew how to conceal his stupidity and 
 cleverly deceived every one by pretending that, thank 
 God, his teaching was a success. These new ideas 
 frightened Nikitin; he rejected them, called them stu- 
 pid, and believed that all this was due to his nerves, 
 that he would laugh at himself. 
 
 And he did, in fact, by the morning laugh at 
 himself and call himself an old woman; but it was 
 clear to him that Kis peace of mind was lost, perhaps, 
 for ever, and that in that little two-story house hap- 
 piness was henceforth impossible for him. He real- 
 ized that the illusion had evaporated, and that a new
 
 The Teacher of Literature 273 
 
 life of unrest and clear sight was beginning which 
 was incompatible with peace and personal happiness. 
 
 Next day, which was Sunday, he was at the school 
 chapel, and there met his colleagues and the director. 
 It seemed to him that they were entirely preoccupied 
 with concealing their ignorance and discontent with 
 life, and he, too, to conceal his uneasiness, smiled 
 affably and tallced of trivialities. Then he went to 
 the station and saw the mail train come in and go 
 out, and it was agreeable to him to be alone and not 
 to have to talk to any one. 
 
 At home he found Varya and his father-in-law, 
 who had come to dinner. Varya's eyes were red 
 with crying, and she complained of a headache, while 
 Shelestov ate a great deal, saying that young men 
 nowadays were unreliable, and that there was very 
 little gentlemanly feeling among them. 
 
 " It's loutishness! " he said. " I shall tell him so 
 to his face: ' It's loutishness, sir,' I shall say." 
 
 Nikitin smiled affably and helped Masha to look 
 after their guests, but after dinner he went to his 
 study and shut the door. 
 
 The March sun was shining brightly in at the 
 windows and shedding its warm rays on the table. 
 It was only the twentieth of the month, but already 
 the cabmen were driving with wheels, and the star- 
 lings were noisy in the garden. It was just the 
 weather in which Masha would come in, put one arm
 
 274 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 round his neck, tell him the horses were saddled or 
 the chaise was at the door, and ask him what she 
 should put on to keep warm. Spring was beginning 
 as exquisitely as last spring, and it promised the same 
 joys. . . . But Nikitin was thinking that it would be 
 nice to take a holiday and go to Moscow, and stay 
 at his old lodgings there. In the next room they 
 were drinking coffee and talking of Captain Poly- 
 ansky, while he tried not to listen and wrote in his 
 diary: " Where am I, my God? I am surrounded 
 by vulgarity and vulgarity. Wearisome, insignifi- 
 cant people, pots of sour cream, jugs of milk, cock- 
 roaches, stupid women. . . . There is nothing more 
 terrible, mortifying, and distressing than vulgarity. 
 I must escape from here, I must escape today, or I 
 shall go out of my mind ! "
 
 NOT WANTED
 
 NOT WANTED 
 
 Between six and seven o'clock on a July evening, 
 a crowd of summer visitors — mostly fathers of 
 families — burdened with parcels, portfolios, and 
 ladies' hat-boxes, was trailing along from the little 
 station of Helkovo, in the direction of the summer 
 villas. They all looked exhausted, hungry, and ill- 
 humoured, as though the sun were not shining and the 
 grass were not green for them. 
 
 Trudging along among the others was Pavel 
 Matveyitch Zaikin, a member of the Circuit Court, 
 a tall, stooping man, in a cheap cotton dust-coat and 
 with a cockade on his faded cap. He was perspir- 
 ing, red in the face, and gloomy. . . . 
 
 " Do you come out to your holiday home every 
 day?" said a summer visitor, in ginger-coloured 
 trousers, addressing him. 
 
 " No, not every day," Zaikin answered sullenly. 
 " My wife and son are staying here all the while, 
 and I come down two or three times a week. I 
 haven't time to come every day; besides, it is ex- 
 pensive." 
 
 "You're right there; it is expensive," sighed he 
 
 277
 
 278 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 of the ginger trousers. " In town you can't walk to 
 the station, you have to take a cab; and then, the 
 ticket costs forty-two kopecks; you buy a paper for 
 the journey ; one is tempted to drink a glass of vodka. 
 It's all petty expenditure not worth considering, but, 
 mind you, in the course of the summer it will run up 
 to some two hundred roubles. Of course, to be in 
 the lap of Nature is worth any money — I don't dis- 
 pute it . . . idyllic and all the rest of it; but of 
 course, with the salary an official gets, as you know 
 yourself, every farthing has to be considered. If 
 you waste a halfpenny you lie awake all night. , . . 
 Yes ... I receive, my dear sir — I haven't the 
 honour of knowing your name — I receive a salary 
 of very nearly two thousand roubles a year. I am 
 a civil councillor, I smoke second-rate tobacco, and 
 I haven't a rouble to spare to buy Vichy water, pre- 
 scribed me by the doctor for gall-stones." 
 
 " It's altogether abominable," said Zaikin after a 
 brief silence. " I maintain, sir, that summer holi- 
 days are the invention of the devil and of woman. 
 The devil was actuated in the present instance by 
 malice, woman by excessive frivolity. Mercy on 
 us, it is not life at all; it is hard labour, it is hell! 
 It's hot and stifling, you can hardly breathe, and you 
 wander about like a lost soul and can find no refuge. 
 In town there is no furniture, no servants . . . 
 everything has been carried off to the villa: you eat
 
 Not Wanted 279 
 
 what you can get ; you go without your tea because 
 there is no one to heat the samovar; you can't wash 
 yourself; and when you come down here into this 
 'lap of Nature' you have to walk, if you please, 
 through the dust and heat. . . . Phew! Are you 
 married? " 
 
 " Yes . . . three children," sighs Ginger Trousers. 
 
 " It's abominable altogether. . . . It's a wonder 
 we are still alive." 
 
 At last the summer visitors reached their destina- 
 tion. Zaikin said good-bye to Ginger Trousers and 
 went into his villa. He found a death-like silence in 
 the house. He could hear nothing but the buzzing 
 of the gnats, and the prayer for help of a fly destined 
 for the dinner of a spider. The windows were hung 
 with muslin curtains, through which the faded flow- 
 ers of the geraniums showed red. On the unpainted 
 wooden walls near the oleographs flies were slum- 
 bering. There was not a soul in the passage, the 
 kitchen, or the dining-room. In the room which 
 was called indifferently the parlour or the drawing- 
 room, Zaikin found his son Petya, a little boy of six. 
 Petya was sitting at the table, and breathing loudly 
 with his lower lip stuck out, was engaged in cutting 
 out the figure of a knave of diamonds from a card. 
 
 "Oh, that's you, father! " he said, without turn- 
 ing round. " Good-evening." 
 
 " Good-evening. . . . And where is mother? "
 
 28o The Party and Other Stories 
 
 *' Mother? She is gone with Olga Kirillovna to 
 a rehearsal of the play. The day after tomorrow 
 they will have a performance. And they will take 
 me, too. . . . And will you go? " 
 
 "H'm! . . . When is she coming back? " 
 
 " She said she would be back in the evening." 
 
 " And where is Natalya? " 
 
 " Mamma took Natalya with her to help her dress 
 for the performance, and Akulina has gone to the 
 wood to get mushrooms. Father, why is it that 
 when gnats bite you their stomachs get red? " 
 
 " I don't know. . . . Because they suck blood. 
 So there is no one in the house, then? " 
 
 " No one; I am all alone in the house." 
 
 Zaikin sat down in an easy-chair, and for a mo- 
 ment gazed blankly at the window. 
 
 " Who is going to get our dinner? " he asked. 
 
 " They haven't cooked any dinner today, father. 
 Mamma thought you were not coming today, and did 
 not order any dinner. She is going to have dinner 
 with Olga Kirillovna at the rehearsal." 
 
 "Oh, thank you very much; and you, what have 
 you to eat? " 
 
 *' I've had some milk. They bought me six 
 kopecks' worth of milk. And, father, why do gnats 
 suck blood? " 
 
 Zaikin suddenly felt as though something heavy 
 were rolling down on his liver and beginning to gnaw
 
 Not Wanted 281 
 
 it. He felt so vexed, so aggrieved, and so bitter, 
 that he was choking and tremulous; he wanted to 
 jump up, to bang something on the floor, and to burst 
 into loud abuse ; but then he remembered that his doc- 
 tor had absolutely forbidden him all excitement, so 
 he got up, and making an effort to control himself, 
 began whistling a tune from " Les Huguenots." 
 
 " Father, can you act in plays? " he heard Petya's 
 voice. 
 
 " Oh, don't worry me with stupid questions ! " said 
 Zaikin, getting angry. " He sticks to one like a leaf 
 in the bath ! Here you are, six years old, and just 
 as silly as you were three years ago. . . . Stupid, 
 neglected child! Why are you spoiling those cards, 
 for instance? How dare you spoil them?" 
 
 " These cards aren't yours," said Petya, turning 
 round. " Natalya gave them me." 
 
 " You are telling fibs, you are telling fibs, you 
 horrid boy! " said Zaikin, growing more and more 
 irritated. " You are always telling fibs ! You want 
 a whipping, you horrid little pig! I will pull your 
 ears!" 
 
 Petya leapt up, and craning his neck, stared fixedly 
 at his father's red and wrathful face. Ills big eyes 
 first began blinking, then were dimmed with mois- 
 ture, and the boy's face began working. 
 
 "But why arc you scolding?" squealed Petya. 
 "Why do you attack mc, you stupid? I am not
 
 282 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 interfering with anybody; I am not naughty; I do 
 what I am told, and yet . . . you are cross! Why 
 are you scolding me? " 
 
 The boy spoke with conviction, and wept so bit- 
 terly that Zaikin felt conscience-stricken. 
 
 " Yes, really, why am I falling foul of him? " he 
 thought. " Come, come," he said, touching the boy 
 on the shoulder. " I am sorry, Petya . . . forgive 
 me. You are my good boy, my nice boy, I love 
 you." 
 
 Petya wiped his eyes with his sleeve, sat down, 
 W'ith a sigh, in the same place and began cutting out 
 the queen. Zaikin went off to his own room. He 
 stretched himself on the sofa, and putting his hands 
 behind his head, sank into thought. The boy's tears 
 had softened his anger, and by degrees the oppres- 
 sion on his liver grew less. He felt nothing but 
 exhaustion and hunger. 
 
 " Father," he heard on the other side of the door, 
 " shall I show you my collection of insects? " 
 
 " Yes, show me." 
 
 Petya came into the study and handed his father a 
 long green box. Before raising it to his ear Zaikin 
 could hear a despairing buzz and the scratching of 
 claws on the sides of the box. Opening the lid, he 
 saw a number of butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, 
 and flies fastened to the bottom of the box with pins.
 
 Not Wanted 283 
 
 All except two or three butterflies were still alive 
 and moving. 
 
 " Why, the grasshopper is still alive ! " said Petya 
 in surprise. " I caught him yesterday morning, and 
 he is still alive! " 
 
 " Who taught you to pin them in this way? " 
 
 " Olga KiriUovna." 
 
 " Olga KiriUovna ought to be pinned down lil^e 
 that herself! " said Zaikin with repulsion. "Take 
 them away! It's shameful to torture animals." 
 
 " My God ! How horribly he is being brought 
 up ! " he thought, as Petya went out. 
 
 Pavel Matveyitch forgot his exhaustion and hun- 
 ger, and thought of nothing but his boy's future. 
 Meanwhile, outside the light was gradually fading. 
 ... He could hear the summer visitors trooping 
 back from the evening bathe. Some one was stop- 
 ping near the open dining-room window and shout- 
 ing: " Do you want any mushrooms? " And get- 
 ting no answer, shuffled on with bare feet. . . . But 
 at last, when the dusk was so thick that the outlines 
 of the geraniums behind the muslin curtain were lost, 
 and whiffs of the freshness of evening were coming 
 in at the window, the door of the passage was thrown 
 open noisily, and there came a sound of rapid foot- 
 steps, talk, and laughter. . . . 
 
 " Mamma ! " shrieked Petya.
 
 284 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Zaikin peeped out of his study and saw his wife, 
 Nadyezhda Stepanova, healthy and rosy as ever; 
 with her he saw Olga Kirillovna, a spare woman 
 with fair hair and heavy freckles, and two unknown 
 men: one a lanky young man with curly red hair 
 and a big Adam's apple; the other, a short stubby 
 man with a shaven face like an actor's and a bluish 
 crooked chin. 
 
 " Natalya, set the samovar," cried Nadyezhda 
 Stepanovna, with a loud rustle of her skirts. " I 
 hear Pavel Matveyitch is come. Pavel, where are 
 you? Good-evening, Pavel! " she said, running into 
 the study breathlessly. " So you've come. I am so 
 glad. . . . Two of our amateurs have come with 
 me. . . . Come, Pll introduce you. . . . Here, the 
 taller one is Koromyslov ... he sings splendidly; 
 and the other, the little one ... Is called Smerka- 
 lov: he is a real actor ... he recites magnificently. 
 Oh, how tired I am! We have just had a re- 
 hearsal. ... It goes splendidly. We are acting 
 ' The Lodger with the Trombone ' and ' Waiting for 
 Him.' . . . The performance Is the day after to- 
 morrow. . . ." 
 
 " Why did you bring them? " asked Zaikin. 
 
 "I couldn't help It, Poppet; after tea we must 
 rehearse our parts and sing something. ... I am 
 to sing a duet with Koromyslov. . . . Oh, yes, I was 
 almost forgetting! Darling, send Natalya to get
 
 Not Wanted 285 
 
 some sardines, vodka, cheese, and something else. 
 They will most likely stay to supper. . . . Oh, how 
 tired I am! " 
 
 " H'm! I've no money." 
 
 " You must, Poppet ! It would be awkward I 
 Don't make me blush." 
 
 Half an hour later Natalya was sent for vodka 
 and savouries; Zaikin, after drinking tea and eating 
 a whole French loaf, went to his bedroom and lay 
 down on the bed, while Nadyezhda Stepanovna and 
 her visitors, with much noise and laughter, set to 
 work to rehearse their parts. For a long time Pavel 
 Matveyltch heard Koromyslov's nasal reciting and 
 Smerkalov's theatrical exclamations. . . . The re- 
 hearsal was followed by a long conversation, Inter- 
 rupted by the shrill laughter of Olga KIrlllovna. 
 Smerkalov, as a real actor, explained the parts with 
 aplomb and heat. . . . 
 
 Then followed the duet, and after the duet there 
 was the clatter of crockery. . . . Through his 
 drowsiness ZaIkIn heard them persuading Smerka- 
 lov to read " The Woman who was a Sinner," and 
 heard him, after affecting to refuse, begin to recite. 
 He hissed, beat himself on the breast, wept, laughed 
 in a husky bass. . . . Zaikin scowled and hid his 
 head under the quilt. 
 
 " It's a long way for you to go, and it's dark," he 
 heard Nadyezhda Stcpanovna's voice an hour later.
 
 286 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " Why shouldn't you stay the night here? Koromy- 
 slov can sleep here in the drawing-room on the sofa, 
 and you, Smerkalov, in Petya's bed. ... I can put 
 Petya in my husband's study. . . . Do stay, really ! " 
 At last when the clock was striking two, all was 
 hushed, the bedroom door opened, and Nadyezhda 
 Stepanovna appeared. 
 
 " Pavel, are you asleep? " she whispered. 
 
 "No; why?" 
 
 " Go into your study, darling, and lie on the sofa. 
 I am going to put Olga Kirillovna here, in your bed. 
 Do go, dear ! I would put her to sleep in the study, 
 but she is afraid to sleep alone. . . . Do get up! " 
 
 Zaikin got up, threw on his dressing-gown, and 
 taking his pillow, crept wearily to the study. . . . 
 Feeling his way to his sofa, he lighted a match, and 
 saw Petya lying on the sofa. The boy was not 
 asleep, and, looking at the match with wide-open 
 eyes: 
 
 " Father, why is it gnats don't go to sleep at 
 night? " he asked. 
 
 " Because . . . because . . . you and I are not 
 wanted. . . . We have nowhere to sleep even." 
 
 " Father, and why is it Olga Kirillovna has 
 freckles on her face? " 
 
 " Oh, shut up ! I am tired of you." 
 
 After a moment's thought, Zaikin dressed and 
 went out into the street for a breath of air. . . .
 
 Not Wanted 287 
 
 He looked at the grey morning sky, at the motion- 
 less clouds, heard the lazy call of the drowsy corn- 
 crake, and began dreaming of the next day, when 
 he would go to town, and coming back from the court 
 would tumble into bed. . . . Suddenly the figure of 
 a man appeared round the corner. 
 
 " A watchman, no doubt," thought Zaikin. 
 
 But going nearer and looking more closely he 
 recognized in the figure the summer visitor In the 
 ginger trousers. 
 
 " You're not asleep? " he asked. 
 
 " No, I can't sleep," sighed Ginger Trousers. 
 *' I am enjoying Nature. ... A welcome visitor, 
 my wife's mother, arrived by the night train, you 
 know. She brought with her our nieces . . . splen- 
 did girls! I was delighted to see them, although 
 . . . it's very damp! And you, too, are enjoying 
 Nature?" 
 
 " Yes," grunted Zaikin, " I am enjoying It, too. 
 . . . Do you know whether there is any sort of 
 tavern or restaurant in the neighbourhood? " 
 
 Ginger Trousers raised his eyes to heaven and 
 meditated profoundly.
 
 TYPHUS
 
 TYPHUS 
 
 A YOUNG lieutenant called Klimov was travelling 
 from Petersburg to Moscow in a smoking carriage 
 of the mail train. Opposite him was sitting an 
 elderly man with a shav'en face like a sea captain's, 
 by all appearances a well-to-do Finn or Swede. He 
 pulled at his pipe the whole journey and kept talking 
 about the same subject: 
 
 "Ha, you are an officer! I have a brother an 
 officer too, only he is a naval officer. . . . He is a 
 naval officer, and he is stationed at Kronstadt. 
 Why are you going to Moscow? " 
 " I am serving there." 
 " Ha 1 And are you a family man ? " 
 " No, I live with my sister and aunt." 
 " My brother's an officer, only he is a naval 
 officer; he has a wife and three children. Fla! " 
 
 The Finn seemed continually surprised at some- 
 thing, and gave a broad idiotic grin when he ex- 
 claimed " Ila! " and continually puffed at his stink- 
 ing pipe. Klimov, who for some reason did not feel 
 well, and found it burdensome to answer questions, 
 hated him with all his heart. He dreamed of how 
 
 291
 
 292 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 nice it would be to snatch the wheezing pipe out of 
 his hand and fling it under the seat, and drive the 
 Finn himself into another compartment. 
 
 " Detestable people these Finns and . . . Greeks," 
 he thought. " Absolutely superfluous, useless, de- 
 testable people. They simply fill up space on the 
 earthly globe. What are they for? " 
 
 And the thought of Finns and Greeks produced a 
 feeling akin to sickness all over his body. For the 
 sake of comparison he tried to think of the French, 
 of the Italians, but his efforts to think of these 
 people evoked in his mind, for some reason, nothing 
 but images of organ-grinders, naked women, and the 
 foreign oleographs which hung over the chest of 
 drawers at home, at his aunt's. 
 
 Altogether the officer felt in an abnormal state. 
 He could not arrange his arms and legs comfortably 
 on the seat, though he had the whole seat to him- 
 self. His mouth felt dry and sticky; there was a 
 heavy fog in his brain; his thoughts seemed to be 
 straying, not only within his head, but outside his 
 skull, among the seats and the people that were 
 shrouded in the darkness of night. Through the 
 mist in his brain, as through a dream, he heard the 
 murmur of voices, the rumble of wheels, the slam- 
 ming of doors. The sounds of the bells, the 
 whistles, the guards, the running to and fro of pas- 
 sengers on the platforms, seemed more frequent
 
 Typhus 293 
 
 than usual. The time flew by rapidly, impercept- 
 ibly, and so it seemed as though the train were stop- 
 ping at stations every minute, and metallic voices 
 crying continually: 
 
 " Is the mail ready? " 
 
 " Yes ! " was repeatedly coming from outside. 
 
 It seemed as though the man in charge of the 
 heating came in too often to look at the thermometer, 
 that the noise of trains going in the opposite direc- 
 tion and the rumble of the wheels over the bridges 
 was incessant. The noise, the whistles, the Finn, 
 the tobacco smoke — all this mingling with the 
 menace and flickering of the misty images In his 
 brain, the shape and character of which a man in 
 health can never recall, weighed upon Klimov like 
 an unbearable nightmare. In horrible misery he 
 lifted his heavy head, looked at the lamp in the rays 
 of which shadows and misty blurs seemed to be danc- 
 ing. He wanted to ask for water, but his parched 
 tongue would hardly move, and he scarcely had 
 strength to answer the Finn's questions. He tried 
 to lie down more comfortably and go to sleep, but 
 he could not succeed. The Finn several times fell 
 asleep, woke up again, lighted his pipe, addressed 
 him with his " Ila! " and went to sleep again; and 
 still the lieutenant's legs could not get into a com- 
 fortable position, and still the menacing images stood 
 facing him.
 
 294 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 At Splrovo he went out into the station for a 
 drink of water. He saw people sitting at the table 
 and hurriedly eating. 
 
 " And how can they eat! " he thought, trying not 
 to sniff the air, that smelt of roast meat, and not to 
 look, at the munching mouths — they both seemed to 
 him sickeningly disgusting. 
 
 A good-looking lady was conversing loudly with 
 a military man in a red cap, and showing magnificent 
 white teeth as she smiled; and the smile, and the 
 teeth, and the lady herself made on Klimov the 
 same revolting impression as the ham and the ris- 
 soles. He could not understand how it was the 
 military man In the red cap was not 111 at ease, sit- 
 ting beside her and looking at her healthy, smihng 
 face. 
 
 When after drinking some water he went back to 
 his carriage, the Finn was sitting smoking; his pipe 
 was wheezing and squelching like a golosh with holes 
 in It In wet weather. 
 
 "Ha!" he said, surprised; "what station is 
 this?" 
 
 " I don't know," answered Klimov, lying down 
 and shutting his mouth that he might not breathe the 
 acrid tobacco smoke. 
 
 " And when shall we reach Tver? " 
 
 " I don't know. Excuse me, I ... I can't 
 answer. I am 111. I caught cold today."
 
 Typhus 295 
 
 The Finn knocked his pipe against the window- 
 frame and began talking of his brother, the naval 
 officer. Klimov no longer heard him; he was think- 
 ing miserably of his soft, comfortable bed, of a bot- 
 tle of cold water, of his sister Katya, who was so 
 good at making one comfortable, soothing, giving 
 one water. He even smiled when the vision of his 
 orderly Pavel, taking off his heavy stifling boots and 
 putting water on the little table, flitted through his 
 imagination. He fancied that if he could only get 
 into his bed, have a drink of water, his nightmare 
 would give place to sound healthy sleep. 
 
 " Is the mail ready? " a hollow voice reached him 
 from the distance. 
 
 *' Yes," answered a bass voice almost at the win- 
 dow. 
 
 It was already the second or third station from 
 Spirovo. 
 
 The time was flying rapidly in leaps and bounds, 
 and it seemed as though the bells, whistles, and stop- 
 pings would never end. In despair Klimov burled 
 his face in the corner of the seat, clutched his head 
 in his hands, and began again thinking of his sister 
 Katya and his orderly Pavel, but his sister and his 
 orderly were mixed up with the misty images in his 
 brain, whirled round, and disappeared. His burn- 
 ing breath, reflected from the back of the seat, 
 seemed to scald his face; his legs were uncomfort-
 
 296 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 able; there was a draught from the window on his 
 back; but, however wretched he was, he did not 
 want to change his position. ... A heavy night- 
 marish lethargy gradually gained possession of him 
 and fettered his limbs. 
 
 When he brought himself to raise his head, it was 
 already light in the carriage. The passengers were 
 putting on their fur coats and moving about. The 
 train was stopping. Porters in white aprons and 
 with discs on their breasts were bustling among the 
 passengers and snatching up their boxes. Klimov 
 put on his great-coat, mechanically followed the 
 other passengers out of the carriage, and it seemed 
 to him that not he, but some one else was moving, 
 and he felt that his fever, his thirst, and the menac- 
 ing images which had not let him sleep all night, 
 came out of the carriage with him. Mechanically 
 he took his luggage and engaged a sledge-driver. 
 The man asked him for a rouble and a quarter to 
 drive to Povarsky Street, but he did not haggle, 
 and without protest got submissively into the sledge. 
 He still understood the difference of numbers, but 
 money had ceased to have any value to him. 
 
 At home Klimov was met by his aunt and his sister 
 Katya, a girl of eighteen. When Katya greeted him 
 she had a pencil and exercise book in her hand, and 
 he remembered that she was preparing for an exam- 
 ination as a teacher. Gasping with fever, he walked
 
 Typhus 297 
 
 aimlessly through all the rooms without answering 
 their questions or greetings, and when he reached his 
 bed he sank down on the pillow. The Finn, the red 
 cap, the lady with the white teeth, the smell of roast 
 meat, the flickering blurs, filled his consciousness, and 
 by now he did not know where he was and did not 
 hear the agitated voices. 
 
 When he recovered consciousness he found him- 
 self in bed, undressed, saw a bottle of water and 
 Pavel, but it was no cooler, nor softer, nor more 
 comfortable for that. His arms and legs, as before, 
 refused to lie comfortably; his tongue stuck to the 
 roof of his mouth, and he heard the wheezing of the 
 Finn's pipe. ... A stalwart, black-bearded doctor 
 was busy doing something beside the bed, brushing 
 against Pavel with his broad back. 
 
 " It's all right, it's all right, young man," 
 he muttered. *' Excellent, excellent . . . goo-od, 
 goo-od ... ! " 
 
 The doctor called Klimov " young man," said 
 "goo-od" instead of "good" and " so-o " instead 
 of " so." 
 
 " So-o . . . so-o . . . so-o," he murmured. 
 " Goo-od, goo-od . . . ! Excellent, young man. 
 . . . You mustn't lose heart 1 " 
 
 The doctor's rapid, careless talk, his well-fed 
 countenance, and condescending " young man," irri- 
 tated Klimov.
 
 298 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 "Why do you call me 'young man'?" he 
 moaned. "What familiarity! Damn it all!" 
 
 And he was frightened by his own voice. The 
 voice was so dried up, so weak and peevish, that he 
 would not have known it. 
 
 " Excellent, excellent! " muttered the doctor, not 
 in the least offended. ..." You mustn't get angry, 
 so-o, so-o, so-o. . . ." 
 
 And the time flew by at home with the same 
 startling swiftness as in the railway carriage. . . . 
 The daylight was continually being replaced by the 
 dusk of evening. The doctor seemed never to leave 
 his bedside, and he heard at every moment his " so-o, 
 so-o, so-o." A continual succession of people was in- 
 cessantly crossing the bedroom. Among them were : 
 Pavel, the Finn, Captain Yaroshevitch, Lance- 
 Corporal Maximenko, the red cap, the lady with the 
 white teeth, the doctor. They were all talking and 
 waving their arms, smoking and eating. Once by 
 daylight Klimov saw the chaplain of the regiment. 
 Father Alexandr, who was standing before the bed, 
 wearing a stole and with a prayer-book In his hand. 
 He was muttering something with a grave face such 
 as Klimov had never seen in him before. The lieu- 
 tenant remembered that Father Alexandr used In a 
 friendly way to call all the Catholic officers " Poles," 
 and wanting to amuse him, he cried :
 
 Typhus 299 
 
 " Father, Yaroshevitch the Pole has climbed up 
 a pole ! " 
 
 But Father Alexandr, a light-hearted man who 
 loved a joke, did not smile, but became graver than 
 ever, and made the sign of the cross over Klimov. 
 At night-time by turn two shadows came noiselessly 
 in and out; they were his aunt and sister. His sis- 
 ter's shadow knelt down and prayed; she bowed 
 down to the ikon, and her grey shadow on the wall 
 bowed down too, so that two shadows were praying. 
 The whole time there was a smell of roast meat and 
 the Finn's pipe, but once Klimov smelt the strong 
 smell of incense. He felt so sick he could not lie 
 still, and began shouting: 
 
 " The incense ! Take away the incense ! " 
 
 There was no answer. He could only hear the 
 subdued singing of the priest somewhere and some 
 one running upstairs. 
 
 When Klimov came to himself there was not a 
 soul in his bedroom. The morning sun was stream- 
 ing in at the window through the lower blind, and 
 a quivering sunbeam, bright and keen as the sword's 
 edge, was flashing on the glass bottle. He heard 
 the rattle of wheels — so there was no snow now in 
 the street. The lieutenant looked at the ray, at 
 the familiar furniture, at the door, and the first 
 thing he did was to laugh. His chest and stomach
 
 300 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 heaved with delicious, happy, tickling laughter. 
 His whole body from head to foot was overcome 
 by a sensation of infinite happiness and joy in life, 
 such as the first man must have felt when he was 
 created and first saw the world. Klimov felt a pas- 
 sionate desire for movement, people, talk. His body 
 lay a motionless block; only his hands stirred, but 
 that he hardly noticed, and his whole attention was 
 concentrated on trifles. He rejoiced in his breath- 
 ing, in his laughter, rejoiced in the existence of the 
 water-bottle, the ceiling, the sunshine, the tape on 
 the curtains. God's world, even in the narrow space 
 of his bedroom, seemed beautiful, varied, grand. 
 When the doctor made his appearance, the lieutenant 
 was thinking what a delicious thing medicine was, 
 how charming and pleasant the doctor was, and how 
 nice and interesting people were in general. 
 
 " So-o, so, so. . . . Excellent, excellent! . . . 
 Now we are well again. . . . Goo-od, goo-od! " the 
 doctor pattered. 
 
 The lieutenant listened and laughed joyously; 
 he remembered the Finn, the lady with the white 
 teeth, the train, and he longed to smoke, to eat. 
 
 *' Doctor," he said, " tell them to give me a crust 
 of rye bread and salt, and . . . and sardines." 
 
 The doctor refused; Pavel did not obey the order, 
 and did not go for the bread. The lieutenant could 
 not bear this and began crying like a naughty child.
 
 Typhus 30 1 
 
 "Baby!" laughed the doctor. "Mammy, bye- 
 bye ! " 
 
 Klimov laughed, too, and when the doctor went 
 away he fell into a sound sleep. He woke up with 
 the same joyfulness and sensation of happiness. 
 His aunt was sitting near the bed. 
 
 " Well, aunt," he said joyfully. " What has been 
 the matter? " 
 
 " Spotted typhus." 
 
 "Really. But now I am well, quite welll 
 Where is Katya? " 
 
 " She is not at home. I suppose she has gone 
 somewhere from her examination." 
 
 The old lady said this and looked at her stocking; 
 her lips began quivering, she turned away, and sud- 
 denly broke into sobs. Forgetting the doctor's pro- 
 hibition in her despair, she said: 
 
 " Ah, Katya, Katya ! Our angel is gone ! Is 
 gone ! " 
 
 She dropped her stocking and bent down to it, 
 and as she did so her cap fell off her head. Looking 
 at her grey head and understanding nothing, Kli- 
 mov was frightened for Katya, and asked: 
 
 " Where is she, aunt? " 
 
 The old woman, who had forgotten Klimov and 
 was thinking only of her sorrow, said: 
 
 " She caught typhus from you, and is dead. She 
 was buried the day before yesterday."
 
 302 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 This terrible, unexpected news was fully grasped 
 by Klimov's consciousness; but terrible and star- 
 tling as it was, it could not overcome the animal 
 joy that filled the convalescent. He cried and 
 laughed, and soon began scolding because they would 
 not let him eat. 
 
 Only a week later when, leaning on Pavel, he went 
 in his dressing-gown to the window, looked at the 
 overcast spring sky and listened to the unpleasant 
 clang of the old iron rails which were being carted 
 by, his heart ached, he burst into tears, and leaned 
 his forehead against the window-frame. 
 
 "How miserable I ami" he muttered. "My 
 God, how miserable! " 
 
 And joy gave way to the boredom of everyday 
 life and the feeling of his irrevocable loss.
 
 A MISFORTUNE
 
 A MISFORTUNE 
 
 SoFYA Petrovna, the wife of Lubyantsev the no- 
 tary, a handsome young woman of five-and-twenty, 
 was walking slowly along a track that had been 
 cleared in the wood, with Ilyin, a lawyer who was 
 spending the summer in the neighbourhood. It was 
 five o'clock in the evening. Feathery-white masses 
 of cloud stood overhead; patches of bright blue sky 
 peeped out between them. The clouds stood mo- 
 tionless, as though they had caught in the tops of the 
 tall old pine-trees. It was still and sultry. 
 
 Farther on, the track was crossed by a low rail- 
 way embankment on which a sentinel with a gun was 
 for some reason pacing up and down. Just beyond 
 the embankment there was a large white church with 
 six domes and a rusty roof. 
 
 " I did not expect to meet you here," said Sofya 
 Petrovna, looking at the ground and prodding at 
 the last year's leaves with the tip of her parasol, 
 " and now I am glad we have met. I want to speak 
 to you seriously and once for all. I beg you, Ivan 
 Mihalovitch, if you really love and respect me, 
 please make an end of this pursuit of me! You fol- 
 low me about like a shadow, you arc continually 
 
 305
 
 3o6 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 looking at me not In a nice way, making love to me, 
 writing me strange letters, and . . . and I don't 
 know where it's all going to end! Why, what can 
 come of it? " 
 
 Ilyin said nothing. Sofya Petrovna walked on a 
 few steps and continued: 
 
 " And this complete transformation in you all 
 came about in the course of two or three weeks, 
 after five years' friendship. I don't know you, Ivan 
 Mihalovitch! " 
 
 Sofya Petrovna stole a glance at her companion. 
 Screwing up his eyes, he was looking intently at 
 the fluffy clouds. His face looked angry, ill-hu- 
 moured, and preoccupied, like that of a man in pain 
 forced to listen to nonsense. 
 
 " I wonder you don't see it yourself," Madame 
 Lubyantsev went on, shrugging her shoulders. 
 " You ought to realize that it's not a very nice part 
 you are playing. I am married; I love and respect 
 my husband. ... I have a daughter. . . . Can 
 you think all that means nothing? Besides, as an 
 old friend you know my attitude to family life and 
 my views as to the sanctity of marriage." 
 
 Ilyin cleared his throat angrily and heaved a sigh. 
 
 " Sanctity of marriage . . ." he muttered. " Oh, 
 Lord ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes. ... I love my husband, I respect 
 him; and in any case I value the peace of my home.
 
 A Misfortune 307 
 
 I would rather let myself be killed than be a cause 
 of unhappiness to Andrey and his daughter. . . . 
 And I beg you, Ivan Mihalovitch, for God's sake, 
 leave me in peace ! Let us be as good, true friends 
 as we used to be, and give up these sighs and groans, 
 which really don't suit you. It's settled and over I 
 Not a word more about it. Let us talk of something 
 else." 
 
 Sofya Petrovna again stole a glance at Ilyin's 
 face, llyin was looking up; he was pale, and was 
 angrily biting his quivering lips. She could not un- 
 derstand why he was angry and why he was indig- 
 nant, but his pallor touched her. 
 
 "Don't be angry; let us be friends," she said 
 affectionately. "Agreed? Here's my hand." 
 
 llyin took her plump little hand in both of his, 
 squeezed it, and slowly raised it to his lips. 
 
 " I am not a schoolboy," he muttered. " I am 
 not in the least tempted by friendship with the woman 
 I love." 
 
 " Enough, enough ! It's settled and done with. 
 We have reached the seat; let us sit down." 
 
 Sofya Petrovna's soul was filled with a sweet 
 sense of relief: the most difficult and delicate thing 
 had been said, the painful question was settled and 
 done with. Now she could breathe freely and look 
 llyin straight in the face. She looked at him, and 
 the egoistic feeling of the superiority of the woman
 
 3o8 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 over the man who loves her, agreeably flattered her. 
 It pleased her to see this huge, strong man, with his 
 manly, angry face and his big black beard — clever, 
 cultivated, and, people said, talented — sit down 
 obediently beside her and bow his head dejectedly. 
 For two or three minutes they sat without speaking. 
 
 " Nothing is settled or done with," began Ilyin, 
 " You repeat copy-book maxims to me. ' I love 
 and respect my husband ... the sanctity of mar- 
 riage. . . .' I know all that without your help, 
 and I could tell you more, too. I tell you truthfully 
 and honestly that I consider the way I am behaving 
 as criminal and immoral. What more can one say 
 than that? But what's the good of saying what 
 everybody knows? Instead of feeding nightingales 
 with paltry words, you had much better tell me what 
 I am to do." 
 
 " I've told you already — go away." 
 
 " As you know perfectly well, I have gone away 
 five times, and every time I turned back on the way. 
 I can show you my through tickets — I've kept them 
 all. I have not will enough to run away from you ! 
 I am struggling. I am struggling horribly; but what 
 the devil am I good for if I have no backbone, if 
 I am weak, cowardly! I can't struggle with Na- 
 ture! Do you understand? I cannot! I run 
 away from here, and she holds on to me and pulls 
 me back. Contemptible, loathsome weakness! "
 
 A Misfortune 309 
 
 Ilyin flushed crimson, got up, and walked up and 
 down by the seat. 
 
 " I feel as cross as a dog," he muttered, clench- 
 ing his fists. "I hate and despise myself! My 
 God! like some depraved schoolboy, I am making 
 love to another man's wife, writing idiotic letters, 
 degrading myself . . . ugh!" 
 
 Ilyin clutched at his head, grunted, and sat down. 
 
 "And then your insincerity!" he went on bit- 
 terly. " If you do dislike my disgusting behaviour, 
 why have you come here? What drew you here? 
 In my letters I only ask you for a direct, definite an- 
 swer — yes or no; but instead of a direct answer, 
 you contrive every day these ' chance ' meetings with 
 me and regale me with copy-book maxims! " 
 
 Madame Lubyantsev was frightened and flushed. 
 She suddenly felt the awkwardness which a decent 
 woman feels when she is accidentally discovered un- 
 dressed. 
 
 " You seem to suspect I am playing with you," 
 she muttered. " I have always given you a direct 
 answer, and . . . only today I've begged you . . ." 
 
 " Ough ! as though one begged in such cases! If 
 you were to say straight out ' Get away,' I should 
 have been gone long ago; but you've never said that. 
 You've never once given mc a direct answer. 
 Strange indecision! Yes, indeed; either you are 
 playing with mc, or else . . ,"
 
 310 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 Ilyin leaned his head on his fists without finish- 
 ing. Sofya Petrovna began going over in her own 
 mind the way she had behaved from beginning to 
 end. She remembered that not only in her actions, 
 but even in her secret thoughts, she had always been 
 opposed to Ilyin's love-making; but yet she felt 
 there was a grain of truth in the lawyer's words. 
 But not knowing exactly what the truth was, she 
 could not find answers to make to Ilyin's complaint, 
 however hard she thought. It was awkward to be 
 silent, and, shrugging her shoulders, she said: 
 
 " So I am to blame, it appears." 
 
 " I don't blame you for your Insincerity," sighed 
 Ilyin. " I did not mean that when I spoke of it. 
 . . . Your insincerity is natural and in the order of 
 things. If people agreed together and suddenly 
 became sincere, everything would go to the devil." 
 
 Sofya Petrovna was in no mood for philosophical 
 reflections, but she was glad of a chance to change 
 the conversation, and asked: 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " Because only savage women and animals are sin- 
 cere. Once civilization has introduced a demand 
 for such comforts as, for instance, feminine virtue, 
 sincerity is out of place. . . ." 
 
 Ilyin jabbed his stick angrily into the sand. Ma- 
 dame Lubyantsev listened to him and liked his con- 
 versation, though a great deal of it she did not un-
 
 A Misfortune 311 
 
 derstand. What gratified her most was that she, an 
 ordinary woman, was talked to by a talented man on 
 " intellectual ' subjects; it afforded her great pleas- 
 ure, too, to watch the working of his mobile, young 
 face, which was still pale and angry. She failed 
 to understand a great deal that he said, but what 
 was clear to her in his words was the attractive bold- 
 ness with which the modern man without hesitation 
 or doubt decides great questions and draws conclu- 
 sive deductions. 
 
 She suddenly realized that she was admiring him, 
 and was alarmed. 
 
 " Forgive me, but I don't understand," she said 
 hurriedly. "What makes you talk of Insincerity? 
 1 repeat my request again: be my good, true friend; 
 let me alone! I beg you most earnestly! " 
 
 " Very good ; I'll try again," sighed Ilyln. " Glad 
 to do my best. . . . Only I doubt whether anything 
 will come of my efforts. Either I shall put a bullet 
 through my brains or take to drink In an idiotic way. 
 I shall come to a bad end I There's a limit to every- 
 thing — to struggles with Nature, too. Tell me, 
 how can one struggle against madness? If you 
 drink wine, how are you to struggle against intoxi- 
 cation? What am I to do If your image has grown 
 into my soul, and day and night stands persistently 
 before my eyes, like that pine there at this moment? 
 Come, tell me, what hard and difficult thing can I
 
 312 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 do to get free from this abominable, miserable con- 
 dition, in which all my thoughts, desires, and dreams 
 are no longer my own, but belong to some demon 
 who has taken possession of me? I love you, love 
 you so much that I am completely thrown out of 
 gear; I've given up my work and all who are dear 
 to me; I've forgotten my God! I've never been in 
 love like this in my life." 
 
 Sofya Petrovna, who had not expected such a 
 turn to their conversation, drew away from Ilyin 
 and looked into his face iii dismay. Tears came 
 into his eyes, his lips were quivering, and there was 
 an imploring, hungry expression in his face. 
 
 " I love you ! " he muttered, bringing his eyes near 
 her big, frightened eyes. "You are so beautiful 1 
 I am in agony now, but I swear I would sit here all 
 my life, suffering and looking in your eyes. But 
 . . . be silent, I implore you! " 
 
 Sofya Petrovna, feeling utterly disconcerted, tried 
 to think as quickly as possible of something to say 
 to stop him. " I'll go away," she decided, but be- 
 fore she had time to make a movement to get up, 
 Ilyin was on his knees before her. . . . He was 
 clasping her knees, gazing into her face and speak- 
 ing passionately, hotly, eloquently. In her terror 
 and confusion she did not hear his words; for some 
 reason now, at this dangerous moment, while her
 
 A Misfortune 313 
 
 knees were being agreeably squeezed and felt as 
 though they were in a warm bath, she was trying, 
 with a sort of angry spite, to interpret her own sen- 
 sations. She was angry that instead of brimming 
 over with protesting virtue, she was entirely over- 
 whelmed with weakness, apathy, and emptiness, like 
 a drunken man utterly reckless; only at the bottom 
 of her soul a remote bit of herself was malignantly 
 taunting her: "Why don't you go? Is this as it 
 should be? Yes?" 
 
 Seeking for some explanation, she could not un- 
 derstand how it was she did not pull away the hand 
 to which Ilyin was clinging like a leech, and why, 
 like Ilyin, she hastily glanced to right and to left to 
 see whether any one was looking. The clouds and 
 the pines stood motionless, looking at them severely, 
 like old ushers seeing mischief, but bribed not to tell 
 the school authorities. The sentry stood like a post 
 on the embankment and seemed to be looking at 
 the seat. 
 
 " Let him look," thought Sofya Petrovna. 
 
 " But ... but listen," she said at last, with de- 
 spair in her voice. "What can come of this? 
 What will be the end of this? " 
 
 " I don't know, I don't know," he whispered, 
 waving off the disagreeable questions. 
 
 They heard the hoarse, discordant whistle of the
 
 314 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 train. This cold, irrelevant sound from the every- 
 day world of prose made Sofya Petrovna rouse her- 
 self. 
 
 " I can't stay . . . It's time I was at home," she 
 said, getting up quickly. " The train is coming in. 
 . . . Andrey is coming by it! He will want his 
 dinner." 
 
 Sofya Petrovna turned towards the embankment 
 with a burning face. The engine slowly crawled by, 
 then came the carriages. It was not the local train, 
 as she had supposed, but a goods train. The trucks 
 filed by against the background of the white church 
 in a long string like the days of a man's life, and it 
 seemed as though it would never end. 
 
 But at last the train passed, and the last carriage 
 with the guard and a light in it had disappeared 
 behind the trees. Sofya Petrovna turned round 
 sharply, and without looking at Ilyin, walked rap- 
 idly back along the track. She had regained her 
 self-possession. Crimson with shame, humiliated 
 not by Ilyin — no, but by her own cowardice, by the 
 shamelessness with which she, a chaste and high- 
 principled woman, had allowed a man, not her hus- 
 band, to hug her knees — she had only one thought 
 now: to get home as quickly as possible to her villa, 
 to her family. The lawyer could hardly keep pace 
 with her. Turning from the clearing into a narrow 
 path, she turned round and glanced at him so quickly
 
 A Misfortune 315 
 
 that she saw nothing but the sand on his knees, and 
 waved to him to drop behind. 
 
 Reaching home, Sofya Petrovna stood in the mid- 
 dle of her room for five minutes without moving, 
 and looked first at the window and then at her writ- 
 ing-table. 
 
 "You low creature!" she said, upbraiding her- 
 self. " You low creature ! " 
 
 To spite herself, she recalled in precise detail, 
 keeping nothing back — she recalled that though 
 all this time she had been opposed to Ilyin's love- 
 making, something had impelled her to seek an in- 
 terview with him; and what was more, when he 
 was at her feet she had enjoyed it enormously. She 
 recalled it all without sparing herself, and now, 
 breathless with shame, she would have liked to slap 
 herself in the face. 
 
 " Poor Andrey ! " she said to herself, trying as 
 she thought of her husband to put into her face as 
 tender an expression as she could. " Varya, my 
 poor little girl, doesn't know what a mother she 
 has! Forgiv^e me, my dear ones! I love you so 
 much ... so much ! " 
 
 And anxious to prove to herself that she was still 
 a good wife and mother, and that corruption had 
 not yet touched that " sanctity of marriage " of 
 which she had spoken to llyin, Sofya Petrovna ran 
 to the kitchen and abused the cook for not having
 
 3i6 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 yet laid the table for Audrey Ilyitch. She tried to 
 picture her husband's hungry and exhausted appear- 
 ance, commiserated him aloud, and laid the table 
 for him with her own hands, which she had never 
 done before. Then she found her daughter Varya, 
 picked her up in her arms and hugged her warmly; 
 the child seemed to her cold and heavy, but she was 
 unwilling to acknowledge this to herself, and she be- 
 gan explaining to the child how good, kind, and 
 honourable her papa was. 
 
 But when Andrey Ilyitch arrived soon afterwards 
 she hardly greeted him. The rush of false feeling 
 had already passed off without proving anything to 
 her, only irritating and exasperating her by its 
 falsity. She was sitting by the window, feeling 
 miserable and cross. It is only by being in trouble 
 that people can understand how far from easy it 
 is to be the master of one's feelings and thoughts. 
 Sofya Petrovna said afterwards that there was a 
 tangle within her which it was as difficult to unravel 
 as to count a flock of sparrows rapidly flying by. 
 From the fact that she was not overjoyed to see her 
 husband, that she did not like his manner at dinner, 
 she concluded all of a sudden that she was beginning 
 to hate her husband. 
 
 Andrey Ilyitch, languid with hunger and exhaus- 
 tion, fell upon the sausage while waiting for the
 
 A Misfortune 317 
 
 soup to be brought In, and ate it greedily, munching 
 noisily and moving his temples. 
 
 " My goodness! " thought Sofya Petrovna. " I 
 love and respect him, but . . . why does he munch 
 so repulsively? " 
 
 The disorder In her thoughts was no less than the 
 disorder In her feelings. Like all persons inexpe- 
 rienced in combating unpleasant Ideas, Madame Lu- 
 byantsev did her utmost not to think of her trouble, 
 and the harder she tried the more vividly Ilyin, the 
 sand on his knees, the fluffy clouds, the train, stood 
 out In her Imagination. 
 
 " And why did I go there this afternoon like a 
 fool?" she thought, tormenting herself. "And 
 am I really so weak that I cannot depend upon my- 
 self? " 
 
 Fear magnifies danger. By the time Andrey 
 Ilyltch was finishing the last course, she had firmly 
 made up her mind to tell her husband everything 
 and to flee from danger! 
 
 " I've something serious to say to you, An- 
 drey," she began after dinner while her husband was 
 taking off his coat and boots to lie down for a nap. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 *' Let us leave this place ! " 
 
 *' Ll'm ! . . . Where shall we go? It's too soon 
 to go back to town."
 
 3i8 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 '* No; for a tour or something of that sort. . . ." 
 
 " For a tour . . ." repeated the notary, stretch- 
 ing. " I dream of that myself, but where are we 
 to get the money, and to whom am I to leave the 
 office?" 
 
 And thinking a little he added: 
 
 " Of course, you must be bored. Go by your- 
 self if you like." 
 
 Sofya Petrovna agreed, but at once reflected that 
 Ilyin would be delighted with the opportunity, and 
 would go with her in the same train, in the same com- 
 partment. . . . She thought and looked at her hus- 
 band, now satisfied but still languid. For some rea- 
 son her eyes rested on his feet — miniature, almost 
 feminine feet, clad in striped socks; there was a 
 thread standing out at the tip of each sock. 
 
 Behind the blind a bumble-bee was beating itself 
 against the window-pane and buzzing. Sofya Pe- 
 trovna looked at the threads on the socks, listened to 
 the bee, and pictured how she would set off. . . . 
 Vis-a-vis Ilyin would sit, day and night, never taking 
 his eyes off her, wrathful at his own weakness and 
 pale with spiritual agony. He would call himself 
 an immoral schoolboy, would abuse her, tear his 
 hair, but when darkness came on and the passengers 
 were asleep or got out at a station, he would seize 
 the opportunity to kneel before her and embrace her 
 knees as he had at the seat in the wood. . . .
 
 A Misfortune 319 
 
 She caught herself Indulging in this day-dream. 
 
 " Listen. I won't go alone," she said. " You 
 must come with me." 
 
 " Nonsense, Sofotchka ! " sighed Lubyantsev. 
 " One must be sensible and not want the impossi- 
 ble." 
 
 " You will come when you know all about it," 
 thought Sofya Petrovna. 
 
 Making up her mind to go at all costs, she felt 
 that she was out of danger. Little by little her 
 ideas grew clearer; her spirits rose and she allowed 
 herself to think about it all, feeling that however 
 much she thought, however much she dreamed, she 
 would go away. While her husband was asleep, 
 the evening gradually came on. She sat in the 
 drawing-room and played the piano. The greater 
 liveliness out of doors, the sound of music, but above 
 all the thought that she was a sensible person, that 
 she had surmounted her difficulties, completely re- 
 stored her spirits. Other women, her appeased con- 
 science told her, would probably have been carried 
 off their feet in her position, and would have lost 
 their balance, while she had almost died of shame, 
 had been miserable, and was now running out of the 
 danger which perhaps did not exist I She was so 
 touched by her own virtue and determination that 
 she even looked at herself two or three times in the 
 looking-glass.
 
 320 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 When it got dark, visitors arrived. The men 
 sat down in the dining-room to play cards; the ladies 
 remained in the drawing-room and the verandah. 
 The last to arrive was Ilyin. He was gloomy, 
 morose, and looked ill. He sat down in the corner 
 of the sofa and did not move the whole evening. 
 Usually good-humoured and talkative, this time he 
 remained silent, frowned, and rubbed his eyebrows. 
 When he had to answer some question, he gave a 
 forced smile with his upper lip only, and answered 
 jerkily and irritably. Four or five times he made 
 some jest, but his jests sounded harsh and cutting. 
 It seemed to Sofya Petrovna that he was on the verge 
 of hysterics. Only now, sitting at the piano, she 
 recognized fully for the first time that this unhappy 
 man was in deadly earnest, that his soul was sick, 
 and that he could find no rest. For her sake he 
 was wasting the best days of his youth and his 
 career, spending the last of his money on a summer 
 villa, abandoning his mother and sisters, and, worst 
 of all, wearing himself out in an agonizing struggle 
 with himself. From mere common humanity he 
 ought to be treated seriously. 
 
 She recognized all this clearly till it made her 
 heart ache, and if at that moment she had gone up 
 to him and said to him, " No," there would have 
 been a force In her voice hard to disobey. But 
 she did not go up to him and did not speak — in-
 
 A Misfortune 321 
 
 deed, never thought of doing so. The pettiness and 
 egoism of youth had never been more patent in her 
 than that evening. She reahzed that Ilyin was un- 
 happy, and that he was sitting on the sofa as though 
 he were on hot coals; she felt sorry for him, but at 
 the same time the presence of a man who loved her 
 to distraction, filled her soul with triumph and a 
 sense of her own power. She felt her youth, her 
 beauty, and her unassailable virtue, and, since she 
 had decided to go away, gave herself full licence for 
 that evening. She flirted, laughed incessantly, sang 
 with peculiar feeling and gusto. Everything de- 
 lighted and amused her. She was amused at the 
 memory of what had happened at the seat in the 
 wood, of the sentinel who had looked on. She was 
 amused by her guests, by Ilyin's cutting jests, by the 
 pin in his cravat, which she had never noticed before. 
 There was a red snake with diamond eyes on the 
 pin; this snake struck her as so amusing that she 
 could have kissed it on the spot. 
 
 Sofya Petrovna sang nervously, with defiant 
 recklessness as though half intoxicated, and she 
 chose sad, mournful songs which dealt with wasted 
 hopes, the past, old age, as though in mockery of 
 another's grief. " ' And old age comes nearer and 
 nearer ' . . ." she sang. And what was old age to 
 her? 
 
 " It seems as though there is something going
 
 322 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 wrong with me," she thought from time to time 
 through her laughter and singing. 
 
 The party broke up at twelve o'clock. Ilyin was 
 the last to leave. Sofya Petrovna was still reckless 
 enough to accompany him to the bottom step of the 
 Verandah. She wanted to tell him that she was 
 going away with her husband, and to watch the effect 
 this news would produce on him. 
 
 The m.oon was hidden behind the clouds, but it 
 was light enough for Sofya Petrovna to see hov/ 
 the wind played with the skirts of his overcoat and 
 with the awning of the verandah. She could see, 
 too, how white Ilyin was, and how he twisted his 
 upper lip in the effort to smile. 
 
 " Sonia, Sonitchka . . . my darling woman ! " 
 he muttered, preventing her from speaking. " My 
 dear ! my sweet! " 
 
 In a rush of tenderness, with tears in his voice, 
 he showered caressing words upon her, that grew 
 tenderer and tenderer, and even called her " thou," 
 as though she were his wife or mistress. Quite 
 unexpectedly he put one arm round her waist and 
 with the other hand took hold of her elbow. 
 
 " My precious! my delight! " he whispered, kiss- 
 ing the nape of her neck; " be sincere; come to me 
 at once ! " 
 
 She slipped out of his arms and raised her head 
 to give vent to her indignation and anger, but the
 
 A Misfortune 323 
 
 Indignation did not come off, and all her vaunted 
 virtue and chastity was only sufficient to enable her 
 to utter the phrase used by all ordinary women on 
 such occasions: 
 
 *' You must be mad." 
 
 " Come, let us go," Ilyin continued. " I felt just 
 now, as well as at the seat in the wood, that you are 
 as helpless as I am, Sonia. . . . You are in the same 
 plight ! You love me and are fruitlessly trying to 
 appease your conscience. . . ." 
 
 Seeing that she was moving away, he caught her 
 by her lace cuff and said rapidly: 
 
 "If not today, then tomorrow you will have to 
 give in! Why, then, this waste of time? My pre- 
 cious, darling Sonia, the sentence is passed; why put 
 off the execution? Why deceive yourself? " 
 
 Sofya Petrovna tore herself from him and darted 
 in at the door. Returning to the drawing-room, she 
 mechanically shut the piano, looked for a long time 
 at the music-stand, and sat down. She could not 
 stand up nor think. All that was left of her excite- 
 ment and recklessness was a fearful weakness, 
 apathy, and dreariness. Her conscience whispered 
 to her that she had behaved badly, foolishly, that 
 evening, like some madcap girl — that she had just 
 been embraced on the verandah, and still had an un- 
 easy feeling in her waist and her elbow. I'hcrc was 
 not a soul in the drawing-room; there was only one
 
 324 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 candle burning. Madame Lubyantsev sat on the 
 round stool before the piano, motionless, as though 
 expecting something. And as though taking advan- 
 tatie of the darkness and her extreme lassitude, an 
 oppressive, overpowering desire began to assail her. 
 Like a boa-constrictor it gripped her limbs and her 
 soul, and grew stronger every second, and no longer 
 menaced her as it had done, but stood clear before 
 her in all its nakedness. 
 
 She sat for half an hour without stirring, not re- 
 straining herself from thinking of Ilyin, then she got 
 up languidly and dragged herself to her bedroom. 
 Andrey Ilyitch was already in bed. She sat down 
 by the open window and gave herself up to desire. 
 There was no "tangle" now in her head; all her 
 thoughts and feelings were bent with one accord 
 upon a single aim. She tried to struggle against it, 
 but instantly gave it up. . . . She understood now 
 how strong and relentless was the foe. Strength 
 and fortitude were needed to combat him, and her 
 birth, her education, and her life had given her noth- 
 ing to fall back upon. 
 
 " Immoral wretch ! Low creature ! " she nagged 
 at herself for her weakness. " So that's what you're 
 like!" 
 
 Her outraged sense of propriety was moved to 
 such Indignation by this weakness that she lavished 
 upon herself every term of abuse she knew, and
 
 A Misfortune 325 
 
 told herself many offensive and humiliating truths. 
 So, for instance, she told herself that she never had 
 been moral, that she had not come to grief before 
 simply because she had had no opportunity, that her 
 inward conflict during that day had all been a 
 farce. . . . 
 
 " And even if I have struggled," she thought, 
 "what sort of struggle was it? Even the woman 
 who sells herself struggles before she brings herself 
 to it, and yet she sells herself. A fine struggle ! 
 Like milk, I've turned in a day! In one day! " 
 
 She convicted herself of being tempted, not by 
 feeling, not by Ilyin personally, but by sensations 
 which awaited her ... an idle lady, having her 
 fling in the summer holidays, like so many! 
 
 " ' Like an unfledged bird when the mother has 
 been slain,' " sang a husky tenor outside the win- 
 dow. 
 
 " If I am to go, it's time," thought Sofya Pe- 
 trovna. Her heart suddenly began beating vio- 
 lently. 
 
 "Andrey!" she almost shrieked. "Listen! we 
 . . . we are going? Yes?" 
 
 " Yes, I've told you already: you go alone." 
 
 *' But listen," she began. " If you don't go with 
 me, you arc in danger of losing me. I believe I 
 am ... in love already." 
 
 " With whom? " asked Andrey llyitch.
 
 326 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 *' It can't make any difference to you who It is ! " 
 cried Sofya Petrovna. 
 
 Andrey Ilyitch sat up with his feet out of bed and 
 looked wonderingly at his wife's dark figure. ' 
 
 *' It's a fancy ! " he yawned. 
 
 He did not believe her, but yet he was frightened. 
 After thinking a little and asking his wife several 
 unimportant questions, he delivered himself of his 
 opinions on the family, on infidelity . . . spoke list- 
 lessly for about ten minutes and got into bed again. 
 His moralizing produced no effect. There are a 
 great many opinions in the world, and a good half 
 of them are held by people who have never been In 
 trouble ! 
 
 In spite of the late hour, summer visitors were 
 still walking outside. Sofya Petrovna put on a light 
 cape, stood a little, thought a little. . . . She still 
 had resolution enough to say to her sleeping hus- 
 band: 
 
 " Are you asleep? I am going for a walk. . . . 
 Will you come with me ? " 
 
 That was her last hope. Receiving no answer, 
 she went out. ... It was fresh and windy. She 
 was conscious neither of the wind nor the darkness, 
 but went on and on. . . . An overmastering force 
 drove her on, and It seemed as though. If she had 
 stopped, it would have pushed her in the back.
 
 A Misfortune 327 
 
 " Immoral creature! " she muttered mechanically. 
 '"Low wretch! " 
 
 She was breathless, hot with shame, did not feel 
 her legs under her, but what drove her on was 
 stronger than shame, reason, or fear.
 
 A TRIFLE FROM LIFE
 
 A TRIFLE FROM LIFE 
 
 A WELL-FED, red-cheeked young man called Niko- 
 lay Ilyltch Belyaev, of thirty-two, who was an owner 
 of house property in Petersburg, and a devotee of the 
 race-course, went one evening to see Olga Ivanovna 
 Irnin, with whom he was living, or, to use his own 
 expression, was dragging out a long, wearisome ro- 
 mance. And, indeed, the first interesting and en- 
 thusiastic pages of this romance had long been 
 perused; now the pages dragged on, and still dragged 
 on, without presenting anything new or of interest. 
 
 Not finding Olga Ivanovna at home, my hero lay 
 down on the lounge chair and proceeded to wait for 
 her in the drawing-room. 
 
 "Good-evening, Nikolay Ilyitch!" he heard a 
 child's voice. " Mother will be here directly. She 
 has gone with Sonia to the dressmaker's." 
 
 Olga Ivanovna's son, Alyosha — a boy of eight 
 who looked graceful and very well cared for, who 
 was dressed like a picture, in a black velvet jacket 
 and long black stockings — was lying on the sofa 
 in the same room. I le was lying on a satin cushion 
 and, evidently imitating an acrobat he had lately 
 seen at the circus, stuck up in the air first one leg 
 
 331
 
 332 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 and then the other. When his elegant legs were 
 exhausted, he brought his arms into play or jumped 
 up impulsively and went on all fours, trying to stand 
 with his legs in the air. All this he was doing with 
 the utmost gravity, gasping and groaning painfully 
 as though he regretted that God had given him such 
 a restless body. 
 
 " Ah, good-evening, my boy," said Belyaev. 
 *' It's you ! I did not notice you. Is your mother 
 well?" 
 
 Alyosha, taking hold of the tip of his left toe with 
 his right hand and falling into the most unnatural 
 attitude, turned over, jumped up, and peeped at Bel- 
 yaev from behind the big fluffy lampshade. 
 
 " What shall I say? " he said, shrugging his shoul- 
 ders. " In reality mother's never well. You see, 
 she is a woman, and women, Nikolay Ilyitch, have 
 always something the matter with them." 
 
 Belyaev, having nothing better to do, began watch- 
 ing Alyosha's face. He had never before during 
 the whole of his intimacy with Olga Ivanovna paid 
 any attention to the boy, and had completely ignored 
 his existence; the boy had been before his eyes, but 
 he had not cared to think why he was there and what 
 part he was playing. 
 
 In the twilight of the evening, Alyosha's face, 
 with his white forehead and black, unblinking eyes, 
 unexpectedly reminded Belyaev of Olga Ivanovna
 
 A Trifie from Life 333 
 
 as she had been during the first pages of their ro- 
 mance. And he felt disposed to be friendly to the 
 boy. 
 
 "Come here, insect," he said; "let me have a 
 closer look at you." 
 
 The boy jumped off the sofa and skipped up to 
 Belyaev. 
 
 " Well," began Nikolay Ilyitch, putting a hand 
 on the boy's thin shoulder. " How are you getting 
 on?" 
 
 " How shall I say! We used to get on a great 
 deal better." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " It's very simple. Sonia and I used only to 
 learn music and reading, and now they give us 
 French poetry to learn. Have you been shaved 
 lately?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Yes, I see you have. Your beard is shorter. 
 Let me touch it. . . . Does that hurt? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Why is It that If you pull one hair It hurts, 
 but if you pull a lot at once It doesn't hurt a bit? 
 Ha, hal And, you know. It's a pity you don't have 
 whiskers. Here ought to be shaved . . . but here 
 at the sides the hair ought to be left, . . ." 
 
 The boy nestled up to Belyaev and began playing 
 with his watch-chain.
 
 334 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " When I go to the high-school," he said, " mother 
 is going to buy me a watch. I shall ask her to buy 
 me a watch-chain like this. . . . Wh — at a loc — 
 ket! Father's got a locket like that, only yours has 
 little bars on it and his has letters. . . . There's 
 mother's portrait in the middle of his. Father has 
 a different sort of chain now, not made with rings, 
 but like ribbon. . . ." 
 
 "How do you know? Do you see your fa- 
 ther?" 
 
 "I? M'm . . . no. . . . I . . ." 
 
 Alyosha blushed, and in great confusion, feeling 
 caught in a lie, began zealously scratching the locket 
 with his nail. . . . Belyaev looked steadily into his 
 face and asked: 
 
 " Do you see your father? " 
 
 "N-no!" 
 
 " Come, speak frankly, on your honour. ... I 
 see from your face you are telling a fib. Once 
 you've let a thing slip out it's no good wriggling 
 about it. Tell me, do you see him? Come, as a 
 friend." 
 
 Alyosha hesitated. 
 
 " You won't tell mother? " he said. 
 
 "As though I should!" 
 
 " On your honour? " 
 
 " On my honour.' 
 
 n
 
 A Trifle from Life 335 
 
 " Do you swear? " 
 
 " Ah, you provoking boy ! What do you take 
 me for?" 
 
 Alyosha looked round him, then with wide-open 
 eyes, whispered to him : 
 
 " Only, for goodness' sake, don't tell mother. 
 . . . Don't tell any one at all, for It is a secret. 
 I hope to goodness mother won't find out, or we 
 should all catch it — Sonia, and I, and Pelagea. 
 . . . Well, listen. . . . Sonia and I see father 
 every Tuesday and Friday. When Pelagea takes 
 us for a walk before dinner we go to the Apfel 
 Restaurant, and there is father waiting for us. . . . 
 He is always sitting in a room apart, where you 
 know there's a marble table and an ash-tray in the 
 shape of a goose without a back. . . ." 
 
 " What do you do there? " 
 
 "Nothing! First we say how-do-you-do, then 
 we all sit round the table, and father treats us with 
 coffee and pics. You know Sonia eats the meat- 
 pies, but I can't endure meat-pies 1 I like the pies 
 made of cabbage and eggs. We eat such a lot that 
 we have to try hard to eat as much as we can at din- 
 ner, for fear mother should notice." 
 
 " What do you talk about? " 
 
 "With father? About anything. lie kisses us, 
 he hugs us, tells us all sorts of amusing jokes. Do
 
 336 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 you know, he says when we are grown up he is 
 going to take us to live with him. Sonia does not 
 want to go, but I agree. Of course, I should miss 
 mother; but, then, I should write her letters! It's 
 a queer idea, but we could come and visit her on 
 holidays — couldn't we? Father says, too, that he 
 will buy me a horse. He's an awfully kind man ! 
 I can't understand why mother does not ask him 
 to come and live with us, and why she forbids us to 
 see him. You know he loves mother very much. 
 He is always asking us how she is and what she is 
 doing. When she was ill he clutched his head like 
 this, and . . . and kept running about. He always 
 tells us to be obedient and respectful to her. Listen. 
 Is It true that we are unfortunate? " 
 
 "H'm! . . . Why?" 
 
 " That's what father says. ' You are unhappy 
 children,' he says. It's strange to hear him, really. 
 ' You are unhappy,' he says, ' I am unhappy, and 
 mother's unhappy. You must pray to God,' he says ; 
 * for yourselves and for her.' " 
 
 Alyosha let his eyes rest on a stuffed bird and 
 sank into thought. 
 
 " So . . ." growled Belyaev. " So that's how 
 you are going on. You arrange meetings at restau- 
 rants. And mother does not know? " 
 
 " No-o. . . . How should she know? Pelagea 
 would not tell her for anything, you know. The day
 
 A Trifle from Life 337 
 
 before yesterday he gave us some pears. As sweet 
 as jam! I ate two." 
 
 "H'm! . . . Well, and I say . . . Listen. Did 
 father say anything about me? " 
 
 " About you ? What shall I say? " 
 
 Alyosha looked searchingly into Belyaev's face 
 and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " He didn't say anything particular." 
 
 " For instance, what did he say? " 
 
 "You won't be offended?" 
 
 " What next? Why, does he abuse me? " 
 
 " He doesn't abuse you, but you know he Is angry 
 with you. He says mother's unhappy owing to you 
 . . . and that you have ruined mother. You know 
 he is so queer! I explain to him that you are kind, 
 that you never scold mother; but he only shakes his 
 head." 
 
 " So he says I have ruined her? " 
 
 " Yes; you mustn't be offended, Nikolay Ilyitch." 
 
 Belyaev got up, stood still a moment, and walked 
 up and down the drawing-room, 
 
 "That's strange and . . . ridiculous!" he mut- 
 tered, shrugging his shoulders and smiling sarcastic- 
 ally. " He's entirely to blame, and I have ruined 
 her, eh? An innocent lamb, I must say. So he 
 told you I ruined your mother? " 
 
 " Yes, but . . . you said you would not be of- 
 fended, you know."
 
 338 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 " I am not offended, and . . . and it's not your 
 business. Why, it's . . . why, it's positively ridic- 
 ulous! I have been thrust into it like a chicken in 
 the broth, and now it seems I'm to blame ! " 
 
 A ring was heard. The boy sprang up from his 
 place and ran out. A minute later a lady came into 
 the room with a little girl; this was Olga Ivanovna, 
 Alyosha's mother. Alyosha followed them in, skip- 
 ping and jumping, humming aloud and waving his 
 hands. Belyaev nodded, and went on walking up 
 and down. 
 
 " Of course, whose fault is it If not mine?" he 
 muttered with a snort. "He is right! He Is an 
 injured husband." 
 
 " What are you talking about? " asked Olga Iva- 
 novna. 
 
 "What about? . . . Why, just listen to the tales 
 your lawful spouse Is spreading now! It appears 
 that I am a scoundrel and a villain, that I have 
 ruined you and the children. All of you are un- 
 happy, and I am the only happy one ! Wonderfully, 
 wonderfully happy! " 
 
 " I don't understand, Nikolay. What's the mat- 
 ter?" 
 
 " Why, listen to this young gentleman ! " said Bel- 
 yaev, pointing to Alyosha. 
 
 Alyosha flushed crimson, then turned pale, and 
 his whole face began working with terror. 
 
 I
 
 A Trifle from Life , 339 
 
 " Nlkolay Ilyitch," he said in a loud whisper. 
 "Sh-sh!" 
 
 Olga Ivanovna looked in surprise at Alyosha, 
 then at Belyaev^ then at Alyosha again. 
 
 " Just ask him," Belyaev went on. " Your Pela- 
 gea, like a regular fool, takes them about to restau- 
 rants and arranges meetings with their papa. But 
 that's not the point: the point is that their dear papa 
 is a victim, while I'm a wretch who has broken up 
 both your lives. . . ." 
 
 " Nikolay Ilyitch," moaned Alyosha. " Why, 
 you promised on your word of honour ! " 
 
 " Oh, get away! " said Belyaev, waving him off. 
 " This is more important than any word of honour. 
 It's the hypocrisy revolts me, the lying! . . ." 
 
 " I don't understand it," said Olga Ivanovna, and 
 tears glistened in her eyes. " Tell me, Alyosha," 
 she turned to her son. " Do you see your father? " 
 
 Alyosha did not hear her; he was looking with 
 horror at Belyaev. 
 
 " It's impossible," said his mother; " I will go 
 and question Pelagea." 
 
 Olga Ivanovna went out. 
 
 " I say, you promised on your word of honour! " 
 said Alyosha, trembling all over, 
 
 Belyaev dismissed him with a wa\'c of his hand, 
 and went on walking up and down. He was ab- 
 sorbed in his grievance and was oblivious of the
 
 340 The Party and Other Stories 
 
 boy's presence, as he ahvays had been. He, a grown- 
 up, serious person, had no thought to spare for boys. 
 And Alyosha sat down In the corner and told Sonia 
 with horror how he had been deceived. He was 
 trembhng, stammering, and crying. It was the first 
 time in his hfe that he had been brought into such 
 coarse contact with lying; till then he had not known 
 that there are in the world, besides sweet pears, pies, 
 and expensive watches, a great many things for which 
 the language of children has no expression. 
 
 THE END 
 
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