minute will never return ? '
' Oh, no,' answered Alexandr, ' it is not true; it will
return ! there will be happier minutes still; yes, I feel it! '
She shook her head incredulously. And his uncle's
lessons came into his head, and he came to a pause
suddenly.
' No,' he said to himself, ' no, that can never be! uncle knew nothing of such happiness, that is why he is so stern and suspicious with people. Poor fellow! I am sorry for his dry, cold heart: it has never known the intoxication of love; of course that's the reason of his jaundiced railings against life. God forgive him! If he had seen my bliss, even he would not have tried to destroy it, he would not have insulted it by his impure doubts. I am sorry for him.'
' No, Nadinka, no, we will be happy I' he went on aloud. ' Look round ; are not all things here rejoicing looking on at our love ? God Himself blesses it. How gaily we shall go through life hand in hand 1 We shall be proud, great in mutuallove 1''
'Oh, stop, stop looking forward 1' she interposed. ' Don't prophesy; I begin to be afraid when you talk so. And now I feel sad.'
'What are you afraid of? Cannot you believe in yourself?'
' No, I can't, I can't!' she said, shaking her head. He looked at her and grew thoughtful.
' Why ? ' he began again, ' what can destroy this world of our happiness ? Who can interfere with us ? We will always be alone, we will withdraw ourselves from others; what have we to do with them ? and what have they to do with us ? They will not remember us, they will forget us, and then the rumours of sorrow and troubles will not trouble us, just as now here in the garden no sound disturbs the heavenly peace.'
'Nadinka! Alexandr Fedoritch!' was suddenly heard from the steps, ' where are you ? '
'Listen!' said Nadinka in prophetic tones, 'it's an omen of fate; this minute will not return again—I feel it.'
She seized his hand, squeezed it and looked at him somewhat strangely, mournfully, and suddenly rushed off into the dark avenue.
He stood alone musing.
' Alexandr Fedoritch!' sounded again from the steps, ' the curds have been on the table a long while.'
He shrugged his shoulders and went into the room.
'At the instant of ineffable bliss—all of a sudden
_r
curds!!' he said to Nadinka, ' Will it be always so in life?'
' I only hope it won't be worse,' she answered gaily; ' curds are a very nice thing, especially for any one who has had no dinner.'
Her happiness animated her. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes flashed with unwonted brilliance. How zealously she played the hostess, how gaily she. chatted! There was not a shadow left of the momentary glimpse of sadness.
The dawn was already filling half the heavens with light when Adouev took his seat in the boat. The boatmen in expectation of the promised reward, spit into their hands and were beginning to rise from their seats as before, plying the oars with all their might.
' Go slower !' said Alexandr, ' another half rouble for vodka!'
They looked at him and then at one another. One scratched his throat, the other his back, and they began to row, scarcely moving the oars, hardly touching the water. The boat swam on like a swan.
' And uncle wants to convince me that happiness is a chimaera, that one cannot believe unreservedly in anything,
that life he is too bad ! Why does he want to deceive
me so cruelly? No, this is life! So I imagined it to myself, so it must be, so it is, and so it shall be! Otherwise it is not life!'
A soft morning breeze was lightly blowing from the north. Alexandr gave a little shiver, from the breeze and from his memories, then yawned and, wrapping himself in his coat, fell into reverie.
CHAPTER V.
Adouev had reached the zenith of his happiness. He had nothing more to wish for. His official duties, his journalistic work were all forgotten and thrown aside. They had already passed him over at his office ; he would not have noticed it at all, except that his uncle reminded him of
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s
98 A COMMON STORY
the fact. Piotr I van itch advised him to give up trifling, but Alexandr at the word 'trifling' shrugged his shoulders, smiled compassionately and said nothing. His uncle, seeing that his representations were useless, also shrugged his shoulders, smiled compassionately and said nothing.
Alexandr obviously avoided him. He had lost all kind of trust in his gloomy prognostications, and feared his cold views of love in general and his offensive insinuations as to his relations with Nadinka in especial.
There was something of triumph, of mystery in Alexandr's deportment, his glance, his whole bearing. He behaved with other people, like some rich capitalist on Exchange with petty tradesmen, condescendingly, with consideration, thinking to himself, ' poor creatures ! which of you is master of a treasure like mine ? which of you can feel like me ? whose mighty soul ' and so on.
He was convinced that he was the only person in the world who so loved and was so loved. However, he not only avoided his uncle, but all the ' herd' as he said. He was either worshipping his divinity, or sitting at home in his study alone, brooding over his bliss, analysing it, dissecting it to infinity. He called this creating a world of his ozvn, and sitting in solitude he certainly did create for himself a world of some kind out of nothing and lived for the most part in it, and he went to his office rarely and reluctantly, calling it—'a miserable necessity.'
Behold him sitting in his armchair! Before him some sheets of paper, on which were carelessly jotted a few lines of poetry. He is either bending over the manuscript, making some correction or adding a few lines, or doubled up in the depths of his armchair dreaming. On his lips a smile is playing; it is clear that it is not long since they tasted the full ' cup ' of bliss.
All around is still. Only in the distance'from the great street is heard the rumbling of carriages, and from time to time Yevsay, weary of cleaning shoes, talking aloud to himself: ' mus'n't forget; borrowed a ha'porth of vinegar some time ago at the shop and a penn'orth of cabbage, must pay it to-morrow, or the man, maybe, won't trust me again—such a cur as he is 1 Sell bread by the pound—like the famine year—it's a shame! Oh, Lord, I'm tired ! There, I'll just
1
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finish that boot—and then to bed. At Grahae they've been abed this long time, no doubt; it's very^HKerent from here ! When will the Lord grant I see '
Here he gave a loud sigh, breathed on the boot, and began again to polish it with the brush. He considered this occupation a most important one, and almost his sole ' duty, and measured the value of a servant and even of a man principally by his skill in cleaning boots; he cleaned them himself with a kind of passionate ardour. ' Do • stop, Yevsay! you prevent me doing my work with your ' fooling!' cried Adouev.
' Fooling !' Yevsay muttered to himself; ' it's not I but you that are fooling, and I am doing work. Just see how he's mudded his boots, one can scarcely get them clean.' He put the boots on the table and looked lovingly at the brilliant polish on the leather.
' Get along ! polishing like that fooling !' he added.
Alexandr grew always more deeply buried in his dreams of Nadinka and then in his dreams of authorship.
There was nothing on the table. Everything which recalled his former occupations, his office duties, his journalistic work, lay under the table or in the cupboard or under the bed. ' The very sight of such sordid things,' he
