She comes back with the plates, and the knives, forks, and spoons rattle on the plates.
Stepan puts the soup on the table. At dinner she relates how it all happened. Stepan comes in with the last dish.
“Stepan, seems to me that we shall not leave you any dinner.”
“Yes, Viéra Pavlovna; I shall have to buy something for myself in the little grocery store.”
“That’s all right, Stepan; henceforth you must know that you must prepare for two besides yourself.”
And after she remembers all this, Viéra Pavlovna smiles and “now how prosaic our story is!”
Tea was not over when we heard a terrible ringing of the bell, and in came a couple of students, and in their excitement they did not even notice her.
“Aleksandr Matvéitch, there is an interesting subject,” say they, all out of breath; “it was brought just now—a very rare complication; it’s very interesting, Aleksandr Matvéitch, and immediate help is wanted. Every moment is precious; we even took an izvoshchik to come here.”
“Make haste, my dear,” she says; and here for the first time the students notice her. They bow to her, and at that very moment they hurry away their professor with them. His preparations did not take very long; he was still in his army coat, and she hurried him away. “Will you come right to me afterwards?” she asked, as she said goodbye.
“Yes.”
Long she waits for him through the evening; here it is ten o’clock, and he hasn’t come yet; now it is eleven; now there is no use waiting; still what can be the reason? She, of course, did not worry at all. Nothing could have happened to him; but it shows how long he was detained by the interesting subject, and is the poor interesting subject alive now, and does Sasha succeed in saving him? Yes, Sasha was detained very long. He came in the next morning at ten o’clock. He stayed till four at the hospital.
“It was a very hard and interesting case, Viérotchka.”
“Did you save him?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get up so early?”
“I didn’t go to bed at all.”
“You didn’t go to bed? So as not to be late coming to see me? You didn’t sleep all night? You impious fellow! Please go right home and sleep clear till dinnertime without fail; so that I shall find you sleeping when I come.”
In two minutes he was already sent off.
Those were our two first interviews. But this second dinner goes with proper dignity. They tell each other their stories sensibly; they laugh, they think, and they pity each other. To each of them it seems that the other has suffered the more. In a week and a half a little dacha on the Kamennoï Ostrof is rented, and they move there.
VI
Viéra Pavlovna does not very often recollect the past days of their present love. Yes, in the present there is so much life that there is little recollection; but whenever she recalls the past—as sometimes, at first, of course, only sometimes, but afterwards more frequently—at every recollection she feels a dissatisfaction, at first, weak and like a flash, indefinite. At whom? at what? and then it appears to her. At whom? She is dissatisfied with herself. For what? And now she sees from what part of her character arises her dissatisfaction. Yes; she is very proud. But is it only in her past that she is dissatisfied with herself? At first, yes; but then she begins to observe that the dissatisfaction with herself is connected with the present also. And what a strange peculiarity could be noticed in this feeling, after it became clear to her, as though she, Viéra Pavlovna Kirsánova, did not feel a personal dissatisfaction, but as though the dissatisfaction of thousands and millions were not reflected in her; and as though she were not dissatisfied with herself personally, but as though these thousands and millions were dissatisfied with her. But who are these thousands and millions? Why are they dissatisfied with themselves? If I had lived alone by myself as before, she thought to herself, that then, by all probability, this feeling would not have been made manifest so quickly to her. But now she is constantly with her husband. They both think together all the time, and the thought about him interferes with every other thought. This assisted greatly in the evolution of this feeling. He could not directly explain this puzzle to her; as long as this feeling was obscure in her own mind, it was still darker for him. For him it was hard to think how it is possible to feel dissatisfaction which should not interfere with your personal satisfaction, which does not in the least bear upon personality. This was strange to him, a hundredfold darker than for her; but still it helped her a great deal that she was constantly thinking about her husband and constantly thinking with him. She began to notice that whenever this dissatisfaction came to her, it was always accompanied by comparisons. It consisted in the fact that she compares herself with her husband, and here flashed before her a real word expressing her thought, “a difference, an insulting difference.” Now she understands.
VII
“Sasha, how lovely this N. N. is (Viéra Pavlovna named the officer with whom she wanted to become acquainted with Tambulik and Bosio in her dream); he brought me a new poem, which is not soon going to be published,” said Viéra Pavlovna at dinner. “Shall we set ourselves to reading it right after dinner? Yes? I have been waiting for you, and I am going to read
