The women were gone. The royal day had doffed its crown.
Pavel Ostapenko’s talk now imposed the tiresome necessity of being understood. There was now nothing for Seryozha to bury his attention in, except his host’s voice—nothing to watch except those staring, rufous eyes, that little gold-red beard being pulled and pushed like a latch to open and shut busy jaws, the blouse flapping open to show drops of sweat among the thick auburn hairs on his breast.
Directly Varvara and Tatiana had gone, Pavel, also noticing their absence, responded to it by talking about his wife.
“A wonderful woman—my wife—Varvara Alexeievna,” he said. “I wish I could be sure that our girl would make you as good a wife as her mother has me. Lord! how sorry I feel for some of my friends with their scolding wives—wives who set themselves up to be their equals—wives who gad about in silk stockings—wives who get drunk—wives who can’t even roast a chicken decently. You know, there was quite a romance about my marriage with Varvara Alexeievna. … She was a milkman’s daughter, and of course my people wouldn’t hear of such a match for me. We Ostapenkos are intensely proud—but also, mark you, intensely romantic—chivalrous—disinterested. If one of my family gives his word, well, he’ll keep it as though it were a lawyer’s bond. Well, that’s what my father hadn’t reckoned with—he wasn’t allowing for the romantic chivalry I inherited from him and the impulsive, passionate, quixotic line behind him. I won’t conceal from you that my father had reason on his side; I could have made a most excellent marriage with the daughter of one of my father’s oldest friends—a fine plump girl with a big dowry and broad hips and shoulders, who loved me to distraction and would no doubt have borne me half a dozen sons to carry on my name, instead of one puny hen-chick. It would have been a good match, and I won’t say that I was blind to its advantages—but, ‘No,’ I said—‘no, papa, I can’t go back on my word—’ ”
“Translate to our host, Saggay Saggayitch,” Wilfred suddenly said, speaking very carefully, “how much I admire his taste in furning—in fursh—in furnaces—in furnishing what is usually such a comfortless place—a Japanese house. It is almost English, almost ’sgood as the first-class boardinghouse where I stayed in Bloomsbury West Central One, while a law student. Such strong chegs to the lairs, and all so costly as I can see with half an egg—half an eye.”
“ ‘Poor little Varvara Alexeievna loves me, papa,’ I said, ‘and counts on me. I’ve given her my word and I’ll marry her like an honorable man.’ Well, there was a terrible passionate scene—typical of the scenes in our family, for we were no milk-and-water lot, I assure you, when roused. But in the end my father saw I was determined—a twinkle came into his eye and he said, ‘By God! Pavlik, you’re a true Ostapenko, no doubt about that—’ ”
“And tell him, too,” added Wilfred, “that even in England I never saw before a mustard-pot in the shape of a howl—owl—though I once saw this bird in person when going to Ascot in a flus, buttering through the woods one evening. Fluttering—through—a wood—in-a-bus.”
“I married Varya, as you might say, if not exactly out of pity, certainly out of chivalry—poor soul. I knew she was not likely to have any other offers—a poor milkman’s daughter, and so thin, and with that birthmark. But Lord, she was—and still is—devoted to me. She knows her luck.”
Pavel’s face was the face of a man who had never had a setback. His features were set in lines of happy certainty; his mouth looked entirely brave against self-doubt; his tongue did not know how to stumble. Only his eyes, anxious and roundly staring, looked as if they feared attack—as if he had to open them widely in order to collect evidence that all that he said was believed and appreciated. His eyes challenged you to say that he lied or was mistaken in anything, and if you had expressed a doubt, he would have piled evidence on evidence, false witness on false witness, lie upon lie, perjured oath upon oath, completely forgetting the foundation of truth on which such a toppling edifice of affirmation is most safely built. Until at last you had to admit, “Well—yes—if you assure me of that, and that, and that, and swear to it so solemnly, of course I must believe you that this is so,” and only then did his round eyes relax, blink, look safe again. You were convinced; that was all that mattered; he had obliged you to admit that he was right. Whether he was right did not matter—that he had lied from the beginning did not matter—you had said that he was right, you accepted his truth, though it was no truth.
“I must say,” went on Pavel, “except in one matter, I’ve never had to regret my impulsive and chivalrous decision. Varya’s been a wonderful wife to me (I can see it now looking back) except in one particular. The exception I leave you to imagine, my dear boy. You’re young, but you know life, and you know as well as I do there are certain things a decent man doesn’t give away when talking of his wife. Nature—and a man’s nature especially, mind you—shocks her, seems to her improper. She has tried to adapt herself, poor soul; she sees quite well that such freakishness and prudishness make a woman an unworthy mate for a manly man. But fundamentally, it’s still there. … It accounts for much of the oddity in our Tanya’s nature. Tanya, our only child, has inherited her mother’s nature, though her coldness has a different aspect. … Tanya doesn’t think anything improper—indeed, her mother and I have often had to check the freedom with which she describes her observations of animals. She doesn’t examine realities enough to be shocked by them—she just feels far
