Of all that had happened to her before her appointment as a schoolteacher, she remembered very little. She had forgotten nearly everything. Once she had a father and mother—they lived in Moscow in a large apartment near the Red Gate—but of this period in her life the memories were as fluid and confused as dreams. Her father died when she was ten years old; her mother soon afterward.… She had a brother, an officer; at first they wrote to each other, and then he lost the habit of answering her letters. Of her former possessions only the photograph of her mother remained, but the damp air at school had faded it, and now nothing could be seen except the hair and eyebrows.
They had driven for two miles along the road when old Semyon, who held the reins, turned to her and said: “They’ve caught one of the town officials—taken him away somewhere. Said he and some Germans killed Alexeyev, the mayor, in Moscow.”
“Who told you?”
“I heard someone read it in the newspaper at Ivan Ionov’s tavern.”
There followed another long silence. Maria Vasilyevna thought about her school, and the examinations which would soon be coming along, and the four boys and one girl who would take part in them. She was still pondering these examinations when they were overtaken by a man driving in a carriage harnessed to four horses. The man was a landowner called Khanov, and he had in fact been the examiner at her school the year before. He drew alongside, recognized her, and bowed.
“Good morning,” he said. “I reckon you must be on your way home.”
Khanov was a man about forty years old, with a languid air and a face which showed signs of wear; he was rapidly aging, though he was still handsome and attractive to women. He lived alone on a large estate, and took no part in government service; they said he did nothing at home except whistle as he paced up and down the room, or else he played chess with an old footman. They said, too, that he drank a great deal. Indeed, during the examinations the year before, the very papers he brought with him smelled of wine and perfume. On that occasion he was dressed in brand-new clothes, and Maria Vasilyevna thought him very attractive: she was embarrassed and confused when she sat beside him. She was accustomed to receiving the visits of chilling, hardheaded examiners, but this particular examiner could not remember a single prayer, did not know what questions to ask, and was extraordinarily courteous and kind, giving all the children good marks.
“I am going to visit Bakvist,” he went on, still addressing Maria Vasilyevna, “but it occurs to me that he may not be at home.”
They turned off the highway into a narrow lane, Khanov leading the way and Semyon coming up behind. The four-horse team moved at a walking pace, straining to drag the heavy carriage out of the mud. Semyon followed a more erratic course, leaving the road to avoid a hump in his path or to skirt a puddle, and sometimes he would jump down from the cart to help the horse. Maria Vasilyevna was still thinking about the school: she was wondering whether the questions at the examination would be difficult or easy. Also, she was annoyed with the zemstvo council, which she had visited the previous day only to find no one there. What lack of principle! For the last two years she had been asking them to dismiss the janitor, who did nothing, was rude to her, and beat up the school children; but no one paid any attention to her. The chairman of the board was rarely at the office, and when he was, he would say with tears in his eyes that he had no time to spare; the inspector visited the school once in three years and knew nothing about the business, having previously served in the excise department and having received his present post through patronage. The school board rarely met, no one knew where. The trustee was an almost illiterate peasant who owned a tannery: a coarse, stupid fellow, bosom companion to the janitor—only God knew to whom she should turn when there were complaints to be made or wrongs to be put right.
“He really is handsome,” she thought, glancing at Khanov.
The road was becoming worse and worse.… They drove into the forest. Here there was no possibility of leaving the road, the ruts were deep, and water flowed and gurgled through them. Sharp twigs struck across their faces.
“What a road, eh?” Khanov said, and laughed.
The schoolmistress gazed at him, wondering why the strange fellow ever came to live here. What good was this God-forsaken place with its mud and boredom to a man of wealth and refinement and an attractive presence? Life was granting him no special privileges here. Like Semyon, he was jogging along slowly over an appalling road, enduring exactly the same hardships. Why live here, when there was the possibility of living in St. Petersburg or abroad? One would have thought it a simple matter for a rich man to build a fine road instead of this awful one; in this way he would avoid all the horror of the journey and the sight of the despair written on the faces of Semyon and of his own coachman. But he only laughed; apparently it was all one to him, and he wanted no better life. He was kind, gentle, unsophisticated, and was ignorant of the hard facts of life just as he was ignorant of the proper prayers to be offered at an examination. His only gifts to the school were globes; therefore he sincerely came to regard himself as a useful person and a prominent fighter for the cause of popular education. And what use were his globes anyway?
“Sit tight, Vasilyevna!” Semyon shouted.
The cart lurched violently, and was on the point of upsetting. Something heavy hurtled down on Maria Vasilyevna’s feet—the purchases she had made in town. There followed a steep climb up a clayey hill, with streams of water roaring down winding ditches and gnawing the road away—how could one possibly climb the hill? The horses were breathing heavily. Khanov got out of his carriage and walked along the edge of the road in his long overcoat. He was hot.
“What a road, eh?” he exclaimed, and laughed again. “Soon the whole carriage will be smashed to bits!”
“Who told you to go driving about in this weather?” Semyon said sharply. “Why didn’t you stay at home?”
“It’s boring to stay at home, old fellow. I don’t like it.”
He looked strong and well built as he walked beside old Semyon, but there was something barely perceptible in his gait which revealed a person already touched by decay, weak, and nearing his end. The forest suddenly smelled of wine. Maria Vasilyevna shuddered, and began to feel pity for this man who was going to ruin for no good reason, and it occurred to her that if she were his wife or sister she would devote her whole life to saving him. His wife? But he had so ordered his life that he had come to live alone on a vast estate, while she lived out her life in an obscure little village, and so the mere thought of them meeting as equals and becoming intimate seemed impossible and absurd. In reality, life was so ordered and human relationships were so infinitely various and complex that if you thought about them at all, you would be overwhelmed with terror and your heart would stop beating!
“It is beyond all understanding,” she thought, “why God gives beauty and charm and gentle, melancholy eyes to weak, unhappy, useless mortals—why are they so charming?”
“I’ll be turning off to the right here,” Khanov said, jumping into his carriage. “Good-by, and a pleasant journey
