Selected short stories -1892-1895- translated by Constance Garnett

and abandon themselves with tragic intensity.'

'But one must keep a head on one's shoulders,' said Orlov; 'one must be reasonable. All experience gained from everyday life and handed down in innumerable novels and plays, uniformly confirms the fact that adultery and cohabitation of any sort between decent people never lasts longer than two or at most three years, however great the love may have been at the beginning. That she ought to know. And so all this business of moving, of saucepans, hopes of eternal love and harmony, are nothing but a desire to delude herself and me. She is charming and exquisite -- who denies it? But she has turned my life upside down; what I have regarded as trivial and nonsensical till now she has forced me to raise to the level of a serious problem; I serve an idol whom I have never looked upon as God. She is charming -- exquisite, but for some reason now when I am going home, I feel uneasy, as though I expected to meet with something inconvenient at home, such as workmen pulling the stove to pieces and blocking up the place with heaps of bricks. In fact, I am no longer giving up to love a sous, but part of my peace of mind and my nerves. And that's bad.'

'And she doesn't hear this villain!' sighed Kukushkin. 'My dear sir,' he said theatrically, 'I will relieve you from the burdensome obligation to love that adorable creature! I will wrest Zinaida Fyodorovna from you!'

'You may . . .' said Orlov carelessly.

For half a minute Kukushkin laughed a shrill little laugh, shaking all over, then he said:

'Look out; I am in earnest! Don't you play the Othello afterwards!'

They all began talking of Kukushkin's indefatigable energy in love affairs, how irresistible he was to women, and what a danger he was to husbands; and how the devil would roast him in the other world for his immorality in this. He screwed up his eyes and remained silent, and when the names of ladies of their acquaintance were mentioned, he held up his little finger -- as though to say they mustn't give away other people's secrets.

Orlov suddenly looked at his watch.

His friends understood, and began to take their leave. I remember that Gruzin, who was a little drunk, was wearisomely long in getting off. He put on his coat, which was cut like children's coats in poor families, pulled up the collar, and began telling some long-winded story; then, seeing he was not listened to, he flung the rug that smelt of the nursery over one shoulder, and with a guilty and imploring face begged me to find his hat.

'George, my angel,' he said tenderly. 'Do as I ask you, dear boy; come out of town with us!'

'You can go, but I can't. I am in the position of a married man now.'

'She is a dear, she won't be angry. My dear chief, come along! It's glorious weather; there's snow and frost. . . . Upon my word, you want shaking up a bit; you are out of humour. I don't know what the devil is the matter with you. . . .'

Orlov stretched, yawned, and looked at Pekarsky.

'Are you going?' he said, hesitating.

'I don't know. Perhaps.'

'Shall I get drunk? All right, I'll come,' said Orlov after some hesitation. 'Wait a minute; I'll get some money.'

He went into the study, and Gruzin slouched in, too, dragging his rug after him. A minute later both came back into the hall. Gruzin, a little drunk and very pleased, was crumpling a ten-rouble note in his hands.

'We'll settle up to-morrow,' he said. 'And she is kind, she won't be cross. . . . She is my Lisotchka's godmother; I am fond of her, poor thing! Ah, my dear fellow!' he laughed joyfully, and pressing his forehead on Pekarsky's back. 'Ah, Pekarsky, my dear soul! Advocatissimus -- as dry as a biscuit, but you bet he is fond of women. . . .'

'Fat ones,' said Orlov, putting on his fur coat. 'But let us get off, or we shall be meeting her on the doorstep.'

''Vieni pensando a me segretamente,'' hummed Gruzin.

At last they drove off: Orlov did not sleep at home, and returned next day at dinner-time.

VI

Zinaida Fyodorovna had lost her gold watch, a present from her father. This loss surprised and alarmed her. She spent half a day going through the rooms, looking helplessly on all the tables and on all the windows. But the watch had disappeared completely.

Only three days afterwards Zinaida Fyodorovna, on coming in, left her purse in the hall. Luckily for me, on that occasion it was not I but Polya who helped her off with her coat. When the purse was missed, it could not be found in the hall.

'Strange,' said Zinaida Fyodorovna in bewilderment. 'I distinctly remember taking it out of my pocket to pay the cabman . . . and then I put it here near the looking-glass. It's very odd!'

I had not stolen it, but I felt as though I had stolen it and had been caught in the theft. Tears actually came into my eyes. When they were seated at dinner, Zinaida Fyodorovna said to Orlov in French:

'There seem to be spirits in the flat. I lost my purse in the hall to-day, and now, lo and behold, it is on my table. But it's not quite a disinterested trick of the spirits. They took out a gold coin and twenty roubles in notes.'

'You are always losing something; first it's your watch and then it's your money . . .' said Orlov. 'Why is it nothing of the sort ever happens to me?'

A minute later Zinaida Fyodorovna had forgotten the trick played by the spirits, and was telling with a laugh how the week before she had ordered some notepaper and had forgotten to give her new address, and the shop had sent the paper to her old home at her husband's, who had to pay twelve roubles for it. And suddenly she turned her eyes on Polya and looked at her intently. She blushed as she did so, and was so confused that she began talking of something else.

When I took in the coffee to the study, Orlov was standing with his back to the fire and she was sitting in an arm-chair facing him.

'I am not in a bad temper at all,' she was saying in French. 'But I have been putting things together, and now I