In solitude, her anxiety grew stronger with every hour, and it was beyond her strength to deal with this painful feeling alone. She needed someone to hear her out and tell her she had done the right thing. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her mother long ago, and she considered her father a strange person and could not talk with him seriously. He inhibited her with his caprices, his excessive touchiness and indefinite gestures; and as soon as one got into conversation with him, he would at once begin talking about himself. And during her prayers she was not fully candid, because she did not know for certain what essentially she must ask from God.
The samovar was served. Yulia Sergeevna, very pale, tired, with a helpless look, came out to the dining room, made tea—this was her duty—and poured a glass for her father. Sergei Borisych, in his long frock coat below the knees, red-faced, uncombed, his hands in his pockets, paced the dining room, not up and down, but anyhow, like a caged animal. He would stop by the table, sip some tea with appetite, and again pace and go on thinking about something.
‘‘Laptev proposed to me today,’’ said Yulia Sergeevna, and she blushed.
The doctor looked at her and seemed not to understand.
‘‘Laptev?’’ he asked. ‘‘Mrs. Panaurov’s brother?’’
He loved his daughter; it was probable that she would marry sooner or later and leave him, but he tried not to think about it. He was frightened of solitude, and for some reason, it seemed to him that if he was left alone in this big house, he would have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to talk about it directly.
‘‘Well, then, I’m very glad,’’ he said and shrugged. ‘‘I heartily congratulate you. Now you’re presented with a beautiful opportunity for parting with me, to your great satisfaction. I understand you very well. To live with an old father, an ailing half-wit, must be very hard at your age. I understand you perfectly. And if I dropped dead the sooner and got snatched up by devils, everyone would be glad. I heartily congratulate you.’’
‘‘I refused him.’’
The doctor felt easier at heart but was no longer able to stop, and went on:
‘‘I’m amazed, I’ve long been amazed, why they haven’t put me in a madhouse yet. Why am I wearing this frock coat and not a straitjacket? I still believe in truth, in the good, I’m a fool of an idealist, and in our time, isn’t that madness? And how do they respond to my truth, to my honest attitude? They all but throw stones at me and ride on me. And even my close relations only try to ride on my neck, devil take me, old blockhead that I am...’
‘‘It’s impossible to have a human conversation with you!’’ said Yulia.
She got up from the table impulsively and went to her room in great wrath, remembering how often her father had been unfair to her. But a little later, she felt sorry for her father, and when he left for the club, she went downstairs to see him off and locked the door behind him herself. The weather outside was foul, restless; the door trembled from the gusts of wind, and in the front hall, there were drafts from all sides, so that the candle was nearly blown out. Upstairs Yulia went around all the rooms and made crosses at all the windows and doors; the wind howled, and it seemed as though someone was walking on the roof. It had never been so dismal, and she had never felt so alone.
She asked herself: had she acted well in refusing a man only because she did not like his looks? True, this was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean saying good-bye forever to her dreams, her notions of happiness and married life, but would she ever meet the man she was dreaming of and fall in love with him? She was already twenty-one years old. There were no suitors in town. She pictured to herself all the men she knew— officials, teachers, officers—and some were already married, and their family life struck her as empty and boring, and the others were uninteresting, colorless, unintelligent, immoral. Laptev, whatever else he was, was a Muscovite, he had finished the university, he spoke French; he lived in the capital, where there were many intelligent, noble, remarkable people, where there was noise, splendid theaters, musical evenings, excellent dressmakers, confectioners... It was said in the Holy Scriptures that a wife should love her husband, and in novels love was given enormous significance, but was there not some exaggeration in that? Was family life really impossible without love? Yet they say love soon passes and only habit remains, and that the very goal of family life lies not in love, not in happiness, but in responsibilities, for instance, in bringing up children, taking care of the household, and so on. And the Holy Scriptures may have in mind love for one’s husband as for a neighbor, respect for him, tolerance.
That night Yulia Sergeevna attentively read the evening prayers, then knelt and, pressing her hands to her breast, looking at the light of the icon lamp, said with feeling:
‘‘Grant me wisdom, Mother of God! Grant me wisdom, Lord!’’
During her life she had happened to meet old maids, poor and insignificant, who bitterly repented and expressed regret that they had once rejected their suitors. Might not the same thing happen to her? Should she not go to a convent or become a sister of mercy?
She undressed and went to bed, crossing herself and crossing the air around her. Suddenly the bell in the corridor rang sharply and plaintively.
‘‘Ah, my God!’’ she said, feeling a painful irritation all over her body from the ringing. She lay and went on thinking how poor in events this provincial life was, how monotonous and at the same time restless. One kept shuddering, being apprehensive of something, feeling angry or guilty, and in the end one’s nerves became upset to such a degree that it was frightening to peek out from under the blanket.
Half an hour later, the bell rang again, as sharply as the first time. It must be that the maid was asleep and did not hear it. Yulia Sergeevna lighted a candle and, trembling, vexed with the maid, began to dress, and when, having dressed, she went out to the corridor, the maid was already locking the door downstairs.
‘‘I thought it was the master, but it was someone sent from a patient,’’ she said.
Yulia Sergeevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards from the chest of drawers and decided that if she shuffled the cards well and then cut them, and if the card on the bottom was red, it would mean
That set her at ease, she fell asleep, but in the morning it was again neither
It was hard for her to walk against the wind; she inched along, holding her hat with both hands, and could see nothing because of the dust.
IV
