‘‘Does she love you?’’
‘‘No.’’
Laptev, agitated, feeling unhappy, got up and began pacing the room.
‘‘No,’’ he repeated. ‘‘If you want to know, Polina, I’m very unhappy. What to do? I did a stupid thing, there’s no putting it right now. I have to deal with it philosophically. She married without love, stupidly, maybe out of calculation, but without reasoning, and now, obviously, is aware of her mistake and suffers. I can see it. At night we sleep, but in the daytime she’s afraid to stay alone with me even for five minutes and seeks diversion, company. She’s ashamed and afraid with me.’’
‘‘And yet she takes money from you?’’
‘‘That’s stupid, Polina!’’ cried Laptev. ‘‘She takes money from me because it makes decidedly no difference to her whether she has it or not. She’s an honest, pure person. She married me simply because she wanted to get away from her father, that’s all.’’
‘‘And you’re sure she would have married you if you weren’t rich?’’ asked Rassudina.
‘‘I’m not sure of anything,’’ Laptev said in anguish. ‘‘Not of anything. For God’s sake, Polina, let’s not talk about it.’’
‘‘You love her?’’
‘‘Madly.’’
Then silence ensued. She was drinking her fourth glass of tea, and he was pacing and thinking that his wife was now most likely having dinner at the Doctors’ Club.
‘‘But can one possibly love without knowing why?’’ Rassudina asked and shrugged her shoulders. ‘‘No, it’s animal passion speaking in you! You’re intoxicated! You’re poisoned by that beautiful body, that
She waved her hand at him, then took his hat and flung it at him. He silently put on his fur coat and went out, but she ran to the front hall, clutched his arm convulsively near the shoulder, and burst into sobs.
‘‘Stop it, Polina! Enough!’’ he said, and could not unclench her fingers. ‘‘Calm yourself, I beg you!’’
She closed her eyes and went pale, and her long nose turned an unpleasant waxen color, like a dead person’s, and Laptev still could not unclench her fingers. She was in a swoon. He carefully lifted her up and put her on the bed, and sat beside her for about ten minutes, until she came to. Her hands were cold, her pulse weak and unsteady.
‘‘Go home,’’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘‘Go, otherwise I’ll howl again. I must get control of myself.’’
Having left her, he went not to the Doctors’ Club, where the company was expecting him, but home. All the way there, he asked himself with reproach: why had he not set up a family for himself with this woman who loved him so much and was already in fact his wife and friend? She was the only human being who was attached to him, and besides, would it not have been a gratifying, worthy task to give happiness, shelter, and peace to this intelligent, proud being who was worn out with work? Did they suit him, he kept asking himself, these pretensions to beauty, youth, to that very happiness which could not be and which, as if in punishment or mockery, had kept him for three months now in a gloomy, depressed state? The honeymoon was long over, and he, funny to say, still did not know what sort of person his wife was. She wrote long five-page letters to her boarding-school friends and her father, and she found what to write about, but with him she talked only about the weather or about it being time for dinner or supper. When she said long prayers to God before sleeping and then kissed her little crosses and icons, he looked at her and thought with hatred: ‘‘Here she is praying, but what is she praying for? What?’’ In his thoughts, he insulted her and himself, saying that when he went to bed with her and took her in his arms, he was taking what he had paid for, but it was terrible to think that; if she had been a robust, bold, sinful woman, but here she was all youth, religiosity, meekness, innocent, pure eyes... When she was his fiancee, her religiosity had touched him, but now this conventional definitiveness of views and convictions seemed to him like a screen behind which the real truth could not be seen. Everything had become tormenting in his family life. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theater, sighed or laughed sincerely, he felt bitter that she was enjoying herself alone and did not want to share her delight with him. And remarkably, she made friends with all his friends, and they all knew what kind of person she was, while he knew nothing, and only sulked and was silently jealous.
On coming home, Laptev put on his dressing gown and slippers and sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. But before half an hour went by, the bell rang in the front hall, and the muffled steps of Pyotr were heard, running to open the door. It was Yulia. She came into his study in her fur coat, her cheeks red from frost.
‘‘There’s a big fire on Presnya,’’ she said breathlessly. ‘‘The glow is enormous. I’m going there with Konstantin Ivanych.’’
‘‘Go with God!’’
The look of health, freshness, and childish fear in her eyes set Laptev at ease. He read for another half hour and went to bed.
The next day Polina Nikolaevna sent him at the warehouse two books she had once borrowed from him, all his letters, and his photographs; with it was a note consisting of only one word: ‘Basta!’
VIII
BY THE END of October, Nina Fyodorovna’s relapse was clearly marked. She quickly lost weight and changed countenance. Despite severe pains, she imagined she was getting better, and dressed each morning as if she was healthy, and then lay in bed all day dressed. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would lie on her back telling something quietly, with effort, breathing heavily. She died suddenly in the following circumstances.
It was a bright moonlit evening, outside people went sleigh-riding over the fresh snow, and the noise from outside came into the room. Nina Fyodorovna lay on her back in bed, and Sasha, who no longer had anyone to replace her, sat dozing near her bed.
‘‘I don’t remember his patronymic,’’ Nina Fyodorovna was saying softly, ‘‘but he was called Ivan, last name Kochevoy, a poor clerk. He was an awful drunkard, God rest his soul. He used to come to us, and we gave him a pound of sugar and a packet of tea every month. Well, and occasionally money, of course. Yes... Then this is what happened: our Kochevoy went on a bad binge and died, burnt up on vodka. He left a little son, a dear little boy of about seven. An orphan... We took him and hid him with the salesclerks, and he lived a whole year like that, and papa didn’t know. But when papa saw it, he only waved his hand and said nothing. When Kostya, our orphan, that
