‘‘Splendid. Go now, or he may come and find you here.’’
The tone in which this was said, and Rassudina’s indifferent eyes, utterly confused him. She no longer had any feelings for him, except the wish that he leave quickly—and how unlike her former love that was! He left without shaking her hand, and thought she would call after him and tell him to come back, but the sounds of the exercises were heard again, and he understood, as he slowly went down the stairs, that he was now a stranger to her.
After three days or so, Yartsev came to see him and spend the evening together.
‘‘And I’ve got news,’’ he said and laughed. ‘‘Polina Nikolaevna has moved in with me for good.’’ He was slightly embarrassed and went on in a low voice: ‘‘What, then? Of course, we’re not in love with each other, but I think that . . . that makes no difference. I’m glad I can give her shelter and peace and the possibility of not working, in case she gets sick, and it seems to her that if she lives with me, there will be more order in my life, and that under her influence, I’ll become a great scholar. So she thinks. And let her think it. They have a saying in the south: ‘A fool gets rich on fancies.’ Ha, ha, ha!’’
Laptev was silent. Yartsev strolled about the study, looked at the pictures he had seen many times before, and said with a sigh:
‘‘Yes, my friend, I’m three years older than you, and it’s late for me to think about true love, and essentially a woman like Polina Nikolaevna is a find for me, and I could certainly live my life very well with her into old age, but, devil take it, I keep regretting something, keep wanting something, and imagining that I’m lying in the Vale of Dagestan and dreaming of a ball.27 In short, a man is never content with what he’s got.’’
He went to the drawing room and sang romances as if nothing had happened, but Laptev sat in his study, his eyes closed, trying to understand why Rassudina had gone with Yartsev. And then he became sad that there were no firm, lasting attachments, and felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone with Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was not at all what it had been before.
XV
LAPTEV WAS SITTING in an armchair, reading and rocking; Yulia was there in the study and also reading. There seemed to be nothing to talk about, and both had been silent since morning. Now and then he glanced at her over his book and thought: whether you marry from passionate love or without any love—isn’t it all the same? And the time when he was jealous, worried, tormented now seemed far away. He had managed to travel abroad and was now resting from the trip and counting, with the coming of spring, on going to England, which he had liked very much.
And Yulia Sergeevna had grown accustomed to her grief and no longer went to the wing to weep. That winter she did not drive around shopping, did not go to theaters and concerts, but stayed at home. She did not like big rooms and was always either in her husband’s study or in her own room, where she kept the encased icons she had received as a dowry, and that landscape she had liked so much at the exhibition hung on the wall. She spent almost no money on herself and lived on as little as she had once lived on in her father’s house.
The winter passed cheerlessly. Everywhere in Moscow, they were playing cards, but if instead of that they invented some other diversion, for instance singing, reading, drawing, it came out still more boring. And because there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers and readers participated in all the evenings, the enjoyment of art itself gradually became habitual and, for many, turned into a boring, monotonous duty.
Besides, not a single day passed for the Laptevs without some distress. Old Fyodor Stepanych’s eyesight was now very poor, he did not go to the warehouse, and the eye doctors said he would soon be blind; Fyodor also stopped going to the warehouse for some reason and stayed at home all the time writing something. Panaurov obtained a transfer to another town, with a promotion to the rank of actual state councillor,28 and now lived at the Dresden and came to Laptev almost every day to ask for money. Kish finally left the university and, while waiting for the Laptevs to find some job for him, spent whole days sitting with them, telling long, boring stories. All this was annoying and wearisome and made daily life unpleasant.
Pyotr came into the study and announced that some unknown lady had come. Written on the card he brought was: ‘‘Josephina Iosifovna Milan.’’
Yulia Sergeevna got up lazily and went out, limping slightly because her foot was asleep. A lady appeared in the doorway, thin, very pale, with dark eyebrows, dressed all in black. She clasped her hands to her breast and said pleadingly:
‘‘Monsieur Laptev, save my children!’’
The jingling of bracelets and the face with blotches of powder were familiar to Laptev: he recognized her as the same lady in whose house he had happened to dine so inappropriately sometime before his wedding. It was Panaurov’s second wife.
‘‘Save my children!’’ she repeated, and her face quivered and suddenly became old and pathetic, and her eyes reddened. ‘‘You alone can save us, and I’ve come to you in Moscow on my last money! My children will starve!’’
She made a movement as if to go on her knees. Laptev became alarmed and grasped her arms above the elbows.
‘Sit down, sit down...’ he murmured, seating her. ‘I beg you, sit down.’’
‘‘We have no money now to buy bread,’’ she said. ‘‘Grigory Nikolaich is leaving for his new post, but he does not want to take me and the children with him, and the money that you have been sending us so magnanimously, he spends only on himself. What are we to do? What? Poor, unfortunate children!’’
‘‘Calm yourself, I beg you. I’ll tell them in the office to send the money in your name.’’
She burst into sobs, then calmed down, and he noticed that the tears had made tracks on her powdered cheeks, and that she had a mustache sprouting.
‘‘You are endlessly magnanimous, Monsieur Laptev. But be our angel, our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaich not to abandon me but to take me with him. I love him, love him madly, he is my joy.’’
Laptev gave her a hundred roubles and promised to talk with Panaurov and, seeing her off to the front hall, kept fearing she might burst into sobs or go down on her knees.
After her came Kish. Then came Kostya with his camera. Lately he had become interested in photography, and each day he photographed everyone in the house several times, and this new occupation caused him much distress, and he even lost weight.
Before evening tea, Fyodor came. He sat down in a corner of the study, opened a book, and stared at one page for a long time, apparently without reading it. Then for a long time he drank tea; his face was red. In his presence,
