‘‘He wanted to kill me,’’ he muttered. ‘‘He was getting at mother’s chest... I wish to lock him up in the wing for safety’s sake, sir...’
Cheprakov was drunk, didn’t recognize me, and kept taking deep breaths, as if gathering air in order to cry ‘‘help’’ again.
I left them and went back to the house; my wife was lying in bed, already dressed. I told her what had happened in the yard and did not even conceal that I had struck Moisei.
‘‘It’s frightening to live in the country,’’ she said. ‘‘And God in heaven, what a long night!’’
‘‘He-e-elp!’’ the cry came again a little later.
‘‘I’ll go and calm them down,’’ I said.
‘‘No, let them bite each other’s throats there,’’ she said with a squeamish air.
She was staring at the ceiling and listening, and I was sitting nearby, not daring to start talking with her, feeling as if it was my fault that they were shouting ‘‘help’’ in the yard and that the night was so long.
We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a glow of light in the windows. But Masha looked all the while as if she had just recovered consciousness and was surprised at how it was that she, so intelligent, educated, so neat, could have wound up in this pitiful provincial wasteland, in a gang of petty, worthless people, and how she could have forgotten herself so far that she had even been captivated by one of those people and, for over six months, had been his wife. It seemed to me that it now made no difference to her whether it was me, or Moisei, or Cheprakov; everything had merged for her into this wild, drunken ‘‘help’’—me, and our marriage, and our farming, and the bad autumn roads; and whenever she sighed or stirred in order to lie more comfortably, I read in her face: ‘‘Oh, if only morning would come sooner!’’
In the morning she left.
I stayed in Dubechnya for three more days, waiting for her, then put all our things in one room, locked it, and went to town. When I rang at the engineer’s, it was already evening, and the streetlamps were lit along our Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya. Pavel told me there was nobody home: Viktor Ivanych had left for Petersburg, and Marya Viktorovna was most likely rehearsing at the Azhogins’. I remember with what agitation I went to the Azhogins’, how my heart pounded and sank as I went up the stairs and stood for a long time on the upper landing, not daring to enter that temple of the muses! In the reception room, candles were burning on the little table, the grand piano, and the stage, three of them everywhere, and the first performance had been set for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal was on a Monday—a black day. The struggle against superstition! All the amateurs of the scenic art were gathered; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest walked about onstage, reading their roles from notebooks. Apart from them all, Radish stood motionless, his temple leaning against the wall, and gazed at the stage with adoration, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used to be!
I made for the hostess—I had to greet her, but suddenly everyone hissed and waved at me not to stamp my feet. Silence fell. The lid of the grand piano was opened, some lady sat down, narrowing her nearsighted eyes at the score, and my Masha went to the piano, decked out, beautiful, but beautiful in some special new way, not at all like the Masha who used to come to me at the mill in the spring. She began to sing:
‘‘Why do I love thee, radiant night?’’25
In all the period of our acquaintance, this was the first time I had heard her sing. She had a good, strong, juicy voice, and it seemed to me while she sang that I was eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. Then she finished, there was applause, and she smiled, very pleased, flashing her eyes, leafing through the scores, straightening her dress like a bird that has escaped its cage at last and preens its feathers in freedom. Her hair was brushed over her ears, and her face had an unpleasant, defiant expression, as if she wanted to challenge us all, or yell at us as at horses: ‘‘Hey, you, my pretty ones!’’
And just then she must have resembled her grandfather the coachman.
‘‘You here, too?’’ she asked, giving me her hand. ‘‘Did you hear me sing? Well, how did you find it?’’ And, not waiting for my reply, she went on: ‘‘It’s very opportune that you’re here. Tonight I’m going to Petersburg for a short time. Will you let me go?’’
At midnight I saw her to the station. She embraced me tenderly, probably grateful that I hadn’t asked her any unnecessary questions, and promised to write to me, and I pressed her hands for a long time and kissed them, barely holding back the tears, not saying a word to her.
And when she was gone, I stood watching the receding lights, caressing her in my imagination, and saying softly:
‘‘My dear Masha, splendid Masha...’
I spent the night in Makarikha at Karpovna’s, and the next morning was already back with Radish, upholstering furniture for some wealthy merchant who was marrying his daughter to a doctor.
XVII
ON SUNDAY AFTER dinner my sister came to see me and we had tea.
‘‘I read a lot now,’’ she said, showing me a book she had taken from the town library on the way to see me. ‘‘Thanks to your wife and Vladimir for awakening my self-awareness. They saved me, they made it so that I now feel myself a human being. Before, I used not to sleep at night from various worries: ‘Ah, we’ve used too much sugar this week! Ah, if only I don’t oversalt the pickles!’ And now I also don’t sleep, but I have different thoughts. I suffer that half of my life has been spent so stupidly, so faintheartedly. I despise my past, I’m ashamed of it, and I look at father now as my enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to your wife! And Vladimir? He’s such a wonderful man! They’ve opened my eyes.’’
‘‘It’s not good that you don’t sleep at night,’’ I said.
‘‘You think I’m sick? Not a bit. Vladimir auscultated me and said I’m perfectly healthy. But health is not the point, it’s not so important... Tell me: am I right?’’
She was in need of moral support—that was obvious. Masha was gone, Dr. Blagovo was in Petersburg, and besides me there was no one left in town who could tell her she was right. She peered intently into my face, trying to read my secret thoughts, and if I became pensive in her presence and was silent, she took it to her account and grew sad. I had to be on my guard all the time, and when she asked me if she was right, I hastened to reply that she was right and that I deeply respected her.
‘‘You know? They’ve given me a role at the Azhogins’,’’ she went on. ‘‘I want to act on the stage. I want to live; in short, I want to drink from the full cup. I have no talent at all, and the role’s only ten lines long, but that’s still
