She felt perfectly well and was in a gay, festive mood. Wearing a new loose dress of coarse man’s tussore and a big straw hat, its wide brim bent down sharply to her ears, so that her face looked out of it as if out of a box, she fancied herself very sweet. She was thinking that in the whole town there was only one young, beautiful, intelligent woman—herself— and that she alone knew how to dress cheaply, elegantly, and with taste. For example, this dress had cost only twenty-two roubles, and yet how sweet it was! In the whole town, she alone could still attract men, and there were many, and therefore, willy-nilly, they should all envy Laevsky.
She was glad that lately Laevsky had been cold, politely restrained, and at times even impertinent and rude with her; to all his outbursts and all his scornful, cold, or strange, incomprehensible glances, she would formerly have responded with tears, reproaches, and threats to leave him, or to starve herself to death, but now her response was merely to blush, to glance at him guiltily and be glad that he was not nice to her. If he rebuked her or threatened her, it would be still better and more agreeable, because she felt herself roundly guilty before him. It seemed to her that she was guilty, first, because she did not sympathize with his dreams of a life of labor, for the sake of which he had abandoned Petersburg and come here to the Caucasus, and she was certain that he had been cross with her lately precisely for that. As she was going to the Caucasus, it had seemed to her that on the very first day, she would find there a secluded nook on the coast, a cozy garden with shade, birds, brooks, where she could plant flowers and vegetables, raise ducks and chickens, receive neighbors, treat poor muzhiks and distribute books to them; but it turned out that the Caucasus was bare mountains, forests, and enormous valleys, where you had to spend a long time choosing, bustling about, building, and that there weren’t any neighbors there, and it was very hot, and they could be robbed. Laevsky was in no rush to acquire a plot; she was glad of that, and it was as if they both agreed mentally never to mention the life of labor. He was silent, she thought, that meant he was angry with her for being silent.
Second, over those two years, unknown to him, she had bought all sorts of trifles in Atchmianov’s shop for as much as three hundred roubles. She had bought now a bit of fabric, then some silk, then an umbrella, and the debt had imperceptibly mounted.
‘‘I’ll tell him about it today ...’ she decided, but at once realized that, given Laevsky’s present mood, it was hardly opportune to talk to him about debts.
Third, she had already twice received Kirilin, the police chief, in Laevsky’s absence: once in the morning, when Laevsky had gone to swim, and the other time at midnight, when he was playing cards. Remembering it, Nadezhda Fyodorovna flushed all over and turned to look at the kitchen maid, as if fearing she might eavesdrop on her thoughts. The long, unbearably hot, boring days, the beautiful, languorous evenings, the stifling nights, and this whole life, when one did not know from morning to evening how to spend the useless time, and the importunate thoughts that she was the most beautiful young woman in town and that her youth was going for naught, and Laevsky himself, an honest man with ideas, but monotonous, eternally shuffling in his slippers, biting his nails, and boring her with his caprices— resulted in her being gradually overcome with desires, and, like a madwoman, she thought day and night about one and the same thing. In her breathing, in her glance, in the tone of her voice, and in her gait—all she felt was desire; the sound of the sea told her she had to love, so did the evening darkness, so did the mountains... And when Kirilin began to court her, she had no strength, she could not and did not want to resist, and she gave herself to him...
Now the foreign steamships and people in white reminded her for some reason of a vast hall; along with the French talk, the sounds of a waltz rang in her ears, and her breast trembled with causeless joy. She wanted to dance and speak French.
She reasoned joyfully that there was nothing terrible in her infidelity; her soul took no part in it; she continues to love Laevsky, and that is obvious from the fact that she is jealous of him, pities him, and misses him when he’s not at home. Kirilin turned out to be so-so, a bit crude, though handsome; she’s broken everything off with him, and there won’t be anything more. What there was is past, it’s nobody’s business, and if Laevsky finds out, he won’t believe it.
There was only one bathing cabin on the shore, for women; the men bathed under the open sky. Going into the bathing cabin, Nadezhda Fyodorovna found an older lady there, Marya Konstantinovna Bitiugov, the wife of an official, and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Katya, a schoolgirl; the two were sitting on a bench undressing. Marya Konstantinovna was a kind, rapturous, and genteel person who spoke in a drawl and with pathos. Until the age of thirty-two, she had lived as a governess, then she married the official Bitiugov, a small bald person who brushed his hair forward on his temples and was very placid. She was still in love with him, was jealous, blushed at the word ‘‘love,’’ and assured everyone that she was very happy.
‘‘My dear!’’ she said rapturously, seeing Nadezhda Fyodorovna and giving her face the expression that all her acquaintances called ‘‘almond butter.’’ ‘‘Darling, how nice that you’ve come! We’ll bathe together—that’s charming!’’
Olga quickly threw off her dress and chemise and began to undress her mistress.
‘‘The weather’s not so hot today as yesterday, isn’t that so?’’ said Nadezhda Fyodorovna, shrinking under the rough touch of the naked kitchen maid. ‘‘Yesterday it was so stifling I nearly died.’’
‘‘Oh, yes, my dear! I nearly suffocated myself. Would you believe, yesterday I went bathing three times ... imagine, my dear, three times! Even Nikodim Alexandrych got worried.’’
‘‘How can they be so unattractive?’’ thought Nadezhda Fyodorovna, glancing at Olga and the official’s wife. She looked at Katya and thought: ‘‘The girl’s not badly built.’’
‘‘Your Nikodim Alexandrych is very, very sweet!’’ she said. ‘‘I’m simply in love with him.’’
‘‘Ha, ha, ha!’’ Marya Konstantinovna laughed forcedly. ‘‘That’s charming!’’
Having freed herself of her clothes, Nadezhda Fyodorovna felt a wish to fly. And it seemed to her that if she waved her arms, she would certainly take off. Undressed, she noticed that Olga was looking squeamishly at her white body. Olga, married to a young soldier, lived with her lawful husband and therefore considered herself better and higher than her mistress. Nadezhda Fyodorovna also felt that Marya Konstantinovna and Katya did not respect her and were afraid of her. That was unpleasant, and to raise herself in their opinion, she said:
‘‘It’s now the height of the dacha season13 in Petersburg. My husband and I have so many acquaintances! We really must go and visit them.’’
‘‘It seems your husband’s an engineer?’’ Marya Konstantinovna asked timidly.
‘‘I’m speaking of Laevsky. He has many acquaintances. But unfortunately his mother, a proud aristocrat, rather limited...’
Nadezhda Fyodorovna did not finish and threw herself into the water; Marya Konstantinovna and Katya went in after her.
‘‘Our society has many prejudices,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna continued, ‘‘and life is not as easy as it seems.’’
