Marya Konstantinovna, who had served as a governess in aristocratic families and knew something about society, said:
‘‘Oh, yes! Would you believe, at the Garatynskys’ it was
absolutely required that one dress both for lunch and for dinner, so that, like an actress, besides my salary, I also received money for my wardrobe.’’
She placed herself between Nadezhda Fyodorovna and Katya, as if screening her daughter from the water that lapped at Nadezhda Fyodorovna. Through the open door that gave onto the sea, they could see someone swimming about a hundred paces from the bathing cabin.
‘‘Mama, it’s our Kostya!’’ said Katya.
‘‘Ah, ah!’’ Marya Konstantinovna clucked in fright. ‘‘Ah! Kostya,’’ she cried, ‘‘go back! Go back, Kostya!’’
Kostya, a boy of about fourteen, to show off his bravery before his mother and sister, dove and swam further out, but got tired and hastened back, and by his grave, strained face, one could see that he did not believe in his strength.
‘‘These boys are trouble, darling!’’ Marya Konstantinovna said, calming down. ‘‘He can break his neck any moment. Ah, darling, it’s so pleasant and at the same time so difficult to be a mother! One’s afraid of everything.’’
Nadezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and threw herself out into the sea. She swam some thirty feet away and turned on her back. She could see the sea as far as the horizon, the ships, the people on the shore, the town, and all of it, together with the heat and the transparent, caressing waves, stirred her and whispered to her that she must live, live... A sailboat raced swiftly past her, energetically cleaving the waves and the air; the man who sat at the tiller looked at her, and she found it pleasing to be looked at...
After bathing, the ladies dressed and went off together.
‘‘I have a fever every other day, and yet I don’t get thinner,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, licking her lips, which were salty from bathing, and responding with smiles to the bows of acquaintances. ‘‘I’ve always been plump, and now it seems I’m plumper still.’’
‘‘That, darling, is a matter of disposition. If someone is not disposed to plumpness, like me, for instance, no sort of food will help. But darling, you’ve got your hat all wet.’’
‘‘Never mind, it will dry.’’
Nadezhda Fyodorovna again saw people in white walking on the embankment and talking in French; and for some reason, joy again stirred in her breast, and she vaguely remembered some great hall in which she had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And something in the very depths of her soul vaguely and dully whispered to her that she was a petty, trite, trashy, worthless woman...
Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and invited her to come in for a moment.
‘‘Come in, my dear!’’ she said in a pleading voice, at the same time looking at Nadezhda Fyodorovna with anguish and hope: maybe she’ll refuse and not come in!
‘‘With pleasure,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna accepted. ‘‘You know how I love calling on you!’’
And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna seated her, gave her coffee, offered her some sweet rolls, then showed her photographs of her former charges, the young Garatynsky ladies, who were all married now, and also showed her Katya’s and Kostya’s grades at the examinations; the grades were very good, but to make them look still better, she sighed and complained about how difficult it was now to study in high school... She attended to her visitor, and at the same time pitied her, and suffered from the thought that Nadezhda Fyodorovna, by her presence, might have a bad influence on Katya’s and Kostya’s morals, and she was glad that her Nikodim Alexandrych was not at home. Since, in her opinion, all men liked ‘‘such women,’’ Nadezhda Fyodorovna might have a bad influence on Nikodim Alexandrych as well.
As she talked with her visitor, Marya Konstantinovna remembered all the while that there was to be a picnic that evening and that von Koren had insistently asked that the macaques—that is, Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna—not be told about it, but she accidentally let it slip, turned all red, and said in confusion:
‘‘I hope you’ll be there, too!’’
VI
THE ARRANGEMENT WAS to go seven miles out of town on the road to the south, stop by the dukhan14 at the confluence of the two rivers—the Black and the Yellow—and cook fish soup there. They set out shortly after five. At the head of them all, in a charabanc, rode Samoilenko and Laevsky; after them, in a carriage drawn by a troika, came Marya Konstantinovna, Nadezhda Fyodorovna, Katya, and Kostya; with them came a basket of provisions and dishes. In the next equipage rode the police chief Kirilin and the young Atchmianov, the son of that same merchant Atchmianov to whom Nadezhda Fyodorovna owed three hundred roubles, and on a little stool facing them, his legs tucked under, sat Nikodim Alexandrych, small, neat, with his hair brushed forward. Behind them all rode von Koren and the deacon; at the deacon’s feet was a basket of fish.
‘‘Keep r-r-right!’’ Samoilenko shouted at the top of his lungs whenever they met a native cart or an Abkhazian riding a donkey.
‘‘In two years, when I have the means and the people ready, I’ll go on an expedition,’’ von Koren was telling the deacon. ‘‘I’ll follow the coast from Vladivostok to the Bering Straits and then from the Straits to the mouth of the Yenisei. We’ll draw a map, study the flora and fauna, and undertake thorough geological, anthropological, and ethnographic investigations. Whether you come with me or not is up to you.’’
‘‘It’s impossible,’’ said the deacon.
‘‘Why?’’
‘‘I’m attached, a family man.’’
‘‘The deaconess will let you go. We’ll provide for her. It would be still better if you persuaded her, for the common good, to be tonsured a nun; that would also enable you to be tonsured and join the expedition as a hieromonk.15 I could arrange it for you.’’
The deacon was silent.
‘‘Do you know your theology well?’’ asked the zoologist.
