‘‘What is there to talk about?’’ thought Nadezhda Fyodorovna. ‘‘If it’s impossible to tell everything, there’s no point in talking.’’
Before going to the party, she had tied Laevsky’s necktie, and this trifling thing had filled her soul with tenderness and sorrow. The anxiety on his face, his absentminded gazes, his paleness, and the incomprehensible change that had come over him lately, and the fact that she was keeping a terrible, repulsive secret from him, and that her hands had trembled as she tied his necktie—all this, for some reason, told her that they would not be living together for long. She gazed at him as at an icon, with fear and repentance, and thought: ‘‘Forgive me, forgive me . . .’’ Atchmianov sat across the table from her and did not tear his black, amorous eyes from her; desires stirred her, she was ashamed of herself and feared that even anguish and sorrow would not keep her from yielding to the impure passion, if not today, then tomorrow, and that, like a drunkard on a binge, she was no longer able to stop.
So as not to prolong this life, which was disgraceful for her and insulting to Laevsky, she decided to leave. She would tearfully implore him to let her go, and if he objected, she would leave him secretly. She would not tell him what had happened. Let him preserve a pure memory of her.
‘‘Love you, love you, love you,’’ she read. This was from Atchmianov.
She would live somewhere in a remote place, work, and send Laevsky, ‘‘from an unknown person,’’ money, embroidered shirts, tobacco, and go back to him only in his old age or in case he became dangerously ill and needed a sick nurse. When, in his old age, he learned the reasons why she had refused to be his wife and had left him, he would appreciate her sacrifice and forgive her.
‘‘You have a long nose.’’ That must be from the deacon or from Kostya.
Nadezhda Fyodorovna imagined how, in saying good-bye to Laevsky, she would hug him tight, kiss his hand, and swear to love him all, all her life, and later, living in a remote place, among strangers, she would think every day that she had a friend somewhere, a beloved man, pure, noble, and lofty, who preserved a pure memory of her.
‘‘If tonight you don’t arrange to meet me, I shall take measures, I assure you on my word of honor. One does not treat decent people this way, you must understand that.’’ This was from Kirilin.
XIII
LAEVSKY RECEIVED TWO NOTES; he unfolded one and read: ‘‘Don’t go away, my dear heart.’’
‘‘Who could have written that?’’ he wondered. ‘‘Not Samoilenko, of course...And not the deacon, since he doesn’t know I want to leave. Von Koren, maybe?’’
The zoologist was bent over the table, drawing a pyramid. It seemed to Laevsky that his eyes were smiling.
‘‘Samoilenko probably blabbed . . .’’ thought Laevsky.
The other note, written in the same affected handwriting, with long tails and flourishes, read: ‘‘Somebody’s not leaving on Saturday.’’
‘‘Stupid jeering,’’ thought Laevsky. ‘‘Friday, Friday...’’
Something rose in his throat. He touched his collar and coughed, but instead of coughing, laughter burst from his throat.
‘‘Ha, ha, ha!’’ he guffawed. ‘‘Ha, ha, ha!’’ (‘‘Why am I doing this?’’ he wondered.) ‘‘Ha, ha, ha!’’
He tried to control himself, covered his mouth with his hand, but his chest and neck were choking with laughter, and his hand could not cover his mouth.
‘‘How stupid this is, though!’’ he thought, rocking with laughter. ‘‘Have I lost my mind, or what?’’
His laughter rose higher and higher and turned into something like a lapdog’s yelping. Laevsky wanted to get up from the table, but his legs would not obey him, and his right hand somehow strangely, against his will, leaped across the table, convulsively catching at pieces of paper and clutching them. He saw astonished looks, the serious, frightened face of Samoilenko, and the zoologist’s gaze, full of cold mockery and squeamishness, and realized that he was having hysterics.
‘‘How grotesque, how shameful,’’ he thought, feeling the warmth of tears on his face. ‘‘Ah, ah, what shame! This has never happened to me before . . .’’
Then they took him under the arms and, supporting his head from behind, led him somewhere; then a glass gleamed in front of his eyes and knocked against his teeth, and water spilled on his chest; then there was a small room, two beds side by side in the middle, covered with snow-white bedspreads. He collapsed onto one of the beds and broke into sobs.
‘‘Never mind, never mind . . .’’ Samoilenko was saying. ‘‘It happens...It happens . . .’’
Cold with fear, trembling all over, and anticipating something terrible, Nadezhda Fyodorovna stood by the bed, asking:
‘‘What’s wrong with you? What is it? For God’s sake, speak . . .’’
‘‘Can Kirilin have written him something?’’ she wondered.
‘‘Never mind . . .’’ said Laevsky, laughing and crying. ‘‘Go away . . . my dove.’’
His face expressed neither hatred nor revulsion: that meant he knew nothing. Nadezhda Fyodorovna calmed down a little and went to the drawing room.
‘‘Don’t worry, dear!’’ Marya Konstantinovna said, sitting down beside her and taking her hand. ‘‘It will pass. Men are as weak as we sinners. The two of you are living through a crisis now . . . it’s so understandable! Well, dear, I’m waiting for an answer. Let’s talk.’’
‘‘No, let’s not . . .’’ said Nadezhda Fyodorovna, listening to Laevsky’s sobbing. ‘‘I’m in anguish . . . Allow me to leave.’’
‘‘Ah, my dear, my dear!’’ Marya Konstantinovna was alarmed. ‘‘Do you think I’ll let you go without supper? We’ll have a bite, and then you’re free to leave.’’
