The next day Orlov came back for dinner, and they made peace.
On the first Thursday after that, Orlov complained to his friends about his unbearably hard life; he smoked a lot and said with irritation:
‘‘This isn’t life, it’s an inquisition. Tears, shouts, wise words, pleas for forgiveness, again tears and shouts, and as a result—I now have no place of my own, I’m worn out and I’ve worn her out. Can it be I’ll have to live like this for another month or two? Can it be? And yet it’s possible!’’
‘‘Why don’t you talk it over with her?’’ said Pekarsky.
‘‘I’ve tried, but I can’t. You can boldly speak any truth you like to an independent, reasoning man, but here you have to do with a being who has no will, no character, no logic. I can’t stand tears, they disarm me. When she cries, I’m ready to vow eternal love and start crying myself.’’
Pekarsky did not understand, scratched his wide brow, and said:
‘‘Really, you should rent her a separate apartment. It’s so simple!’’
‘‘She needs me, not an apartment. What’s there to talk about?’’ sighed Orlov. ‘‘All I hear is endless talk, but I don’t see any way out of my situation. Truly, I’m blamelessly to blame! I didn’t sow, but I have to reap. All my life I’ve shunned the role of hero, I never could stand Turgenev’s novels, and suddenly, as if in mockery, I’ve wound up a veritable hero. I assure her on my word of honor that I’m not a hero at all, I supply irrefutable proofs, but she doesn’t believe me. Why doesn’t she believe me? There must indeed be something heroic in my physiognomy.’’
‘‘Why don’t you go and inspect the provinces?’’ Kukushkin said with a laugh.
‘‘That’s the only thing left.’’
A week after this conversation, Orlov announced that he was being sent on business to the senator again, and in the evening of that same day he drove to Pekarsky’s with his suitcases.
XI
ON THE THRESHOLD stood an old man of about sixty, in a floor-length fur coat and a beaver hat.
‘‘Is Georgiy Ivanych at home?’’ he asked.
At first I thought he was a moneylender, one of Gruzin’s creditors, who occasionally came to Orlov for small handouts, but when he came into the front hall and opened his coat, I saw the thick eyebrows and characteristically compressed lips I had come to know so well from photographs, and two rows of stars on his uniform tailcoat. I recognized him: it was Orlov’s father, the well-known statesman.
I replied that Georgiy Ivanych was not at home. The old man pressed his lips tightly together and looked away, pondering, showing me his dry, toothless profile.
‘‘I’ll leave a note,’’ he said. ‘‘Show me in.’’
He left his galoshes in the front hall and, without taking off his long, heavy fur coat, went to the study. There he sat down in the armchair at the desk and, before taking up the pen, thought about something for three minutes or so, shielding his eyes as if from the sun—exactly as his son did when he was out of sorts. His face was sad, pensive, with an expression of that submissiveness which I had seen only in the faces of old and religious people. I stood behind him, looking at his bald spot and the depression on his nape, and it was clear as day to me that this weak, ailing old man was now in my hands. For there was not a soul in the whole apartment except me and my enemy. I had only to use a little physical force, then tear off his watch so as to camouflage my purpose, and leave by the back stairs, and I would have gotten immeasurably more than I had counted on when I became a servant. I thought: I’ll hardly ever have a luckier chance. But instead of acting, I went on looking with complete indifference now at the bald spot, now at the fur, and calmly reflected on the relations between this man and his only son, and that people spoiled by wealth and power probably don’t want to die . . .
‘‘Have you worked for my son long?’’ he asked, tracing large letters on the paper.
‘‘This is the third month, Your Excellency.’’
He finished writing and stood up. I still had time. I prodded myself and clenched my teeth, trying to squeeze from my soul at least a drop of my former hatred; I remembered what a passionate, stubborn, and indefatigable enemy I had been still recently . . . But it’s hard to strike a match on a crumbling wall. The sad old face and the cold gleam of the stars called up only petty, cheap, and useless thoughts about the frailty of all earthly things, about the proximity of death...
‘‘Good-bye, brother!’’ the old man said, put his hat on, and left.
It was no longer possible to doubt it: a change had taken place in me, I had become different. To test myself, I started to remember, but at once felt eerie, as if I had accidentally glanced into a dark, damp corner. I remembered my friends and acquaintances, and my first thought was of how I would now blush and be at a loss when I met one of them. Who am I now? What am I to think about, and what am I to do? Where am I to go? What am I living for?
I understood nothing and was clearly aware of only one thing: that I must quickly pack my bags and leave. Before the old man’s visit, my lackeydom still had meaning, but now it was ridiculous. Teardrops fell into my open suitcase, I was unbearably sad, but how I wanted to live! I was ready to embrace and pack into my short life all that was accessible to man. I wanted to talk, and read, and pound with a hammer somewhere in a big factory, and stand watch, and till the soil. I was drawn to Nevsky Prospect, and to the fields, and to the sea—wherever my imagination could reach. When Zinaida Fyodorovna came back, I rushed to open the door for her, and with special tenderness helped her out of her fur coat. For the last time!
Besides the old man, two others came to us that day. In the evening, when it was already quite dark, Gruzin came unexpectedly to pick up some papers for Orlov. He opened the desk, took out the necessary papers, and, rolling them into a tube, told me to put them in the front hall by his hat while he himself went to Zinaida Fyodorovna. She was lying on the sofa in the drawing room with her hands behind her head. Five or six days had gone by since Orlov left on inspection, and no one knew when he would be back, but she no longer sent telegrams or expected any. Polya still lived with us, but she didn’t seem to notice her. ‘‘Let it be!’’—I read on her dispassionate, very pale face. Like Orlov, she now wanted to be unhappy out of stubbornness; to spite herself and the whole world, she spent whole days lying motionless on the sofa, wishing only the bad for herself and expecting only the bad. She was probably imagining Orlov’s return and the inevitable quarrels between them, then his cooling off, his infidelities, then how they would break up, and these tormenting thoughts may have afforded her pleasure. But what would she have said if she had suddenly learned the real truth?
‘‘I love you, my friend,’’ said Gruzin, greeting her and kissing her hand. ‘‘You’re so kind! And Georginka’s gone away,’’ he lied. ‘‘Gone away, the villain!’’
