He sat down with a sigh and tenderly stroked her hand.
‘‘Allow me, my dove, to sit with you for a little hour,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t really want to go home, and it’s too early to go to the Birshovs’. Today is their Katya’s birthday. A nice girl!’’
I served him a glass of tea and a decanter of cognac. He drank the tea slowly, with obvious reluctance, and, as he returned the glass to me, asked timidly:
‘‘My lad, mightn’t you have a little something... to eat? I haven’t had dinner yet.’’
We had nothing. I went to the restaurant and brought him an ordinary one-rouble dinner.
‘‘To your health, my dove!’’ he said to Zinaida Fyodorovna and drank a glass of vodka. ‘‘My little one, your goddaughter sends you her greetings. The poor thing has scrofula! Ah, children, children!’’ he sighed. ‘‘Say what you like, my dear, but it’s nice to be a father. Georginka doesn’t understand that feeling.’’
He drank again. Skinny, pale, with the napkin on his chest like a bib, he ate greedily and, raising his eyebrows, glanced guiltily now at Zinaida Fyodorovna, now at me, like a little boy. It seemed if I hadn’t given him grouse or jelly, he would have wept. Having satisfied his hunger, he cheered up and laughingly began telling something about the Birshovs’ family, but, noticing that it was boring and that Zinaida Fyodorovna was not laughing, he fell silent. And somehow it suddenly became boring. After dinner the two of them sat in the drawing room with only one lamp lit and were silent: it was painful for him to lie, and she wanted to ask him about something but could not make up her mind to do it. Half an hour went by that way. Gruzin looked at his watch.
‘‘But perhaps it’s time I left.’’
‘‘No, stay a little . . . We must talk.’’
Again they were silent. He sat down at the piano, touched one key, then began to play and sing softly: ‘‘ ‘What does the morrow hold for me?’ ’’—but as usual got up at once and shook his head.
‘‘Play something, my friend,’’ Zinaida Fyodorovna requested.
‘‘But what?’’ he asked, shrugging his shoulders. ‘‘I’ve forgotten everything. I stopped playing long ago.’’
Looking at the ceiling as if in recollection, he played two pieces by Tchaikovsky with wonderful expression, so warmly, so intelligently! His face was the same as ever— neither intelligent nor stupid—and to me it seemed simply a wonder that a man whom I was used to seeing in the most mean, impure surroundings was capable of such a high and, for me, inaccessible upsurge of feeling, of such purity. Zinaida Fyodorovna became flushed and began pacing the drawing room in agitation.
‘‘But wait now, my friend, if I can remember it, I’ll play a little piece for you,’’ he said. ‘‘I heard it played on the cello.’’
Timidly and tentatively at first, then with assurance, he began playing the ‘‘Swan Song’’ by Saint- Saens.19 He played it and repeated it.
‘‘Nice, isn’t it?’’ he said.
Agitated, Zinaida Fyodorovna stopped by him and asked:
‘‘Tell me sincerely, as a friend: what do you think of me?’’
‘‘What can I say?’’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘‘I love you and think only good things of you. If you want me to speak generally on the question that interests you,’’ he went on, brushing his sleeve at the elbow and frowning, ‘‘then, my dear, you know . . . To freely follow the yearnings of one’s heart does not always bring good people happiness. To feel yourself free and at the same time happy, it seems to me, you mustn’t conceal from yourself the fact that life is cruel, crude, and merciless in its conservatism, and you must respond to it according to its worth; that is, be just as crude and merciless in your yearning for freedom. That’s what I think.’’
‘‘It’s beyond me!’’ Zinaida Fyodorovna smiled sadly. ‘‘I’m already weary, my friend. I’m so weary that I won’t lift a finger to save myself.’’
‘‘Go to a convent, my friend.’’
He said it jokingly, but after his words, Zinaida Fyodorovna and then he himself had tears glistening in their eyes.
‘‘Well, ma’am,’’ he said, ‘‘we’ve sat and sat, now off we go. Good-bye, my dear friend. May God keep you well.’’
He kissed both her hands and, stroking them tenderly, said he would be sure to visit her one of those days. In the front hall, putting on his coat that resembled a child’s capote, he searched in his pockets for a long time, so as to give me a tip, but found nothing.
‘‘Good-bye, my dove!’’ he said sadly and left.
Never will I forget the mood this man left behind him. Zinaida Fyodorovna still went on pacing the drawing room in agitation. She did not lie down but paced—that was one good thing. I wanted to take advantage of this mood to have a candid talk with her and leave at once, but no sooner had I seen Gruzin off than the bell rang. It was Kukushkin.
‘‘Is Georgiy Ivanych at home?’’ he asked. ‘‘Has he returned? No, you say? What a pity! In that case, I’ll go and kiss the mistress’s hand and—be off! Zinaida Fyodorovna, may I?’’ he cried. ‘‘I want to kiss your hand. Excuse the late hour.’’
He did not sit long in the drawing room, no more than ten minutes, but to me, it seemed he had been sitting for a long time and would never go away. I bit my lip with indignation and vexation, and now hated Zinaida Fyodorovna. ‘‘Why doesn’t she chase him away?’’ I fulminated, though it was obvious that she was bored with him.
While I held his coat for him, he asked, as a special favor to me, how it was that I could do without a wife.
‘‘But I suppose you’re not missing out,’’ he said with a laugh. ‘‘You must have all sorts of hanky-panky going on with Polya . . . You rogue!’’
Despite my life’s experience, I knew very little about people then, and it’s very possible that I often exaggerated insignificant things and didn’t notice the important at all. I imagined that Kukushkin was tittering and flattering me for a reason: wasn’t he hoping that, being a servant, I would blab in servants’ quarters and kitchens
