Tales of Chekhov 02- The Duel and Other Stories

Olga quickly flung off her dress and chemise, and began undressing her mistress.

'It's not quite so hot to-day as yesterday?' said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, shrinking at the coarse touch of the naked cook. 'Yesterday I almost died of the heat.'

'Oh, yes, my dear; I could hardly breathe myself. Would you believe it? I bathed yesterday three times! Just imagine, my dear, three times! Nikodim Alexandritch was quite uneasy.'

'Is it possible to be so ugly?' thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, looking at Olga and the official's wife; she glanced at Katya and thought: 'The little girl's not badly made.'

'Your Nikodim Alexandritch is very charming!' she said. 'I'm simply in love with him.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' cried Marya Konstantinovna, with a forced laugh; 'that's quite enchanting.'

Free from her clothes, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna felt a desire to fly. And it seemed to her that if she were to wave her hands she would fly upwards. When she was undressed, she noticed that Olga looked scornfully at her white body. Olga, a young soldier's wife, was living with her lawful husband, and so considered herself superior to her mistress. Marya Konstantinovna and Katya were afraid of her, and did not respect her. This was disagreeable, and to raise herself in their opinion, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna said:

'At home, in Petersburg, summer villa life is at its height now.

My husband and I have so many friends! We ought to go and see them.'

'I believe your husband is an engineer?' said Marya Konstantinovna timidly.

'I am speaking of Laevsky. He has a great many acquaintances. But unfortunately his mother is a proud aristocrat, not very intelligent. . . .'

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna threw herself into the water without finishing;

Marya Konstantinovna and Katya made their way in after her.

'There are so many conventional ideas in the world,' Nadyezhda

Fyodorovna went on, 'and life is not so easy as it seems.'

Marya Konstantinovna, who had been a governess in aristocratic families and who was an authority on social matters, said:

'Oh yes! Would you believe me, my dear, at the Garatynskys' I was expected to dress for lunch as well as for dinner, so that, like an actress, I received a special allowance for my wardrobe in addition to my salary.'

She stood between Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and Katya as though to screen her daughter from the water that washed the former.

Through the open doors looking out to the sea they could see some one swimming a hundred paces from their bathing-place.

'Mother, it's our Kostya,' said Katya.

'Ach, ach!' Marya Konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. 'Ach,

Kostya!' she shouted, 'Come back! Kostya, come back!'

Kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother and sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and hurried back, and from his strained and serious face it could be seen that he could not trust his own strength.

'The trouble one has with these boys, my dear!' said Marya Konstantinovna, growing calmer. 'Before you can turn round, he will break his neck. Ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same time how difficult, to be a mother! One's afraid of everything.'

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the open sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back. She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered that she must live, live. . . . A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. . . .

After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.

'I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don't get thin,' said

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the

bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances.

'I've always been plump, and now I believe I'm plumper than ever.'

'That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. . . . But you've wetted your hat, my dear.'

'It doesn't matter; it will dry.'

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking on the sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered to her that she was a pretty, common, miserable, worthless woman. . . .

Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and asked her to come in and sit down for a little while.

'Come in, my dear,' she said in an imploring voice, and at the same time she looked at Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with anxiety and hope; perhaps she would refuse and not come in!

'With pleasure,' said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, accepting. 'You know how I love being with you!'

And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna sat her down and gave her coffee, regaled her with milk rolls, then showed her photographs of her former pupils, the Garatynskys, who were by now married. She showed her, too, the examination reports of Kostya and Katya. The reports were very good, but to make them seem even better, she complained, with a sigh, how difficult the lessons at school were now. . . . She made much of her visitor, and was sorry for her, though at the same time she was harassed by the thought that Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a corrupting influence on the morals of Kostya and Katya, and was glad that her Nikodim Alexandritch was not at home. Seeing that in her opinion all men are fond of 'women like that,' Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a bad effect on Nikodim Alexandritch too.

As she talked to her visitor, Marya Konstantinovna kept remembering that they were to have a picnic that evening, and that Von Koren had particularly begged her to say nothing about it to the 'Japanese monkeys'—that is, Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna; but she dropped a word about it unawares, crimsoned, and said in confusion:

'I hope you will come too!'

VI

It was agreed to drive about five miles out of town on the road to the south, to stop near a duhan at the junction of two streams —the Black River and the Yellow River—and to cook fish soup. They started out soon after five. Foremost of the party in a char-a-banc drove Samoylenko and Laevsky; they were followed by Marya Konstantinovna, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, Katya and Kostya, in a coach with three horses, carrying with them the crockery and a basket with provisions. In the next carriage came the police captain, Kirilin, and the young Atchmianov, the son of the shopkeeper to whom Nadyezhda Fyodorovna owed three hundred roubles; opposite them, huddled up on the little seat with his feet tucked under him, sat Nikodim Alexandritch, a neat little man with hair combed on to his temples. Last of all came Von Koren and the deacon; at the deacon's feet stood a basket of fish.

'R-r-right!' Samoylenko shouted at the top of his voice when he met a cart or a mountaineer riding on a donkey.