IX

With a disagreeable feeling Princess Vera stepped on to the terrace and walked into the house. From a distance she heard the loud voice of her brother Nikolai and saw his gaunt figure darting back and forth across the room. Vasily Lvovich sat at the card table, his large head with the cropped tow hair bent low as he traced lines on the green cloth with a piece of chalk.

“It should have been done long ago!” said Nikolai irritably, making a gesture with his light hand as if he were throwing down some invisible burden. “I was convinced long ago that an end should have been put to those foolish letters. Vera wasn’t yet your wife when I told you that you and she ought not to make fun of them like children, seeing only what was laughable in them. Here’s Vera herself, by the way. Vasily Lvovich and I were talking about that madman of yours, P.P.Z. I consider the correspondence insolent and vulgar.”

“There was no correspondence,” Sheyin interrupted him coldly. “He was the only one who wrote.”

Vera blushed at that, and sat down on the sofa, in the shade of a large fan-palm.

“I’m sorry,” said Nikolai Nikolayevich, and threw down the invisible heavy object, as if he had torn it from his chest.

“I wonder why you call him mine,” Vera put in, heartened by her husband’s support. “He’s mine as much as he’s yours.”

“All right, I’m sorry again. In short, what I mean is that we must put an end to his foolishness. I think this matter is getting beyond the stage where we may just laugh and draw funny pictures. Believe me that what I’m concerned about is Vera’s reputation and yours, Vasily Lvovich.”

“I think you’re exaggerating, Kolya,” replied Sheyin.

“Perhaps I am. But you risk finding yourself quite easily in a ridiculous position.”

“I don’t see how,” said the prince.

“Suppose this idiotic bracelet” – Nikolai lifted the red case from the table and at once threw it down again with disgust – ”this monstrous thing remains in our house, or we throw it out or present it to Dasha. Then, first of all, P.P.Z. will be able to brag to his acquaintances or friends that Princess Vera Nikolayevna Sheyina accepts his gifts, and, secondly, the first opportunity will encourage him to further exploits. Tomorrow he may send her a diamond ring, the day after a pearl necklace, and then, for all we knew, he may land in the dock for embezzlement or fraud and Prince and Princess Sheyin will be summoned to testify as witnesses. A nice prospect, eh?”

“The bracelet must certainly be sent back!” cried Vasily Lvovich.

“I think so too,” Vera assented, “and the sooner the better. But how are we to do it? We don’t know the name or address.”

“Oh, that’s child’s play,” Nikolai Nikolayevich replied carelessly. “We know the initials of this P.P.Z. Is that what they are, Vera?”

“G.S.Z.”

“Very good. Besides, we know that he’s employed somewhere. That’s quite enough. Tomorrow I’ll take the town directory and look up an official or clerk with those initials. If I don’t find him for some reason, I’ll simply call a detective and get him to trace the man for me. In case of difficulty I’ll have this paper here with his handwriting. In short, by two o’clock tomorrow I’ll know the exact name and address of the fellow and even the hours when he’s in. And then we’ll not only give him back his treasure tomorrow but will also see that he never reminds us of his existence again.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Prince Vasily.

“What? I’m going to call on the governor.”

“Not the governor – please! You know what terms we’re on with him. We’d only make ourselves ridiculous.”

“All right. I’ll go to the chief of police. He’s a club-mate of mine. Let him summon that Romeo and shake his finger under the man’s nose. Do you know how he does it? He brings his finger close to your nose but doesn’t move his hand – he just wags his finger and bawls, ‘I won’t stand for this, sir!’ “

“Fie! Fancy dealing with the police!” said Vera, pulling a wry face.

“You’re right, Vera,” the prince agreed. “We’d better not drag any outsiders into this. There’d be rumours and gossip. We all know what our town is like. One might as well live in a glass jar. I think I had better go to that – er – young man myself; God knows he may be sixty. I’ll hand him the bracelet and give him a talking to.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Nikolai Nikolayevich cut in. “You’re too soft. Leave it to me to talk with him.

And now, my friends” – he pulled out his watch and glanced at it – ”you’ll excuse me if I go to my room. I can hardly stand on my feet, and I have two files to look through.”

“Somehow I feel sorry for that unfortunate man,” said Vera hesitantly.

“No reason to feel sorry for him!” Nikolai retorted, turning in the doorway. “If anyone of our own class had played that trick with the bracelet and letter Prince Vasily would have sent him a challenge. Or if he hadn’t, I would. In the old days I’d simply have had him flogged in the stable. You’ll wait for me in your office tomorrow, Vasily Lvovich. I’ll telephone you.”

X

The filthy staircase smelled of mice, cats, paraffin-oil, and washing. Before they had reached the fifth floor Prince Vasily Lvovich halted.

“Wait a bit,” he said to his brother-in-law. “Let me catch my breath. Oh, Kolya, we shouldn’t have come here.”

They climbed another two flights. It was so dark on the stairs that Nikolai Nikolayevich had to strike two matches before he made out the number of the flat.

He rang and was answered by a stout, white-haired, grey-eyed woman wearing spectacles, and slightly bent forward, apparently as a result of some disease.

“Is Mr. Zheltkov in?” asked Nikolai Nikolayevich.

The woman’s eyes looked in alarm from one to the other and back. The two men’s respectable appearance seemed to reassure her.

“Yes, won’t you come in?” she said, stepping back. “First door on your left.”

Bulat-Tuganovsky knocked three times, briefly and firmly.

“Come in,” a faint voice responded.

The room had a very low ceiling, but it was very wide – almost square in shape. Its two round windows, which looked very much like port-holes, let in little light. In fact, it was rather like the mess-room of a cargo ship. Against one of the walls stood a narrow bedstead, against another was a broad sofa covered with an excellent but worn Tekke rug, and in the middle stood a table spread with a coloured Ukrainian cloth.

At first the visitors could not see the occupant’s face, for he stood with his back to the light, rubbing his hands in perplexity. He was tall and thin, with long, silky hair.

“Mr. Zheltkov, if I’m not mistaken?” Nikolai Nikolayevich asked haughtily.

“Yes, that’s my name. Very glad to meet you.”

Holding out his hand, he took two paces towards Tuganovsky. But Nikolai Nikolayevich turned to Sheyin as if he had not noticed the gesture of welcome.

“I told you we weren’t mistaken.”

Zheltkov’s slim, nervous fingers ran up and down the front of his short brown jacket, buttoning and unbuttoning it. At last he said with an effort, pointing to the sofa and bowing awkwardly, “Pray be seated.”

He had now come into full view, a man with a very pallid, delicate girl’s face, blue eyes and a cleft chin like a wilful child’s; he looked somewhere between thirty and thirty-five.

“Thank you,” said Prince Sheyin, who had been scanning him with keen interest.

“Merci,” Nikolai Nikolayevich answered briefly. And both remained standing. “It’ll only take us a few minutes. This is Prince Vasily Lvovich Sheyin, the marshal of nobility in this province. My name is Mirza Bulat-Tuganovsky. I’m assistant public prosecutor. The business which we shall have the honour to discuss with you concerns in equal measure the prince and myself, or, to be exact, concerns the prince’s wife, who is my sister.”

Completely dazed, Zheltkov sank down on the sofa and stammered through blanched lips, “Please, sit down, gentlemen.” But, apparently recalling that he had already suggested that, he jumped up, rushed to the window, tousling his hair, and came back again. And once more his trembling hands ran up and down, tugging at his buttons, plucking his light-coloured, reddish moustache, and touching his face.

“I am at your service, Your Highness,” he said in a hollow voice, with an entreating gaze at Vasily Lvovich.

But Sheyin made no reply. It was Nikolai Nikolayevich who spoke.

“First of all, may I return something that belongs to you,” he said, and, taking the red case from his pocket, he carefully put it down on the table. “To be sure, it does credit to your taste, but we earnestly request that no further surprises of this kind shall be sprung on us.”

“Please forgive me. I know I’m very much at fault,” whispered Zheltkov, flushing, his eyes on the floor. “Wouldn’t you like a glass of tea?”

“You see, Mr. Zheltkov,” Nikolai Nikolayevich went on, as if he had not heard Zheltkov’s last words. “I’m very glad to see you are a gentleman, who can take a hint. I believe we shall reach agreement promptly. If I’m not mistaken, you have been pursuing Princess Vera Nikolayevna for the last seven or eight years?”

“Yes,” answered Zheltkov softly, and lowered his eyelashes in awe.

“But so far we haven’t taken any action against you, although you’ll concede that we could and, indeed, should have done so. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. But by your last act, namely, by sending this garnet bracelet, you overstepped the limit of our forbearance. Do you understand? The limit. I shall not conceal from you that our first thought was to refer the matter to the authorities, but we didn’t do so, and I’m glad we didn’t, because – I’ll say it again – I saw at once that you are an honourable man.”

“I beg your pardon. What was that you said?” Zheltkov asked suddenly, and laughed. “You were about to refer the matter to the authorities? Did I understand you rightly?”

He put his hands in his pockets, made himself comfortable in a corner of the sofa, took out his cigarette-case and matches, and lighted a cigarette.

“So you said you were about to refer the matter to the authorities? You will pardon my sitting, Prince?” he said to Sheyin. “Well, go on.”

The prince pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. Mystified and eager, he gazed fixedly at the face of the strange man.

“It’s open to us to take that step at any time, my good man,” Nikolai Nikolayevich continued, with some insolence. “Butting into la stranger’s family – ”

“I beg to interrupt you – ”

“No, I beg to interrupt you,” all but shouted the assistant prosecutor.

“As you wish. Go on. I’m listening. But I want a word with Prince Vasily Lvovich.”

And paying no more attention to Tuganovsky, he said, “This is the most difficult moment of my life. And I must speak without any regard for convention. Will you listen to me?”

“I’m listening,” said Sheyin. “Be quiet, Kolya, please!” he said impatiently as he saw Tuganovsky make an angry gesture. “Yes?”

For a few seconds Zheltkov’s breathing came in choking gasps, and suddenly he burst out in a torrent of words. He spoke with only his jaws; his lips were a ghastly white, and rigid like a dead man’s.

“It’s hard to utter those words – to say that I love your wife. But seven years of hopeless and unassuming love give me some right to it. I’ll own that at first, while Vera Nikolayevna was still unmarried, I wrote her foolish letters and even expected her to answer them. I agree that my last step, namely, sending the bracelet, was an even more foolish thing to do. But – I look you straight in the eyes and I feel that you’ll understand me. I know it’s beyond my power ever to stop loving her. Tell me, Prince – supposing you resent the whole thing – tell me what you would do to break off that feeling? Would you have me transported to some other town, as Nikolai Nikolayevich suggested? But there I would go on loving Vera Nikolayevna as much as I do here. Put me in jail? But there, too, I’d find means to remind her of my existence. So the only solution is death. If you so desire I’ll accept death in any form.”

“Instead of talking business, here we are up to our necks in melodrama,” said Nikolai Nikolayevich, putting on his hat. “The point is quite clear: either you cease completely persecuting Princess Vera Nikolayevna or, if you don’t, we shall take such measures as are available to men of our standing, our influence, and so on.”

But Zheltkov did not so much as glance at him, although he had heard him. Instead he asked Prince Vasily Lvovich, “Would you mind my leaving you for ten minutes? I’ll admit that I’m going to speak to Princess Vera Nikolayevna on the telephone. I assure you I will report to you as much of the conversation as I can.”

“All right,” said Sheyin.

Left alone with his brother-in-law, Nikolai Nikolayevich set upon him at once.

“This won’t do,” he shouted, his right hand as usual throwing down some invisible object from his chest. “This just won’t do. I warned you I would take care of the matter. But you turned sloppy and gave him a chance to enlarge on his feelings. I’d have put everything in two words.”

“Wait,” said Prince Vasily Lvovich, “everything will be cleared up in a moment. The important thing is, I think he has the face of a man who is unable to deceive or lie deliberately. But is it his fault that he’s in love? And how can you control a feeling like love, which people still can’t account for?” He paused thoughtfully, and added, “I feel sorry for the man. Moreover, I feel as if I’m looking at a tremendous tragedy of the soul, and I can’t behave like a clown.” “I call that decadence,” said Nikolai Nikolayevich. Ten minutes later Zheltkov came back. His eyes were shining and deep, as if they were filled with unshed tears. And it was obvious that he had quite forgotten about his good manners, about who should sit where, and had stopped behaving like a gentleman. And once again Prince Sheyin understood the reason with great sensitiveness.

“I’m ready,” he said. “From tomorrow you’ll hear nothing more of me. For you, I’m as good as dead. But there’s one condition – I say this to you, Prince Vasily Lvovich – I’ve embezzled money and I must fly from this town anyway. Will you permit me to write a last letter to Princess Vera Nikolayevna?”

“No. If it’s finished, it’s finished. No letters!” shouted Nikolai Nikolayevich.

“All right, you may,” said Sheyin. “That’s all,” said Zheltkov, smiling haughtily. “You’ll hear no more of me, let alone see me. Princess Vera Nikolayevna didn’t want to speak to me at all. When I asked her if I might remain in town so as to see her at least occasionally – without being seen by her, of course – she said, ‘If only you knew how tired I am of the whole business! Please stop it as soon as you can.’ And so I’m stopping the whole business. I think I’ve done all I could, haven’t I?”

Coming back to the villa that evening, Vasily Lvovich told his wife in detail about his interview with Zheltkov. He seemed to feel it was his duty to do that.

Vera was worried, but not surprised or bewildered. Later that night, when her husband came into her bed, she suddenly turned away to the wall and said, “Leave me alone – I know that man is going to kill himself.”