3

My life went on in an outwardly ordinary way, but inwardly I did not know a minute’s peace, growing more and more attached to Sonya, to the sweet habit of exhaustingly passionate rendezvous with her by night – she came to me now only late in the evening, when the whole house had fallen asleep – and surreptitiously, ever more agonizingly and rapturously, watching Natalie, her every movement. Everything went on in the normal summer manner: meetings in the morning, bathing before dinner and dinner, then everyone resting in their own rooms, then the garden – they would be doing some embroidery, sitting in the avenue of birch trees and forcing me to read Goncharov out loud, or making jam in a shady clearing under the oak trees, not far from the house, to the right of the balcony; after four o’clock, tea in another shady clearing to the left, in the evening, walks or croquet in the wide yard in front of the house – Natalie and I against Sonya, or Sonya and Natalie against me – in the dusk, supper in the dining room… After supper the uhlan would go off to bed, but we would sit for a long time yet in the darkness on the balcony, Sonya and I joking and smoking, and Natalie in silence. Finally Sonya would say: “Well, bedtime!” and, after saying goodnight to them, I would go to my room and, with my hands growing cold, would await that cherished hour when the whole house became dark and so quiet that the constantly ticking thread of the pocket watch under the dying candle by my bedhead could be heard racing along and, horrified, I would keep on wondering: why had God punished me so, why had He given me two loves at once, so different and so passionate, such agonizing beauty in the adoration of Natalie, and such bodily rapture over Sonya. I sensed that at any time we would fail to sustain our incomplete intimacy and that then I would go completely mad from expectation of our nocturnal meetings and from the sensation of them the whole day afterwards, and all this alongside Natalie! Sonya was already jealous and would flare up sternly on occasion, but at the same time would say to me in private:

“I’m afraid that at the table and in front of Natalie we’re not relaxed enough. I think Papa’s beginning to notice something, Natalie too, and Nanny, of course, is already certain of our romance and is probably telling tales to Papa. Sit alone with Natalie in the garden a bit more, read her that unbearable thing The Precipice, take her off for a walk sometimes in the evenings… It’s awful, I notice how idiotically you stare at her, you know, and at times I feel hatred towards you, I’m ready to grab you by the hair in front of everyone, like some Odarka, but then what can I do?”

Most awful of all was the fact that Natalie, as it seemed to me, had begun perhaps to suffer, perhaps to be indignant, to sense that there was some secret between me and Sonya. Taciturn to begin with, she was becoming ever more taciturn, and she played croquet or did her embroidery unnecessarily intently. We seemed to have got used to one another, had become good friends, but then once, sitting alone with her in the drawing room, where she was half-lying on a couch, leafing through some sheet music, I joked:

“I’ve heard, Natalie, that you and I may perhaps become relatives.”

She glanced up at me sharply:

“How’s that?”

“My cousin, Alexei Nikolayich Meschersky…”

She did not let me finish:

“Ah, so that’s it! Your cousin, forgive me, that fatted giant, all overgrown with shiny, black hair, with the burr and the lush, red mouth… And who gave you the right to have such conversations with me?”

I took fright:

“Natalie, Natalie, why are you so stern with me? I can’t even make a joke! Do forgive me,” I said, taking her hand.

She did not take her hand away and said:

“I still don’t understand… don’t know you… But enough about that…”

So as not to see her agonizingly attractive white tennis shoes, tucked up at an angle on the couch, I rose and went out onto the balcony. A storm cloud was rising from beyond the garden, the air was growing dim, a soft summery rustling was spreading ever wider, moving closer through the garden, there was the sweet breath of rain-filled wind from the fields, and I was suddenly seized so sweetly, youthfully and freely by some unmotivated happiness, amenable to anything, that I cried:

“Natalie, come here for a minute!”

She came up to the threshold:

“What?”

“Take a breath – what a wind! What a joy everything could be!”

She paused.

“Yes.”

“Natalie, how unfriendly you are with me! Do you have something against me?”

She shrugged a shoulder proudly:

“What can I have against you and why?”

In the evening, sprawling in wicker armchairs in the darkness on the balcony, all three of us were silent – the stars could only be glimpsed here and there in dark clouds, a limp wind was wafting weakly from the direction of the river, where the frogs were drowsily murmuring.

“It’s going to rain, I’m feeling sleepy,” said Sonya, stifling a yawn. “Nanny said the new moon had been born and for a week or so now it would be ‘taking a wash’.” And after a pause she added: “Natalie, what do you think about first love?”

Natalie responded from out of the darkness:

“I’m convinced of one thing: of the terrible distinction between the first love of a young man and a girl.”

Sonya had a think:

“Well, girls can be different as well…”

And she got up decisively:

“No, bedtime, bedtime!”

“Well I’ll drowse here for a little, I like the night,” said Natalie.

Listening to Sonya’s footsteps moving away, I whispered:

“You and I had bad words for some reason today!”

She replied:

“Yes, yes, we did have bad words…”

The next day we met seemingly calmly. There had been gentle rain in the night, but in the morning the weather improved, and after dinner it became dry and hot. Just before having tea at about four o’clock, while Sonya was doing domestic accounting of some sort in the uhlan’s study, we sat in the avenue of birch trees and tried to continue reading The Precipice out loud. She was bent over some sewing, giving glimpses of her right arm, while I read and glanced from time to time with sweet pangs at her left arm, visible in her sleeve, at the little gingery hairs lying against it above the wrist and at similar ones where the nape of her neck turned into her shoulder, and I read ever more animatedly, without understanding a word. Finally I said:

“Well, you read for a bit now…”

She straightened up, and the points of her breasts appeared beneath her thin blouse; she put her sewing aside and, bending forwards again, dropping her strange and wonderful head down low and showing me the back of her head and the beginning of her shoulder, she put the book on her knees and began reading in a rapid and uncertain voice. I gazed at her arms, at her knees underneath the book, feeling faint from frenzied love for them and for the sound of her voice. In various parts of the late afternoon garden orioles were crying out on the wing, and high up opposite us, pressed against the trunk of a pine that grew alone amidst the birches in the avenue, there hung a reddish-grey woodpecker.

“Natalie, what an amazing colour your hair is! And your plait’s a little darker, the colour of ripe maize…”

She continued to read.

“Natalie, a woodpecker, look!”

She glanced up:

“Yes, I’ve seen it before, I saw it today, and I saw it yesterday… Don’t stop me reading.”

I was silent for a while, then again:

“Look how like dried-up grey worms that is.”

“What, where?”

I pointed to the bench between us, to a bird’s dried lime dropping:

“Isn’t it?”

And I took her hand and squeezed it, mumbling and laughing in happiness:

“Natalie, Natalie!”

She gazed at me quietly for a long time, then uttered:

“But you love Sonya!”

I blushed like a scoundrel caught out, but I disavowed Sonya with such fervent haste that she even parted her lips a little:

“Isn’t it so?”

“It isn’t, it isn’t! I love her very much, but as a sister, I mean, we’ve known one another since childhood!”

4

The next day she did not emerge either in the morning or for dinner.

“Sonya, what’s the matter with Natalie?” asked the uhlan, and Sonya replied with an unpleasant laugh:

“She’s been lying all morning in her dressing gown with her hair uncombed, and it’s clear from her face that she’s been bawling her eyes out; she was brought coffee and didn’t finish it… What’s wrong? ‘Headache.’ Perhaps she’s fallen in love!”

“Quite likely,” said the uhlan cheerily, glancing at me with a hint of approval, but shaking his head in denial.

Natalie emerged only for evening tea, but she came onto the balcony easily and briskly, smiled at me cordially and as though a little guiltily, surprising me with her briskness, her smile and a certain new smartness: her hair was done up tightly, curled a little at the front and set in waves with tongs, her dress was a different one, made of something green, in one piece, very simple and very clever, especially the way it was taken in at the waist, her shoes were black, high-heeled – I gasped inwardly in new rapture. I was sitting on the balcony, looking through The Historical Bulletin, several volumes of which had been given me by the uhlan, when she suddenly appeared with that briskness and somewhat embarrassed cordiality:

“Good evening. Let’s go and have tea. I’m at the samovar today. Sonya’s unwell.”

“What do you mean? First you, now her?”

“I simply had a headache in the morning. I’m ashamed to say that only now have I tidied myself up…”

“How amazing that green is with your eyes and hair!” I said. And I suddenly asked, blushing: “Did you believe me yesterday?”

She blushed too – delicately and scarlet – and turned away:

“Not at once, not entirely. Then I suddenly realized that I don’t have any grounds for not believing you… and in essence, what ever have I got to do with you and Sonya’s feelings? But let’s go…”

Sonya too emerged for supper and found a moment to say to me:

“I’ve been taken ill. It always affects me very badly, I’m in bed for about five days. I could still come out today, but not tomorrow. Behave sensibly without me. I love you terribly and I’m dreadfully jealous.”

“And will you really not even look in on me today?”

“You’re stupid!”

This was both good fortune and ill fortune: five days of complete freedom with Natalie, and five days of not seeing Sonya in my room by night!

For about a week the house was run by Natalie, she was in charge of everything and went across the yard to the kitchen in a little white apron – I had never before seen her so businesslike, and it was clear that the role of deputy for Sonya and solicitous mistress of the house gave her great pleasure, and that she seemed to be resting from her secret attentiveness to the way Sonya and I talked and exchanged glances. All those days, experiencing at dinner first alarm as to whether everything was all right, and then contentment that everything was all right, and that the old cook and Khristya, the Ukrainian maid, were bringing things and serving them on time without irritating the uhlan, she would go off after dinner to Sonya’s room, where I was not allowed, and stay with her until evening tea, and then after supper for the entire evening. She was obviously avoiding being alone with me, and I was at a loss, miserable and suffering in solitude. Why, having become friendly, was she avoiding me? Was she afraid of Sonya or of herself, of her feeling for me? And I passionately wanted to believe it was of herself, and I revelled in an ever strengthening dream: not for good was I tied to Sonya, not for good would I – nor Natalie either – be staying here, in a week or two I would have to be leaving anyway – and then there would be an end to my torment… I would find an excuse to go and get acquainted with the Stankeviches as soon as Natalie returned home… Leaving Sonya, what’s more with a deception, with this secret dream of Natalie, with hope of her love and hand, would of course be very painful – was it just with passion alone that I kissed Sonya, didn’t I love her too? – but what was I to do, sooner or later it couldn’t be avoided all the same… And incessantly thinking thus, in incessant spiritual agitation, in expectation of something, I tried when meeting with Natalie to behave with as much restraint, as nicely as possible – to be patient, to be patient for the time being. I suffered, I was miserable – as if on purpose, rain fell for three days, running rhythmically, knocking on the roof like thousands of little paws, the house was dusky, the flies were asleep on the ceiling and on the lamp in the dining room – but I bore up, sometimes sitting for hours in the uhlan’s study, listening to his various stories…

At first Sonya started coming out for an hour or two in her dressing gown with a languid smile at her weakness, she would lie down on the balcony in a linen armchair and, to my horror, speak to me capriciously and with immoderate tenderness, unabashed by the presence of Natalie:

“Sit beside me, Vitik, I’m in pain, I’m sad, tell me something funny… The moon really did take a wash, but now it seems to have finished; it’s cleared up, and how sweet the flowers smell…”

Secretly becoming irritated, I replied:

“If there’s a strong smell from the flowers, it’ll be taking a wash again.”

She hit me on the hand:

“Don’t you dare argue with a sick woman!”

Finally she began coming out both for dinner and evening tea, but still pale, and ordering an armchair to be brought for her. Yet she was still not coming out for supper, nor onto the balcony after supper. And once, after evening tea, when she had gone off to her room and Khristya had taken the samovar from the table to the kitchen, Natalie said to me:

“Sonya’s angry that I keep sitting with her and that you’re always on your own. She’s not yet fully recovered, and you miss her.”

“I miss only you,” I replied. “When you’re not there.”

She changed countenance, but got the better of herself and, with an effort, smiled:

“But we agreed not to quarrel any more… Better, listen to this: you’ve sat at home too long, go and take a walk until supper, and then I’ll sit with you in the garden – the predictions about the moon haven’t come true, thank God, and the night will be splendid…”

“Sonya feels sorry for me, but you? Not a bit?”

“I’m terribly sorry,” she replied, and laughed awkwardly, putting the tea service onto a tray. “But Sonya’s already well, thank God, soon you won’t be missing her…”

At the words “and in the evening I’ll sit with you” my heart had contracted sweetly and mysteriously, but I immediately thought: no! It’s just simply a friendly word! I went to my room and lay for a long time gazing at the ceiling. Finally I got up, took my cap and someone’s stick from the entrance hall, and unconsciously went out from the estate onto the broad highway which lay between it and the Ukrainian village a little above it on a bare hillock in the steppe. The highway led into the empty evening fields. It was hilly everywhere, but you could see a long way in the wide expanses. To the left of me lay the low ground by the river, beyond it, towards the horizon, fields that were also empty rose a little, and there the sun had just set and the afterglow was burning. Opposite it, to the right, the straight row of identical white huts of what looked like a deserted village showed red, and I looked miserably now at the afterglow, now at them. When I turned back, there was a wind wafting towards me, now warm, now almost hot, and the new moon was already shining in the sky, half of it gleaming and not boding well: the other half was visible too, like a transparent cobweb, and all together it was reminiscent of an acorn.

At supper – we had supper in the garden too on this occasion, it was too hot in the house – I said to the uhlan:

“What do you think of the weather, Uncle? It seems to me there’ll be rain tomorrow.”

“Why, my friend?”

“I’ve just been walking in the fields, thinking with sadness that I’ll soon be leaving you…”

“Why’s that?”

Natalie looked up at me suddenly too:

“You intend leaving?”

I affected a laugh:

“Well, I can’t…”

The uhlan began shaking his head with particular energy, and on this occasion appropriately:

“Nonsense, nonsense! Your mother and father can put up with being separated from you perfectly well. I shan’t let you go sooner than in two weeks. And she won’t let you go either.”

“I don’t have any rights to Vitaly Petrovich,” said Natalie.

I exclaimed plaintively:

“Uncle, forbid Natalie to call me that.”

The uhlan slapped the palm of his hand on the table:

“I forbid it. And that’s enough chattering about your departure. Now as regards the rain, you’re right, it’s quite possible that the weather will deteriorate again.”

“It was just too clear and bright in the fields,” I said. “And the moon’s very clear, and it looks like an acorn, and the wind was blowing from the south. And there, you see, it’s already clouding over.”

The uhlan turned and looked into the garden, where the moonlight was now fading, now burning bright.

“You’ll make a second Bruce, Vitaly…”

After nine o’clock she came out onto the balcony where I was sitting waiting for her, thinking despondently: this is all nonsense, even if she does have any feelings for me, they’re not at all serious, they’re changeable, transient. The new moon was sparkling ever higher and brighter in the piles of cloud that were gathering more and more, smokily white, majestically packing the sky, and when its white half came out from behind them like a human face in profile, bright and deathly pale, everything was lit up, flooded with phosphoric light. Suddenly I looked around, sensing something: Natalie was standing on the threshold with her hands behind her back, gazing at me silently. I stood up and she asked indifferently:

“You’re not asleep yet?”

“But you told me…”

“I’m sorry, I’m very tired today. Let’s take a stroll down the avenue, and then I’ll go to bed.”

I followed after her, she paused on the balcony step, gazing at the treetops in the garden, from behind which the clouds were already rising in rain-filled billows, twitching and flashing with soundless lightning. Then she went in under the long, transparent awning of the avenue of birches into the mottled patches of light and shade. Drawing level with her, just to say something I said:

“How magically the birches shine in the distance. There’s nothing stranger or more beautiful than the interior of a wood on a moonlit night and that white, silky lustre of birch trunks in its depths…”

She stopped, her eyes fixed upon me blackly in the dusk:

“Are you really leaving?”

“Yes, it’s time.”

“But why so immediately and quickly? I’m not hiding it: you astonished me just then, saying you were leaving.”

“Natalie, may I come and introduce myself to your family when you return home?”

She remained silent. I took her hands and, going quite cold, kissed the right one.

“Natalie…”

“Yes, yes, I love you,” she said, hurriedly and expressionlessly, and set off back towards the house. I went after her as though sleepwalking.

“Leave tomorrow,” she said as she walked, without turning round.

“I’ll go back home in a few days’ time.”