Fifty-Two Stories

She stopped near Colonel Bukreev, who was eating raspberries and also taking part in the conversation.

“Come,” he said, making way for Olga Mikhailovna and Pyotr Dmitrich. “The ripest are here…And so, sir, according to Proudhon,” he went on, raising his voice, “property is theft.⁹ But I must confess that I don’t acknowledge Proudhon and don’t consider him a philosopher. For me the French have no authority, God help them!”

“Well, when it comes to these Proudhons and various Buckles, I’m a washout,” said Pyotr Dmitrich. “Concerning philosophy, address yourself to her, my spouse. She took some courses and knows all these Schopenhauers and Proudhons inside out…”¹⁰

Olga Mikhailovna felt bored again. She again went through the garden, down the narrow path, past the apple and pear trees, and again she looked as if she were going about a very important chore. Here was the gardener’s cottage…On the porch sat the gardener’s wife, Varvara, and her four small children with big, close-cropped heads. Varvara was also pregnant and was to give birth, by her calculations, around the day of Elijah the prophet.¹¹ Having greeted her, Olga Mikhailovna silently looked at her and her children and asked:

“Well, how do you feel?”

“All right…”

Silence ensued. It was as if the two women silently understood each other.

“It’s scary giving birth for the first time,” Olga Mikhailovna said, after some thought. “I keep feeling I won’t come through it, I’ll die.”

“It seemed that way to me, too, but here I am alive…We imagine all sorts of things!”

Varvara, already pregnant for the fifth time and experienced, looked down somewhat on her mistress and spoke to her in a didactic tone, and Olga Mikhailovna could not help feeling her authority; she wanted to talk about her fear, about the baby, about her feelings, but she was afraid that to Varvara it would seem petty and naïve. And she kept silent and waited for Varvara to say something herself.

“Olya, let’s go home!” Pyotr Dmitrich called from the raspberry patch.

Olga Mikhailovna liked keeping silent, waiting, and looking at Varvara. She would have agreed to stand like that, silently and needlessly, until nightfall. But she had to go. She no sooner stepped away from the cottage than Lyubochka, Nata, and Vata came running to meet her. The latter two stopped a few feet away and stood as if rooted to the spot, but Lyubochka ran up to her and hung on her neck.

“My dearest! My darling! My precious!” She started kissing her face and neck. “Let’s go and have tea on the island!”

“On the island! On the island!” the identical Nata and Vata both said at once without smiling.

“But it’s going to rain, my dears.”

“It won’t, it won’t!” Lyubochka cried, making a tearful face. “Everybody’s agreed to go! My dearest, my darling!”

“They’re all going to go and have tea on the island,” said Pyotr Dmitrich, coming up. “Give the orders…We’ll all go by boat, and the samovars and the rest should be sent with the servants in a carriage.”

He walked beside his wife and took her under the arm. Olga Mikhailovna wanted to say something unpleasant to her husband, something sharp, maybe even to mention the dowry—the harsher the better, she felt. She thought a little and said:

“Why is it Count Alexei Petrovich didn’t come? Such a pity!”

“I’m very glad he didn’t come,” Pyotr Dmitrich lied. “That holy fool bores me stiff.”

“But you waited for him so impatiently before dinner!”

III

Half an hour later all the guests were already crowding on the bank by the piling where the boats were moored. They all talked and laughed a lot, and fussed about so much that they were unable to settle into the boats. Three boats were already crammed full of passengers, and two stood empty. The keys for these two had disappeared somewhere, and messengers kept running from the river to the house in search of them. Some said Grigory had the keys, others that they were with the steward, and a third group advised sending for a blacksmith and breaking the locks. They all talked at once, interrupting and drowning each other out. Pyotr Dmitrich paced up and down the bank and shouted:

“Devil knows what’s going on! The keys should always lie on the windowsill in the entryway! Who dared take them from there? The steward can get his own boat if he wants!”

The keys were finally found. Then it turned out that two oars were missing. There was more turmoil. Pyotr Dmitrich, who was bored with pacing up and down, jumped into a long, narrow dugout made from a poplar trunk, rocked, nearly fell into the water, and pushed off. One by one the other boats set out after him, to the loud laughter and shrieking of the young ladies.