Fifty-Two Stories

The mother sobbed hysterically from grief and shame; she obviously wanted to read the letter, but was hindered by her pride. Pyotr Mikhailych knew that he should open the letter and read it aloud, but he was suddenly overcome with such anger as he had never felt before. He ran out to the yard and shouted to the messenger:

“Say there’ll be no reply! No reply! Say just that, you brute!”

And he tore up the letter; then tears came to his eyes, and feeling himself cruel, guilty, and miserable, he went out to the fields.

He was only twenty-seven, but he was already fat, dressed like an old man in loose and baggy clothes, and suffered from shortness of breath. He already had all the makings of an old bachelor landowner. He did not fall in love, did not think of marrying, and loved only his mother, his sister, the nanny, and the gardener Vassilyich; he loved to eat well, loved his after-dinner nap and talking about politics and lofty matters…In his day he had finished university, but he now looked at it as if he had gone through mandatory service for young men from eighteen to twenty-five; at any rate the thoughts that now wandered through his head every day had nothing to do with the university and the disciplines he had studied.

In the fields it was hot and still, as before rain. In the forest it was sultry, and a heavy, fragrant smell came from the pine trees and the rotting leaves. Pyotr Mikhailych stopped frequently and wiped his wet forehead. He looked over his winter and summer crops, went around the clover field, and twice disturbed a partridge and her chicks on the edge of the forest; and all the while he was thinking that this unbearable situation could not last forever, and that it had to be ended one way or another. Ended anyhow, stupidly, wildly, but ended without fail.

“But how? What am I to do?” he asked himself, glancing pleadingly at the sky and at the trees, as if begging them for help.

But the sky and the trees were silent. Honorable convictions were no help, and common sense suggested that there was no resolution for the tormenting question except something stupid, and that today’s scene with the messenger was not the last of its kind. What else might happen—it was frightening to think!

As he returned home, the sun was already setting. It now seemed to him that the question could in no way be resolved. To reconcile with the accomplished fact was impossible, not to reconcile was also impossible, and there was nothing in between. As he walked down the road, taking off his hat and fanning himself with his handkerchief, and still over a mile from home, he heard the jingle of bells behind him. It was an intricate and quite successful combination of big and little bells, which produced a glassy sound. This jingle could belong only to the police chief Medovsky, a former hussar officer, who had squandered his fortune and gone to seed, an ailing man, a distant relation to Pyotr Mikhailych. He was a familiar at the Ivashins’, had a tender paternal feeling for Zina and admired her.

“I’m on my way to your place,” he said, catching up with Pyotr Mikhailych. “Get in, I’ll give you a lift.”

He was smiling and looked cheerful; evidently he did not know yet that Zina had gone off to Vlasich; or maybe he had been told, but did not believe it. Pyotr Mikhailych felt himself in an embarrassing position.

“You’re quite welcome,” he murmured, blushing to the point of tears and not knowing what and how to lie. “I’m very glad,” he went on, trying to smile, “but…Zina has gone and Mama is sick.”

“What a pity!” the police chief said, looking pensively at Pyotr Mikhailych. “And I was planning to spend the evening with you. Where did Zinaida Mikhailovna go?”

“To the Sinitskys’, and from there, I think, to the monastery. I don’t know for sure.”

The police chief talked a little longer, then turned back. Pyotr Mikhailych walked home and thought with horror of how the police chief would feel when he learned the truth. Pyotr Mikhailych pictured that feeling to himself and went into the house experiencing it.

“Help us, Lord, help us,” he thought.

In the dining room his aunt was sitting alone over evening tea. On her face, as usual, there was an expression which said that, though she was weak and defenseless, she would not allow anyone to offend her. Pyotr Mikhailych sat at the other end of the table (he did not like his aunt) and silently began to drink his tea.

“Your mother had no dinner again today,” the aunt said. “You should pay attention, Petrusha. Starving yourself to death doesn’t help anything.”