Fifty-Two Stories

He avoided such amusements as the theater and concerts, but he did play whist every evening for about three hours, with pleasure. He had another amusement, which he was drawn into imperceptibly, little by little: this was taking from his pocket in the evening the banknotes he had earned from his practice, and it would happen that his pockets were all stuffed with these banknotes—yellow and green, smelling of perfume, or vinegar, or incense, or whale oil—adding up to some seventy roubles; and when he collected several hundred, he took them to the Mutual Credit Society and deposited them in his account.

In all the four years since Ekaterina Ivanovna’s departure, he had been to the Turkins’ only twice, at the invitation of Vera Iosifovna, who was still being treated for migraine. Each summer Ekaterina Ivanovna came to visit her parents, but he had not seen her once; it somehow did not happen.

But now four years had gone by. On one quiet, warm morning a letter was brought to him in the hospital. Vera Iosifovna wrote to Dmitri Ionych that she missed him very much and urged him to visit them and ease her suffering, and incidentally today was her birthday. Below was a postscript: “I join in Mama’s invitation. K.”

Startsev thought it over and in the evening went to the Turkins’.

“Ah, welcome if you please!” Ivan Petrovich met him, smiling with his eyes only. “Bonzhurings!”

Vera Iosifovna, already much aged, her hair white, shook Startsev’s hand, sighed affectedly, and said:

“You don’t want to court me, Doctor, you never visit us, I’m already too old for you. But here a young girl has come, maybe she will have more luck.”

And Kotik? She had grown thinner, paler, become more beautiful and shapely; but she was already Ekaterina Ivanovna and not Kotik; the former freshness and expression of childlike naïveté were no longer there. Her gaze and her manners had something new in them—timid and guilty, as if here, in the Turkins’ home, she no longer felt herself at home.

“It’s been so long!” she said, offering Startsev her hand, and one could see that her heart was beating anxiously; and looking into his face intently, with curiosity, she went on: “How you’ve filled out! You’re tanned, you’ve matured, but on the whole you’ve changed very little.”

Now, too, he liked her, liked her very much, but there was already something missing in her, or something superfluous—he himself was unable to tell which precisely, but something kept him from feeling as he used to. He did not like her paleness, her new expression, her weak smile, voice, and a little later he no longer liked her dress, the armchair she was sitting in, did not like something in the past, when he had almost married her. He remembered his love, the dreams and hopes that had excited him four years ago—and he became embarrassed.

They had tea with cake. Then Vera Iosifovna read a novel aloud, read about things that never happen in life, and Startsev listened, looked at her beautiful gray head, and waited for her to finish.

“Giftless,” he thought, “isn’t the one who can’t write stories, but the one who writes them and can’t conceal it.”

“None too bad,” said Ivan Petrovich.

Then Ekaterina Ivanovna played the piano long and noisily, and when she finished, she was long thanked and admired.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t marry her,” thought Startsev.

She looked at him, and was apparently waiting for him to invite her to the garden, but he said nothing.

“So, let’s talk,” she said, going up to him. “How is your life? What are you up to? How are things? I’ve been thinking about you all these days,” she went on nervously. “I wanted to send you a letter, wanted to go myself to see you in Dyalizh, and was already set on going, but then changed my mind—God knows how you feel about me now. I waited for you with such excitement today. For God’s sake, let’s go to the garden.”

They went to the garden and sat there on the bench under the old maple tree, like four years ago. It was dark.

“So how are you getting on?” Ekaterina Ivanovna asked.

“Not bad, inching away,” Startsev replied.

And he could not think up anything more. They fell silent.

“I’m excited,” Ekaterina Ivanovna said and covered her face with her hands, “but pay no attention. I feel so good at home, I’m so glad to see everybody, and I can’t get used to it. So many memories! I thought we’d go on talking till morning.”