Stories (19 page)

“I’ll tear your ears off!” shouted Matvei Savvich. “You rascal, you!”

The hat was found at the bottom of the cart. Kuzka brushed it off with his sleeve, put it on, and timidly, still with a look of terror on his face, as if afraid of being hit from behind, climbed into the cart. Matvei Savvich crossed himself, the young fellow jerked the reins, the cart started moving and rolled out of the yard.

J
UNE
1891

A
ll of Olga Ivanovna’s friends and good acquaintances were at her wedding.

“Look at him: there’s something in him, isn’t there?” she said to her friends, nodding towards her husband, as if she wished to explain why she had married this simple, very ordinary and in no way remarkable man.

Her husband, Osip Stepanych Dymov, was a doctor and held the rank of titular councillor.
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He worked in two hospitals: as an intern in one, and as a prosector in the other. Every day from nine o’clock till noon he received patients and was busy with his ward, and in the afternoon he took a horse-tram to the other hospital, where he dissected dead patients. His private practice was negligible, some five hundred roubles a year. That was all. What more could be said of him? And yet Olga Ivanovna and her friends and good acquaintances were not exactly ordinary people. Each of them was remark
able for something and of some renown, already had a name and was considered a celebrity or, if not yet a celebrity, held out the brightest hopes. An actor in the theater, a big, long-recognized talent, a graceful, intelligent, and humble man and an excellent reader, who taught Olga Ivanovna recitation; an opera singer, a fat, good-natured man, who sighed as he assured Olga Ivanovna that she was ruining herself: that if she stopped being lazy
and took herself in hand, she would become an excellent singer; then several artists, chief among them the genre, animal, and landscape painter Rya
bovsky, a very handsome young man of about twenty-five, who was successful at exhibitions and whose last
picture had sold for five hundred roubles; he corrected Olga Ivanovna’s studies and said that something might come of her; then a cellist, whose instrument wept and who confessed sincerely that, of all the women he knew, Olga Ivanovna alone was able to accompany him; then a writer, young but already known, who wrote novellas, plays, and stories. Who else? Well, there was also Vassily Vassilyich, squire, landowner, dilettante illustrator and vignette painter, who had a strong feeling for the old Russian style, heroic song and epic; he literally performed miracles on paper, porcelain, and smoked gl
ass. Amidst this artistic, free, and fate-pampered company, delicate and modest, true, but who remembered the existence of all these doctors only when they were sick, and for whom the name Dymov sounded as nondescript as Sidorov or Tarasov—amidst this company Dymov seemed foreign, superfluous, and small, though he was a tall and broad-shouldered man. It seemed as if he were wearing someone else’s tailcoat and had a salesman’s beard. However, if he had been a writer or an artist, they would have said his little beard made him look like Émile Zola.

The actor told Olga Ivanovna that in her wedding dress, and with her flaxen hair, she very much resembled a slender cherry tree in spring, when it is covered all over with tender white blossoms.

“No, listen!” Olga Ivanovna said to him, seizing his hand. “How could this suddenly happen? Listen, listen … I must tell you that my father worked in the same hospital as Dymov. When my poor father fell ill, Dymov spent whole days and nights watching at his bedside. Such self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky … And you, writer, you listen, too, it’s very interesting. Come closer. So much self-sacrifice and genuine sympathy! I also stayed up nights, sitting by my father, and suddenly—hello! the fine fellow’s conquered! My Dymov is smitten and head over heels in love. Really, fate is someti
mes so whimsical. Well, after my father’s death he called on me occasionally, or I’d meet him in the street, and one fine evening suddenly—bang!—he proposed … like a ton of snow on my head … I cried all night and fell infernally in love myself. And so,
as you see, I’ve become a wife. There’s something strong, brawny, bear-like in him, isn’t there? His face is turned three-quarters to us
now, and poorly lit, but when he turns this way, look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what do you say of that forehead? Dymov, we’re talking about you!” she called out to her husband. “Come here. Give your honest hand to Ryabovsky … That’s it. Be friends.”

Dymov, with a naïve and good-natured smile, gave Ryabovsky his hand and said:

“Delighted. I finished my studies with a man named Ryabovsky. Is he a relation of yours?”

Olga Ivanovna was twenty-two years old, Dymov thirty-one. They started life excellently after the wedding. Olga Ivanovna hung all the walls of the drawing room with her own and other people’s studies, framed and unframed, and around the grand piano and furniture she arranged a beautiful clutter of Chinese parasols, easels, colorful rags, daggers, little busts, photographs … In the dining room she covered the walls with folk prints, hung up bast shoes and sickles, put a scythe and rake in the corner, and thus achieved a dining room in Russian style. In the bedroom, she draped the ceiling and
walls with dark cloth to make it look like a cave, hung a Venetian lantern over the beds, and placed a figure with a halberd by the door. And everybody found that the young spouses had themselves a very sweet little corner.

Every day, getting out of bed at around eleven, Olga Ivanovna would play the piano or, if it was sunny, would paint something in oils. After that, between noon and one, she would go to her dressmaker. Since she and Dymov had very little money, barely enough, she and her dressmaker had to be very clever if she was to appear frequently in new dresses and amaze people with her outfits. Often an old, re-dyed dress, some worthless scraps of t
ulle, lace, plush, and silk, would be turned into a wonder, something enchanting, not a dress but a dream. From the dressmaker’s, Olga Ivanovna usually went to see some actress she knew, to find out the theater news and incidentally try to get a ticket for the opening night of a new play or for a benefit performance. From the actress, she would have to go to an artist’s studio or a picture exhibition, then to see some celebrity—to make an invitation or return a visit, or for a simple chat. And everywhere she was met gaily and amiably, and was
assured that she was nice, sweet, rare … Those whom she called famous and great received her like one of themselves, like an equal, and in one voice prophesied that with her talents, taste, and intelligence, she would have great success if she did not disperse herself She sang, played the piano, painted, sculpted, took part in amateur theatricals, and all of it not just anyhow, but with talent; whether it was making lanterns for a fête, or putting on a disguise, or tying someone’s tie—everything she did came out extraordinarily artistic, graceful, and pretty But nothing showed her talent
so strikingly as her ability to become quickly acquainted and on close terms with celebrities. The moment anyone became the least bit famous and was talked about, she made his acquaintance, became his friend that same day, and invited him to her house. Every new acquaintance was a veritable feast for her. She idolized celebrities, took pride in them, and saw them every night in her dreams. She thirsted for them and was never able to quench her thirst. Old ones would go and be forgotten, new ones would come to replace them, but she would get used to them, too, or become disappointed
in them, and begin searching greedily for more and more new great people, find them, and search again. Why?

Between four and five she had dinner at home with her husband. His simplicity, common sense, and good nature moved her to tenderness and delight. She kept jumping up, impulsively embracing his head, and showering it with kisses.

“You’re an intelligent and noble person, Dymov,” she said, “but you have one very important shortcoming. You’re not interested in art. You reject music and painting.”

“I don’t understand them,” he said meekly. “I’ve studied natural science and medicine all my life, and haven’t had time to get interested in the arts.”

“But this is terrible, Dymov!”

“Why? Your acquaintances don’t know natural science and medicine, and yet you don’t reproach them for it. To each his own. I don’t understand landscapes and operas, but I think like this: if some intelligent people devote their entire lives to them, and other intelligent people pay enormous amounts of money for them, then it means they’re needed. I don’t understand them, but not to understand doesn’t mean to reject.”

“Allow me to shake your honest hand!”

After dinner Olga Ivanovna would visit some acquaintances,
then go to the theater or a concert, and return home past midnight. And so it went every day.

On Wednesdays she had soirées. At these soirées the hostess and her guests did not play cards or dance, but entertained themselves with various arts. The actor recited, the singer sang, the artists did drawings in albums, of which Olga Ivanovna had many, the cellist played, and the hostess herself also drew, sculpted, sang, and accompanied. Between the recitations, music, and singing, they talked and argued about literature, the theater, and painting. There were no ladies, because Olga Ivanovna considered all ladies, except for actresses and her dressmaker, to be boring and banal. Not a singl
e soirée went by without the hostess, giving a start at each ring of the bell, saying with a triumphant expression: “It’s him!”—meaning by the word “him” some new celebrity she had invited. Dymov would not be in the drawing room, and no
one remembered his existence. But at exactly half-past eleven, the door to the dining room would open, and Dymov would appear with his meek, good-natured smile and say, rubbing his hands:

“A bite to eat, gentlemen.”

They would all go to the dining room, and each time would see the same things on the table: a plate of oysters, a ham or veal roast, sardines, cheese, caviar, mushrooms, vodka, and two carafes of wine.

“My sweet maître d’hôtel!” Olga Ivanovna would say, clasping her hands in delight. “You’re simply charming! Gentlemen, look at his forehead! Dymov, turn in profile. Look, gentlemen: the face of a Bengal tiger, and an expression as kind and sweet as a deer’s. Oh, my sweet!”

The guests ate and, looking at Dymov, thought: “A nice fellow, actually,” but they soon forgot him and went on talking about the theater, music, and painting.

The young spouses were happy and their life went swimmingly. However, the third week of their honeymoon passed not altogether happily, even sadly. Dymov caught erysipelas in the hospital, spent six days in bed, and had to shave his beautiful black hair. Olga Ivanovna sat with him and wept bitterly, but when he felt better, she put a white scarf around his cropped head and began painting him as a Bedouin. And they both felt merry. About three days after he recovered and began going to the hospital again, he suffered another mishap.

“I have no luck, mama!” he said over dinner. “Today I had to do four dissections, and I cut myself on two fingers at once. And I only noticed it when I got home.”

Olga Ivanovna became alarmed. He smiled and said it was nothing and that he often cut himself while doing dissections.

“I get carried away, mama, and don’t pay attention.”

Olga Ivanovna worriedly anticipated blood poisoning and prayed to God at night, but nothing bad happened. And again their peaceful, happy life flowed on without sorrows or alarms. The present was beautiful, and it would be replaced by the approaching spring, already smiling from afar and promising a thousand joys. There would be no end of happiness! In April, May, and June a dacha
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far from town, walks, sketching, fishing, nightingales, and then, from July right till fall, an artists’ trip to the Volga, and Olga Ivanovna would take part in that trip, too, as a permanent member of the
société.
She had already had two simple linen traveling outfits made, and had bought some paints, brushes, canvases, and a new palette to take along. Ryabovsky came to her almost every day, to see what progress she had made in painting. When she showed him her paintings, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, pressed his lips tightly, sniffed, and said:

“Well, now … This cloud you’ve made too loud—it’s not evening light. The foreground is somehow chewed up, and there’s something off here, you see … And your little cottage is choking on something and squealing pitifully … this corner could be a bit darker. But in general it’s not bad at all… My compliments.”

And the more incomprehensibly he spoke, the more easily Olga Ivanovna understood him.

On the day after Pentecost, Dymov bought some snacks and sweets after dinner and went to his wife at the dacha. He had not seen her for two weeks and missed her sorely. Sitting on the train and then looking for his dacha in the big woods, he felt hungry and tired all the while, and dreamed of having a leisurely supper with his wife and then dropping off to sleep. And it cheered him to look at his bundle, with its wrapped-up caviar, cheese, and white salmon. By the time he found his dacha and recognized it, the sun was already
setting. The old maid said that the lady was not at home but would probably be back soon. The dacha was very unattractive to look at, with low ceilings pasted over with writing paper and cracks between the uneven floorboards, and it consisted of only three rooms. In one room stood a bed, in the second there were canvases, brushes, greasy paper, and men’s jackets and hats lying about on the chairs and windowsills, and in the third Dymov found three men he did not know. Two were dark-haired with little beards, and the third was clean-shaven and fat, apparently an actor. A samovar w
as boiling on the table.