Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [101]
On the sleigh, besides Sophia Lvovna, Big Volodya, and Little Volodya, there was still another person—Margarita Alexandrovna, known as Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagich, a very pale woman, over thirty, with black eyebrows and wearing pince-nez; she smoked cigarettes continually even in the bitterest frosty weather: there was always cigarette ash on her knees and on the front of her dress. She spoke through her nose, drawling out each word, a coldhearted woman who could drink any amount of liqueurs and brandy without getting drunk, and she liked telling anecdotes with double-entendres in a tasteless way. At home she read serious magazines from morning to night, while strewing cigarette ash all over them and eating frozen apples.
“Oh, Sonya, stop behaving like a lunatic!” she said, drawling out the words. “Really, it is too silly for words!”
When they were in sight of the town gate, the troika went more slowly, as houses and people began to flicker past; and now Sophia Lvovna grew quiet, nestling against her husband and surrendering to her own thoughts. Sitting opposite her was Little Volodya. Her happy, lighthearted thoughts were mingled with melancholy ones. She thought: “This man who is sitting opposite me knows I loved him, and it is very likely he believes the gossip that I married the colonel par dépit?” Not once had she ever told him she was in love with him, and she had never wanted him to know this, and accordingly she had concealed her feelings; but from the expression on his face it was perfectly obvious that he had seen through her, and her pride suffered. The most humiliating thing was that ever since the wedding Little Volodya had been forcing his attentions upon her, and this had never happened before. He spent long hours with her in complete silence or talking about nothing at all, and even now in the sleigh, though he did not speak to her, he would gently touch her feet or her hands. It appeared that he wanted nothing more and was delighted with her marriage; it also appeared that he despised her and she excited in him an interest of a certain kind, as though she were an immoral, disreputable woman. And when her triumphant affection for her husband mingled in her soul with feelings of humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome with a fierce resentment and wanted to sit in the coachman’s box and whistle and scream at the horses.
They were just passing the nunnery when the huge sixteen-ton bell rang out. Rita crossed herself.
“Our Olga lives in the nunnery,” Sophia Ivanovna said, and then she crossed herself and shivered.
“Why did she enter a nunnery?” the colonel asked.
“Par dépit” Rita said angrily, with obvious reference to Sophia Lvovna’s marriage to Yagich. “Par dépit is all the rage now. Defy the whole world—that’s what they do. She was a furious little coquette, always giggling, and she only liked balls and cavaliers and then suddenly—she had gone away, and everyone was surprised!”
“Not true at all!” said Little Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur coat and revealing his handsome face. “It wasn’t par dépit at all, but something quite horrible, if you please. Her brother Dmitry went to penal servitude, and no one knows where he is. Her mother died of grief.”
Then he turned up his collar.
“Olga did well,” he added in a muffled voice. “Living as an adopted child and with that paragon of virtue Sophia Lvovna—you have to take that into account, too!”
Sophia Lvovna was well aware of the note of contempt in his voice and she wanted to say something to hurt him, but she remained silent. Once again she was overcome with a passion of remonstrance, and she rose to her feet and shouted in a tear-filled voice: “I want to go to the early service! Turn back, driver! I want to see Olga!”
They turned back, and the deep-toned nunnery bell reminded Sophia of Olga and about all Olga’s life. Other church bells were also ringing. When the driver brought the troika to a stop, Sophia Lvovna jumped from the sleigh, and ran unescorted up to the gate of the nunnery.
“Please be quick!” her husband