Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [157]
“I’ve been so depressed these nights,” Nadya said after a silence. “I wish I knew why I can’t sleep.”
“I don’t know, dear. When I can’t sleep I shut my eyes very, very tight—like this—and then I try to imagine how Anna Karenina walked and talked, or else I try to imagine something historical, something from ancient times.…”
Nadya felt that her mother did not understand her, and was incapable of understanding her. She had never felt this before, and it frightened her. She wanted to hide, and went back to her room.
At two o’clock they sat down to dinner. It was Wednesday, a fast day, and Granny was served meatless borshch and bream with porridge.
To tease the grandmother, Sasha ate the meat soup as well as the vegetable soup. He joked all through the meal, but his jokes were labored and invariably directed toward a moral, and there was nothing amusing in his habit of lifting up his long, lean, deathly fingers before making some witty remark, nor was there anything amusing in the thought that he was very ill and perhaps not long for this world. At such times you felt so sorry for him that tears sprang to the eyes.
After dinner the grandmother went to her room to rest. Nina Ivanovna played for a while on the piano, and then she too went to her room.
“Oh, dearest Nadya,” Sasha started his usual after-dinner conversation. “If only you would listen to me! If only you would!”
She was sitting back in an old-fashioned armchair, her eyes closed, while he paced up and down the room.
“If only you would go away and study!” he said. “Only the enlightened and holy people are interesting—they are the only ones needed. The more such people there are, the quicker will the Kingdom of Heaven descend on earth. Then it will happen little by little that not one stone will be left standing, in this town of yours everything will be shaken to its foundations, and everything will be changed, as though by magic. There will be immense and utterly magnificent houses, marvelous gardens, glorious fountains, extraordinary people.… But this is not the important thing! The most important thing is that the masses, as we understand the word, giving it its present-day meaning—they will disappear, this evil will vanish, and every man will know what he is living for, and no one any longer will look for support among the masses. My dearest darling, go away! Show them that you are sick to the stomach of this stagnant, dull, sinful life of yours! At least prove it for yourself!”
“No, Sasha, I can’t! I’m going to be married.”
“Never mind! Who cares about that?”
They went into the garden and strolled for a while.
“Anyhow, my dearest, you simply must think, you must realize how immoral and unclean your idle life is,” Sasha went on. “Can’t you realize that to enable you and your mother and your grandmother to live a life of leisure, others have to work for you, and you are devouring their lives? Is that right? Isn’t it a filthy thing to do?”
Nadya wanted to say: “Yes, you are right.” She wanted to say she understood perfectly, but tears came to her eyes, and suddenly she fell silent, and she shrank into herself, and went to her room.
Toward evening Andrey Andreyich arrived, and as usual he played the violin for a long time. He was by nature taciturn, and perhaps he enjoyed playing the violin because there was no need to speak while playing it. At eleven o’clock he had put on his overcoat and was about to go home when he took Nadya in his arms and passionately kissed her face, her shoulders, her hands.
“My dear, beautiful darling,” he murmured. “Oh, how happy I am! I am out of my mind with happiness!”
And it seemed to her that she had heard these same words long ago, or perhaps she had read them somewhere … in an old dog-eared novel thrown away a long time ago.
In the drawing room Sasha was sitting at table drinking tea, the saucer poised on his five long fingers, while Granny was spreading out the cards for a