Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [76]
Returning to the hostel, she gazed in a mirror at her tear-stained face, and then she powdered her face and sat down to supper. The monks knew she liked pickled sturgeon, little mushrooms, and simple gingerbread cakes which left a taste of cypress in her mouth, and each time she came they served the things she liked. Eating the mushrooms and drinking their Málaga wine, the Princess dreamed of how in the end she would be abandoned and forsaken, and all her stewards, bailiffs, clerks, and maid-servants, for whom she had done so much, would betray her and say coarse things about her, and how everyone all over the world would attack her and speak evil of her and jeer at her. She would renounce her title of Princess, she would renounce luxury and society, and she would enter a monastery without a word of reproach to anyone; and she would pray for her enemies, and then they would all suddenly come to understand her, and seek her forgiveness, but by then it would be too late.…
After supper she fell on her knees in a corner of the room in front of the icon and read two chapters of the Gospels. Then her maidservant made her bed and she lay down to sleep. Stretching herself under a white blanket, she uttered a sweet and prolonged sigh, such as one utters after weeping, and she closed her eyes and fell asleep.…
In the morning she woke and glanced at her little clock: it was half past nine. On the carpet near her bed there lay a clear, thin streak of light made by a sunbeam which came from the window and vaguely lit the room. From behind the black window curtain came the buzzing of flies.
“It’s still early,” the Princess thought, and she shut her eyes.
Stretching herself out, lying comfortably in bed, she remembered her meeting with the doctor the previous day and all the thoughts with which she had fallen asleep; and she remembered she was unhappy. Then the memory of her husband, living in St. Petersburg, came back to her, and her stewards, and the doctor, and neighbors, and officials she knew … a long procession of familiar masculine faces marched through her imagination. She smiled, and it occurred to her that if only these people could peer into her soul and understand her, they would be at her feet.…
At a quarter past eleven she called her maid. “Let me get dressed now,” she said languidly. “But first, tell them to harness the horses. I must go and visit Claudia Nikolayevna.”
When she left the hostel and was about to get into her carriage, she had to screw up her eyes against the strong sun, and she laughed with joy: it was such a wonderfully fine day! And looking through half-closed eyes at the monks who had gathered by the steps to bid her farewell, she nodded pleasantly and said: “Good-by, my friends! Until the day after tomorrow!”
She was pleasantly surprised to find the doctor standing on the steps with the monks. His face was pale and stern.
“Princess,” he said, removing his hat, “I’ve been waiting for you a long time. Forgive me, for God’s sake! A bad, vindictive feeling came over me yesterday. I said terrible things to you … stupid things. I beg your forgiveness!”
The Princess smiled graciously and held out her hand to his lips. He kissed it and his face reddened.
Trying to resemble a little bird, the Princess fluttered into the carriage, nodding in all directions. Her heart was warm and bright and gay, and she thought her smile was unusually sweet and friendly. As the carriage rolled up to the gates and then along the dusty road past peasant huts and gardens, past long trains of carts and processions of pilgrims making their way to the monastery,