But what they said about water, that's right. Our orchard has to have it.
The trees want water. No water, no crop. And there you are, the horse is
down. No way to bring it. If only it would rain now. Water-you can't do
without it."
Scant comfort in that.
They tried to hire a horse from the German settlers in Lustdorf, but
nothing came of it: first the Germans named an impossibly high price, and
then refused point-blank, saying they needed their horses themselves. The
real fact was that they all had their own orchards and the ruin of a
competitor just suited them.
"Amazing, how unneighbourly they are!" cried Auntie at dinner-time,
cracking her fingers, a thing she had never done before.
"What's to be done, what's to be done," mumbled Vasily Petrovich,
bending a little too low over his plate. "Homo homini lupus est, which means
'Man's a wolf to man'.... If you remember, I told you at the time this
stupid idea of trading in fruit would end badly." His ears turned red as a
cock's comb.
He had said it would end badly-he could well have said it would end in
complete ruin. It was clear without words. Auntie turned pale with the pain
of hearing these cruel, unjust words. Her eyes filled with tears and her
lips trembled.
"Vasily Petrovich, aren't you ashamed," she said imploringly, her
fingers at her temples.
"Why should I be ashamed? It's all your fantastic idea ... your crazy
idea...."
Vasily Petrovich could no longer stop, he had lost all control of
himself. He jumped up and suddenly saw Pavlik apparently holding his nose so
as not to giggle; actually the boy was biting his fingers desperately to
keep himself from crying.
"What!" yelled Vasily Petrovich in a voice not his own. "You have the
impudence to laugh! I'll teach you to respect your father! Stand up, you
rascal, when your father speaks to you!"
"Dad-Daddy!" sobbed Pavlik, and clapped his hands over his face in
terror.
But Vasily Petrovich was beyond understanding. He picked up his plate
of soup and smashed it down on the floor. Then he twisted his arm round
awkwardly, gave Pavlik a buffet on the back of the neck and rushed out into
the orchard, slamming the door behind him with such violence that the
coloured glass at the top fell in shattered fragments.
"I can't live in this madhouse any longer!" Petya suddenly screamed.
"Damn you! I'm going to Near Mills and I'm not coming back!" He ran into his
room to put his things together.
Altogether, it was a shameful, degrading scene. One might have thought
they had all lost their senses, gone mad as dogs do in the heat.
The heat certainly was dreadful-close, exhausting, dry, burning-enough
to drive anybody mad. The pale sky seemed to have a dull, scorching veil
drawn over it. Waves of heat came from the steppe as they come from the open
door of an oven. Hot winds carried clouds of dust. The acacias rustled with
a dry, papery sound and the grass was grey. The strip of sea on the horizon
looked brown, speckled with greyish-white foam; and whenever the roar of the
wind died down one could hear the sound of waves-dry and monotonous like the
distant rattle of pebbles thrown on to some huge sieve.
The dusty shadows of trees flickered on the walls and ceilings of
rooms. A terrible day.... Not only Petya but Vasily Petrovich, Auntie and
even Pavlik were ready to collect their belongings and run away-anywhere, to
get away from the sight of one another and the mutual sense of injury. But
of course nobody did run away, they only wandered aimlessly about in the hot
rooms and along the rustling paths. They felt fettered to this wretched
place which had at first looked like heaven on earth.
Towards evening a figure appeared in the orchard-a short, stout man in
a tall sheepskin hat, but brown this time instead of black. This was another
Persian, a real one this time, with long eastern moustaches and languorous
eyes. He went quickly round the orchard leaning ion a short stick, and then
stood beside the kitchen waiting for somebody to come out. As no one
appeared, however, he went to the house and rapped on the window with his
stick.
When Auntie peeped out, he said, "Hi, Mistress!" and pointed at the
orchard with a yellow hand adorned with dirty nails. "I'll buy your crop for
five rubles. Better take it or you'll be sorry later."
"Ruffian!" cried Auntie in a dreadful voice. "Gavrila, what are you
about? Throw him out!"
But the real Persian did not wait for Gavrila, he ran off with small
limping steps and disappeared in an instant.
Then came the third postcard from Madame Vasyutinskaya, reminding them
of the date for the next payment.
Nobody wanted any supper that day, and for a long time the four
soup-plates of yoghurt sprinkled with sugar stood untouched on the table on
the veranda.
In the middle of the night a dreadful, inhuman, bloodcurdling cry
awakened everybody. What could it be? Outside the windows the black outlines
of the fruit trees swayed as in fever. Then the cry was repeated, still more
dreadful, with a kind of screaming, sobbing laugh in it. Somebody came
running along the path, waving a lantern. Then there was a battering on the
glazed door that shook the house. Gavrila stood on the step, waving his
lantern.
"Come quick, ma'am, Warden's dying," he cried in a frightened voice.
Petya flung something on and raced to the stable, trembling from head
to foot. Auntie, Vasily Petrovich, Dunyasha and Pavlik, barefoot and wrapped
in a blanket, stood huddled round the door.
Gavrila's lantern shed an ominous light inside the stable. He could
hear the deep, vibrating groans of the dying horse. They stood petrified,
helpless, unable to think of any way to stave off this catastrophe.
Just before dawn the horse gave one last dreadful scream vibrant with
pain and terror, and then fell silent for ever. In the morning a cart
arrived and he was taken out somewhere far away on the steppe-huge, bony,
black, with bared teeth and long outstretched legs ending in cracked hoofs
and shining, worn iron shoes.
They were all so crushed by this disaster that nobody did any work all
day. The death of Warden was not only a bad omen, it was the final blow to
all their hopes, it meant inevitable ruin for the family. Utter despair
reigned.
After dinner the wind died down somewhat but the sultry heat was worse
than ever. Not a cloud could be seen in the pale, dusty-looking sky. A band
of lilac lay along the horizon, a deceptive reflection of distant
thunderstorms that constantly gathered but never broke. This was not the
first time there had been a promise of storm, but it had always been
followed by disappointment, either the cloud had melted away imperceptibly
in the scorching air or it had passed by and broken somewhere out to sea,
with a useless rolling of thunder echoing over the steppe.
Today it was the same. The storm broke far away. Nobody was surprised,
they had already lost all hope of rain, although that was the only chance
left for the crop. Petya was weary after a sleepless night; he did not know
what to do with himself and wandered out on the steppe, roaming aimlessly
until a big circuit brought him to the sea. He climbed down the cliff,
clutching at roots and boulders, and finally sat down on the hot pebbles.
The water was still heaving after the storm of the previous day, but
the waves, heavy with seaweed, no longer beat angrily against the beach but
rolled smoothly up it, leaving stranded jelly-fish and dead sea-horses.
It was a wild, deserted strip of coast, and Petya, who had all day
longed to be alone, felt easier there, lapped in a quiet melancholy. It was
a long time since he had bathed and now he undressed quickly and slipped
with pleasure into the warm, foamy water.
There was a special, inexplicable delight in this bathe which he took
quite alone. First he swam along the shore for a little way among slippery
rocks washed by the sea and covered with brown weeds, then he turned out to
sea. As usual, he swam on his side, kicking his legs like a frog and
flinging one hand forward in a broad overarm swing. He pushed his shoulder
through the waves, trying to raise that splash which made him feel he was
cutting swiftly through the water although in reality his speed was nothing
wonderful. He was very pleased with himself. He particularly liked that
shoulder which pushed through the water-brown, smooth as silk under a
gleaming wet film that reflected the sunshine.
The time had long passed when he had been afraid to go far from the
shore. He would strike out boldly for the open sea and then turn over on his
back, let the waves rock him, and stare up at the sky until he had the
feeling that he was looking down at it, hanging, void of weight, in space.
The whole world vanished, he forgot everything but himself, alone and
all-powerful.
Now too, he swam out about a mile, turned over... and gasped at the
change that had taken place around him. The sky overhead was still clear and
the sea shone with a hot, blinding glare, but it had a hard glitter, like
the glitter of anthracite.
Petya looked back to the shore. Over the narrow strip of cliff, over
the steppe hung something huge, black, surging and-most terrible of
all-quite silent. Before Petya had time to realize that this was a
thundercloud it rolled up to the sun, which was blindingly white like a
magnesium flare, and swallowed it up in an instant, extinguishing all
colours from the world so that everything became a leaden grey.
Petya swam back as fast as he could, and anyway he could, trying to get
ashore before the storm burst. Far away on the steppe, under the slaty sky,
he could see whirling dust-devils chasing one another. And when he climbed
up the beach and turned to look at the sea, the place where he had only just
been was already a seething mass of foam whipped by a squall, with sea-gulls
flying wildly over.
Petya barely managed to catch his trousers and shirt as they fled with
the wind along the beach. While he was climbing the cliff everything turned
as dark as late evening. He raced at top speed to the horse-tram terminus
where rails were being laid for electric trams and concrete poured for a new
building. Just as he got there lightning flashed, there was a great bang of
thunder and in the hush that followed he could hear the roar of the
approaching downpour.
Petya ran on to the road, and as though some gate had opened, a sharp
scent of wet hemp struck him, followed by a solid wall of rain.
In an instant the road became a river. The lightning flashes showed him
the foaming torrent that swirled round his legs. His feet 'slipped. There
was no sense trying to get home through that. Up to the knees in water he
made his way back to the tram-shelter, crossing himself every time the
lightning flashed close by with an almost simultaneous clap of thunder. It
was only as he slipped down into a deep gutter that Petya suddenly realized
this was the thunderstorm, the downpour, for which the whole Bachei family
had waited so desperately. It was not ordinary water, it was the water which
would soak the orchard, fill the empty cistern and save them from ruin.
"Hurrah!" shouted Petya and ran through the storm to the farm, no
longer afraid of anything.
He slipped and fell several times on the way, flopping full length in
the mud, but now this warm mud felt wonderful. When he reached home the
sunset showed dimly through a break in the main-clouds and the storm rolled
away out to sea where lightning flashed convulsively and thunder snarled on
a dark-blue horizon. But Petya had hardly time to race along the paths and
admire the muddy water filling the hollows round the trees, to plant a happy
kiss on his father's wet beard, to give Pavlik a friendly buffet and shout,
"Grand, Auntie, isn't it?" before the storm came back, more violent than
ever.
Several times after that it circled over the sea and returned again.
The rain continued all through the night, sometimes pouring in torrents,
sometimes stealthily quiet, barely audible, while under the trees thousands
of tiny streams glittered in the lightning flashes which illumined the
orchard with all its distant, mysterious corners.
The whole night Gavrila, a sack over his head, ran round the house and
over the roof fixing up the pipes that collected the water and poured it in
rapid torrents into the cistern. And to the noise of the filling cistern
Petya fell into a deep, happy sleep.
It was late when he awakened. A rosy sun shone like a jewel through the
warm mist, and the wet garden was full of bird-song. Auntie looked in
through the open window.
"Get up, lazy-bones!" she called gaily. "While you've been asleep, our
tenants have come!"
"The widow with a child?" asked Petya yawning.
"The very same," Auntie answered with the mischievous smile that showed
her spirits were excellent. "There's tea ready, come along."
Of course, Petya wanted to see the widow and child, so he hurried to
the veranda.
He halted, thunderstruck.
Sitting at the table between Vasily Petrovich and Pavlik, calmly
drinking tea, were that same lady and that same girl he had seen the
previous year at the station in Naples.
He gave his head a shake as though a cinder had flown into his eye
again.
"Ah, here's our Petya, let me introduce him," said Auntie with her
society smile.
Petya almost burst out with "We know each other already," but something
held him back. Blushing, he went round the table, clicked his heels politely
and waited for the lady to extend her hand first, as a well-bred boy should.
After clasping the cool, slender fingers of the mother, Petya looked with
secret hope at the daughter, asking with his eyes whether she did not
remember him.
But the girl only looked surprised at Petya's queer expression and held
out her little hand indifferently, saying, "Marina." That was quite
unexpected, for in accordance with character portrayal by Pushkin and
Goncharov, Petya had always thought of her as Tanya or Vera. And now she
turned out to be Marina. Petya eyed her with frank reproach, as though she
had deceived him.
She looked just the same as she had in Naples, with the same short
summer coat, the same black hair-ribbon and the same little jutting chin
that gave her pretty face with its rather high cheek-bones a lofty,
unapproachable expression. Her hazel eyes were cold and disapproving as
though asking, "What do you want of me?"
"Frailty, thy name is woman," thought Petya bitterly, and then with
still greater bitterness realized that she had not forgotten him, she had
never even noticed him.
Petya felt insulted, his pride had suffered a blow.
"In that case, all is over between us," he said with his eyes, and with
a cold, indifferent shrug he turned and went to his place.
"Stop making faces," said Auntie.
"I'm not making faces," Petya answered, and straightaway stuffed soft
bread in his tea to make a "pudding." The way of making it was this: you put
pieces of soft bread in a half-filled glass of tea, then when the bread
swelled you turned the glass upside down on the saucer, producing something
which by a great stretch of imagination resembled a pudding. This was
considered bad manners in the Bachei family, so Vasily Petrovich gave Petya
a very stern look through his glasses and tapped the table with his index
finger.
"I shall send you away!"
"Please, don't think he doesn't know how to behave, he's just shy,"
said Auntie, addressing the mother but with a sly glance at the
daughter-which made Petya snort and start messing the "pudding" up with his
teaspoon.
Marina's mother, however, was disinclined to keep the polite
conversation going. She evidently found no pleasure in this ceremonial
tea-drinking with strangers, people who happened to be letting her rooms but
who otherwise did not interest her in the least.
She was a brunette with a small, jutting chin like her daughter's, a
dark shadow on her upper lip, a shabby widow's bonnet and wary eyes.
"About the rent," she said, continuing the talk which Petya's entrance
had interrupted. "I was told that it's fifteen rubles a month. That suits me
very well and I'd like to pay two months in advance, thirty rubles." She
opened a black bag like the ones midwives carry and took out some notes. "We
shan't want board, we've a kerosene stove and we'll manage for ourselves.
Here is the money, exactly thirty rubles."
"Oh, that's quite all right," mumbled Auntie, flushing and embarrassed
as she always was when money was discussed. "You don't need to give it me
now ... later would do.... Well, merci, then." She pushed the money which
had a slight hospital smell carelessly under the sugar-bowl.
Marina's mother put her hand in her bag again as though seeking
something else (her papers, thought Petya), but evidently changed her mind,
took her hand out and snapped the bag to with a decisive click.
"And now if you don't mind, I'd like to go to our rooms," she said.
Refusing assistance, mother and daughter picked up their belongings-an
oilcloth satchel, a kerosene stove wrapped in newspaper, a bag and an
umbrella-and crossed the garden to the cottage, leaving deep imprints on the
wet paths.
"A rather strange woman," observed Vasily Petrovich. "But after all,
what's that got to do with us?"
"In any case, she seems quite cultured," said Auntie with a sigh, took
the money out from under the sugar-bowl and slipped it into the pocket of
her smart apron.
For a little while the weather cleared, and the garden sparkled in the
hot sunshine. But hardly had the Bacheis picked up their spades and gone out
to start work when the clouds gathered again and the rain recommenced, but
this time a warm, gentle rain, just the kind needed to ensure a good crop.
It went on with short breaks for a whole week, and in that week the garden
was literally transformed.
The ovaries swelled before their eyes, promising excellent fruit. The
trees seemed to be thick with cherries-still green, it is true, but getting
ready to change colour. With all this a spirit of gaiety, hope and affection
reigned among the Bacheis, and nobody noticed the change in Petya.
For some time the boy had been in a constant state of subdued
excitement. A tense half-smile kept flitting over his face. He did not know
what to do with himself, especially as all the trees were already earthed up
and well watered by the rain, so that there was no work to keep him
occupied. Petya's heart and mind were concentrated on one aim -to see
Marina. Simple enough, one might think. She was living right beside him.
They had been introduced. They could see each other a dozen times a day. But
it was not like that at all.
The Pavlovskayas (that was their name) never left their rooms, never
appeared in the garden. Evidently they avoided society-or to put it plainly,
they were in hiding. Petya understood that well enough, but it made matters
no easier for him.
For a whole week he saw Marina only once, and that was at a distance.
She was returning from the terminus, waist-deep in wheat, holding up a big
black umbrella and carrying a tin can-evidently for kerosene.
Petya raced home, put on his cape and started walking up and down by
the gate with a most casual, indifferent air. But Marina took the path
through the fields and Petya only caught a glimpse of her closing the
umbrella and disappearing into the cottage.
Petya roamed about the orchard a long time in the rain, choosing the
parts that gave him a view of the cottage, but the girl did not appear
again.
Late that evening, when darkness fell, Petya-holding his breath and
inwardly despising himself-crept up to the cottage and crouched down in the
thick wormwood that showered him from head to foot with the aromatic
rain-water from its leaves.
One of the windows was dark but the other was pale with candlelight.
Looking in, Petya saw Marina's bent head and her moving hand as she wrote
earnestly; the light gave her fingers the faintly transparent look of
porcelain. Behind her the large shadow of Madame Pavlovskaya moved up and
down the whitewashed wall raising and lowing an open book-from which he
could conclude that Marina was writing dictation.
This sobered Petya a little, it even brought a scornful smile.
At that moment the girl's hand halted in indecision. Marina sought
counsel on the ceiling. Petya could see her jutting chin, frowning brow and
narrowed eyes; on one of them she had a sty coming. As she gazed in
puzzlement at the ceiling she licked her lips once or twice, and such a
sudden wave of emotion shook Petya that he shut his eyes. No, never in all
his life had he loved anyone as he loved this dark-haired girl with the
independent, jutting chin and the sty coming on her eye.
He had loved her for a long time, a year already. But before this she
had been a dream, a phantasy. He had almost ceased to believe in her
existence.-He had forgotten her to such an extent that sometimes he could
not even picture her. It had not really been love, only a premonition of
love, mingled with the blizzard in the mountains, the black swans round
Rousseau's island, the sulphurous smoke of Vesuvius, the vague imaginary
picture of Paris, the magic words "Longjumeau" and "Marie Rose"-in short,
everything which a year before had captured his imagination and wrung his
heart.
Now it was an ordinary, everyday love, alluring in its very
accessibility. Marina was no longer loftily unapproachable, there was no
more mystery about her. Just an ordinary girl, not even especially pretty,
with a sty on her eye, writing dictation. Tomorrow she would go out for a
walk in the garden and he would go up and talk to her. They would talk for a
long time and then they would never part again.
Petya went home to bed and fell asleep in the blissful certainty that
on the morrow a new, delightful life was going to begin. He could even see
himself as Yevgeny Onegin and her as Tatyana, anticipating the secret
rendezvous at which he would at first "instruct the lady of his heart" and
then say he'd been joking and take her arm.
But nothing of the kind happened.
Marina still did not appear, and Petya reproached her inwardly, even
called her a fair deceiver, as though she had made him some promise. Then he
resolved to chastise her by indifference, to take no more notice of her. For
a whole day he kept his eyes away from their windows. Of course it was very
cruel, but it had to be done. Let her realize what he was capable of if he
were deceived. She had only herself to blame.
The next day Petya decided to let wrath give way to kindness, for,
after all, he loved her. Again he began eyeing the cottage from afar. But it
was all no good, she did not appear.
After that he so far lost the mastery over himself as to risk going up
quite close a number of times. He noticed that a new path had been beaten
from the door, leading out into the steppe. Aha, so that was why she never
appeared in the garden! She preferred wandering over the steppe. And what if
that narrow path were nothing other than a hint, an invitation to a secret
rendezvous? Heavens above, how had he failed to understand! Why, it was
clear as daylight! So he began roaming about the steppe, glancing
impatiently at the cottage. At any moment she would see him and come out. He
would be tender, but firm.
The only fly in the ointment was that the weather had turned hot again,
too hot for his cape.
But alas!-she still stayed inside. It seemed as if she were
deliberately mocking him.
"You wait," thought Petya. "Your kerosene will come to an end, then
we'll see!"
As though to taunt him, the weather was wonderful. The lilacs were
over, but white acacia and jasmine were in full bloom, filling the air with
their sweet, languorous fragrance. At night the added scent of night violets
and flowering tobacco made the air still more intoxicating, their pale stars
vaguely visible in the twilight on the luxuriant flower-beds in front of the
house.
In the evening a great golden moon rose over the sea, and by midnight
it hung over the steppe, bathing everything in a warm, jasmine light.
Could anything be more romantic? And all of it wasted!
Weary of idleness and love, Petya could neither sleep nor eat. He
became thin and haggard and his eyes had a restless glitter.
"What's the matter, fallen in love?" asked Auntie, looking at him with
curiosity.
Petya wanted to wither her with a glance, but all he managed was such a
pitiful travesty of a smile that she shrugged her shoulders.
The end of it all was that Petya decided to write a diary. He found an
old exercise book, tore out some pages with algebra problems and wrote,
"Love has come to me...." He had expected it would be perfectly easy to fill
the whole book with a detailed description of his emotions, which he felt to
be so extraordinary and so vast. But try as he would, he could find -nothing
more to add, such was the surging confusion of his mind.
Then he turned desperately to the last resort-to write her a letter and
appoint a rendezvous.
Of course, there was nothing so very extraordinary about that. But
Petya's condition had reached the stage where the object of one's love seems
a being of a loftier sphere, an ideal far above ordinary human relations,
even though she does go to buy kerosene with an umbrella over her head, or
even writes dictation.
However, there was nothing else left to do.
For love-letters it was common to use what were called "secret notes,"
very popular in the "flying post," game played at parties. These were small
pieces of coloured paper with perforated glued edges, which could be doubled
and sealed, serving as notepaper and envelope. To open them one tore off the
perforated part. They came under the same category as confetti, serpentines,
silken masks and other ball-room trifles. These were the proper medium for
tender messages. But Petya had none, and there was nowhere to buy them. The
best he could do was to fold a sheet of paper torn from an exercise book and
himself make pin-holes along its loose edges.
This took some effort, but to write the note itself was still worse.
Petya wrote five rough copies before he achieved the following:
"Marina!! I must speak to you about something very important. Come out
to the steppe tomorrow at exactly eight in the evening. I do not sign this,
for I hope you can guess the sender." Petya heavily underlined the words
"something very important," secretly relying on feminine curiosity.
He went into the orchard and scratched some resin from a cherry tree.
With considerable satisfaction he chewed it soft, stuck the note together
with it and wrote on the outside, "To Marina. Personal and private."
Petya slipped the note into his pocket and went straight off to look
for Pavlik. He found him in the stable. And found him playing cards with
Gavrila. At the moment of Petya's appearance he was kneeling with raised
hand, preparing to slam down the ace of hearts with all the force of which
he was capable on a rubbed, worn knave that lay on the ground beside the
pack, surrounded by crawling insects and piles of small coins.
Pavlik's face was filled with reckless excitement, but Gavrila,
kneeling opposite, looked downcast, and drops of sweat ran down his long
freckled nose.
"Aha," thought Petya, "so this is how my fine brother spends the day,
this is what idleness can lead to!"
"Pavlik, come here!" he said sternly.
Pavlik jumped as though stung, and with a quick, agile movement twisted
round and sat on the pack, looking at his brother with innocent brown eyes.
"Come here!" Petya repeated with increased sternness.
"Now don't take it wrong, young master," said Gavrila, forcing a laugh.
"We're not gambling, we're just fooling about to pass the time, like. May I
die here on the spot if we're not!"
"Tell-tale-tit!" chanted Pavlik, just in case, inconspicuously scraping
out the money from under him.
Petya, however, only frowned and shrugged his shoulders.
"That's not what I'm after," he said. "Come here."
He led Pavlik away into the bushes, halted with legs astride and bent a
stern look on him.
"It's this-" He stopped, at a loss for a moment. "I want you to do
something for me ... or rather, not to do something, to go on an errand."
"I know, I know," said Pavlik quickly.
"What do you know?" asked Petya, frowning.
"I know what you want. You want me to take a note to that new girl.
Isn't that it?"
"How did you guess?" cried the startled Petya.
"Huh!" Pavlik answered scornfully. "D'you think I can't see the silly
way you're going on? But you needn't try to get me to take your notes 'cause
I won't!"
"Oh yes, you will," said Petya menacingly.
"Think you're somebody, don't you!" said Pavlik boldly, but retreating
a step to be on the safe side.
"You will go!" Petya hissed obstinately.
"No I won't."
"Yes you will!"
"No I won't, and you can stop ordering me about, too. I'm not a kid to
run after girls with your notes. Go there and have Madame Pavlovskaya pull
my ears, eh? I'm not such a fool!"
"So you won't go, won't you?" asked Petya with an ominous smile.
"No I won't!"
"All right, so much the worse for you!"
"And what'll happen?"
"Simply that I'll go right away and tell Father you're gambling."
"And I'll go right away and tell everyone you're in love with the new
girl and you're writing her sloppy notes and you sit in the weeds under her
window and stop her learning her lessons and everybody'll laugh at you. Aha,
got you!"
"You little worm," said Petya.
"You're another."
"All the same, you'd better hold your tongue," said Petya dully.
"I'll hold mine if you hold yours."
With those words Pavlik strutted back to the stable where Gavrila,
bored with nothing to do, was lying en the ground shuffling the cards.
No hope there.
That night Petya again crept to the cottage and sat among the wormwood
for a long time, plucking up courage to toss the note in through the open
window. This time the whole house was dark, evidently both were asleep.
Petya even thought he could hear deep breathing. The moon shone so brightly
on the whitewashed walls that they looked blue, patterned by the swaying
shadows of acacias, while the wormwood in which Petya sat gleamed silver.
Several times Petya had to change his position, seeking shadows that
would hide him from the moonlight, and finally made so much noise that a
deep sigh sounded from inside and an irritated voice said, "I'm sure I hear
someone walking round the house all the time."
Then another voice, soft and sleepy, replied, "Go to sleep, Mum, it's
just cats."
Petya waited trembling until all was quiet, then he took from his
pocket the note, tied round a stone, and tossed it in through the open
window.
Covered with cold sweat he slunk back. When he at last came to his
canvas bed and started silently undressing, he heard Pavlik's ominous
whisper from under the blanket.
"Aha! Think I don't know what you've been doing? Throwing in a
note-huh! Thank your stars you didn't get your ears pulled!"
"You little swine," hissed Petya.
"You're another," mumbled Pavlik sleepily.
It is hard to think how Petya would have got through the following day
if the watering of the orchard had not started again.
Petya stood zealously turning the cistern handle to pull up the bucket,
then letting the water out into the tank from which it was carried all over
the garden. He had himself volunteered for this tiring, monotonous job which
would leave his mind free to think of the rendezvous.
The unoiled axle of the latticed iron drum squealed mournfully. The
chain rattled crisply as it wound and unwound. The heavy bucket crawled
slowly up, the falling drops sounding metallically hard in the echoing
darkness of the cistern, then it raced down again, dragging the wet chain
after it, so that the drum whirled wildly round and one had to skip aside
pretty quickly to avoid a sharp blow from the handle.
His arms and back ached, his shirt was soaking, sweat ran down his face
and dripped from his chin, but Petya went on working, refusing to rest. He
was in a state of bliss which at one moment nearly turned to despair when
the day darkened, clouds came rolling up and a few drops fell, promising a
downpour in the evening that would put any meeting on the steppe out of the
question.
However, the rain passed over, the clouds dispersed and towards evening
a cool breeze sprang up-a most fortunate circumstance, since it allowed him
to put on his cape.
When Petya, after making a wide detour for caution's sake, came to the
little path by the cottage, the setting sun was blazing over the steppe and
his shadow was so long that it looked as though he were on stilts.
The monastery bells were ringing for vespers. From the distance came
the melancholy song of reapers. The white wall of the cottage was tinted
pink by the sun and the windows were a blinding gold. Petya's hands were
like ice, and his mouth felt cold, as though he had been sucking
peppermints.
Without any real reason for it, Petya had told himself that she would
most certainly come. But although he would not for the world have admitted
it, a secret doubt lurked at the bottom of his heart.
He Lay prone on the grass, his chin resting on his fists, staring at
the cottage as though by sheer force of will he could compel her now, this
very moment, to come out on the steppe. Actually, this already was not love
but insistent pride, not passion but obstinacy; it was an aimless turbulence
of spirit, the wish to bring his ideal down from heaven to earth and assure
himself that Marina was not a scrap better than other girls-for instance,
Motya- probably worse.
And yet his imagination still enthroned her as the only one, the
unattainable one, despite the sty and that chin like the toe of a shoe-and
perhaps even because of that.
Suddenly, between waves of despair and hope, he saw the familiar figure
pass the cottage, up to the waist in wormwood; he could hardly believe his
eyes, so great was his happiness. Marina came to him quickly, almost too
quickly, shading her eyes with her hand from the sun that beat straight into
her face. She was in a short summer coat with the collar raised, and her
hair was done a new way; the same black bow was there, but a sprig of
jasmine had been added.
"Good evening," she said, holding out her hand to Petya. "I had an
awful job getting away. You've no idea what Mum's like. You'll see, she'll
call me back at once. Come along quick."
She smiled and walked along the path leading into the steppe, followed
by Petya, who was knocked right off his balance and even disappointed by her
confident ease, and especially by her frankly mischievous smile.
Whatever he had expected, it had been something very different-shyness,
embarrassment, silent reproach, even severity-but most certainly not this.
One might think she had only been waiting for the chance to run out to meet
a boy! She did not even ask why he wanted her to come. And that jasmine in
her hair! Petya could see now that she was small only in size, in age she
must be fifteen; and she had probably had plenty of experience in love
affairs-perhaps she had even been kissed.
In general, it was as though she had suddenly turned into her own elder
sister.
"Aren't you hot in that cape?" she asked, glancing round.
"Aren't you hot in your coat?" Petya retorted dully.
Evidently she did not understand irony, for she answered, "It's a
summer coat, your cape's a heavy woollen one."
"A Swiss cape, specially for the mountains!" remarked Petya, not
without a boastful note.
"Yes, I see that," answered Marina.
When they were a good distance from the house, they left the path and
strolled slowly side by side among the suslik holes and wild flowers, which
threw down long shadows. For a time they said nothing, listening to the
rustle of the grass and flowers under their feet.
The sun sank behind a distant barrow. A cool breeze rose.
"Are you fond of the steppe?" asked Marina.
"I love the mountains," Petya answered sombrely.
He had not the faintest idea how he ought to proceed now. He had got
what he wanted, this was a real 'rendezvous, it was even more-a long walk
out on the steppe at sunset. But all the same he was awkward and
embarrassed. In some way she had got the upper hand over him in the first
moment. And well he knew it.
"I love the steppe," said Marina, "though I like mountains too."
"No, the mountains are finer," said Petya stubbornly.
He had never in his life found it so difficult to talk to a girl. How
much easier it had been with Motya, for instance. Of course, Motya loved
him, while this one-you couldn't guess. ... But the worst of all was that
she did not display the faintest desire to know why he had asked her to meet
him. What was that-pretence or indifference?
With every moment that passed he loved her more, he was most
desperately in love. And not at all as he had been before, he was no longer
in love with a far-away dream, but with an enchantingly close reality.
As they strolled along she would now and then give a little laugh
without any visible reason, and that teasing laughter seemed very familiar
to Petya, although he could not for the life of him remember where and when
he had heard it.
"Just wait, my dear," thought Petya, admiring Marina's pretty head with
the black ribbon and the sprig of jasmine. "Just wait, we'll see what song
you'll sing in a little while."
"Just imagine," he said with a crooked, sarcastic smile, "once upon a
time I was most tremendously in love with you."
"You-with me?" asked Marina in surprise and shrugged her shoulders.
"When could that have been?"
"A long time ago. Last year," sighed Petya. "And you, I suppose, you
never even guessed?"
She halted and looked up at him with grave probing eyes.
"That is quite impossible."
"But it was so."
"Where, and when?"
Petya looked at her with tender reproach and said very slowly and
distinctly, "June. Italy. Naples. The railway station. Can you deny it?"
In an instant Marina's face changed completely; she looked serious,
alarmed. Her colour mounted.
"You're making a mistake," she said curtly, with a look that seemed to
shut him out at once. "We've never been in Italy ... or any other foreign
country."
Petya knew this was not true.
"Yes, you have, you were wearing the same coat and the same black bow
in your hair!" he cried eagerly. "You walked along the platform with your
mother. And Maxim Gorky was there. Our train started and I leaned out of the
window and looked at you, and you looked back at me. Wasn't that so? Didn't
you look at me? Can you deny it?"
She frowned and shook her head in silence, but the deep colour did not
leave her face, even her chin was red. She was beginning to be angry.
"Can you deny it? Can you?" Petya insisted.
"Nothing of the kind ever happened, you've just dreamed it!"
"I even know where you were going. Shall I tell you? Well? To Paris!"
cried Petya with a kind of bitter triumph.
She shook her head land the colour began to leave her face.
"Marie Rose, Longjumeau," said Petya softly, impressively, looking bard
into her eyes and enjoying her discomfiture.
She turned so pale that Petya was frightened. Then her face stiffened
in a look of contempt.
"You're making it all up," she said carelessly and even forced herself
to laugh, a strange laugh that sounded so familiar.
Suddenly he realized it was Vera's mermaid laugh from The Precipice,
and he himself was the miserable Raisky.
"Remember once and for all that nothing of the sort ever happened,"
Marina said. She turned and walked rapidly back towards the house.
Petya ran after her.
"Don't follow me," she said without turning.
"Marina, wait a bit ... but why?" Petya groaned piteously.
She turned, let her eyes travel over him from head to foot with a
contemptuous look, said, "Babbler!" and ran home.
Petya had never expected the long-awaited rendezvous to end in fiasco.
He was completely puzzled by her anger. All he knew was that he had lost
her, if not for ever, at least for a very long time. And when? At the very
moment everything was perfect, when dusk was creeping over the steppe and a
great moon hung over the distant hills, with a pale light like the glow of a
paper lantern.
CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES
For some days after that Marina did not appear at all. Petya tossed a
number of notes in through the window, trying on various pretexts to lure
her to meet him, even promising to reveal some tremendously important
secret, but nothing helped. And he realized he had lost her for ever.
He was in despair. And his despair was deepened by the fact that there
was absolutely nobody to whom he could confide his unsuccessful romance,
pour out in eloquent words his "tormented soul," as Petya mentally described
the painful sting of hurt pride. So Gavrik's appearance was a godsend.
He turned up quite suddenly, as was his wont of late. Petya saw him
standing in the orchard, but it was a puzzle how he had got there. Not
through the gate, that was certain, for Petya himself had been standing
there all the time, watching to see whether anyone would go to fetch
kerosene.
Gavrik had a worn textbook tricked under his belt and carried an
exercise book rolled into a tube with which he kept angrily striking his
knee. In general, his look was sombre.
"Hullo, come to study a bit?"
"No, to catch sparrows," Gavrik answered curtly.
Petya chose a shady spot with a view of the cottage, and they sat down
among the chamomiles beneath a cherry tree.
"Well, what have you got there?" asked Petya languidly.
"I have to learn De hello Gallico."
"Aha. Now listen, and I'll explain it all. The point is that De hello
Gallico was written by Caesar. He was called Gaius Julius and he was the
Roman emperor who-"
"I know all that. I have to read it and translate it, and learn the
first chapter by heart."
"All right, we can do that," said Petya obligingly. "Open your book and
start translating."
"I've done the translation," said Gavrik.
"What do you want, then?"
"I've got to learn the first chapter. And that's far worse than
learning poetry so far as I'm concerned."
"But it is necessary," Petya said didactically, gradually slipping into
the role of teacher. "Give me your book, I'll read aloud and you repeat
everything after me."
"But don't you know it by heart?" asked Gavrik suspiciously.
Petya, however, ignored this indiscreet question; he took the book out
of Gavrik's hand and began reading with great expression:
"Gallia est omnis divisa in paries tres. Repeat that."
"Gallia est omnis divisa in paries ires" Gavrik repeated, his forehead
deeply creased.
"Good!" said Petya. "Now-"
But at that moment he thought he saw a movement by the cottage. He
craned his neck to see better.
"No good looking over there," Gavrik said quietly.
Petya started.
"How did you guess?" he asked, blushing. They knew one another too well
for pretence.
"Oh, don't play the bread-and-butter miss!" snapped Gavrik. "Anyone
might think the Pavlovskayas had dropped down from the skies. You know very
well it was we who sent them-to keep them out of the way of the police. You
need a head on your shoulders, not a turnip. They're not just ordinary
people getting out of the summer heat, they're in hiding," he said
incisively. "And they're working. And then you had to start off with all
that romantic nonsense! All right, amuse yourself with it if you like, but
don't bother them with your talk. And that's just what you've been doing.
'Why, I know you. Why, I saw you abroad! Marie Rose, Longjumeau!' Have you
The trees want water. No water, no crop. And there you are, the horse is
down. No way to bring it. If only it would rain now. Water-you can't do
without it."
Scant comfort in that.
They tried to hire a horse from the German settlers in Lustdorf, but
nothing came of it: first the Germans named an impossibly high price, and
then refused point-blank, saying they needed their horses themselves. The
real fact was that they all had their own orchards and the ruin of a
competitor just suited them.
"Amazing, how unneighbourly they are!" cried Auntie at dinner-time,
cracking her fingers, a thing she had never done before.
"What's to be done, what's to be done," mumbled Vasily Petrovich,
bending a little too low over his plate. "Homo homini lupus est, which means
'Man's a wolf to man'.... If you remember, I told you at the time this
stupid idea of trading in fruit would end badly." His ears turned red as a
cock's comb.
He had said it would end badly-he could well have said it would end in
complete ruin. It was clear without words. Auntie turned pale with the pain
of hearing these cruel, unjust words. Her eyes filled with tears and her
lips trembled.
"Vasily Petrovich, aren't you ashamed," she said imploringly, her
fingers at her temples.
"Why should I be ashamed? It's all your fantastic idea ... your crazy
idea...."
Vasily Petrovich could no longer stop, he had lost all control of
himself. He jumped up and suddenly saw Pavlik apparently holding his nose so
as not to giggle; actually the boy was biting his fingers desperately to
keep himself from crying.
"What!" yelled Vasily Petrovich in a voice not his own. "You have the
impudence to laugh! I'll teach you to respect your father! Stand up, you
rascal, when your father speaks to you!"
"Dad-Daddy!" sobbed Pavlik, and clapped his hands over his face in
terror.
But Vasily Petrovich was beyond understanding. He picked up his plate
of soup and smashed it down on the floor. Then he twisted his arm round
awkwardly, gave Pavlik a buffet on the back of the neck and rushed out into
the orchard, slamming the door behind him with such violence that the
coloured glass at the top fell in shattered fragments.
"I can't live in this madhouse any longer!" Petya suddenly screamed.
"Damn you! I'm going to Near Mills and I'm not coming back!" He ran into his
room to put his things together.
Altogether, it was a shameful, degrading scene. One might have thought
they had all lost their senses, gone mad as dogs do in the heat.
The heat certainly was dreadful-close, exhausting, dry, burning-enough
to drive anybody mad. The pale sky seemed to have a dull, scorching veil
drawn over it. Waves of heat came from the steppe as they come from the open
door of an oven. Hot winds carried clouds of dust. The acacias rustled with
a dry, papery sound and the grass was grey. The strip of sea on the horizon
looked brown, speckled with greyish-white foam; and whenever the roar of the
wind died down one could hear the sound of waves-dry and monotonous like the
distant rattle of pebbles thrown on to some huge sieve.
The dusty shadows of trees flickered on the walls and ceilings of
rooms. A terrible day.... Not only Petya but Vasily Petrovich, Auntie and
even Pavlik were ready to collect their belongings and run away-anywhere, to
get away from the sight of one another and the mutual sense of injury. But
of course nobody did run away, they only wandered aimlessly about in the hot
rooms and along the rustling paths. They felt fettered to this wretched
place which had at first looked like heaven on earth.
Towards evening a figure appeared in the orchard-a short, stout man in
a tall sheepskin hat, but brown this time instead of black. This was another
Persian, a real one this time, with long eastern moustaches and languorous
eyes. He went quickly round the orchard leaning ion a short stick, and then
stood beside the kitchen waiting for somebody to come out. As no one
appeared, however, he went to the house and rapped on the window with his
stick.
When Auntie peeped out, he said, "Hi, Mistress!" and pointed at the
orchard with a yellow hand adorned with dirty nails. "I'll buy your crop for
five rubles. Better take it or you'll be sorry later."
"Ruffian!" cried Auntie in a dreadful voice. "Gavrila, what are you
about? Throw him out!"
But the real Persian did not wait for Gavrila, he ran off with small
limping steps and disappeared in an instant.
Then came the third postcard from Madame Vasyutinskaya, reminding them
of the date for the next payment.
Nobody wanted any supper that day, and for a long time the four
soup-plates of yoghurt sprinkled with sugar stood untouched on the table on
the veranda.
In the middle of the night a dreadful, inhuman, bloodcurdling cry
awakened everybody. What could it be? Outside the windows the black outlines
of the fruit trees swayed as in fever. Then the cry was repeated, still more
dreadful, with a kind of screaming, sobbing laugh in it. Somebody came
running along the path, waving a lantern. Then there was a battering on the
glazed door that shook the house. Gavrila stood on the step, waving his
lantern.
"Come quick, ma'am, Warden's dying," he cried in a frightened voice.
Petya flung something on and raced to the stable, trembling from head
to foot. Auntie, Vasily Petrovich, Dunyasha and Pavlik, barefoot and wrapped
in a blanket, stood huddled round the door.
Gavrila's lantern shed an ominous light inside the stable. He could
hear the deep, vibrating groans of the dying horse. They stood petrified,
helpless, unable to think of any way to stave off this catastrophe.
Just before dawn the horse gave one last dreadful scream vibrant with
pain and terror, and then fell silent for ever. In the morning a cart
arrived and he was taken out somewhere far away on the steppe-huge, bony,
black, with bared teeth and long outstretched legs ending in cracked hoofs
and shining, worn iron shoes.
They were all so crushed by this disaster that nobody did any work all
day. The death of Warden was not only a bad omen, it was the final blow to
all their hopes, it meant inevitable ruin for the family. Utter despair
reigned.
After dinner the wind died down somewhat but the sultry heat was worse
than ever. Not a cloud could be seen in the pale, dusty-looking sky. A band
of lilac lay along the horizon, a deceptive reflection of distant
thunderstorms that constantly gathered but never broke. This was not the
first time there had been a promise of storm, but it had always been
followed by disappointment, either the cloud had melted away imperceptibly
in the scorching air or it had passed by and broken somewhere out to sea,
with a useless rolling of thunder echoing over the steppe.
Today it was the same. The storm broke far away. Nobody was surprised,
they had already lost all hope of rain, although that was the only chance
left for the crop. Petya was weary after a sleepless night; he did not know
what to do with himself and wandered out on the steppe, roaming aimlessly
until a big circuit brought him to the sea. He climbed down the cliff,
clutching at roots and boulders, and finally sat down on the hot pebbles.
The water was still heaving after the storm of the previous day, but
the waves, heavy with seaweed, no longer beat angrily against the beach but
rolled smoothly up it, leaving stranded jelly-fish and dead sea-horses.
It was a wild, deserted strip of coast, and Petya, who had all day
longed to be alone, felt easier there, lapped in a quiet melancholy. It was
a long time since he had bathed and now he undressed quickly and slipped
with pleasure into the warm, foamy water.
There was a special, inexplicable delight in this bathe which he took
quite alone. First he swam along the shore for a little way among slippery
rocks washed by the sea and covered with brown weeds, then he turned out to
sea. As usual, he swam on his side, kicking his legs like a frog and
flinging one hand forward in a broad overarm swing. He pushed his shoulder
through the waves, trying to raise that splash which made him feel he was
cutting swiftly through the water although in reality his speed was nothing
wonderful. He was very pleased with himself. He particularly liked that
shoulder which pushed through the water-brown, smooth as silk under a
gleaming wet film that reflected the sunshine.
The time had long passed when he had been afraid to go far from the
shore. He would strike out boldly for the open sea and then turn over on his
back, let the waves rock him, and stare up at the sky until he had the
feeling that he was looking down at it, hanging, void of weight, in space.
The whole world vanished, he forgot everything but himself, alone and
all-powerful.
Now too, he swam out about a mile, turned over... and gasped at the
change that had taken place around him. The sky overhead was still clear and
the sea shone with a hot, blinding glare, but it had a hard glitter, like
the glitter of anthracite.
Petya looked back to the shore. Over the narrow strip of cliff, over
the steppe hung something huge, black, surging and-most terrible of
all-quite silent. Before Petya had time to realize that this was a
thundercloud it rolled up to the sun, which was blindingly white like a
magnesium flare, and swallowed it up in an instant, extinguishing all
colours from the world so that everything became a leaden grey.
Petya swam back as fast as he could, and anyway he could, trying to get
ashore before the storm burst. Far away on the steppe, under the slaty sky,
he could see whirling dust-devils chasing one another. And when he climbed
up the beach and turned to look at the sea, the place where he had only just
been was already a seething mass of foam whipped by a squall, with sea-gulls
flying wildly over.
Petya barely managed to catch his trousers and shirt as they fled with
the wind along the beach. While he was climbing the cliff everything turned
as dark as late evening. He raced at top speed to the horse-tram terminus
where rails were being laid for electric trams and concrete poured for a new
building. Just as he got there lightning flashed, there was a great bang of
thunder and in the hush that followed he could hear the roar of the
approaching downpour.
Petya ran on to the road, and as though some gate had opened, a sharp
scent of wet hemp struck him, followed by a solid wall of rain.
In an instant the road became a river. The lightning flashes showed him
the foaming torrent that swirled round his legs. His feet 'slipped. There
was no sense trying to get home through that. Up to the knees in water he
made his way back to the tram-shelter, crossing himself every time the
lightning flashed close by with an almost simultaneous clap of thunder. It
was only as he slipped down into a deep gutter that Petya suddenly realized
this was the thunderstorm, the downpour, for which the whole Bachei family
had waited so desperately. It was not ordinary water, it was the water which
would soak the orchard, fill the empty cistern and save them from ruin.
"Hurrah!" shouted Petya and ran through the storm to the farm, no
longer afraid of anything.
He slipped and fell several times on the way, flopping full length in
the mud, but now this warm mud felt wonderful. When he reached home the
sunset showed dimly through a break in the main-clouds and the storm rolled
away out to sea where lightning flashed convulsively and thunder snarled on
a dark-blue horizon. But Petya had hardly time to race along the paths and
admire the muddy water filling the hollows round the trees, to plant a happy
kiss on his father's wet beard, to give Pavlik a friendly buffet and shout,
"Grand, Auntie, isn't it?" before the storm came back, more violent than
ever.
Several times after that it circled over the sea and returned again.
The rain continued all through the night, sometimes pouring in torrents,
sometimes stealthily quiet, barely audible, while under the trees thousands
of tiny streams glittered in the lightning flashes which illumined the
orchard with all its distant, mysterious corners.
The whole night Gavrila, a sack over his head, ran round the house and
over the roof fixing up the pipes that collected the water and poured it in
rapid torrents into the cistern. And to the noise of the filling cistern
Petya fell into a deep, happy sleep.
It was late when he awakened. A rosy sun shone like a jewel through the
warm mist, and the wet garden was full of bird-song. Auntie looked in
through the open window.
"Get up, lazy-bones!" she called gaily. "While you've been asleep, our
tenants have come!"
"The widow with a child?" asked Petya yawning.
"The very same," Auntie answered with the mischievous smile that showed
her spirits were excellent. "There's tea ready, come along."
Of course, Petya wanted to see the widow and child, so he hurried to
the veranda.
He halted, thunderstruck.
Sitting at the table between Vasily Petrovich and Pavlik, calmly
drinking tea, were that same lady and that same girl he had seen the
previous year at the station in Naples.
He gave his head a shake as though a cinder had flown into his eye
again.
"Ah, here's our Petya, let me introduce him," said Auntie with her
society smile.
Petya almost burst out with "We know each other already," but something
held him back. Blushing, he went round the table, clicked his heels politely
and waited for the lady to extend her hand first, as a well-bred boy should.
After clasping the cool, slender fingers of the mother, Petya looked with
secret hope at the daughter, asking with his eyes whether she did not
remember him.
But the girl only looked surprised at Petya's queer expression and held
out her little hand indifferently, saying, "Marina." That was quite
unexpected, for in accordance with character portrayal by Pushkin and
Goncharov, Petya had always thought of her as Tanya or Vera. And now she
turned out to be Marina. Petya eyed her with frank reproach, as though she
had deceived him.
She looked just the same as she had in Naples, with the same short
summer coat, the same black hair-ribbon and the same little jutting chin
that gave her pretty face with its rather high cheek-bones a lofty,
unapproachable expression. Her hazel eyes were cold and disapproving as
though asking, "What do you want of me?"
"Frailty, thy name is woman," thought Petya bitterly, and then with
still greater bitterness realized that she had not forgotten him, she had
never even noticed him.
Petya felt insulted, his pride had suffered a blow.
"In that case, all is over between us," he said with his eyes, and with
a cold, indifferent shrug he turned and went to his place.
"Stop making faces," said Auntie.
"I'm not making faces," Petya answered, and straightaway stuffed soft
bread in his tea to make a "pudding." The way of making it was this: you put
pieces of soft bread in a half-filled glass of tea, then when the bread
swelled you turned the glass upside down on the saucer, producing something
which by a great stretch of imagination resembled a pudding. This was
considered bad manners in the Bachei family, so Vasily Petrovich gave Petya
a very stern look through his glasses and tapped the table with his index
finger.
"I shall send you away!"
"Please, don't think he doesn't know how to behave, he's just shy,"
said Auntie, addressing the mother but with a sly glance at the
daughter-which made Petya snort and start messing the "pudding" up with his
teaspoon.
Marina's mother, however, was disinclined to keep the polite
conversation going. She evidently found no pleasure in this ceremonial
tea-drinking with strangers, people who happened to be letting her rooms but
who otherwise did not interest her in the least.
She was a brunette with a small, jutting chin like her daughter's, a
dark shadow on her upper lip, a shabby widow's bonnet and wary eyes.
"About the rent," she said, continuing the talk which Petya's entrance
had interrupted. "I was told that it's fifteen rubles a month. That suits me
very well and I'd like to pay two months in advance, thirty rubles." She
opened a black bag like the ones midwives carry and took out some notes. "We
shan't want board, we've a kerosene stove and we'll manage for ourselves.
Here is the money, exactly thirty rubles."
"Oh, that's quite all right," mumbled Auntie, flushing and embarrassed
as she always was when money was discussed. "You don't need to give it me
now ... later would do.... Well, merci, then." She pushed the money which
had a slight hospital smell carelessly under the sugar-bowl.
Marina's mother put her hand in her bag again as though seeking
something else (her papers, thought Petya), but evidently changed her mind,
took her hand out and snapped the bag to with a decisive click.
"And now if you don't mind, I'd like to go to our rooms," she said.
Refusing assistance, mother and daughter picked up their belongings-an
oilcloth satchel, a kerosene stove wrapped in newspaper, a bag and an
umbrella-and crossed the garden to the cottage, leaving deep imprints on the
wet paths.
"A rather strange woman," observed Vasily Petrovich. "But after all,
what's that got to do with us?"
"In any case, she seems quite cultured," said Auntie with a sigh, took
the money out from under the sugar-bowl and slipped it into the pocket of
her smart apron.
For a little while the weather cleared, and the garden sparkled in the
hot sunshine. But hardly had the Bacheis picked up their spades and gone out
to start work when the clouds gathered again and the rain recommenced, but
this time a warm, gentle rain, just the kind needed to ensure a good crop.
It went on with short breaks for a whole week, and in that week the garden
was literally transformed.
The ovaries swelled before their eyes, promising excellent fruit. The
trees seemed to be thick with cherries-still green, it is true, but getting
ready to change colour. With all this a spirit of gaiety, hope and affection
reigned among the Bacheis, and nobody noticed the change in Petya.
For some time the boy had been in a constant state of subdued
excitement. A tense half-smile kept flitting over his face. He did not know
what to do with himself, especially as all the trees were already earthed up
and well watered by the rain, so that there was no work to keep him
occupied. Petya's heart and mind were concentrated on one aim -to see
Marina. Simple enough, one might think. She was living right beside him.
They had been introduced. They could see each other a dozen times a day. But
it was not like that at all.
The Pavlovskayas (that was their name) never left their rooms, never
appeared in the garden. Evidently they avoided society-or to put it plainly,
they were in hiding. Petya understood that well enough, but it made matters
no easier for him.
For a whole week he saw Marina only once, and that was at a distance.
She was returning from the terminus, waist-deep in wheat, holding up a big
black umbrella and carrying a tin can-evidently for kerosene.
Petya raced home, put on his cape and started walking up and down by
the gate with a most casual, indifferent air. But Marina took the path
through the fields and Petya only caught a glimpse of her closing the
umbrella and disappearing into the cottage.
Petya roamed about the orchard a long time in the rain, choosing the
parts that gave him a view of the cottage, but the girl did not appear
again.
Late that evening, when darkness fell, Petya-holding his breath and
inwardly despising himself-crept up to the cottage and crouched down in the
thick wormwood that showered him from head to foot with the aromatic
rain-water from its leaves.
One of the windows was dark but the other was pale with candlelight.
Looking in, Petya saw Marina's bent head and her moving hand as she wrote
earnestly; the light gave her fingers the faintly transparent look of
porcelain. Behind her the large shadow of Madame Pavlovskaya moved up and
down the whitewashed wall raising and lowing an open book-from which he
could conclude that Marina was writing dictation.
This sobered Petya a little, it even brought a scornful smile.
At that moment the girl's hand halted in indecision. Marina sought
counsel on the ceiling. Petya could see her jutting chin, frowning brow and
narrowed eyes; on one of them she had a sty coming. As she gazed in
puzzlement at the ceiling she licked her lips once or twice, and such a
sudden wave of emotion shook Petya that he shut his eyes. No, never in all
his life had he loved anyone as he loved this dark-haired girl with the
independent, jutting chin and the sty coming on her eye.
He had loved her for a long time, a year already. But before this she
had been a dream, a phantasy. He had almost ceased to believe in her
existence.-He had forgotten her to such an extent that sometimes he could
not even picture her. It had not really been love, only a premonition of
love, mingled with the blizzard in the mountains, the black swans round
Rousseau's island, the sulphurous smoke of Vesuvius, the vague imaginary
picture of Paris, the magic words "Longjumeau" and "Marie Rose"-in short,
everything which a year before had captured his imagination and wrung his
heart.
Now it was an ordinary, everyday love, alluring in its very
accessibility. Marina was no longer loftily unapproachable, there was no
more mystery about her. Just an ordinary girl, not even especially pretty,
with a sty on her eye, writing dictation. Tomorrow she would go out for a
walk in the garden and he would go up and talk to her. They would talk for a
long time and then they would never part again.
Petya went home to bed and fell asleep in the blissful certainty that
on the morrow a new, delightful life was going to begin. He could even see
himself as Yevgeny Onegin and her as Tatyana, anticipating the secret
rendezvous at which he would at first "instruct the lady of his heart" and
then say he'd been joking and take her arm.
But nothing of the kind happened.
Marina still did not appear, and Petya reproached her inwardly, even
called her a fair deceiver, as though she had made him some promise. Then he
resolved to chastise her by indifference, to take no more notice of her. For
a whole day he kept his eyes away from their windows. Of course it was very
cruel, but it had to be done. Let her realize what he was capable of if he
were deceived. She had only herself to blame.
The next day Petya decided to let wrath give way to kindness, for,
after all, he loved her. Again he began eyeing the cottage from afar. But it
was all no good, she did not appear.
After that he so far lost the mastery over himself as to risk going up
quite close a number of times. He noticed that a new path had been beaten
from the door, leading out into the steppe. Aha, so that was why she never
appeared in the garden! She preferred wandering over the steppe. And what if
that narrow path were nothing other than a hint, an invitation to a secret
rendezvous? Heavens above, how had he failed to understand! Why, it was
clear as daylight! So he began roaming about the steppe, glancing
impatiently at the cottage. At any moment she would see him and come out. He
would be tender, but firm.
The only fly in the ointment was that the weather had turned hot again,
too hot for his cape.
But alas!-she still stayed inside. It seemed as if she were
deliberately mocking him.
"You wait," thought Petya. "Your kerosene will come to an end, then
we'll see!"
As though to taunt him, the weather was wonderful. The lilacs were
over, but white acacia and jasmine were in full bloom, filling the air with
their sweet, languorous fragrance. At night the added scent of night violets
and flowering tobacco made the air still more intoxicating, their pale stars
vaguely visible in the twilight on the luxuriant flower-beds in front of the
house.
In the evening a great golden moon rose over the sea, and by midnight
it hung over the steppe, bathing everything in a warm, jasmine light.
Could anything be more romantic? And all of it wasted!
Weary of idleness and love, Petya could neither sleep nor eat. He
became thin and haggard and his eyes had a restless glitter.
"What's the matter, fallen in love?" asked Auntie, looking at him with
curiosity.
Petya wanted to wither her with a glance, but all he managed was such a
pitiful travesty of a smile that she shrugged her shoulders.
The end of it all was that Petya decided to write a diary. He found an
old exercise book, tore out some pages with algebra problems and wrote,
"Love has come to me...." He had expected it would be perfectly easy to fill
the whole book with a detailed description of his emotions, which he felt to
be so extraordinary and so vast. But try as he would, he could find -nothing
more to add, such was the surging confusion of his mind.
Then he turned desperately to the last resort-to write her a letter and
appoint a rendezvous.
Of course, there was nothing so very extraordinary about that. But
Petya's condition had reached the stage where the object of one's love seems
a being of a loftier sphere, an ideal far above ordinary human relations,
even though she does go to buy kerosene with an umbrella over her head, or
even writes dictation.
However, there was nothing else left to do.
For love-letters it was common to use what were called "secret notes,"
very popular in the "flying post," game played at parties. These were small
pieces of coloured paper with perforated glued edges, which could be doubled
and sealed, serving as notepaper and envelope. To open them one tore off the
perforated part. They came under the same category as confetti, serpentines,
silken masks and other ball-room trifles. These were the proper medium for
tender messages. But Petya had none, and there was nowhere to buy them. The
best he could do was to fold a sheet of paper torn from an exercise book and
himself make pin-holes along its loose edges.
This took some effort, but to write the note itself was still worse.
Petya wrote five rough copies before he achieved the following:
"Marina!! I must speak to you about something very important. Come out
to the steppe tomorrow at exactly eight in the evening. I do not sign this,
for I hope you can guess the sender." Petya heavily underlined the words
"something very important," secretly relying on feminine curiosity.
He went into the orchard and scratched some resin from a cherry tree.
With considerable satisfaction he chewed it soft, stuck the note together
with it and wrote on the outside, "To Marina. Personal and private."
Petya slipped the note into his pocket and went straight off to look
for Pavlik. He found him in the stable. And found him playing cards with
Gavrila. At the moment of Petya's appearance he was kneeling with raised
hand, preparing to slam down the ace of hearts with all the force of which
he was capable on a rubbed, worn knave that lay on the ground beside the
pack, surrounded by crawling insects and piles of small coins.
Pavlik's face was filled with reckless excitement, but Gavrila,
kneeling opposite, looked downcast, and drops of sweat ran down his long
freckled nose.
"Aha," thought Petya, "so this is how my fine brother spends the day,
this is what idleness can lead to!"
"Pavlik, come here!" he said sternly.
Pavlik jumped as though stung, and with a quick, agile movement twisted
round and sat on the pack, looking at his brother with innocent brown eyes.
"Come here!" Petya repeated with increased sternness.
"Now don't take it wrong, young master," said Gavrila, forcing a laugh.
"We're not gambling, we're just fooling about to pass the time, like. May I
die here on the spot if we're not!"
"Tell-tale-tit!" chanted Pavlik, just in case, inconspicuously scraping
out the money from under him.
Petya, however, only frowned and shrugged his shoulders.
"That's not what I'm after," he said. "Come here."
He led Pavlik away into the bushes, halted with legs astride and bent a
stern look on him.
"It's this-" He stopped, at a loss for a moment. "I want you to do
something for me ... or rather, not to do something, to go on an errand."
"I know, I know," said Pavlik quickly.
"What do you know?" asked Petya, frowning.
"I know what you want. You want me to take a note to that new girl.
Isn't that it?"
"How did you guess?" cried the startled Petya.
"Huh!" Pavlik answered scornfully. "D'you think I can't see the silly
way you're going on? But you needn't try to get me to take your notes 'cause
I won't!"
"Oh yes, you will," said Petya menacingly.
"Think you're somebody, don't you!" said Pavlik boldly, but retreating
a step to be on the safe side.
"You will go!" Petya hissed obstinately.
"No I won't."
"Yes you will!"
"No I won't, and you can stop ordering me about, too. I'm not a kid to
run after girls with your notes. Go there and have Madame Pavlovskaya pull
my ears, eh? I'm not such a fool!"
"So you won't go, won't you?" asked Petya with an ominous smile.
"No I won't!"
"All right, so much the worse for you!"
"And what'll happen?"
"Simply that I'll go right away and tell Father you're gambling."
"And I'll go right away and tell everyone you're in love with the new
girl and you're writing her sloppy notes and you sit in the weeds under her
window and stop her learning her lessons and everybody'll laugh at you. Aha,
got you!"
"You little worm," said Petya.
"You're another."
"All the same, you'd better hold your tongue," said Petya dully.
"I'll hold mine if you hold yours."
With those words Pavlik strutted back to the stable where Gavrila,
bored with nothing to do, was lying en the ground shuffling the cards.
No hope there.
That night Petya again crept to the cottage and sat among the wormwood
for a long time, plucking up courage to toss the note in through the open
window. This time the whole house was dark, evidently both were asleep.
Petya even thought he could hear deep breathing. The moon shone so brightly
on the whitewashed walls that they looked blue, patterned by the swaying
shadows of acacias, while the wormwood in which Petya sat gleamed silver.
Several times Petya had to change his position, seeking shadows that
would hide him from the moonlight, and finally made so much noise that a
deep sigh sounded from inside and an irritated voice said, "I'm sure I hear
someone walking round the house all the time."
Then another voice, soft and sleepy, replied, "Go to sleep, Mum, it's
just cats."
Petya waited trembling until all was quiet, then he took from his
pocket the note, tied round a stone, and tossed it in through the open
window.
Covered with cold sweat he slunk back. When he at last came to his
canvas bed and started silently undressing, he heard Pavlik's ominous
whisper from under the blanket.
"Aha! Think I don't know what you've been doing? Throwing in a
note-huh! Thank your stars you didn't get your ears pulled!"
"You little swine," hissed Petya.
"You're another," mumbled Pavlik sleepily.
It is hard to think how Petya would have got through the following day
if the watering of the orchard had not started again.
Petya stood zealously turning the cistern handle to pull up the bucket,
then letting the water out into the tank from which it was carried all over
the garden. He had himself volunteered for this tiring, monotonous job which
would leave his mind free to think of the rendezvous.
The unoiled axle of the latticed iron drum squealed mournfully. The
chain rattled crisply as it wound and unwound. The heavy bucket crawled
slowly up, the falling drops sounding metallically hard in the echoing
darkness of the cistern, then it raced down again, dragging the wet chain
after it, so that the drum whirled wildly round and one had to skip aside
pretty quickly to avoid a sharp blow from the handle.
His arms and back ached, his shirt was soaking, sweat ran down his face
and dripped from his chin, but Petya went on working, refusing to rest. He
was in a state of bliss which at one moment nearly turned to despair when
the day darkened, clouds came rolling up and a few drops fell, promising a
downpour in the evening that would put any meeting on the steppe out of the
question.
However, the rain passed over, the clouds dispersed and towards evening
a cool breeze sprang up-a most fortunate circumstance, since it allowed him
to put on his cape.
When Petya, after making a wide detour for caution's sake, came to the
little path by the cottage, the setting sun was blazing over the steppe and
his shadow was so long that it looked as though he were on stilts.
The monastery bells were ringing for vespers. From the distance came
the melancholy song of reapers. The white wall of the cottage was tinted
pink by the sun and the windows were a blinding gold. Petya's hands were
like ice, and his mouth felt cold, as though he had been sucking
peppermints.
Without any real reason for it, Petya had told himself that she would
most certainly come. But although he would not for the world have admitted
it, a secret doubt lurked at the bottom of his heart.
He Lay prone on the grass, his chin resting on his fists, staring at
the cottage as though by sheer force of will he could compel her now, this
very moment, to come out on the steppe. Actually, this already was not love
but insistent pride, not passion but obstinacy; it was an aimless turbulence
of spirit, the wish to bring his ideal down from heaven to earth and assure
himself that Marina was not a scrap better than other girls-for instance,
Motya- probably worse.
And yet his imagination still enthroned her as the only one, the
unattainable one, despite the sty and that chin like the toe of a shoe-and
perhaps even because of that.
Suddenly, between waves of despair and hope, he saw the familiar figure
pass the cottage, up to the waist in wormwood; he could hardly believe his
eyes, so great was his happiness. Marina came to him quickly, almost too
quickly, shading her eyes with her hand from the sun that beat straight into
her face. She was in a short summer coat with the collar raised, and her
hair was done a new way; the same black bow was there, but a sprig of
jasmine had been added.
"Good evening," she said, holding out her hand to Petya. "I had an
awful job getting away. You've no idea what Mum's like. You'll see, she'll
call me back at once. Come along quick."
She smiled and walked along the path leading into the steppe, followed
by Petya, who was knocked right off his balance and even disappointed by her
confident ease, and especially by her frankly mischievous smile.
Whatever he had expected, it had been something very different-shyness,
embarrassment, silent reproach, even severity-but most certainly not this.
One might think she had only been waiting for the chance to run out to meet
a boy! She did not even ask why he wanted her to come. And that jasmine in
her hair! Petya could see now that she was small only in size, in age she
must be fifteen; and she had probably had plenty of experience in love
affairs-perhaps she had even been kissed.
In general, it was as though she had suddenly turned into her own elder
sister.
"Aren't you hot in that cape?" she asked, glancing round.
"Aren't you hot in your coat?" Petya retorted dully.
Evidently she did not understand irony, for she answered, "It's a
summer coat, your cape's a heavy woollen one."
"A Swiss cape, specially for the mountains!" remarked Petya, not
without a boastful note.
"Yes, I see that," answered Marina.
When they were a good distance from the house, they left the path and
strolled slowly side by side among the suslik holes and wild flowers, which
threw down long shadows. For a time they said nothing, listening to the
rustle of the grass and flowers under their feet.
The sun sank behind a distant barrow. A cool breeze rose.
"Are you fond of the steppe?" asked Marina.
"I love the mountains," Petya answered sombrely.
He had not the faintest idea how he ought to proceed now. He had got
what he wanted, this was a real 'rendezvous, it was even more-a long walk
out on the steppe at sunset. But all the same he was awkward and
embarrassed. In some way she had got the upper hand over him in the first
moment. And well he knew it.
"I love the steppe," said Marina, "though I like mountains too."
"No, the mountains are finer," said Petya stubbornly.
He had never in his life found it so difficult to talk to a girl. How
much easier it had been with Motya, for instance. Of course, Motya loved
him, while this one-you couldn't guess. ... But the worst of all was that
she did not display the faintest desire to know why he had asked her to meet
him. What was that-pretence or indifference?
With every moment that passed he loved her more, he was most
desperately in love. And not at all as he had been before, he was no longer
in love with a far-away dream, but with an enchantingly close reality.
As they strolled along she would now and then give a little laugh
without any visible reason, and that teasing laughter seemed very familiar
to Petya, although he could not for the life of him remember where and when
he had heard it.
"Just wait, my dear," thought Petya, admiring Marina's pretty head with
the black ribbon and the sprig of jasmine. "Just wait, we'll see what song
you'll sing in a little while."
"Just imagine," he said with a crooked, sarcastic smile, "once upon a
time I was most tremendously in love with you."
"You-with me?" asked Marina in surprise and shrugged her shoulders.
"When could that have been?"
"A long time ago. Last year," sighed Petya. "And you, I suppose, you
never even guessed?"
She halted and looked up at him with grave probing eyes.
"That is quite impossible."
"But it was so."
"Where, and when?"
Petya looked at her with tender reproach and said very slowly and
distinctly, "June. Italy. Naples. The railway station. Can you deny it?"
In an instant Marina's face changed completely; she looked serious,
alarmed. Her colour mounted.
"You're making a mistake," she said curtly, with a look that seemed to
shut him out at once. "We've never been in Italy ... or any other foreign
country."
Petya knew this was not true.
"Yes, you have, you were wearing the same coat and the same black bow
in your hair!" he cried eagerly. "You walked along the platform with your
mother. And Maxim Gorky was there. Our train started and I leaned out of the
window and looked at you, and you looked back at me. Wasn't that so? Didn't
you look at me? Can you deny it?"
She frowned and shook her head in silence, but the deep colour did not
leave her face, even her chin was red. She was beginning to be angry.
"Can you deny it? Can you?" Petya insisted.
"Nothing of the kind ever happened, you've just dreamed it!"
"I even know where you were going. Shall I tell you? Well? To Paris!"
cried Petya with a kind of bitter triumph.
She shook her head land the colour began to leave her face.
"Marie Rose, Longjumeau," said Petya softly, impressively, looking bard
into her eyes and enjoying her discomfiture.
She turned so pale that Petya was frightened. Then her face stiffened
in a look of contempt.
"You're making it all up," she said carelessly and even forced herself
to laugh, a strange laugh that sounded so familiar.
Suddenly he realized it was Vera's mermaid laugh from The Precipice,
and he himself was the miserable Raisky.
"Remember once and for all that nothing of the sort ever happened,"
Marina said. She turned and walked rapidly back towards the house.
Petya ran after her.
"Don't follow me," she said without turning.
"Marina, wait a bit ... but why?" Petya groaned piteously.
She turned, let her eyes travel over him from head to foot with a
contemptuous look, said, "Babbler!" and ran home.
Petya had never expected the long-awaited rendezvous to end in fiasco.
He was completely puzzled by her anger. All he knew was that he had lost
her, if not for ever, at least for a very long time. And when? At the very
moment everything was perfect, when dusk was creeping over the steppe and a
great moon hung over the distant hills, with a pale light like the glow of a
paper lantern.
CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES
For some days after that Marina did not appear at all. Petya tossed a
number of notes in through the window, trying on various pretexts to lure
her to meet him, even promising to reveal some tremendously important
secret, but nothing helped. And he realized he had lost her for ever.
He was in despair. And his despair was deepened by the fact that there
was absolutely nobody to whom he could confide his unsuccessful romance,
pour out in eloquent words his "tormented soul," as Petya mentally described
the painful sting of hurt pride. So Gavrik's appearance was a godsend.
He turned up quite suddenly, as was his wont of late. Petya saw him
standing in the orchard, but it was a puzzle how he had got there. Not
through the gate, that was certain, for Petya himself had been standing
there all the time, watching to see whether anyone would go to fetch
kerosene.
Gavrik had a worn textbook tricked under his belt and carried an
exercise book rolled into a tube with which he kept angrily striking his
knee. In general, his look was sombre.
"Hullo, come to study a bit?"
"No, to catch sparrows," Gavrik answered curtly.
Petya chose a shady spot with a view of the cottage, and they sat down
among the chamomiles beneath a cherry tree.
"Well, what have you got there?" asked Petya languidly.
"I have to learn De hello Gallico."
"Aha. Now listen, and I'll explain it all. The point is that De hello
Gallico was written by Caesar. He was called Gaius Julius and he was the
Roman emperor who-"
"I know all that. I have to read it and translate it, and learn the
first chapter by heart."
"All right, we can do that," said Petya obligingly. "Open your book and
start translating."
"I've done the translation," said Gavrik.
"What do you want, then?"
"I've got to learn the first chapter. And that's far worse than
learning poetry so far as I'm concerned."
"But it is necessary," Petya said didactically, gradually slipping into
the role of teacher. "Give me your book, I'll read aloud and you repeat
everything after me."
"But don't you know it by heart?" asked Gavrik suspiciously.
Petya, however, ignored this indiscreet question; he took the book out
of Gavrik's hand and began reading with great expression:
"Gallia est omnis divisa in paries tres. Repeat that."
"Gallia est omnis divisa in paries ires" Gavrik repeated, his forehead
deeply creased.
"Good!" said Petya. "Now-"
But at that moment he thought he saw a movement by the cottage. He
craned his neck to see better.
"No good looking over there," Gavrik said quietly.
Petya started.
"How did you guess?" he asked, blushing. They knew one another too well
for pretence.
"Oh, don't play the bread-and-butter miss!" snapped Gavrik. "Anyone
might think the Pavlovskayas had dropped down from the skies. You know very
well it was we who sent them-to keep them out of the way of the police. You
need a head on your shoulders, not a turnip. They're not just ordinary
people getting out of the summer heat, they're in hiding," he said
incisively. "And they're working. And then you had to start off with all
that romantic nonsense! All right, amuse yourself with it if you like, but
don't bother them with your talk. And that's just what you've been doing.
'Why, I know you. Why, I saw you abroad! Marie Rose, Longjumeau!' Have you