‘If I were told to choose between Nadenka and her, I would choose her… She’s more natural, fresher, her nature is more generous, bolder… If she fell into good hands, much could be made of her! The other is morose, visionary… clever.’
Lying at Olenka’s feet there were two pieces of linen and several parcels.
‘What a number of purchases you have made!’ I said. ‘What will you do with so much linen?’
‘That’s not all I need!’ Olenka replied. ‘I’ve bought other things too. Today I was a whole hour buying things in the market; tomorrow I must go to make purchases in the town… And then all this has to be made up… I say, don’t you know any woman who would go out to sew?’
‘No, I think not… But why have you to buy so many things? Why have they to be sewn? God knows your family is not large… One, two… there I’ve counted you all…’
‘How queer all you men are! You don’t understand anything! Wait till you get married, you yourself will be angry then if after the wedding your wife comes to you all slovenly. I know Pëtr Egorych is not in want of anything. Still, it seems a bit awkward not to appear as a good housewife from the first…’
‘What has Pëtr Egorych to do with it?’
‘Hm! You are laughing at me, as if you don’t know!’ Olenka said and blushed slightly.
‘Young lady, you are talking in riddles.’
‘Have you really not heard? Why, I am going to marry Pëtr Egorych!’
‘Marry?’ I said in astonishment, my eyes growing large. ‘What Pëtr Egorych?’
‘Oh, good Lord! Urbenin, of course!’
I stared at her blushing and smiling face.
‘You? Going to marry… Urbenin? What a joke!’
‘It’s not a joke at all…I really can’t understand where you see the joke…’
‘You to marry… Urbenin…’ I repeated, turning pale, I really don’t know why. if this is not a joke, what is it?’
‘What joke! I can’t understand what is so extraordinary — what is so strange in it?’ Olenka said, pouting.
A minute passed in silence… I gazed at the pretty girl, at her young, almost childish face, and was astonished that she could make such terrible jokes! I instantly pictured to myself Urbenin, elderly, fat, red-faced with his protruding ears and hard hands, whose very touch could only scratch that young female body which had scarcely begun to live… Surely the thought of such a picture must frighten this pretty wood fay, who could see the poetry in the sky when it is reft by lightning and thunder growls angrily! I, even I, was frightened!
‘It’s true he’s a little old,’ Olenka sighed, ‘but he loves me… His love is trustworthy.’
‘It’s not a matter of trustworthy love, but of happiness…’
‘I shall be happy with him… He has means, thank God, and he’s no pauper, no beggar, but a nobleman. Of course, I’m not in love with him, but are only those who marry for love happy? Oh, I know those marriages for love!’
‘My child, when have you had time to stuff your brain with this terrible worldly wisdom?’ I asked. ‘Admitted that you are joking with me, but where have you learned to joke in such a vulgar, adult way?… Where? When?’
Olenka looked at me with astonishment and shrugged her shoulders.
‘I don’t understand what you are saying,’ she said. ‘You don’t like to see a young girl marry an old man? Is that so?’
Olenka suddenly blushed all over, her chin moved nervously, and without waiting for my answer she rattled on rapidly.
‘This does not please you? Then perhaps you’d like to try living in the wood — with nothing to amuse you but a few sparrow-hawks and a mad father — and waiting until a young suitor comes along! You liked it the other evening, but if you saw it in winter, when one only wishes… that death might come—’
‘Oh, all this is absurd, Olenka, it is childish, silly! If you are not joking… Truly I don’t know what to say! You had better be silent and not offend the air with your tongue. I, in your place, would have hanged myself on the nearest tree, and you buy linen… and smile. Ach!’
‘In any case, with his means he will be able to have father cured,’ she whispered.
‘How much do you need for your father’s cure?’ I cried. ‘Take it from me — a hundred? Two hundred?… A thousand? Olenka, it’s not your father’s cure that you want!’
The news Olenka had communicated to me had excited me so much that I had not even noticed that the wagonette had driven past my village, or how it had turned into the Count’s yard and stopped at the bailiff’s porch. When I saw the children run out, and the smile on Urbenin’s face, who also had rushed out to help Olenka down, I jumped out of the wagonette and ran into the Count’s house without even taking leave. Here further news awaited me.
CHAPTER XII
How opportune! How opportune!’ the Count cried as he greeted me and scratched my cheek with his long, pointed moustache. ‘You could not have chosen a happier time! We have only just sat down to luncheon… Of course, you are acquainted… You have doubtless often come across each other in your legal department… Ha, ha!’
With both hands the Count pointed to two men who, seated in soft armchairs, were partaking of cold tongue. In one I had the vexation of recognizing the Justice of the Peace, Kalinin; the other, a little grey-haired man with a large moonlike bald pate, was my good friend, Babaev, a rich landowner who occupied the post of perpetual member of our district council. Having exchanged bows, I looked with astonishment at Kalinin. I knew how much he disliked the Count and what reports he had set in circulation in the district about the man at whose table he was now eating tongue and green peas with such appetite and drinking ten-year-old liqueur. How could a respectable man explain such a visit? The Justice of the Peace caught my glance and evidently understood it.
‘I have devoted this day to visits,’ he said to me. ‘I am driving round the whole district… And, as you see, I have also called upon his Excellency…’
Ilya brought a fourth cover. I sat down, drank a glass of vodka, and began to lunch.
‘It’s wrong, your Excellency, very wrong!’ Kalinin said, continuing the conversation my entrance had interrupted. ‘It’s no sin for us little people, but you are an illustrious man, a rich man, a brilliant man… It’s a sin for you to fail.’
‘That’s quite true; it’s a sin,’ Babaev acquiesced.
‘What’s this all about?’ I asked.
‘Nikolai Ignat’ich has given me a good idea!’ the Count said, nodding to the justice of the peace. ‘He came to me… We sat down to lunch, and I began complaining of being bored…’
‘And he complained to me of being bored,’ Kalinin interrupted the Count. ‘Boredom, melancholy… this and that… In a word, disillusionment. A sort of Onegin. “Your Excellency,” I said, “you’re yourself to blame…”
“How so?”
“Quite simply… In order not to be bored,” I said, “accept some office… occupy yourself with the management of your estate… Farming is excellent, wonderful…” He tells me he intends to occupy himself with farming, but still he is bored… What fails him is, so to speak, the entertaining, the stimulating element. There is not the — how am I to express myself? - er - strong sensations…’
‘Well, and what idea