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“To hell with it all! I can’t bear those engineers’ dinners.” Bobrov made a grimace. “Bragging, yelling, fawning on each other, and then those invariable drunken toasts when the speakers spill their wine on themselves or their neighbours. Disgusting!”
“Yes, you’re quite right.” The doctor laughed. “I saw the beginning. Kvashnin was splendid. ‘Gentlemen! he said, ‘the engineer’s calling is a lofty and important one. Along with railways, blast-furnaces, and mines he carries into the remote corners of the country the seeds of education, the flowers of civilization, and – ’ He mentioned some sort of fruits, but I don’t remember which. A super-swindler if there ever was one! ‘So let us rally, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘and bear high the sacred banner of our beneficent art!’ He got furious applause, of course.”
They walked on a few paces in silence. Suddenly a shadow came over the doctor’s face.
“Beneficent art, is it!” he said angrily. “And the workmen’s barracks are built of chips. No end of sick people, children dying like flies. That’s what they call seeds of education! They are in for a nice surprise when typhoid fever breaks loose in Ivankovo.”
“But, doctor! Do you mean to say there’ve been cases already? It would be dreadful with their barracks crammed the way they are.”
The doctor stopped to catch his breath.
“What did you think?” he said with bitterness. “Two men were brought in yesterday. One of them died this morning, and the other’s sure to die tonight, if he hasn’t died yet. And we have neither medicines, beds, nor skilled nurses. Just wait, they’ll pay for it yet!” he added angrily, shaking his fist at someone invisible.
VIII
Busy-bodies had begun to wag their tongues. Even before Kvashnin arrived there were so many piquant stories bandied about the mill that now no one doubted the real motive of his sudden intimacy with the Zinenko family. The ladies spoke about it with ambiguous smiles and the men, talking among themselves, called a spade a spade with frank cynicism. But nobody knew anything for certain. Everyone was agog for a spicy scandal.
The gossip was not wholly groundless. After paying a visit to the Zinenko family Kvashnin began to spend all his evenings with them. About eleven o’clock every morning, his fine troika of greys would pull up at the Shepetovka estate, and the driver would invariably announce, “My master begs the lady and the young ladies to have breakfast with him.” No other people were invited to those breakfasts. The food was prepared by a French cook whom Kvashnin always took with him on his frequent trips, even when he went abroad.
Kvashnin’s attentions to his new acquaintances were of a most peculiar nature. Towards the five girls he at once assumed the blunt manner of a genial unmarried uncle. In three days he was calling them by their diminutive names, to which he added their patronymic; as for the youngest, Kasya, he often took her by the plump, dimpled chin and teased her by calling her a “baby” and a “chick,” which made her blush to tears although she did not protest.
Anna Afanasyevna reproached him with playful querulousness, saying that he would completely spoil her girls. Indeed, no sooner did any one of them express a fleeting wish than it was fulfilled. Hardly did Maka mention, quite innocently, that she would like to learn bicycle-riding when, the very next day, a messenger brought from Kharkov an excellent bicycle, which must have cost no less than three hundred rubles. He lost ten pounds of sweets to Beta, with whom he made a bet over some trifle, and for Kasya[3 - In Russian the name Kasya is spelt with four letters, the last corresponding to ya. – Tr.], as a result of another bet, he bought a brooch set with a coral, an amethyst, a sapphire, and a jasper, indicating the letters of her name.
Once he heard that Nina was fond of riding. Two days after, there was brought to her an English thoroughbred mare, perfectly broken in for lady riders. The young ladies were fascinated by this kind fairy who could guess, and at once fulfil, their every whim. Anna Afanasyevna had a vague feeling that there was something improper about this generosity, but she lacked both the courage and the tact to make that clear to Kvashnin in a discreet manner. Whenever she obsequiously reprimanded him, he would dismiss the matter with a wave of his hand, saying in his rough, firm voice, “It’s all right, my dear, stop worrying about trifles.”
Nevertheless, he did not show preference for any one of her daughters but tried to please them all alike, and unceremoniously made sport of all of them. The young men who had once called at the house had obligingly disappeared, but Svezhevsky had become a habitue, whereas formerly he had called no more than twice or three times in all. No one had asked him to come – he came of his own accord, as if at some mysterious invitation, and at once managed to become indispensable to all the members of the family.
However, a little incident preceded his appearance in the Zinenko house. About five months ago he had let fall among his colleagues that he dreamt of becoming a millionaire some day and was sure he would by the time he was forty.
“But how?” they had asked him.
Svezhevsky had tittered and answered, rubbing his moist hands mysteriously, “All roads lead to Rome.”
He felt intuitively that the situation at the Shepetovka estate was shaping most favourably for his future career. Anyway, he might be of service to his all-powerful superior. So he staked his all and boldly thrust himself into Kvashnin’s presence with his servile titter. He made advances to him as a gay pup might to a ferocious mastiff, both his face and his voice suggesting his constant readiness to do anything, however dirty, at a wink from Kvashnin.
Kviashnin did not mind it. He, who used to sack factory directors and managers without bothering to give the reason, silently put up with the presence of a Svezhevsky. There must be an important service afoot, and the future millionaire was eagerly biding his time.
Passed on by word of mouth, the rumour reached Bobrov’s ear. He was not surprised, for he had formed a firm and accurate opinion of the Zinenko family. The only thing which vexed him was that the gossip was bound to brush Nina with its filthy tail. After the talk at the station, the girl had become dearer to him than ever. To him alone she had trustingly revealed her soul, a soul that was beautiful even in its vacillation and weakness. Everybody else knew only her costume and appearance, he thought. Jealousy – with its cynical distrust, with the constantly piqued pride attending it, with its pettiness and coarseness – was foreign to his trusting and delicate nature.
Bobrov had never yet known the warmth of genuine, deep woman’s love. He was too shy and diffident to take from life what was perhaps his due. No wonder that his heart had rushed joyfully out to meet the new, strong feeling.
Throughout the last few days he had been under the spell of the talk they had had at the station. He recalled it again and again in minutest detail, each time seeing a deeper meaning in Nina’s words. Every morning he woke up with a vague feeling that something big and joyful had entered his soul, something that held out hopes of great felicity.
He was irresistibly drawn to the Zinenkos’; he wanted once more to make sure of his happiness, once more to hear from Nina those half-confessions – now timid, now naively bold. But he was restrained by Kvashnin’s presence, and he tried to set his mind at ease by telling himself that in no circumstances could Kvashnin stay in Ivankovo for more than a fortnight.
By a lucky chance he saw Nina before Kvashnin left. It happened on a Sunday, three days after the ceremony of blowing in the blast-furnace. Bobrov was riding on Fairway down a broad, hard-beaten road leading from the mill to the station. It was about two o’clock, and the day was cool and cloudless. Fairway was going along at a brisk pace, pricking up his ears and tossing his shaggy head. At a curve near a warehouse, Bobrov saw a lady in riding-habit coming downhill on a large bay, followed by a rider on a small white Kirghiz horse. Soon he recognized her as Nina wearing a long, flowing dark green skirt, yellow gauntlets, and a low, glossy top hat. She was sitting in the saddle with a confident grace. The slim English mare raised its slender legs high as it carried her along at a round, springy trot, its neck arched into a steep curve. Nina’s companion, Svezhevsky, was lagging far behind; working his elbows, jerking and bouncing, he was trying to catch the dangling stirrup with the toe of his boot.
As she sighted Bobrov Nina broke her mount into a gallop. Coming alongside Bobrov, she reined in the horse abruptly, and it began to fidget, dilating its fine wide nostrils, and fretting loudly at the bit which dripped lather. Nina’s face was flushed from the ride, and her hair, which had slipped out of the hat at the temples, fell back in long, thin curls.
“Where did you get such a beauty?” asked Bobrov, when he had at last managed to pull up the prancing Fairway and, bending forward in the saddle, squeeze Nina’s fingertips.
“Isn’t she? It’s a present from Kvashnin.”
“I would have refused a present like that,” said Bobrov rudely, angered by Nina’s careless reply.
Nina blushed.
“Just why?”
“Because – what’s Kvashnin to you, after all? A relative? Or your fiance?”
“Goodness, how squeamish you are on other people’s behalf!” Nina exclaimed caustically.
But seeing the pained look on his face, she softened at once.
“You know he can afford it easily. He’s so rich!”
Svezhevsky was now a dozen paces from them. Suddenly Nina bent forward to Bobrov, gently touched his hand with the tip of her whip, and said under her breath, in the tone of a little girl confessing her guilt, “Don’t be cross, now, please. I’ll give him back the horse, you grumpy man! You see how much your opinion means to me.”
Bobrov’s eyes shone with happiness, and he could not help holding out his hands to Nina. But he said nothing and merely drew a deep sigh. Svezhevsky was riding up, bowing and trying to sit his horse carelessly.
“I expect you know about our picnic?” he shouted from a distance.
“Never heard of it,” answered Bobrov.
“I mean the picnic that Vasily Terentyevich is getting up. We’re going to Beshenaya Balka.”
“Haven’t heard about it.”
“It’s true. Please come, Andrei Ilyich,” Nina put in. “Next Wednesday, at five o’clock. We’ll start from the station.”
“Is it a subscription picnic?”
“I think so. But I’m not certain.”
Nina looked questioningly at Svezhevsky.
“That’s right – a subscription picnic,” he confirmed. “Vasily Terentyevich has asked me to make certain arrangements. It’s going to be a stupendous affair, I can tell you. Something extra smart. But it’s a secret so far. You’ll be surprised.”
Nina could not help adding playfully, “I started all this. The other day I was saying that it would be fun to go on an outing to the woods, and Vasily Terentyevich – ”
“I’m not coming,” said Bobrov brusquely.
“Oh, yes, you are!” Nina’s eyes flashed. “Now march, gentlemen!” she cried, starting off at a gallop. “Listen to what I have to tell you, Andrei Ilyich!”
Svezhevsky was left behind. Nina and Bobrov were riding side by side, Nina smiling and looking into his eyes, and he frowning resentfully.
“Why, I thought up that picnic specially for you, my unkind, suspicious friend,” she said with deep tenderness. “I insist on knowing what it was you didn’t finish telling me at the station that time. Nobody’ll be in our way at the picnic.”
And once again an instant change came over Bobrov’s heart. He felt tears o-f tender emotion welling up in his eyes, and exclaimed passionately, “Oh, Nina, how I love you!”
But Nina did not seem to have heard his sudden confession. She drew in the reins and forced the horse to change to a walk.
“So you will come, won’t you?” she asked.
“Yes, by all means!”
“See that you do. And now let’s wait for my companion and – goodbye. I must be riding home.”
As he took leave of her he felt through the glove the warmth of her hand which responded with a long, firm grasp. Her dark eyes were full of love.
IX
At four o’clock next Wednesday, the station was packed with the picnickers. Everybody felt gay and at ease. For once Kvashnin’s visit was winding up more happily than anybody had dared to expect. He had neither stormed nor hurled thunderbolts at anyone, and nobody had been told to go; in fact, it was rumoured that most of the clerical staff would get a rise in the near future. Besides, the picnic bid fair to be very entertaining. Beshenaya Balka, where it was to be, was less than ten miles away if you rode on horseback, and the road was extremely picturesque. The sunny weather which had set in a week earlier enhanced the trip.
There were some ninety guests; they clustered in animated groups on the platform, talking and laughing loudly. French, German, and Polish phrases could be heard along with Russian conversation. Three Belgians had brought their cameras, hoping to take flash snapshots. General curiosity was roused by the complete secrecy about the details of the picnic. Svezhevsky with a mysterious and important air hinted at certain “surprises” but refused to be more specific.
The first surprise was a special train. At five o’clock sharp, a new ten-wheeled locomotive of American make left its shed. The ladies could not keep hack cries of amazement and delight: the huge engine was decked with bunting and fresh flowers. Green garlands of oak leaves, intermingled with bunches of asters, dahlias, stocks, and carnations, entwined its steel body in a spiral, wound up the chimney, hung from it down to the whistle, and climbed up again to form a blossoming wall against the cab. In the golden rays of the setting autumn sun, the steel and brass parts of the engine glistened showily through the greenery and flowers. The six first-class carriages stretching along the platform were to take the picnickers to the 200th Mile station, from which it was only two hundred yards or so to Beshenaya Balka.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Vasily Terentyevich has asked me to inform you that he’s paying all the picnic expenses,” Svezhevsky said again and again, hurrying from one group to another.
A large number of people flocked round him, and he gave them further explanations.
“Vasily Terentyevich was greatly pleased with the welcome extended to him here, and he is happy to be able to reciprocate. He’s paying all the expenses.”
Unable to restrain the kind of impulse which makes a valet boast of his master’s generosity, he added weightily, “We spent three thousand five hundred and ninety rubles on the picnic!”
“You mean you went halves with Mr. Kvashnin?” asked a mocking voice from behind. Svezhevsky spun round to find that the venomous question had come from Andreas, who, impassive as usual, was looking at him, hands deep in his trouser pockets.
“I beg your pardon? What was it you said, please?” asked Svezhevsky, his face reddening painfully.
“It was you who said something. ‘We spent three thousand’. you said, and so I assume that you meant yourself and Mr. Kvashnin. If that’s the case, it is my agreeable duty to tell you that, while I accept the favour from Mr. Kvashnin, I may very well refuse to accept it from Mr. Svezhevsky.”
“Oh, no, no! You’ve misunderstood me,” stammered Svezhevsky. “It’s Vasily Terentyevich who’s done it all. I’m simply – er – his confidant. An agent or something like that,” he added with a wry smile.
The Zinenkos, accompanied by Kvashnin and Shelkovnikov, arrived almost simultaneously with the train. But no sooner did Kvashnin alight from the carriage than a tragicomic incident occurred that no one could have foreseen. Since early morning, having heard about the planned picnic, workmen’s wives, sisters, and mothers had begun to gather at the station, many of them bringing their babies with them. With a look of stolid patience on their sunburnt, haggard faces, they had been sitting for many long hours on the station steps or on the ground, in the shadow cast by the walls. There were more than two hundred of them. Asked by the station staff what they wanted, they said they must see “the fat, red-headed boss.” The watchman tried to send them away but the uproar they raised made him give up the attempt and leave them alone.
Each carriage that pulled up caused a momentary stir among the women, but they settled back the moment they saw that this was not the “fat, red-headed boss.”
Hardly had Kvashnin stepped down on the footboard, clutching at the box, puffing and tilting the carriage, when the women closed in on him and dropped on their knees. The young, high-mettled horses shied and started at the noise of the crowd; it was all the driver could do to keep them in check by straining hard at the reins. At first Kvashnin could not make head or tail of it: the women were shouting all together, holding out their babies; tears were streaming down their bronzed faces.
Kvashnin saw that there was no breaking through the live ring in which he found himself.
“Quiet, women! Stop yelling!” he boomed, drowning their voices. “This isn’t a market, is it? I can’t hear a thing. Let one of you tell me what’s up.”
But each of the women thought she should be the one to speak. The hubbub grew louder, and the tears flew even more freely.
“Please, master, help us! We can’t stand it any more! It’s worn us thin! We’re dying – children and all! The cold’s just killing us!”
“Well, what do you want? What are you dying of?” Kvashnin bellowed again. “But don’t shout all at once! You there, speak up.” He poked his finger at a tall woman who was handsome in spite of the pallor of her weary face. “And let the others keep quiet!”
Most of the women stopped shouting, but continued to sob and wail softly, wiping their eyes and noses on the dirty hems of their skirts.
Even so, there were no less than twenty speaking at a time.
“We’re dying of cold, master! Please do something. It’s more than we can stand. They put us into barracks for the winter, but how can you live there? They call ‘em barracks, sure enough, but it’s chips they’re built of. Even now it’s terrible cold in them at night – makes your teeth chatter. And what: are we going to do in winter? At least have pity on our little ones – help us, dear master! At least get stoves built. There’s no place to cook our meals – we do our cooking outside. The men are at work all day, soaked and shivering. And when they get back home they can’t dry their clothes.”
Kvashnin was trapped. Whichever way he turned, his path was barred by prostrate or kneeling women. And when he tried to force his way out, they would cling to his feet and the skirts of his long grey coat. Seeing that he was helpless, he beckoned to Shelkovnikov and, when the other had elbowed his way through the dense crowd, he asked him angrily in French, “Did you hear? What’s the meaning of this?”
Shelkovnikov was taken aback.
“I wrote to the Board more than once,” he mumbled. “There was a shortage of labour – it was summer-time, mowing was on – and the high prices – the Board wouldn’t authorize it. It couldn’t be helped.”
“So when are you going to start rebuilding the workmen’s barracks?” asked Kvashnin sternly.
“I can’t tell for certain. They’ll have to put up with it somehow. We must first make haste about quarters for the clerical staff.”
“The outrageous things that are going on here under your management!” grumbled Kvashnin. He turned to the women and said aloud, “Listen, women! Tomorrow they’ll start building stoves for you, and they’ll roof your barracks with shingles. D’you hear?”
“Yes, master! Thank you so much! Of course we heard you!” cried joyous voices. “That’s fine – you can rely on it when the master himself has ordered it. Thank you! Please allow us also to pick up the chips at the building site.”
“All right, you may do that.”
“Because there are Circassians posted everywhere, and they threaten us with their whips when we come.”
“Never mind – you come and take the chips. Nobody’ll harm you,” Kvashnin said reassuringly. “And now, women, off you go and cook your soup! And be quick about it!” he shouted, with an encouraging dash. “Have a couple of cartloads of bricks delivered to the barracks tomorrow,” he said to Shelkovnikov in an undertone. “That’ll comfort them for a long time. Let them look and be happy.”
The women were scattering in quite a cheerful mood.
“Mind you, if those stoves aren’t built we’ll ask the engineers to come and warm us,” cried the woman whom Kvashnin had told to speak up for the others.
“So we shall!” added another woman pertly. “Then let the boss himself warm us. See how fat and jolly he is. We’ll he warmer with him than by the stove.”
This incident, which ended so happily, raised everybody’s spirits. Even Kvashnin, who at first had been frowning at the manager, laughed when the women asked to be warmed, and took Shelkovnikov by the elbow as a sign of reconciliation.
“You see, my friend,” he said to Shelkovnikov, heavily climbing up the station steps with him, “you must know how to talk to those people. You may promise them anything you like – aluminium homes, an eight-hour working day, or a steak every morning, but you must do it with a great deal of assurance. I swear I could put down the stormiest popular demonstration in half an hour with mere promises.”
Kvashnin got on the train, laughing heartily as he recalled the details of the women’s rebellion which he had just quelled. Three minutes later the train started. The coachmen were told to drive straight to Beshenaya Balka, as the company planned to come back by carriage, with torches.
Nina’s behaviour perplexed Bobrov. He had awaited her arrival at the station with an excited impatience that had beset him the night before. His former doubts were gone; he believed that happiness was near, and never had the world seemed to him so beautiful, people so kind, or life so easy and joyful, as they did now. As he thought of his meeting with Nina, he tried involuntarily to picture it in advance, composing tender, passionate and eloquent phrases and then laughing at himself. Why think up words of love? They would come of themselves when they were needed, and would be much more beautiful, much warmer.
He recalled a poem he had read in a magazine, in which the poet said to his sweetheart that they were not going to swear to each other because vows would have been an insult to their trusting and ardent love.
Bobrov saw the Zinenkos’ two carriages arrive after Kvashnin’s troika. Nina was in the first. Wearing a pale-yellow dress trimmed with broad lace of the same colour at the crescent-shaped low neck, and a broad-brimmed white Italian hat adorned with a bouquet of tea-roses, she seemed to him paler and graver than usual. She caught sight of him from afar, but did not give him a significant look as he would have expected. In fact, he fancied that she deliberately turned away from him. And when he ran up to the carriage to help her to alight, she jumped nimbly out on the other side, as if to forestall him. He felt a pang of foreboding, but hastened to reassure himself. “Poor Nina, she’s ashamed of her decision and her love. She imagines that now anyone can easily read her inmost thoughts in her eyes. The delightful naivete of it!”
He was sure that Nina would herself make an opportunity, as she had done previously at the station, to exchange a few confidential words with him. But she was apparently absorbed by Kvashnin’s parley with the women and she never looked back at Bobrov, not even stealthily. Suddenly his heart began to beat in alarm and anguish. He made up his mind to walk up to the Zinenko family who kept together in a close group – the other ladies seemed to cut them – and, taking advantage of the noise which held the general attention, ask Nina at least by a look why she was so indifferent to him.
Bowing to Anna Afanasyevna and kissing her hand, he tried to read in her eyes whether she knew anything. Yes, she dearly did: her thin, angular eyebrows – suggesting a false character, as Bobrov often thought – were knitted resentfully, and her lips wore a haughty expression. Bobrov inferred that Nina had told everything to her mother, who had scolded her.
