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He stepped up to Nina, but she did not so much as glance at him. Her hand lay limp and cold in his trembling hand as he clasped it. Instead of responding to his greeting she turned her head to Beta and exchanged some trivial remarks with her. He read into that hasty manoeuvre of hers something guilty, something cowardly that shrank from a forthright answer. He felt his knees give way, and a chill feeling came into his mouth. He did not know what to think. Even if Nina had let out her secret to her mother, she could have said to him by one of those swift, eloquent glances that women instinctively command, “Yes, you’ve guessed right, she does know about our talk. But I haven’t changed, dear, I haven’t changed, don’t worry.” But she had preferred to turn away. “Never mind, I’ll get an answer from her at the picnic,” he thought, with a vague presentiment of something disastrous and dastardly. “She’ll have to tell me anyway.”
X
At the 200th Mile stop the picnickers got out of the carriages and started for Beshenaya Balka in a long, colourful file down a narrow road that led past the watchman’s house. The pungent freshness of autumnal woods floated to their flushed faces from afar. The road grew steeper and steeper, disappearing beneath a dark canopy of hazel bushes and honeysuckle. Dead leaves, yellow and curled, rustled underfoot. A scarlet sunset showed through the thicket far ahead.
The bushes ended. A wide clearing, flattened and strewn with fine sand, came into view unexpectedly. At one end of it stood an octagonal pavilion decked with bunting and greenery, and at the other was a covered platform for the band. As soon as the first couples came out of the thicket the band struck up a lively march. The gay brass sounds sped playfully through the woods, reverberating among the trees and merging far away into another band that sometimes seemed to outrace, and sometimes to lag behind the first. In the pavilion waiters were bustling round the tables, set in a U shape and covered with white cloths.
As soon as the hand stopped the picnickers broke into enthusiastic applause. They had reason to be delighted, for only a fortnight ago the clearing had been a hillside scantily covered with shrubs.
The band began to play a waltz.
Bobrov saw Svezhevsky, who was standing beside Nina, at once put his arm round her waist without asking permission and whirl with her about the clearing.
Scarcely had he released her when a mining student ran up to her, land then someone else. Bobrov was a poor dancer; he did not care for dancing. Nevertheless, it occurred to him to invite Nina for a quadrille. “It may give me a chance to ask for an explanation,” he thought. He walked over to her when, having danced two turns, she sat down, fanning herself.
“I hope you’ve reserved a quadrille for me, Nina Grigoryevna?”
“Oh, my goodness! Such a pity. I’ve promised all my quadrilles,” she replied, without looking at him. “You have? So soon?” Bobrov said thickly. “Of course.” She shrugged her shoulders, impatiently and ironically. “Why do you come so late? I gave away all my quadrilles while we were on the train.”
“So you completely forgot about me,” he said sadly. His tone moved Nina. She nervously folded and opened her fan, but did not look up.
“It’s ail your fault. Why didn’t you ask me before?” “I only came to this picnic because I wanted to see you. Was the whole thing simply a joke, Nina Grigoryevna?” She made no answer, fumbling with her fan in confusion. She was rescued by a young engineer who rushed up to her. Quickly she rose and, without glancing at Bobrov, laid her thin hand in a long white glove on the engineer’s shoulder. Bobrov followed her with his eyes. After dancing one turn she sat down at the other end of the clearing – no doubt purposely, he thought. She seemed almost afraid of him, or else she felt ashamed in his presence.
The dull, listless melancholy, so long familiar to him, gripped him afresh. All the faces about him appeared vulgar and pitiful, almost comical. The cadeneed beat of the music resounded painfully in his brain. But he had not yet lost hope and sought comfort in various conjectures. “She may be cross with me because I didn’t send her flowers. Or perhaps she simply doesn’t care to dance with a clumsy bear like me? Well, she’s probably right. These trifles mean such an awful lot to girls. In fact, they make up all their joys and sorrows, all the poetry of their lives.”
At dusk Chinese lanterns were lit in long chains round the pavilion. But it was not enough – they shed hardly any light on the clearing. Suddenly the bluish light of two electric suns, carefully camouflaged in the foliage until then, flared up blindingly at both ends of the clearing. The surrounding birches and hornbeams stood out instantly. Their motionless curly boughs, brought out by the unnatural glare, looked like stage scenery set in the foreground. In the grey-green haze beyond them, the round and jagged tops of other trees were dimly silhouetted against a pitch black sky. The music could not drown the chirping of grasshoppers in the steppe, a strange chorus that sounded like a single grasshopper chirping simultaneously to right and left and overhead.
The ball went on, growing livelier and noisier as one dance followed another, the band being given hardly any respite. The women were drunk with music and the fairytale setting.
The smell of perfume and heated bodies mixed oddly with the scent of wormwood, withering leaves, and damp woods, with the remote, subtle fragrance of new-mown hay. Fans were waving everywhere like the wings of beautifully coloured birds about to take flight. Loud conversation, laughter, and the shuffling of feet on the sand-strewn earth blended into a monotonous yet lively hubbub that sounded extra loud whenever the band stopped playing.
Bobrov did not take his eyes off Nina. Once or twice she almost brushed him with her dress. He even felt a whiff of air as she swept past. While she danced her left arm lay on her partner’s shoulder, bent gracefully and with seeming helplessness, and she tilted her head as if she were going to put it on his shoulder. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of the lace edging of her white petticoat flying with her rapid motion, and of her black-stockinged little foot, with a fine ankle and steeply curving calf. At such moments he somehow felt ashamed, and was angry with all who could see her.
The mazurka came. It was already about nine o’clock. Profiting by the moment when her partner, Svezhevsky, who was conducting the mazurka, got busy with an intricate figure, Nina ran to the dressing-room, lightly gliding to the rhythm of the music and holding her dishevelled hair with both hands. Bobrov, who saw this from the far end of the clearing, hastily followed her, and placed himself by the door. It was almost dark there; the small dressing-room, built of planks behind the pavilion, was hidden in dense shade. Bobrov decided to wait till Nina came out and to make her speak. His heart was throbbing painfully; his fingers, which he clenched nervously, were moist and cold.
Nina stepped out five minutes later. Bobrov walked out of the shade and barred her way. She started back with a faint cry.
“Why are you torturing me like this, Nina Grigoryevna?” said Bobrov, clasping his hands in an involuntary gesture of entreaty. “Don’t you see how you hurt me? Ah! You’re making fun of my sorrow. You’re laughing at me.”
“I don’t understand what you want,” replied Nina, with wilful arrogance. “I never dreamed of laughing at you.”
It was her family traits showing through.
“You didn’t?” said Bobrov dejectedly. “Then what’s the meaning of your behaviour tonight?”
“What behaviour?”
“You’re cold to me, almost hostile. You keep turning, away from me. My very presence is disagreeable to you.”
“It makes absolutely no difference to me.”
“That’s worse still. I sense that some dreadful change I can’t understand has come over you. Please be frank, Nina, be as truthful as I thought you were till today. Tell me the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. We’d better settle the matter once and for all.”
“What is there to settle? I don’t know what you mean.”
Bobrov pressed his hands to his temples in which the blood was pulsating feverishly.
“O yes, you do. Don’t pretend. There is something to settle. We said loving words to each other, words that were almost a confession, we lived some beautiful moments that wove tender and delicate bonds between us. I know you’ll be telling me I’m mistaken. Perhaps I am. But wasn’t it you who told me to come to this picnic so that we might talk without being disturbed?”
Nina suddenly felt sorry for him.
“Yes, I did ask you to come,” she said, bending her head low. “I was going to tell you – to tell you that we must part for ever.”
“He reeled as if he had been struck in the chest. The pallor which spread over his face could be seen even in the dark.
“Part?” he gasped. “Nina Grigoryevna! Parting words are hard and bitter. Don’t say them!”
“I must.”
“You must?”
“Yes. It isn’t I who want it.”
“Who then?”
Someone was approaching them. Nina peered into the darkness.
“Here’s who,” she whispered.
It was Anna Afanasyevna. She eyed Bobrov and Nina suspiciously and took her daughter by the hand.
“Why did you run away, Nina?” she said in tone of censure. “Standing here chattering in the darkness. A fine thing to do, indeed. And here I am looking for you in every corner. As for you, sir,” she said suddenly, in a loud railing voice, turning to Bobrov, “if you can’t or don’t care to dance yourself, you should at least keep out of the way of young ladies, instead of compromising them by tete-a-tetes in shady nooks.”
She walked oft”, towing Nina after her.
“Don’t worry, madam, nothing can compromise your young lady!” Bobrov shouted after her, and suddenly he burst into laughter so strange and bitter that mother and daughter could not help looking back.
“There! Didn’t I tell you he was a fool and an impudent fellow?” Anna Afanasyevna tugged at Nina’s hand. “You can spit in his face, but still he’ll laugh and get over it. Now the ladies are going to pick partners,” she added more calmly. “Go and invite Kvashnin. He’s just finished playing. There he is, in the doorway of the pavilion.”
“But, Mother! How can he dance? He can hardly move.”
“Do as I tell you. He was once considered one of the best dancers in Moscow. Anyway, he’ll be pleased.”
A grey mist swam before Bobrov’s eyes. In it he saw Nina run nimbly across the clearing and stop in front of Kvashnin with a coquettish smile, her head tilted to one side in enticing appeal. Kvashnin listened to her, bending slightly over her. Suddenly a guffaw rocked his huge frame, and he shook his head. Nina insisted for a long time, then made a sulky face, and turned to walk away. But Kvashnin overtook her with an agility that contrasted with his size, and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Well, it can’t be helped. You’ve got to humour children.” He put out his hand to Nina. All the dancers stopped, staring at the new pair with curiosity. The sight of Kvashnin dancing a mazurka promised to be very funny.
Kvashnin waited for the beat and, suddenly turning to his partner with a heavy grace that was majestic in its own way, did his first step with such confident dexterity that everyone sensed in him a former excellent dancer.
Looking down at Nina, with a proud, challenging, and gay turn of his head, he at first walked rather than danced to the music with an elastic, slightly waddling gait. It seemed that his enormous height and bulk, far from handicapping him, added at the moment to the ponderous grace of his figure. As he reached the curve he halted for a second, clicked his heels, swung Nina round, and sped smoothly on his thick, springy legs across the centre of the clearing, an indulgent smile on his face. In front of the spot where he had started the dance, he again whirled her in a swift, graceful movement, and suddenly seating her on a chair, stood facing her with bowed head.
Ladies surrounded him at once, begging him to dance another turn. But the unaccustomed effort had exhausted him, and he was panting as he fanned his face with his handkerchief.
“That’ll do, mesdames, have pity on an old man,” he said, laughing and breathing heavily. “I’m past the dancing age. Let’s have supper instead.”
The picnickers started to take their seats at the tables, moving the chairs up with a grating noise. Bobrov remained standing where Nina had left him. He was alternately agonized by a feeling of humiliation and by a hopeless, desperate anguish. There were no tears, but he felt a burning sensation in his eyes, and a dry, prickly lump clogged his throat. The music continued to echo in his brain with painful monotony.
“Why, I’ve been looking for you for such a long time!” he heard the doctor’s cheerful voice beside him. “Where have you been hiding? The moment I arrived they dragged me to the card table. I’ve just managed to get away. Let’s go and have some food. I’ve reserved two seats so that we can eat together.”
“Go along yourself, doctor!” replied Bobrov with an effort. “I’m not coming – I don’t feel like eating.”
“You aren’t coming? Well, well!” The doctor gazed fixedly at Bobrov’s face. “But, my dear friend, what’s the matter with you? You’re quite down in the mouth.” He was now speaking with earnest sympathy. “Say what you like, I won’t leave you alone. Come along, don’t let’s argue any more.”
“I feel shabby, doctor, I feel terrible,” said Bobrov softly as he mechanically followed Goldberg who was pulling him away.
“Nonsense, come along! Be a man, snap your fingers at the whole thing. ‘Would your heart be aching sorely, or your conscience put to test?’ “ he recited, putting his arm round Bobrov in a strong friendly embrace and looking affectionately into his eyes. “I’m going to prescribe a universal remedy: ‘Lets have a drink, friend Vanya, to warm our hearts!’ To tell you the truth, I’ve had a fair load of cognac with that man Andreas. How he drinks, that son of a gun! Come, be a man. You know, Andreas is very much interested in you. Come on!”
As he spoke the doctor dragged Bobrov into the pavilion. They sat down side by side. Bobrov’s other table companion turned out to be Andreas.
He had been smiling at Bobrov from some way off; now he made room for him to sit down and patted his back affectionately.
“Very glad to have you here with us,” he said in a friendly voice. “You’re a nice chap – the sort of man I like. Cognac?”
He was drunk. His glassy eyes shone with a strange light in his pale face. Not until six months later was it discovered that every evening this irreproachably reserved, hard-working, gifted man drank himself unconscious in complete solitude.
“I might really feel better if I had a drink,” Bobrov thought. “I must try, damn it!”
Andreas was waiting, holding the bottle tilted and ready. Bobrov put up a tumbler.
“Want to use that?” asked Andreas, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes,” replied Bobrov, with a meek, melancholy smile.
“Good! Say when.”
“The glass’ll say.”
“Splendid. One might think you’d served in the Swedish Navy. Enough?”
“Keep pouring.”
“But, my friend, don’t forget this is Martel of the VSOP brand – real, strong old cognac.”
“Keep pouring – don’t worry.”
“Well, suppose I do get soaked,” he said to himself with malice. “Let her see it.”
The glass was full. Andreas put down the bottle and curiously watched Bobrov who gulped down the liquor at a draught, and shuddered.
“Is anything eating you, my child?” asked Andreas, looking earnestly into Bobrov’s eyes.
“Yes.” Bobrov shook his head dolefully.
“Gnawing at your heart?”
“Yes.”
“Humph! Then you’ll want more.”
“Fill it,” said Bobrov, sadly submissive.
He guzzled cognac with disgust, trying hard to dull his pain. But, strangely enough, the liquor had not the least effect on him. In fact, he felt sadder as he drank, and tears burned his eyes more than ever.
Meanwhile the waiters passed champagne round. Kvashnin rose from his seat, holding his glass with two fingers and peering through it at the light of the high candelabrum. A hush fell. All that could be heard was the hissing of the arc lamps and the tireless chirring of a grasshopper.
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