Smoke (Alma Classics) Page 10

  Litvinov rose from his chair and exchanged a bow with the handsome general. Irina, without hurrying, withdrew her hand from her face and, looking coldly at her spouse, said in French:

  “Ah! You’re back already. But what’s the time now?”

  “It’ll soon be four o’clock, ma chère amie* and you’re not yet ready. The Princess awaits us,” the General replied, inclining his corseted waist in the direction of Litvinov, and, with the characteristic, almost effeminate playfulness in his voice, added: “I see our esteemed guest has made you forget the time.”

  Readers will allow me at this point to impart some information regarding General Ratmirov. His father was the natural… What do you think? You are not mistaken – but we tried to avoid the words – the natural son of a famous grandee of the time of Alexander I and a pretty French actress. The grandee introduced his son into society, but left him no legacy. This son (the father of our hero) also failed to enrich himself and died a chief of police, with the rank of colonel. A year before his death he married a young widow who had resorted to his protection. Their son Valerian Vladimirovich, who had entered the Corps des pages* thanks to his father’s influence, soon attracted the attention of his superiors, not so much through his academic prowess as through his military bearing, good manners and behaviour (although he was subjected to everything that former pupils at state military institutions are inevitably subjected to) and entered the Guards. He made a brilliant career for himself, thanks to his modest and cheerful disposition, his skill at dancing, his expert riding on parades as an orderly, mainly on other people’s horses, and, finally, a certain special skill in treating superiors familiarly but respectfully while displaying gentle but mournful subservience, not without an admixture of vague liberalism. This liberalism did not, however, prevent him from flogging fifty peasants in a Belorussian village which had risen in rebellion and which he had been sent to pacify. His appearance was attractive and unusually youthful; smooth-skinned, ruddy, lithe and persistent, he enjoyed remarkable success with women. Aristocratic old ladies were simply mad about him. Careful by habit, taciturn by design, General Ratmirov, like a busy bee which extracts nectar from even the worst flowers, constantly did the rounds in high society. Both amoral and ill-informed, but with a reputation for getting things done, with the perspicacity of a peasant and an understanding of circumstances, and, most importantly, with an unbendingly firm desire to better himself, he finally saw all avenues open to him.

  Litvinov smiled awkwardly, but Irina merely shrugged her shoulders.

  “Well then,” she said in the same cold tone. “Did you see the Count?”

  “Of course I did. He asked to be remembered to you.”

  “Ah! Is he still as stupid as ever, this patron of yours?”

  General Ratmirov made no answer, but merely gave a slightly nasal laugh, as if condescending to the impulsiveness of female judgement. Kindly adults use this laugh to answer the nonsensical sallies of children.

  “Yes,” Irina added, “the stupidity of your Count is all too striking, and I seem to have had my fill of contemplating it.”

  “You sent me to him yourself,” the General remarked through gritted teeth and, turning to Litvinov, asked him in Russian whether he was taking the waters at Baden.

  “Thanks be, I’m in good health,” Litvinov replied.

  “That’s the best thing to be,” the General continued, grinning amiably. “Anyway, people don’t usually come to Baden to get cured. But the local waters are very effective, je veux dire, efficaces,* and anyone suffering from a nervous cough, as I am, for instance—”

  Irina quickly rose to her feet.

  “We’ll meet again, Grigory Mikhailovich, and soon, I hope,” she said in French, contemptuously interrupting her husband. “But now I must go and dress. That old Princess is insufferable with her endless parties de plaisir,* where there’s nothing but boredom.”

  “You’re very hard on everyone today,” her spouse muttered, slipping away into another room.

  Litvinov made for the door. Irina stopped him.

  “You’ve told me everything,” she said, “but you’ve missed out the most important thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you getting married, as people say?”

  Litvinov blushed to the roots of his hair. He had indeed deliberately refrained from mentioning Tanya; but he became extremely irritated, firstly because Irina knew about his wedding and secondly because she had, as it were, caught him trying to conceal the wedding from her. He was at a complete loss as to what to say, but Irina did not take her eyes off him.

  “Yes, I’m getting married,” he said at last, and withdrew.

  Ratmirov came back into the room.

  “What’s this – you’re not getting dressed?” he asked.

  “Go on your own. I’ve got a headache.”

  “But the Princess…”

  Irina gave her husband a look, measuring him from top to toe, turned her back on him and went off to her room.

  13

  Litvinov was extremely angry with himself, as if he had lost at roulette or failed to keep his word. An inner voice told him that, as a man about to be married, as a man of mature years, no longer a boy, he ought not to give way either to the promptings of curiosity or the seductive charm of reminiscence.

  “My visit was totally unnecessary,” he reasoned. “On her part it’s mere coquettishness, a whim, a caprice. She’s bored. She’s fed up with everything, so she’s clung to me. A gourmet sometimes fancies some black bread. Fine. Then why did I run? Is it possible that I don’t despise her?” He uttered this last word with some difficulty. “Of course, there’s no danger in this at all, nor can there be,” he reasoned further. “After all, I know who I’m dealing with. But all the same, one mustn’t play with fire. I shan’t set foot in her place.” Litvinov did not dare to or could not admit to himself how beautiful Irina seemed to him and how strongly she aroused his feelings.

  The day again passed dully and insipidly. At dinner Litvinov found himself sitting next to an imposing bel homme* with a dyed moustache, who said nothing but merely wheezed and stared. Suddenly, however, he hiccupped and announced himself to be a compatriot of Litvinov by remarking forcefully in Russian: “And I said we shouldn’t eat melons.” In the evening, likewise, nothing occurred by way of consolation; Litvinov saw Bindasov win a sum four times greater than the sum he had lent him, but not only did he not repay his debt, he even looked threateningly straight at Litvinov, as if to punish him even more exquisitely, precisely because he had witnessed his win. The following morning a horde of Litvinov’s compatriots again descended. Litvinov just about got rid of them and, as he set off for the mountains, he first ran into Irina – whom he pretended not to recognize and went quickly past – then Potugin. He wanted to talk to Potugin but he answered unwillingly. He was leading by the hand a well-dressed little girl with fluffy, almost white ringlets, large dark eyes and a pale, sickly face which bore that particular hortatory and impatient expression which is characteristic of spoilt children. Litvinov spent a couple of hours in the mountains and was returning home along the Lichtentaler Allee. A lady sitting on a bench, with a blue veil over her face, quickly rose to her feet and approached him… He recognized Irina.

  “Why are you avoiding me, Grigory Mikhailovich?” she said in the unsteady voice of someone with pent-up emotions in their heart.

  Litvinov was embarrassed.

  “I… avoid you, Irina Pavlovna?”

  “Yes, you… you are…”

  Irina seemed agitated, even incensed.

  “You’re mistaken, I assure you.”

  “No, I’m not mistaken. This morning, when we met, did I not see that you’d recognized me? Tell me, did you really not recognize me? Tell me.”

  “Honestly, Irina Pavlovna, I…”

  “Grigory Mikhailovich, you�
�re a straightforward man; you’ve always told the truth. Tell me, tell me, you recognized me, didn’t you? You turned away deliberately, didn’t you?”

  Litvinov looked at Irina. There was a strange gleam in her eyes, but her lips and cheeks showed deathly white through the thin mesh of her veil. In the very expression on her face, in the very sound of her intermittent whisper, there was something compellingly mournful and beseeching.

  Litvinov could dissemble no longer.

  “Yes, I recognized you,” he said with some difficulty.

  Irina shuddered slightly and dropped her hands.

  “Why didn’t you approach me?” she whispered.

  “Why… why?” Litvinov moved to the side of the path. Irina followed him in silence. “Why?” he repeated once again; his face suddenly flared up and a feeling akin to anger gripped his chest and throat. “You… you ask that, after all that has happened between us. Not just now, of course, but there, there in Moscow.”

  “But surely you and I decided, surely you promised,” Irina began.

  “I promised nothing! Forgive me for my sharp words, but you insist on the truth. To what can I ascribe your – I don’t know what to call it – your insistence, if not on coquetry, which I don’t understand, or on a desire to try me. Our paths have diverged so much. I’ve forgotten everything; the pain passed a long time ago. I’ve changed completely. You are married, you are happy, at least outwardly so. You enjoy an enviable position in the world. Why this rapprochement? What’s the point? What am I to you, or you to me? Now we can’t even understand one another. There was absolutely nothing in common between us in the past, nor is there now! Especially… especially in the past.”

  Litvinov uttered this entire speech hastily, haltingly, without turning his head. Irina did not stir, and merely made to stretch out her hands to him from time to time. It seems she was beseeching him to stop and hear her out, but on hearing his last words she bit her lower lip slightly, as if suppressing a sensation of acute and sudden hurt.

  “Grigory Mikhailovich,” she began finally, “believe me, if I’d been able to imagine that I had a scintilla of power over you, I would have avoided you first. If I did not do that, if I decided that in spite of my… my past guilt, to renew my acquaintance with you, it was because… because…”

  “Why?” asked Litvinov, almost rudely.

  “Because,” returned Irina with sudden vehemence, “things had become too intolerable, too insufferable, too stifling for me in this world, in this enviable situation of which you speak, because, having met you, a living human being, after all those dead dolls – you were able to see specimens of them three days ago au Vieux Château – I rejoiced as if I’d seen a spring in the desert. Yet you call me a coquette, you suspect me and reject me under the pretext that I really was guilty before you and even more so before myself.”

  “You chose your fate yourself, Irina Pavlovna,” said Litvinov, again not turning his head.

  “I did, I did and I’m not complaining,” said Irina hurriedly; she seemed to have derived secret consolation from Litvinov’s sternness. “I know that you must condemn me. I’m not even justifying myself and merely want to explain my feelings to you. I want to convince you that I’m not interested in coquetry now. As if I would want to play the coquette with you! There’s no sense in it. When I saw you, everything that was young and good in me was awakened… the time when I had not yet chosen my fate and everything that lies in that brightly lit time, ten years ago.”

  “But wait a minute, Irina Pavlovna. As far as I know, the brightly lit time in your life began precisely from the moment when we separated.”

  Irina raised her handkerchief to her lips.

  “What you say is very cruel, Grigory Mikhailovich, but I cannot be angry with you. Oh no, that was no bright time. I didn’t find happiness when I left Moscow; not a moment, not a single minute of happiness did I know. Believe me, whatever people may have told you to the contrary. If I had been happy, would I have been able to speak to you as I am now doing? I repeat – you don’t know what sort of people they are. They understand nothing, sympathize with nothing. There is no wit in them, ni esprit ni intelligence,* just cunning and worldly wisdom. Essentially, music, poetry and art are equally alien to them. You will say that I myself was somewhat indifferent to all this, but not to such a degree, Grigory Mikhailovich, not to such a degree. It is not a high-society lady who stands before you – you’ve only got to look at me – not a lioness (that is what we’re called, it seems), but a miserable being who really deserves sympathy. Don’t be surprised at my words. Pride means nothing to me now. I stretch out my hand to you like a beggar. Understand that. Like a beggar. I’m begging for alms,” she added suddenly, in a discontented, unrestrained outburst. “I’m begging for alms, but you…”

  Her voice failed her. Litvinov raised his head and looked at Irina; her breathing was rapid, her lips were trembling. His heart began to pound and his feeling of anger disappeared.

  “You say our paths have diverged,” Irina continued. I know that you are marrying for love; you already have a plan for your whole life drawn up. Yes, that’s all true, but we haven’t alienated one another, Grigory Mikhailovich; we can still understand one another. Or do you suppose that my senses have grown completely dull, that I’ve sunk into this mire? Oh no, please don’t think that! Give me a breathing space, I beg you, at least for old times’ sake, if you don’t want to forget them. Do it so that our meeting has not been in vain. That would be a bitter pill. Even as things are, our meeting will not last long. I’m not able to speak as I should, but you will understand me, because my demands are small, very small… just a little sympathy and for you not to reject me, to give me a breathing space.”

  Irina fell silent; there were tears in her voice. She sighed, cast a shy, sideways, enquiring glance at Litvinov and stretched out her hand to him.

  Litvinov slowly took her hand and squeezed it limply.

  “Let’s be friends,” Irina whispered.

  “Friends,” echoed Litvinov thoughtfully.

  “Yes, friends, and if that’s too much to ask, let us at least be good acquaintances. Let us simply be as if nothing had ever happened.”

  “As if nothing had ever happened,” echoed Litvinov again. “You’ve just told me, Irina Pavlovna, that I don’t want to forget old times. Well, if I can’t forget them?”

  A blissful smile flashed across Irina’s face and at once vanished, to be replaced by an anxious, almost fearful expression.

  “Be like me, Grigory Mikhailovich. Remember only the good things. But the most important thing is that you should now give me your word, your word of honour.”

  “About what?”

  “Not to avoid me. Not to cause me unnecessary sorrow. Do you promise? Tell me.”

  “I do.”

  “And to banish all bad thoughts from your head?”

  “Yes, but nevertheless I can’t understand you.”

  “That’s not even necessary. However, just wait and you will understand me. But do you promise?”

  “I’ve already said I do.”

  “Well, thank you. Mind you, I’ve grown used to believing you. I will wait for you today, tomorrow. I won’t leave home. But now I must leave you. The Duchess is coming along the avenue. She’s seen me and I cannot fail to acknowledge her…. Till we meet again… Give me your hand… Vite, vite.* Till we meet again.”

  And, firmly squeezing Litvinov’s hand, Irina made for a personage of middling years and aristocratic appearance who was making ponderous progress along the sandy path, accompanied by two other ladies and a liveried and extremely fine-looking footman.

  “Eh, bonjour, chère madame,”* said the personage, while Irina curtsied respectfully to her.

  “Comment allez-vous aujourd’hui? Venez un peu avec moi.”*

  “Votre Altesse a trop de bonté,”* said Irina in an ins
inuating voice.

  14

  Litvinov allowed the Duchess and her entourage to go off into the distance and himself emerged onto the avenue. He could not clearly account for his feelings; he was both ashamed and even afraid, and his vanity was flattered. The unexpected explanation with Irina had taken him aback; her rapid, ardent words had swept over him like a thunder shower. “They’re weird people, these society ladies,” he thought. “There’s no logic in them at all. And how corrupted they are by the milieu in which they live and by the ugliness of that milieu, which they themselves feel.” He did not actually think that, but merely repeated these worn-out phrases mechanically, as if wanting thereby to rid himself of other, more frightening thoughts. He realized that he ought not to reflect too much now or he would probably have to blame himself, and he walked with slow step, regarding everything he encountered almost reluctantly. He suddenly found himself in front of a bench; along with it he saw some legs, up which his gaze travelled. The legs belonged to a man who was sitting on the bench and reading a newspaper; the man turned out to be Potugin. Litvinov gave a slight exclamation. Potugin laid the newspaper on his knees and looked at Litvinov, intently and unsmilingly. Litvinov looked at Potugin, equally intently and unsmilingly.

  “Can I sit down beside you?” he asked finally.

  “Take a seat, please. Only I warn you, if you want to converse with me, I’m in the most misanthropic mood and every topic presents itself to me in an exaggeratedly nasty guise.”

  “That doesn’t matter, Sozont Ivanovich,” said Litvinov, sitting down on the bench. “It even accords very well with the situation. But why has this mood descended on you?”

  “In reality, I ought not to be angry,” Potugin began. “I’ve just read in the newspaper about the plan for judicial reforms in Russia,* and I see with genuine pleasure that even in Russia they do not intend, under the pretext of originality or national feeling, to add a home-grown tail to clear European logic. On the contrary, they are taking the best of things foreign lock, stock and barrel. One concession on the peasant question is sufficient – let’s go easy on communal ownership! Quite right, quite right, I shouldn’t get angry, but, for my sins, I bumped into a grass-roots Russian. I chatted with him, but these self-taught geniuses, these autodidacts will bother me even when I’m in my grave.”