The Garnet Bracelet and other Stories / Гранатовый браслет и другие повести. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“Don’t go,” he whispered entreatingly. “It’s so funny! I’ll make it short. This is how it was. Some three years ago, in autumn, a poor young man came to Petersburg. He was a clerk or something – I can’t recall his name at the moment. He was trying to secure a disputed inheritance and every morning, after making his round of the various offices, he dropped into Summer Garden to rest on a bench for a quarter of an hour. Well, then. He did that for three and four and five days, and every day he saw an unusually fat, red-haired gentleman strolling in the garden. They got to talking. Redhead, who turned out to be Kvashnin, learned from the young man all about his circumstances, and sympathized with him. But he didn’t tell him his name. Well, then. One day Redhead says to the young man, ‘Would you be willing to marry a certain lady and part with her right after the wedding, and never see her again?’ The young man was starving at the time.

‘I’m willing,’ he says. ‘Only it depends on how much I get, and, besides, I want the money first.’ You’ll observe that the young man was not born yesterday. Well, then. They made it a deal. A week later, Redhead made the young man put on a dress-coat, and look him to church out in the country, at the crack of dawn. There was no crowd; the bride was waiting, carefully veiled, but you could see she was pretty and quite young. The ceremony started. Only, the young man noticed that his bride was rather melancholy. So he says to her in a whisper, ‘It looks as if you’ve come here against your will.’ And she answers, ‘So have you, it seems.’ In that way they found out all about it. It appeared that the girl’s own mother had forced her into marriage. You see, her conscience wouldn’t after all let her give away her daughter to Kvashnin outright. Well, then. They talked like that for a while, and then the young man says to her, ‘Let’s play a trick, shall we? We’re both of us young, and there may yet be good luck in store for us, so let’s leave Kvashnin standing.’ The girl had a resolute temper and a quick wit. ‘All right,’ she says, ‘let’s do it.’ When the wedding was over everybody walked out of the church, and Kvashnin was beaming with happiness. Now the young man had made him pay in advance, and a lot of money it was, because for that kind of thing Kvashnin spares no expense. Kvashnin walked up to the newlyweds and congratulated them as mockingly as he could. They listened to him and thanked him and called him their benefactor, and suddenly off they hopped into the carriage. ‘What’s this, now? Where are you going?’ ‘Why, we’re going to the station to start on our honeymoon trip. Get going, cabbie!’ And they left Kvashnin gaping. On another occasion – What? You’re going already, Andrei Ilyich?” Svezhevsky broke off his chatter as he saw Bobrov slouching his hat and buttoning his overcoat with the most determined air.

“Sorry, I’ve no time,” Bobrov answered drily. “As regards your story, I think I’ve heard or read about it somewhere before. Goodbye.”

And turning his back on Svezhevsky, who was put out by his brusque manner, he walked swiftly out of the shop.

III

On coming hack from the mill Bobrov had a hurried meal and stepped out on to the porch. His driver Mitrofan, whom he had told to saddle Fairway, a bay Don, was straining at the girths of the English saddle. Fairway would inflate his belly and quickly twist his neck several times, snapping at the sleeve of Mitrofan’s shirt. Then Mitrofan would shout at him in an angry and unnaturally deep voice, “Stand still, you beggar!” and add, gasping with the strain, “Just look at him.”

Fairway – a stallion of middle height, with a powerful chest, a long trunk, and a spare, somewhat drooping rump – stood with graceful ease on his strong shaggy legs, with dependable hoofs and fine pasterns. A connoisseur would have disapproved of the curved profile and the long neck with the sharply protruding Adam’s apple. But Bobrov held that these features, which distinguish any Don horse, made up Fairway’s beauty in the same way as the dachshund’s crooked legs and the setter’s long ears made up theirs. And there was no horse at the mill that could outrun Fairway.

Like any good Russian driver, Mitrofan considered it his duty to treat horses severely, never allowing himself or the beast any show of tenderness, and called it names like “convict,” “carrion,” “murderer,” and even “bastard.” Nevertheless, in his heart, he was very fond of Fairway. His affection found expression in seeing that Fairway was groomed better and got more oats than Swallow and Sailor, the two other mill horses in Bobrov’s use.

“Did you water him, Mitrofan?” asked Bobrov.

Mitrofan did not answer at once. As a good driver he was deliberate and dignified in conversation.

“Yes, Andrei Ilyich, of course I did. Stop fretting, you devil!” he shouted angrily at the horse. “I’ll teach you to fret! He’s just itching for the saddle, sir, he’s that eager.”

No sooner did Bobrov walk up to Fairway and take the reins with his left hand than the very same thing happened which occurred almost daily. Fairway, who had long been squinting a big angry eye at the approaching Bobrov, started to chafe and fret, arching his neck and throwing up lumps of mud with his hind feet. Bobrov hopped beside him on one leg, trying to thrust his foot into the stirrup.

“Let go the bridle, Mitrofan!” he cried as he at last caught the stirrup; the next moment he swung himself into the saddle.

Feeling his rider’s spurs, Fairway gave in at once; he changed pace several times snorting and tossing his head, and started off from the gate at a broad, swinging gallop.

Very soon the swift ride, the chilly wind whistling in his ears, and the fresh smell of the autumnal, slightly damp earth soothed and roused Bobrov’s lax nerves. Besides, each time he set out for Zinenko’s, he felt pleasantly and excitingly elated.

The Zinenko family consisted of father, mother, and five daughters. The father was in charge of the mill warehouse. An indolent and seemingly good-natured giant, he was actually a most pushing and insidious fellow. He was one of those who under cover of speaking the truth to everybody’s face flatter their superiors agreeably if crudely, inform brazenly against their colleagues, and treat their subordinates in a monstrously despotic fashion. He would argue over the least trifle, shouting hoarsely and refusing to listen to any objections; he liked good food and had a weakness for Ukrainian choral songs, which he invariably sang out of tune. He was unwittingly henpecked by his wife, a little, sickly woman with mincing manners and tiny grey eyes set absurdly close to each other.

The daughters’ names were Maka, Beta, Shura, Nina, and Kasya.

Each of the daughters had been assigned a role in the family.

Maka, a girl with the profile of a fish, was reputed to have an angelic disposition. “Our Maka is modesty itself,” her parents would say when, during a stroll or an evening party, she effaced herself in the interest of her younger sisters (she was already on the wrong side of thirty).

Beta was considered clever, wore a pince-nez, and they even said that once she had wanted to enter courses for women. She held her head bent to one side, like an old trace-horse, and walked with a dipping gait. She would assail every fresh visitor with the contention that women are better and more honest than men, or say with a naive playfulness, “You’re so shrewd – won’t you guess my character?” When conversation drifted to one of the standard domestic topics, such as “Who is greater: Lermontov or Pushkin?” or “Does Nature make people kinder?” Beta would be pushed to the fore like a battle elephant.

The third daughter, Shura, had made it her specialty to play cards with every bachelor in turn. As soon as she found out that her partner was going to get married she would pick a new one, subduing her vexation and annoyance. And the game was sure to be accompanied by sweet little jokes and bewitching roguery, her partner being called “mean” and rapped on the hands with cards.

Nina was considered the family’s favourite, a spoilt but lovely child. She stood out strikingly among her sisters, with their bulky figures and rather coarse, vulgar faces. Perhaps Mme Zinenko alone could have explained the origin of Nina’s delicate, fragile little figure, her nearly aristocratic hands, her pretty, darkish face with its fascinating moles, her small pink ears, and her luxuriant, slightly curly hair. Her parents set great hopes upon her and therefore indulged her in everything; she was free to eat her fill of sweets, speak with a charming burr, and even dress better than her sisters.

The youngest, Kasya, was just over fourteen, but the extraordinary child was already head and shoulders taller than her mother, and had far outstripped her older sisters by the powerful prominence of her forms. Her figure had long been attracting the eyes of the young men at the mill, who were completely deprived of feminine company because the mill was far removed from town, and Kasya received their stares with the naive impudence of a precocious girl.

This distribution of the family charms was well known at the mill, and a wag had once said that one ought to marry all the five Zinenko girls at once, or none at all. Engineers and students doing their practical course looked upon Zinenko’s house as a hotel and thronged it from morning till night; they ate a great deal and drank even more, but avoided the meshes of wedlock with amazing dexterity.

Bobrov was rather disliked in the Zinenko family. Mme Zinenko, who sought to bring everything into line with trite and happily tedious provincial decorum, was shocked in her philistine tastes by Bobrov’s behaviour. The sarcastic jokes he cracked when in good spirits made all eyes open wide; and when he kept a close mouth for many an evening on end because he was tired and irritated, he was suspected of being secretive, proud, and tacitly ironic; moreover, he was suspected – worst of all – of “writing stories for magazines and picking characters for them.”

Bobrov was aware of this vague hostility expressed by lack of attention at table, or by the surprised shrugs of Mme Zinenko, but still he continued to call at the house. He could not tell whether he loved Nina. When he chanced to stay away from the house for three or four days he could not think of her without his heart beating with a sweet and disturbing sadness. He pictured her slender, graceful figure, her shaded languid eyes as they smiled, and the fragrance of her body, which for some reason reminded him of the scent of young, sticky poplar buds.

But he had only to spend with the Zinenkos three evenings in a row to feel bored by their company, by their talk – always the same in the same circumstances – by the banal and unnatural expression of their faces. Trivially playful relations had been established once and for all between the five “young ladies” and the “admirers” who “courted” them (terms used by the Zinenkos). Both sides pretended to make up two warring camps. Every now and again one of the admirers stole some object from his young lady for fun, and assured her that he would never give it hack; the young ladies sulked and whispered among themselves, calling the joker “mean” and laughing loudly the while, with a stiff, grating laughter. This sort of thing recurred daily, the words and gestures used being absolutely the same as the day before. Bobrov would return from the Zinenkos’ with a headache and with nerves set on edge by their provincial frills.

Thus the yearning for Nina, for the nervous grasp of her always warm hands, alternated in Bobrov’s heart with aversion to the monotony and affected manners of her family. There were moments when he was quite ready to propose to her, although he realized that she, with her vulgar coquetry and spiritual inanity, would turn their married life into hell, and that they thought and talked in different languages, as it were. But he could not make up his mind and kept silent.

Now, as he rode to Shepetovka, he knew in advance what they were going to say in this or that case and how, and could even picture the expression on their faces. He knew that when from their veranda they sighted him coming on horseback, the young ladies, who were always waiting for “nice young men,” would start a long dispute over who was coming. And when he drew near, the one who had guessed rightly would jump and clap her hands and click her tongue, exclaiming perkily, “Well, now? I guessed it, didn’t I?” Then she would run to Anna Afanasyevna. “Bobrov’s coming, Mamma, I guessed it first!” And her mother, who would be lazily drying the teacups, would say to Nina – none other than Nina – as if she were telling her something funny and unexpected, “You know, Nina, Bobrov’s coming.” And finally they would all be loud in their surprise at seeing Bobrov step in.

IV

Fairway trotted along, snorting sonorously and tugging at the reins. The Shepetovka estate came into view ahead. Its white walls and red roof hardly showed through the thick green of lilacs and acacias. Below, a small pond stood out from its setting of green shores.

A woman was standing on the house steps. From afar Bobrov recognized Nina by the bright yellow blouse which set off her dusky complexion so beautifully, and at once, reining in the horse, he straightened up, and pulled back his feet, thrust deeply into the stirrups.

“Riding your treasure again, eh? I simply can’t bear the sight of that monster!” cried Nina in the gay and wayward tone of a spoilt child. She had long been in the habit of teasing him about his horse to whom he was so much attached. Someone was always being teased at Zinenko’s for something or other.

Bobrov threw the reins to the mill groom who had run up, patted the horse’s strong neck, dark with sweat, and followed Nina into the drawing-room. Anna Afanasyevna, who was sitting by the samovar all alone, affected great amazement at Bobrov’s arrival.

“Well, well! Andrei Ilyich!” she cried in a singsong. “Here you come at last!”

She pushed her hand against his lips as he greeted her, and asked him with her nasal twang, “Tea? Milk? Apples? What will you have?”

“Merci, Anna Afanasyevna.”

“Merci oui, ou merci non?”

French phrases like these were common in the Zinenko family. Bobrov would not have anything.

“Then go to the veranda,” Mme Zinenko permitted him graciously. “The young people are playing forfeits or something there.”

When he appeared on the veranda all the four young ladies exclaimed in unison, in exactly the same tone, and with the same twang, as their mother, “Well, well! Andrei Ilyich! Here’s someone we haven’t seen for ages! What will you have? Tea? Apples? Milk? Nothing? You don’t mean that! Perhaps you will have something, after all? Well, then sit down here and join in.”

They played “The Lady’s Sent a Hundred Rubles,” “Opinions,” and a game which lisping Kasya called “playing bowlth.” The guests were three students, who kept on sticking out their chests and striking dramatic attitudes, with one foot forward and one hand in the back pocket of their frock-coats; Miller, a technician distinguished by his good looks, stupidity, and wonderful baritone; and lastly a taciturn gentleman in grey, of whom nobody took any notice.

The game was not going well. The men performed their forfeits with a condescending, bored air, and the young ladies refused to perform theirs at all, whispering among themselves and laughing unnaturally.

Dusk was falling. A huge red moon floated up from behind the house-tops of the nearby village.

“Come inside, children!” Anna Afanasyevna shouted from the dining-room. “Ask Miller to sing for us.”

A moment later the young ladies’ voices rang through the rooms.

“We had a very good time,” they chirped round their mother. “We laughed so much!”

Nina and Bobrov remained on the veranda. She sat on the handrail, hugging a post with her left arm and nestling against it in an unconsciously graceful posture. Bobrov placed himself at her feet, on a low garden bench; as he looked up into her face he saw the delicate outlines of her throat and chin.

“Come on, tell me something interesting, Andrei Ilyich,” she commanded impatiently.

“I really don’t know what to tell you,” he replied. “It’s awfully hard to speak to order. So I’m wondering if there’s some collection of dialogues on various topics.”