The Greatest Novellas & Short Stories of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
egoism of youth had never been more patent in her than that evening. She realized that Ilyin was unhappy, and that he was sitting on the sofa as though he were on hot coals; she felt sorry for him, but at the same time the presence of a man who loved her to distraction, filled her soul with triumph and a sense of her own power. She felt her youth, her beauty, and her unassailable virtue, and, since she had decided to go away, gave herself full licence for that evening. She flirted, laughed incessantly, sang with peculiar feeling and gusto. Everything delighted and amused her. She was amused at the memory of what had happened at the seat in the wood, of the sentinel who had looked on. She was amused by her guests, by Ilyin’s cutting jests, by the pin in his cravat, which she had never noticed before. There was a red snake with diamond eyes on the pin; this snake struck her as so amusing that she could have kissed it on the spot.
Sofya Petrovna sang nervously, with defiant recklessness as though half intoxicated, and she chose sad, mournful songs which dealt with wasted hopes, the past, old age, as though in mockery of another’s grief. “ ‘And old age comes nearer and nearer’ …” she sang. And what was old age to her?
“It seems as though there is something going wrong with me,” she thought from time to time through her laughter and singing.
The party broke up at twelve o’clock. Ilyin was the last to leave. Sofya Petrovna was still reckless enough to accompany him to the bottom step of the verandah. She wanted to tell him that she was going away with her husband, and to watch the effect this news would produce on him.
The moon was hidden behind the clouds, but it was light enough for Sofya Petrovna to see how the wind played with the skirts of his overcoat and with the awning of the verandah. She could see, too, how white Ilyin was, and how he twisted his upper lip in the effort to smile.
“Sonia, Sonitchka… my darling woman!” he muttered, preventing her from speaking. “My dear! my sweet!”
In a rush of tenderness, with tears in his voice, he showered caressing words upon her, that grew tenderer and tenderer, and even called her “thou,” as though she were his wife or mistress. Quite unexpectedly he put one arm round her waist and with the other hand took hold of her elbow.
“My precious! my delight!” he whispered, kissing the nape of her neck; “be sincere; come to me at once!”
She slipped out of his arms and raised her head to give vent to her indignation and anger, but the indignation did not come off, and all her vaunted virtue and chastity was only sufficient to enable her to utter the phrase used by all ordinary women on such occasions:
“You must be mad.”
“Come, let us go,” Ilyin continued. “I felt just now, as well as at the seat in the wood, that you are as helpless as I am, Sonia…. You are in the same plight! You love me and are fruitlessly trying to appease your conscience… .”
Seeing that she was moving away, he caught her by her lace cuff and said rapidly:
“If not today, then tomorrow you will have to give in! Why, then, this waste of time? My precious, darling Sonia, the sentence is passed; why put off the execution? Why deceive yourself?”
Sofya Petrovna tore herself from him and darted in at the door. Returning to the drawing-room, she mechanically shut the piano, looked for a long time at the music-stand, and sat down. She could not stand up nor think. All that was left of her excitement and recklessness was a fearful weakness, apathy, and dreariness. Her conscience whispered to her that she had behaved badly, foolishly, that evening, like some madcap girl — that she had just been embraced on the verandah, and still had an uneasy feeling in her waist and her elbow. There was not a soul in the drawing-room; there was only one candle burning. Madame Lubyantsev sat on the round stool before the piano, motionless, as though expecting something. And as though taking advantage of the darkness and her extreme lassitude, an oppressive, overpowering desire began to assail her. Like a boa-constrictor it gripped her limbs and her soul, and grew stronger every second, and no longer menaced her as it had done, but stood clear before her in all its nakedness.
She sat for half an hour without stirring, not restraining herself from thinking of Ilyin, then she got up languidly and dragged herself to her bedroom. Andrey Ilyitch was already in bed. She sat down by the open window and gave herself up to desire. There was no “tangle” now in her head; all her thoughts and feelings were bent with one accord upon a single aim. She tried to struggle against it, but instantly gave it up…. She understood now how strong and relentless was the foe. Strength and fortitude were needed to combat him, and her birth, her education, and her life had given her nothing to fall back upon.
“Immoral wretch! Low creature!” she nagged at herself for her weakness. “So that’s what you’re like!”
Her outraged sense of propriety was moved to such indignation by this weakness that she lavished upon herself every term of abuse she knew, and told herself many offensive and humiliating truths. So, for instance, she told herself that she never had been moral, that she had not come to grief before simply because she had had no opportunity, that her inward conflict during that day had all been a farce….
“And even if I have struggled,” she thought, “what sort of struggle was it? Even the woman who sells herself struggles before she brings herself to it, and yet she sells herself. A fine struggle! Like milk, I’ve turned in a day! In one day!”
She convicted herself of being tempted, not by feeling, not by Ilyin personally, but by sensations which awaited her… an idle lady, having her fling in the summer holidays, like so many!
“ ‘Like an unfledged bird when the mother has been slain,’ “ sang a husky tenor outside the window.
“If I am to go, it’s time,” thought Sofya Petrovna. Her heart suddenly began beating violently.
“Andrey!” she almost shrieked. “Listen! we… we are going? Yes?”
“Yes, I’ve told you already: you go alone.”
“But listen,” she began. “If you don’t go with me, you are in danger of losing me. I believe I am… in love already.”
“With whom?” asked Andrey Ilyitch.
“It can’t make any difference to you who it is!” cried Sofya Petrovna.
Andrey Ilyitch sat up with his feet out of bed and looked wonderingly at his wife’s dark figure.
“It’s a fancy!” he yawned.
He did not believe her, but yet he was frightened. After thinking a little and asking his wife several unimportant questions, he delivered himself of his opinions on the family, on infidelity… spoke listlessly for about ten minutes and got into bed again. His moralizing produced no effect. There are a great many opinions in the world, and a good half of them are held by people who have never been in trouble!
In spite of the late hour, summer visitors were still walking outside. Sofya Petrovna put on a light cape, stood a little, thought a little…. She still had resolution enough to say to her sleeping husband:
“Are you asleep? I am going for a walk…. Will you come with me?”
That was her last hope. Receiving no answer, she went out…. It was fresh and windy. She was conscious neither of the wind nor the darkness, but went on and on…. An overmastering force drove her on, and it seemed as though, if she had stopped, it would have pushed her in the back.
“Immoral creature!” she muttered mechanically. “Low wretch!”
She was breathless, hot with shame, did not feel her legs under her, but what drove her on was stronger than shame, reason, or fear.
A PINK STOCKING
Translation By Constance Garnett
A