The Green Braid

(A Little Novel)

* To a drawing by the artist Chekhov.

Chapter I

On the shore of the Black Sea, at the spot which in my diary and in the diaries of my heroes and heroines is entered as "the Green Braid," stands a charming dacha. From the point of view of an architect, a lover of everything strict, finished, possessed of style, this dacha is perhaps good for nothing, but from the point of view of a poet, an artist, it is a wonder of loveliness. I love it for its humble beauty, for the fact that its beauty does not oppress the beauty around it, for the fact that it breathes neither the cold of marble nor the pomposity of columns. It looks out amiably, warmly, romantically... From behind slender silvery poplars, with its little towers, spires, notched battlements, poles, it peers out as something medieval. When I look at it I recall sentimental German novels with their knights, castles, doctors of philosophy, mysterious countesses... This dacha stands on a hill; around the dacha is a thick, very thick garden with avenues, little fountains, orangeries, and below, under the hill – the stern blue sea... The air, through which a damp, coquettish little breeze keeps running, every possible bird’s voice, an eternally clear sky, transparent water – a wonderful little place!

The mistress of the dacha – the wife of either a Georgian or a Circassian princeling, Marya Yegorovna Mikshadze, a lady of about fifty, tall, stout, and in her time undoubtedly reputed a beauty. She is a kind lady, sweet, hospitable, but too strict. Or rather, not strict but capricious... She fed us splendidly, gave us superb drink, lent us money right and left, and at the same time tormented us terribly. Etiquette is her hobby-horse. That she is a princess’s wife is her other hobby-horse. Riding these two hobby-horses she is forever and terribly overdoing it. She never, for instance, smiles, probably because she considers this improper for herself and in general for grandes-dames noble ladies (French).. Whoever is even a year younger than she is a milksop. Rank, in her opinion, is a virtue beside which everything else is the merest rubbishy nonsense. She is an enemy of flightiness and levity, loves silence, and so on and so forth. Sometimes we could scarcely bear this lady. If it were not for her daughter, we should probably scarcely be regaling ourselves now with memories of the Green Braid. The good woman makes up the very greyest patch in our recollections. The ornament of the Green Braid is Marya Yegorovna’s daughter, Olya. Olya – a small, slender, pretty little blonde of about nineteen. She is quick and not stupid. She draws well, occupies herself with botany, speaks French excellently, German badly, reads a great deal and dances like Terpsichore herself. She studied music at the conservatory and plays quite well. We, the men, loved this blue-eyed girl – not "fell in love with," but loved. She was to all of us something native, our own... The Green Braid without her is unthinkable for us. Without her the poetry of the Green Braid would be incomplete. She is a pretty little female figure on a lovely landscape, and I do not love pictures without human figures. The splash of the sea and the whisper of the trees are good enough in themselves, but if to them is added Olya’s soprano accompanied by our basses, tenors, and the piano, then the sea and the garden become an earthly paradise... We loved the young princess; it could not have been otherwise. We styled her the daughter of our regiment. And Olya loved us. She was drawn to our male company and only among us did she feel herself in her native element. When we were not near her she grew thin and stopped singing. Our company consists of guests, summer residents of the Green Braid, and neighbors. To the first belong: Dr. Yakovkin, the Odessa journalist Mukhin, the master of physics (now a docent) Fiveisky, three students, the artist Chekhov, a Kharkov baron who is a lawyer, and I, formerly Olya’s tutor (who taught her to speak German badly and to catch goldfinches). Every year in May we would gather at the Green Braid and take over for the whole summer the spare rooms of the medieval castle and all the outbuildings. Every March two letters would summon us to the Green Braid: one weighty, strict, full of admonitions – from the princess; the other very long, merry, full of every sort of scheme – from the young princess, who had grown bored without us. We would arrive and stay until September. Our neighbors, who came to us every day, were the retired artillery lieutenant Yegorov, a young man who had twice sat the examination for the Academy and twice failed it, a very well-developed, well-read fellow; the medical student Korobov with his wife Yekaterina Ivanovna, the landowner Aleutov, and a whole multitude more of landowners, retired and not retired, merry and dull, idlers and good-for-nothings... This whole band ate, drank, played, sang, let off fireworks, cracked jokes, endlessly, day and night, the whole summer round... Olya loved this band beyond all measure. She shouted, spun about, and made noise more than anyone. She was the soul of the company.

Every evening the princess would gather us in the drawing room and, her face crimson, reproach us for "shameless" conduct, put us to shame, and swear that because of us her head ached. She loved to deliver lectures; she delivered them sincerely and was deeply convinced that her lectures would do us good. Olya caught it worse than anyone. In her opinion, Olya was always the one at fault. Olya was afraid of her mother. She worshipped her and listened to her lectures standing, silent, blushing. The princess considered Olya a child. She stood her in the corner, left her without breakfast, without dinner. To stand up for Olya was to pour oil on the fire. If it had been possible she would have stood us in the corner too. She sent us to the all-night vigil, ordered the Chet’i-Minei read aloud, counted our linen, meddled in our affairs... We were forever mislaying her scissors somewhere, forgetting where her spirits were, unable to find her a thimble.

"Butterfingers!" she would cry out constantly. "You walked right past it, dropped it, and don’t pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up this instant! The Lord has punished me with you people... Get away from me! Don’t stand in the draft!"

Sometimes, for sport, one of us would commit some offense and, on being reported, would be summoned before the old woman.

"Was it you who trod on the flower bed?" the trial would begin. "How dared you?"

"I didn’t mean to..."

"Silence! How dared you, I’m asking you?"

The trial would end in pardon, a kissing of the hand, and, once out of the judge’s room, Homeric laughter. The princess was never affectionate with us. Affectionate words she speaks only to old women and to small children.

I never once saw her smile. To the little old general who came to her on Sundays to play piquet, she would assure him in a whisper that we – the doctors, the masters of science, the barons in part, the artists, the writers – would perish without her wisdom... We did not try to disabuse her... Let her, we thought, amuse herself... The princess would have been bearable if she had not demanded of us that we rise no later than eight and go to bed no later than twelve. Poor Olya went to bed at eleven. There was no arguing. And how we mocked the old woman for this unlawful encroachment on our freedom! We would go in a crowd to beg her pardon, compose congratulatory verses for her in the style of Lomonosov, draw the heraldic tree of the princes Mikshadze, and so on. The princess took all this at face value, and we roared with laughter. The princess loved us. She sighed, deeply and quite sincerely, when she expressed her regret to us that we were not princes. She had grown used to us as to children...

There was only one man she did not love: Lieutenant Yegorov. She hated him with her whole soul, bore him the most impossible antipathy. She received him only because she had money dealings with him and stood on etiquette. The lieutenant had once been her favorite. He is handsome, jokes successfully, is mostly silent, and is a military man (which the princess prized highly). But now and again something comes over Yegorov... He sits down, props his head on his fists, and begins to slander terribly. He slanders everyone and everything, sparing neither the living nor the dead. The princess would fly into a rage and drive all of us out of the rooms when he began to speak evil words.

Once at dinner Yegorov propped his head on his fist and, for no reason at all, launched into a speech about Caucasian princes, then pulled out of his pocket a copy of The Dragonfly and had the impudence to read aloud, in the presence of Princess Mikshadze, the following: "Tiflis is a fine city. Among the merits of this splendid city – in which even the ’princes’ sweep the streets and shine the boots at the hotels – is included..." and so on. The princess rose from the table and left in silence. She hated Yegorov even more fiercely after he wrote our surnames next to our first names in her memorial book. This hatred was all the more unwelcome and untimely because the lieutenant dreamed of marrying Olya, and Olya was in love with the lieutenant. The lieutenant dreamed terribly, though he had little faith in the fulfillment of his dreams. Olya loved in secret, on the sly, to herself, timidly, scarcely visibly... For her, love was contraband, a feeling on which a cruel veto a prohibition (Latin). had been laid. She was not permitted to love.

Chapter II

In the medieval castle one of those foolish medieval stories very nearly played itself out.

About seven years ago, when Prince Mikshadze was still alive, Prince Chaikhidzev, a landowner of Yekaterinoslav, a friend and companion of Mikshadze’s, came to stay at the Green Braid. He was a very rich man. He had caroused all his life, caroused wildly, and in spite of this remained rich to the end of his days. Mikshadze had once been his drinking companion. Together with Mikshadze he had carried off from her parents’ house the girl who later became Princess Chaikhidzeva. This circumstance bound the two princes in the strongest ties of friendship. Chaikhidzev arrived to stay together with his son, a bug-eyed, narrow-chested, black-haired youth, a schoolboy. Chaikhidzev’s first order of business was to recall old times and go carousing with Mikshadze, while the youth began courting Olya, then a girl of thirteen. The courtship was noticed. The parents winked at each other and remarked that the youth and Olya would make a fine little couple. The drunken princes ordered the children to kiss, shook hands with each other, and kissed each other too. Mikshadze even wept with tenderness. "So God wills it!" said Chaikhidzev. "You have a daughter, I have a son... So God wills it!"

The children were each given a ring and photographed together on one card. This photograph hung in the hall and for a long time gave Yegorov no peace. It was a target for a countless quantity of jokes. Princess Marya Yegorovna gravely blessed the future spouses. The idea of the two fathers pleased her, out of sheer boredom. A month after the Chaikhidzevs’ departure Olya received, by post, a most sumptuous gift. Such gifts she went on receiving every year thereafter. Young Chaikhidzev, beyond all expectation, took the matter seriously. He was rather a limited fellow. Every year he came to stay at the Green Braid for a whole week, during which he was silent the entire time and sent Olya love letters from his room. Olya would read the letters through and grow embarrassed. The clever girl marveled that so grown a person could write such stupidities! And he did write stupidities... Two years ago Mikshadze died. Dying, he said the following to Olya: "See that you don’t marry some fool! Marry Chaikhidzev. He is a clever and worthy man." Olya knew the measure of Chaikhidzev’s intelligence, but she did not contradict her father. She gave him her word that she would marry Chaikhidzev.

"And that is Papa’s will!" she would say to us, and she said it with a certain pride, as though she were performing some enormous feat. She was proud that her father had carried her promise with him into the grave. This promise was so extraordinary, so romantic!

But nature and reason took their toll: the retired lieutenant Yegorov kept turning up before her eyes, while Chaikhidzev grew stupider and stupider in hers with every passing year...

When the lieutenant once made bold to hint at his love to her, she asked him not to speak to her of love any more, reminded him of the promise given to her father, and wept the whole night through. The princess wrote to Chaikhidzev in Moscow, where he was studying at the university, every week, ordering him to finish his course as soon as possible. "I have guests here who are not so bearded as you, and they finished their courses long ago," she wrote to him. Chaikhidzev answered her most respectfully, on pink paper, proving over two sheets that a course could not be finished before the appointed term. Olya wrote to him too. Olya’s letters to me are far better than her letters to this bridegroom of hers. The princess believed that Olya would become Chaikhidzev’s wife; otherwise she would not have let her daughter go walking and "occupy herself with trifles" in the company of troublemakers, scatterbrains, freethinkers, and "non-princes"... She could not admit even a doubt of it... A husband’s will was, for her, a sacred will... Olya too believed that in time she would be signing herself Chaikhidzeva...

But it was not to be. The idea of the two fathers broke apart at the very point of its fulfillment. Chaikhidzev’s romance did not come off. This romance was fated to end as a vaudeville.

Last year Chaikhidzev arrived at the Green Braid at the end of June. This time he arrived no longer a mere student but an actual graduate. The princess met him with grave, solemn embraces and the longest of lectures. Olya dressed in an expensive gown, made especially for the reception of her bridegroom. Champagne was brought from town, fireworks were lit, and the next morning the whole Green Braid was talking with one voice of a wedding, said to be set for the end of July. "Poor Olya!" we whispered, loitering from corner to corner, glancing spitefully at the windows that looked into the garden from the room of the man from the East whom we so hated. Olya walked about the garden, pale, thin, half-dead. "So it pleases Papa and Mama!" she would say, when we began pestering her with friendly advice. "But this is stupid! savage!" we cried at her. She shrugged her shoulders and turned away from us her face, full of sorrow; the bridegroom sat in his room, sent Olya tender letters by the footmen and, looking out the window, marveled at the boldness with which we spoke to Olya and treated her. He came out of his room only to dine. He dined in silence, looking at no one, answering our questions curtly. Only once did he venture to tell an anecdote, and even that turned out to be stale to the point of vulgarity. After dinner the princess would seat him beside her and teach him to play piquet. Chaikhidzev played gravely, thinking hard, his lower lip dropped, sweating... The princess liked this attitude toward piquet.

Once, after dinner, Chaikhidzev slipped away from the piquet and ran after Olya, who had gone off into the garden.

"Olga Andreyevna!" he began. "I know you don’t love me. Our match, it’s true, is strange, foolish. But I – but I hope that you will come to love me..."

He said this, grew badly flustered, and went off sideways out of the garden into his room.

Lieutenant Yegorov sat at home on his estate and did not show himself anywhere. He could not stomach Chaikhidzev.

On Sunday (the second after Chaikhidzev’s arrival), the fifth of July, I think, a student, the princess’s nephew, came early in the morning to our wing and delivered an order. The princess’s order was that by evening we should all be in proper form: dressed all in black, white neckties, gloves; that we should be serious, clever, witty, obedient, and curled like poodles; that we should not be noisy; that our rooms should be decent. At the Green Braid something in the nature of a betrothal party was being got up. Wines, vodkas, hors d’oeuvres were brought from town... Our servants were taken from us into the kitchen. After dinner guests began arriving and went on arriving until late in the evening. At eight o’clock, after boating, the ball began.

Before the ball we men held a council. At this council we resolved unanimously to rescue Olya from Chaikhidzev at all costs, even at the price of the greatest scandal to ourselves. After the council I rushed off to find Lieutenant Yegorov. He lived on his own estate, twenty versts from the Green Braid. I galloped to him and found him – but in what condition! The lieutenant was drunk as a lord and sleeping like the dead. I shook the lieutenant awake, washed him, dressed him, and, despite his kicking and cursing, drove him to the Green Braid.

By ten o’clock the ball was in full swing. They were dancing in four rooms to the playing of two splendid grand pianos. In the intervals a third piano played in the garden, up on the little hill. Even the princess herself was delighted with our fireworks. We set off the fireworks in the garden, on the shore, and far out on the sea from boats. On the roof of the castle multicolored Bengal lights followed one another and lit up the whole Braid. There was drinking at two buffets: one buffet stood in the garden pavilion, the other in the house. The hero of the evening, apparently, was Chaikhidzev. With little pink spots on his cheeks, his nose sweating, buttoned into a tight tailcoat, he danced with Olya, smiled painfully, and felt that he was clumsy. He danced and watched every one of his own "steps." He longed passionately to shine at something, but he did not manage to shine at anything. Olya told me afterward that that evening she had felt very sorry for the poor little prince. He seemed pitiful to her. He seemed as though he had a foreboding that his bride was about to be taken from him – the bride he used, so it happened, to think of during every lecture, on lying down and on waking... When he looked at us, his eyes were full of entreaty. He sensed in us strong and merciless rivals.

By the setting out of tall glasses and by the princess’s repeated glances at the clock, we concluded that the solemn, official moment was approaching – that, in all likelihood, at twelve o’clock Chaikhidzev would receive permission to kiss Olya. It was necessary to act. At half past eleven I powdered myself to look pale, twisted my necktie askew, and, with a worried face and disheveled hair, went up to Olya.

"Olga Andreyevna," I began, seizing her by the hand, "for God’s sake!"

"What is it?"

"For God’s sake... Don’t be frightened, Olga Andreyevna... It couldn’t have been otherwise. It was to be expected..."

"What’s the matter?"

"Don’t be frightened... you see... For God’s sake, my dear! Yevgraf..."

"What’s happened to him?"

Olya went pale and lifted her large, trusting, friendly eyes to me...

"Yevgraf is dying..."

Olya swayed and passed her fingers across her whitened forehead.

"What happened is what I expected," I went on. "He is dying... Save him, Olga Andreyevna!"

Olya seized me by the hand.

"He... he... Where?"

"Here in the garden, in the pavilion. It’s terrible, my dear! But... they’re watching us. Let’s go onto the terrace... He doesn’t blame you... He knew that you..."

"What... what’s wrong with him?"

"Bad, very bad!!"

"Let’s go... I’ll go to him... I don’t want him to, because of me... because of me..."

We went out onto the terrace. Olya’s knees were giving way beneath her. I made as if to wipe away a tear... Past us on the terrace, again and again, ran pale, agitated members of our band, their faces worried, frightened.

"The blood has stopped..." the master of physics whispered to me, loud enough for Olya to hear.

"Let’s go!" Olya whispered, and took my arm.

We went down the terrace... The night was still, bright... The sounds of the piano, the whisper of the dark trees, the chirring of crickets caressed the ear; below, the sea splashed quietly.

Olya could scarcely walk... Her legs gave way beneath her and got tangled in her heavy gown. She trembled and, in fear, pressed herself close to my shoulder.

"But I’m not to blame..." she whispered. "I swear to you I’m not to blame. It was Papa’s will... He must understand that... Is it dangerous?"

"I don’t know... Mikhail Pavlovich has done everything possible. He’s a good doctor and he’s fond of Yegorov... We’re getting close, Olga Andreyevna..."

"I... I won’t see anything horrible? I’m afraid... I can’t bear to look... And whatever possessed him to do this?"

Olya burst into tears.

"I’m not to blame... he ought to have understood. I’ll explain it to him."

We came up to the pavilion.

"Here," I said.

Olya closed her eyes and clutched at me with both hands.

"I can’t..."

"Don’t be frightened... Yegorov, are you not dead yet?" I shouted, turning toward the pavilion.

"Not yet... What’s this?"

At the entrance to the pavilion there appeared, moonlit, the lieutenant, disheveled, pale from too much drink, his waistcoat unbuttoned...

"What is it?" he repeated.

Olya raised her head and caught sight of Yegorov... She looked at me, then at Yegorov, then at me again... I burst out laughing... Her face lit up. She cried out with joy, took a step forward... I thought she would be angry with us... But this girl did not know how to be angry... She took a step forward, thought a moment, and threw herself at Yegorov. Yegorov quickly did up his waistcoat and spread wide his arms. Olya fell onto his chest. Yegorov laughed with pleasure, turned his head aside so as not to breathe on Olya, and began muttering some nonsense.

"You have no right... I’m not to blame," Olya babbled. "It’s what Papa and Mama want, and so on."

I turned back and strode quickly toward the lit-up castle.

In the castle, meanwhile, the company was preparing to congratulate the bride and bridegroom and was glancing impatiently at the clock... In the front rooms footmen crowded with trays; on the trays stood bottles and glasses. Chaikhidzev impatiently kneaded his right hand in his left and searched with his eyes for Olya. The princess walked through the rooms looking for Olya, to instruct her how to conduct herself, what to answer her mother, and so on. Our people were smiling.

"Don’t you know where Olya is?" the princess asked me.

"I don’t know."

"Go and look for her."

I went down into the garden and, with my hands folded behind my back, walked twice around the house. Our artist began playing on a trumpet. This meant: "Hold on, don’t let her go!" Yegorov answered from the pavilion with the cry of an owl. This meant: "All right! Holding her!"

Having walked about a little, I went into the house. In the front rooms the footmen had set the trays down on tables and stood, their hands empty, staring dully at the company. The company, for its part, gazed with bewilderment at the clock, whose big hand already showed a quarter past. The pianos had fallen silent. In every room reigned a deep, wearying, muffled silence.

"Where is Olya?" the crimson-faced princess asked me.

"I don’t know... She’s not in the garden."

The princess shrugged her shoulders.

"Doesn’t she know it’s long past time?" she asked, tugging me by the sleeve.

I shrugged my shoulders. The princess moved away from me and whispered something to Chaikhidzev. Chaikhidzev too shrugged his shoulders. The princess tugged him by the sleeve as well.

"The little fool!" she growled, and began running through the whole house. Maids and schoolboys, relatives of the princess, ran noisily down the staircase and went off into the depths of the garden to search for the vanished bride. I went into the garden too. I was afraid that Yegorov would fail to detain Olya and would spoil the scandal we had planned. I made for the pavilion. My fears were groundless! Olya sat beside Yegorov, running her little fingers before his eyes and whispering, whispering... When Olya stopped whispering, Yegorov began muttering. He was instilling in her what the princess calls "ideas"... Every word of his he sweetened with a kiss. He talked, kept trying every second to kiss her, and at the same time turned his mouth aside so that Olya should not catch the smell of vodka. Both of them were happy, had apparently forgotten everything in the world and did not notice the time. I stood a little while at the entrance to the pavilion, rejoiced in spirit, and, not wishing to disturb their happy peace, went back to the castle.

The princess was beside herself and kept sniffing at her smelling salts. She was lost in guesses, was angry, was ashamed before the guests, before the bridegroom... She never strikes anyone, but she boxed a maid’s ears when the maid reported to her that the young princess was nowhere to be found. The guests, not having waited for the champagne and the congratulations, began smiling, gossiping, and took up dancing again.

One o’clock struck, and Olya still had not appeared. Fury was taking hold of the princess.

"This is all your doing!" she hissed, passing by one or another of us. "I’ll give her what for! Where is she?"

At last a benefactor turned up who told her where Olya was... This benefactor turned out to be a little potbellied schoolboy, the princess’s nephew. The schoolboy came running from the garden as though scalded, sprang up to the princess, sat down on her knee, drew her head to him, and whispered in her ear... The princess turned pale and bit her lip until it bled.

"In the pavilion?" she asked.

"Yes."

The princess rose and, with a grimace resembling an official smile, announced to the guests that Olya had a headache, that she begged to be excused, and so on. The guests expressed their regret, hastily finished supper, and began to leave.

At two o’clock (Yegorov had exerted himself and kept Olya until two) I stood at the entrance to the terrace, behind a wall of oleander shrubs, waiting for Olya’s return. I wanted to look at Olya’s face. I love happy women’s faces. I wanted to see how love for Yegorov and, at the same time, fear of her mother would come together on that same face; and which was stronger, love or fear? I had not been breathing the scent of the oleanders for long when Olya appeared. I fixed my eyes on her face. She was walking slowly, lifting her gown a little and showing her small little shoes. Her face was well lit by the moon and by the little lanterns hanging from the trees, whose flickering spoiled the moonlight. Her face was serious, pale. Only her lips smiled, ever so slightly. Her eyes looked pensively down at the ground; with eyes like that one usually solves difficult problems. When Olya stepped onto the first step, her eyes grew restless, darted about: she remembered her mother. Olya touched her mussed-up hair lightly with her hand, stood a moment irresolute on the first step, and, shaking her head, walked boldly toward the door... But at that moment I was fated to see a scene... The door flew open, and Olya’s pale face was lit up by a bright light. Olya started, took a step back, and crouched slightly... It was as if something had flattened her... On the threshold, her head raised, stood the princess, red, trembling with wrath and shame... For two minutes there was silence.

"A prince’s daughter," the princess began, "and a prince’s bride, out on meetings with a lieutenant!? With that little Yevgrashka! Vile creature!"

Olya shrank into herself and, trembling, slipped past the princess like a little snake and flew to her room. She sat down on her bed, and her eyes, full of terror and alarm, did not leave the window for the rest of the night...

At three in the morning we held another council. At this council we laughed over Yegorov, drunk with happiness, and dispatched the Kharkov baron-lawyer to Chaikhidzev. The prince was not yet asleep. The Kharkov baron-lawyer was to point out to Chaikhidzev, "in a friendly way," the awkwardness of his, Chaikhidzev’s, position, to ask him – since he was, as a cultivated man, a prince – to take upon himself the trouble of grasping this awkwardness, and to ask him, incidentally, to forgive us our interference, to forgive it "in a friendly way," as a cultivated man would... Chaikhidzev answered the baron that he "understood all this very well," that he attached no importance to his father’s dying wish, but that he loved Olya, and that was why he had been so insistent... He shook the baron’s hand with feeling and promised to leave the very next day.

The next morning Olya came to tea pale, worn out, full of the most desperate expectations; she was both frightened and ashamed... But her face lit up when she saw and heard us in the dining room. The whole company of us stood before the princess and shouted. We all shouted at once. We threw off our little masks and loudly instilled in the old princess "ideas" very like those Yegorov had instilled in Olya the night before. We spoke of a woman’s personhood, of the lawfulness of free choice, and so on. The princess listened to us silently, sullenly, and read a letter Yegorov had sent her – this letter had been composed by the whole company and was crammed full of the words "on account of youth," "on account of inexperience," "with your blessing," and so on. The princess heard us out to the end, read Yegorov’s long letter through to the end, and said:

"It’s not for you, milksops, to teach me, an old woman. I know what I’m doing. Drink your tea and be off with you, to go turn other people’s heads. It’s not for you to live with me, an old woman... You’re clever people, and I’m a fool... Go, with God, my dear sirs!.. I’ll be grateful to you all my life!"

The princess drove us away. We wrote her a letter of thanks, kissed her hand, and, with heavy hearts, left that very day for Yegorov’s estate. Chaikhidzev left with us. At Yegorov’s we occupied ourselves only with carousing, missing Olya, and consoling Yegorov. We lived at his place for about two weeks. In the third week our baron-lawyer received a letter from the princess. The princess asked the baron to come to the Green Braid and draw her up some sort of document. The baron went. About three days after his departure we too went to the same place, ostensibly to fetch the baron. We arrived at the Green Braid before dinner. We did not go into the house but loitered about the garden, glancing at the windows. The princess caught sight of us through the window.

"Is that you who’ve come?" she shouted.

"It’s us."

"Have you business, or what?"

"For the baron."

"The baron has no time to gad about with you, you gallows-birds! He’s writing."

We took off our hats and went up to the window.

"How is your health, Princess?" I asked.

"What are you loitering about for?" the princess answered. "Go into the rooms!"

We went into the rooms and sat down meekly on the chairs. The princess, who had been terribly bored without our company, liked this meekness. She kept us for dinner. At dinner she scolded one of us who dropped a spoon for a butterfingers, and reproached us for not knowing how to behave at table. We walked with Olya, stayed the night... We stayed a second night too and got stuck at the Green Braid clean through to September. The world had mended itself.

Yesterday I received a letter from Yegorov. The lieutenant writes that all winter he has been "buttering up" the princess and has managed to turn her wrath into favor. He assures me that his wedding will be this summer.

Soon I am to receive two letters: one strict, official, from the princess, the other long, merry, full of schemes, from Olya. In May I am off again to the Green Braid.

"THE MEETING DID TAKE PLACE, BUT..."

Having passed his examination, Gvozdikov got onto the horse-tram and, for six kopecks (he always rode "up top"), rode as far as the tollgate. From the tollgate to the dacha, some three versts, he footed it on his own two legs. At the gate the mistress of the dacha, a young lady, met him. Her little son he was tutoring in arithmetic, for which he received board, lodging at the dacha, and five rubles a month in money.

"Well, how did it go?" the mistress asked him, holding out her hand. "All right? Did you pass the exam?"

"I passed."

"Bravo, Yegor Andreyevich! Did you get a good mark?"

"As usual... A five... Hm..."

Gvozdikov had gotten not a five but only a three plus, but... but why not lie if one can? Examinees lie as readily as hunters. Going into his room, Gvozdikov found on his table a little note with a pink wafer seal. The note smelled of mignonette. Gvozdikov tore open the envelope, ate the wafer, and read the following:

"So be it. Be exactly at eight o’clock by the ditch into which your hat fell yesterday. I’ll be sitting under the tree on the little bench. And I do love you, only don’t be so clumsy. One must be dashing. I await the evening with impatience. I love you terribly. Your S.

P.S. Maman has gone away, and we shall be able to walk until midnight. Ah, how happy I am! Grandmother will be asleep, she won’t notice."

Having read this letter, Gvozdikov smiled broadly, jumped up high, and, triumphant, strode about the room.

"Loved! Loved!! Loved!!! How happy I am, devil take it! O-o-o! Tra-la-la!"

Gvozdikov read the letter through once more, kissed it, folded it carefully, and hid it in his anatomy desk. Dinner was brought to him. Befuddled by the letter and having forgotten everything in the world, he ate everything that was brought him: the soup, and the meat, and the bread. Having dined, he lay down and dreamed of all sorts of things: of friendship, of love, of his career... Sonya’s image floated before his eyes.

"What a pity I have no watch!" he thought. "If I had a watch I could reckon how much time is left till evening. Time, as if on purpose, is going to drag on devilishly slowly."

When he grew tired of lying there and dreaming, he got up, paced about, and sent the cook out for beer.

"While there’s nothing else to do," he thought, "we might as well drink. Time will seem to pass quicker."

The beer was brought. Gvozdikov sat down, set all six bottles out in a row before him and, gazing at them lovingly, set about drinking. Having drunk three glasses, he felt that in his chest and his head someone had lit a lamp: it grew so warm, so bright, so good.

"She will be my happiness!" he thought, setting to on another bottle. "She... she is exactly the one I’ve dreamed of... Oh yes!"

After the second bottle he felt that in his head someone had put out the lamp and it had grown rather dark. But how merry it had become instead! It’s good to be alive in this world after the second bottle! Setting to on the third bottle, Gvozdikov waved his hand in front of his own nose and swore that no one in this world was happier than he. He gave the oath to himself and believed that oath unconditionally.

"I know she fell in love with me for it!" he began muttering. "I know it, sir! She fell in love with the uncommon man in me! That’s how it is! She knows whom to love and for what... An uncommon man! I’m not just some... sort of... I’m Gvoz... I’m..."

Setting to on the fourth bottle, he exclaimed:

"Yes, sir! Not just some fellow! What she fell in love with in me... was a genius! A ge-ni-us! A world genius! Who am I? And what am I? You think – Gvozdikov? Yes, I’m Gvozdikov, but what kind of Gvozdikov? What do you think?"

Getting halfway through the fourth bottle, he banged his fist on the table, ruffled up his hair, and said:

"I’ll show them who I am! Just let me finish my course! Only let me get down to work! I am a priest of science... She fell in love with the priest of science in me. And I’ll prove that she’s right! You don’t believe me? Away with you! And she doesn’t believe it either? She? Sonya? Away with her too, in that case! I’ll prove it! I’ll start working this instant!.. Only let me finish my glass... You’re all scoundrels!"

Gvozdikov grew angry, finished his glass, took his lecture notes down from the shelf, opened them, and began reading from the middle:

"The... the cause of dislocation of the lower jaw may also be a f... fall, a blow to the open mouth..."

"Nonsense! Jaw... A blow... This and that... Nonsense!"

Gvozdikov closed the lecture notes and set to on the fifth bottle. Having finally drunk the fifth and the sixth, he grew despondent and fell to brooding over the nullity of the universe in general and of man in particular... Brooding, he mechanically set the cork on the neck of the bottle and took aim at it with a flick of his finger, trying to strike a little green speck that flickered before his eyes. Black, green, and blue specks began darting before his eyes as he hit the cork into the green speck. One of the specks, a brownish-red one with green needles, smiling, flew toward his eyes and let out something like glue... Gvozdikov felt his eyes sticking shut...

"Someone in my eyes is... squeaking!" he thought. "I must go out into the air, or I’ll go blind. Must go f... for a walk... It’s stuffy in here. They keep stoking the stoves!... Oh, oh – asses!! Squeaking and stoking the stoves! Fools!" Gvozdikov put on his hat and went out of the room. Outside it had already grown dark. It was going on ten o’clock. Little stars twinkled in the sky. There was no moon, and the night promised to be dark. On Gvozdikov there breathed the freshness of a May forest. He was met by all the trappings of a love rendez-vous: a meeting (French). the whisper of the leaves, and the song of the nightingale, and... even the pensive figure, whitening in the darkness, of "her." Without quite noticing it himself, he reached the spot mentioned in the letter.

She rose from the bench and went to meet him.

"Zhorzh!" she said, scarcely breathing. "I’m here."

Gvozdikov stopped, listened, and began looking up, at the tops of the trees. It seemed to him that his name had been spoken somewhere up above.

"Zhorzh, it’s me!" she repeated, coming closer to him.

"Eh?"

"It’s me."

"What? Who’s there? Whom?"

"It’s me, Zhorzh... Come... Let’s sit down."

Zhorzh rubbed his eyes and stared at her...

"What do you want?"

"Funny man! Don’t you recognize me? Can you really not see anything?"

"A-a-a-a... Allow me... What ri... ri...ight do you have to go walking in a stranger’s garden at night-time? My dear madam! Answer, my dear madam, or else I shall give you a right... good... thra... thra..."

Zhorzh stretched out his hand and seized her by the shoulder. She burst out laughing.

"How funny you are! Ha-ha-ha... How well you can play-act! Well, come along... Let’s have a chat..."

"Chat about what? What? Why are you? And why am I? Laughing?"

She laughed louder, took him by the arm, and pulled forward. He backed away. He was playing the part of a stubborn shaft-horse, and she a side-horse straining ahead.

"I... I want to sleep... Let go..." he muttered. "I don’t wish to occupy myself with trifles..."

"Come now, enough, enough... Why were you half an hour late? Were you studying?"

"I was studying... I’m always studying... The c... cau... cause of dislocation of the lower jaw may be a fall, a blow to the open mouth. Jaws get knocked out mostly in taverns, in pot-houses... I want beer... Trekhgornoye."

He and she trudged over to the bench and sat down. He propped his face on his fists, leaned his elbows on his knees, and snorted. His hat slid off his head and fell onto her hands. She bent down and looked into his face.

"What’s the matter with you?" she asked quietly.

"It’s none of your business, none of your business... No one has any right to interfere in my affairs... They’re all fools, and you too... you’re fools."

After a short silence, Gvozdikov added:

"And I’m a fool..."

"Did you get my letter?" she asked.

"I got it... From Son’... ka... From Sonya... You’re Sonya? Well, so what? Stupid... The word ’neterpenie’ [impatience], in the syllable ’ne,’ is spelled not with a yat but with an ye. Literati! The devil take the lot of you!.."

"Are you drunk, or what?"

"N-n-no... But I am just! What ri... ri... right have you... From beer one cannot get drunk... Eh? Which one?"

"Then why, you shameless man, are you talking such nonsense, if you’re not drunk?"

"N-no... Nominative – me, genitive – you, dative, nominative... Processus condyloideus et musculus sterno-cleido-mastoideus the condyloid process and the sternocleidomastoid muscle (Latin).."

Gvozdikov burst out laughing, let his head droop to his knees...

"Are you asleep?" she asked.

There was no answer. She began to cry and wring her hands.

"Are you asleep, Yegor Andreyevich?" she repeated.

In answer to this there came a loud, hoarse snore. Sonya rose.

"Vi-i-le creature!!" she muttered. "Good-for-nothing! So that’s what you’re like? Well then, take that, here’s for you! Take that!"

And Sonya, with her little hand, touched the back of Gvozdikov’s head some five times, and how she touched it! Her feet went to work on his hat too. Women are vindictive!

The next day Gvozdikov sent Sonya a letter to the following effect:

"I beg your pardon. I could not come yesterday, because I was terribly ill. Name another time, this evening, say, if you like.

Yours lovingly, Yegor Gvozdikov."

The answer to this letter was as follows:

"Your hat is lying about near the pavilion. You may fetch it there. Drinking beer is more pleasant than loving, so drink your beer. I do not wish to disturb you.

No longer yours, S...

P.S. Do not answer me. I hate you."