Fifty-Two Stories

Alisa was walking with a pair of unattractive students and an officer. She laughed and talked loudly, was clearly flirting; Vorotov had never seen her like that. She was obviously happy, content, sincere, warm. How so? Why? Perhaps because these people were close to her, from the same circle as she was…And Vorotov sensed a dreadful abyss between himself and that circle. He bowed to his tutor, but she coldly nodded to him and quickly went by; evidently she did not want her cavaliers to know that she had pupils and that she gave lessons out of poverty.

After the meeting in the theater, Vorotov realized that he was in love…In the subsequent lessons, devouring his elegant teacher with his eyes, he no longer fought with himself, but gave free rein to his pure and impure thoughts. The face of Alisa Osipovna never ceased to be cold, at exactly eight o’clock each night she calmly said “Au revoir, monsieur,” and he felt that she was indifferent to him, and would remain indifferent, and that his position was hopeless.

Occasionally during a lesson he began to dream, to hope, to make plans, mentally composed a declaration of love, recalled that Frenchwomen were light-minded and yielding, but it needed only a look at his tutor’s face for his thoughts to be instantly extinguished, as a candle is extinguished when you take it out to the terrace of your dacha on a windy night. Once, inebriated, forgetting himself, as if in delirium, he lost control and, barring her way as she was leaving the study and going to the front hall after the lesson, suffocating and stammering, he began to declare his love:

“You’re dear to me! I…love you! Allow me to speak!”

Alisa turned pale—probably out of fear, figuring that after this declaration she would no longer be able to come here and get a rouble per lesson; she made frightened eyes and whispered loudly:

“Ah, you mustn’t do this! Don’t speak, I beg you! You mustn’t!”

After that Vorotov did not sleep all night, suffered from shame, scolded himself, thought hard. It seemed to him that he had offended the girl by his declaration, that she would never come to him again.

He decided to find out her address at the information bureau the next morning and write her a letter of apology. But Alisa came without a letter. At first she felt awkward, but then she opened the book and began to translate as quickly and glibly as ever:

“Oh, young sir, do not rip these flowers from my garden, which I wish to be giving to my sick daughter…”

She comes to this day. Four books have been translated, and Vorotov knows nothing except the word “mémoires,” and when people ask him about his scholarly work, he waves his hand and, not answering the question, begins to talk about the weather.

1887

THE KISS

ON THE TWENTIETH OF MAY, at eight o’clock in the evening, all six batteries of the N—— reserve artillery brigade, on their way to camp, halted overnight in the village of Mestechki. At the very height of the turmoil, when some officers were busy with the cannon, while others, gathered on the square by the church wall, were listening to the quartermasters, a rider appeared from behind the church, in civilian dress and on a strange horse. The horse, dun-colored and small, with a beautiful neck and a short tail, did not walk straight but somehow sideways, and performed little prancing movements, as if it were being whipped on the legs. Going up to the officers, the rider raised his hat and said:

“His Excellency Lieutenant General von Rabbek, a local landowner, invites the gentlemen officers to call on him presently for tea…”

The horse bowed, pranced, and backed up sideways; the rider raised his hat again and instantly, together with his strange horse, disappeared behind the church.

“What the devil is this?” some officers grumbled, dispersing to their quarters. “You want to sleep, and here’s this von Rabbek with his tea! We know what this tea means!”

The officers of all six batteries vividly recalled last year’s incident, when, during maneuvers, and with the officers of a Cossack regiment, they were invited to tea in the same way by a landowner-count, a retired soldier; the hospitable and cordial count welcomed them, wined and dined them, and would not let them go to their quarters in the village, but made them stay overnight with him. This was all very good, of course, nothing better was needed, but the trouble was that the retired soldier was all too happy to be with young men. He went on until dawn telling the officers episodes from his good past life, took them around the house, showed them expensive paintings, old prints, rare weapons, read them original letters from high-placed persons, while the worn-out, weary officers listened, looked, and, longing for their beds, cautiously yawned into their sleeves. When the host finally let them go, it was already too late to sleep.