IV
Marya Alekséyevna wanted to give a great party on Viérotchka’s birthday, but Viérotchka begged to have no guests invited: the one wanted to show off the bridegroom; the other found such an exhibition distasteful. They compromised by having the smallest possible party, inviting only a few of their most intimate friends. They invited Pavel Konstantinuitch’s colleagues—those, of course, who had been longer in the service and were higher in position than himself—two of Marya Alekséyevna’s friends, three young girls who were more intimate with Viérotchka than any others.
As Lopukhóf looked over the assembling guests, he noticed that there was no lack of partners (kavalyer); every one of the young girls had a young man, either as candidate for bridegroom or bridegroom already. Therefore Lopukhóf was not invited in the capacity of a partner; why, then? As he thought the matter over he remembered that his playing on the piano preceded his invitation. Of course he was invited so as to save expense—to take the place of an accompanist (tapper). “All right,” he thought. “Excuse me, Marya Alekséyevna,” and he went to Pavel Konstantinuitch.
“How now, Pavel Konstantinuitch; it’s time to have a game of cards. You see it’s rather tiresome for us old people!”
“What do you want to play?”
“Anything.”
Soon a party was made up, and Lopukhóf sat down to play. The medical school on Vuiborgskaïa Street is a classical establishment for card-playing. It is not a rare occurrence in some of the rooms—that is, in the governmental students’ apartments—for a game of cards to be kept up for a day and a half without stopping. It must be admitted that the sums that change hands at the students’ card-tables are much smaller than those at the English Club; but the standard of the gamester’s art is much higher. Even Lopukhóf used to play a great deal in his day; that is, when he had no money.
“Mesdames, what shall we do? We must play by cutting in, that’s a fact; but there’ll be only seven of us left. Either a gentleman or a lady will be lacking for the quadrille.”
The first rubber was drawing to an end, when one of the girls, the liveliest of all, came flying up to Lopukhóf:—
“Monsieur Lopukhóf, you must dance.”
“On one condition,” he said, rising and bowing.
“What?”
“That you give me the first quadrille.”
“Akh! Bozhe moï! I am engaged for the first one! You are welcome to the next, though.”
Lopukhóf again made a profound bow. Two of the gentlemen took their turn in cutting in. At the third quadrille Lopukhóf asked Viérotchka. The first she had danced with Mikhaïl Ivanuitch; the second he danced with the lively girl.
Lopukhóf had been watching Viérotchka, and was now absolutely convinced of the mistake in his former idea of her being a heartless girl, coolly marrying for money a man whom she despised. He saw before him an ordinary young girl, who dances and laughs with her whole soul. Yes, to Viérotchka’s shame be it said that she was an ordinary girl who loved to dance. At first she set her face firmly against the party; but when the party was arranged—small, without any show, and consequently not a trial to her—even she, in a way that she would never have believed, forgot her melancholy. At her time of life one does not like to be melancholy; but liveliness and gayety are so natural that the least chance of self-forgetfulness brings also, for a time, forgetfulness of sorrow. Lopukhóf was now inclined in her favor, but as yet there were a good many things not clear to him.
He was getting interested in Viérotchka’s anomalous position.
“Monsieur Lopukhóf, I never expected to see you dancing,” she began.
“Why not? Is it so hard to dance?”
“For most people certainly it is not; but for you, why—yes—of course it is.”
“Why for me?”
“Because I know your secret—yours and Feódor’s; you despise women!”
“Feódor did not in the least understand my secret. I don’t despise women, but I avoid them; and do you know why? I have a bride—a very jealous one—who, in order to compel me to avoid them, told me their secret.”
“You have a bride?”
“Yes!”
“How surprising! A student, and already engaged! Is she pretty? Are you in love with her?”
“Yes, she is a beauty, and I love her very dearly.”
“Is she a brunetka or a blondinka?”
“I cannot tell you that; it is a secret!”
“Well, God be with her, if it is a secret! But what was the secret about women that she revealed to you that makes you avoid their society?”
“She saw that I did not like to be in a melancholy state of mind, and she whispered in my ear such a secret about them, that I cannot see a woman without getting into a melancholy mood, and so I avoid women.”
“You cannot see a woman without getting into a melancholy mood? At all events, you are a master in the art of making compliments.”
“What else can I say? To pity is the same thing as being in a melancholy state of mind.”
“Do we need pity so much as all that?”
“Yes; aren’t you a woman? I have only to repeat to you your dearest wish, and you will agree with me. It is the universal desire of all women.”
“Do tell me, tell me!”
“It is this: ‘Akh! how I should like to be a man!’ I never met a woman who did not secretly wish this with all her heart. And in the majority of cases, it is not necessary to search for it; it is expressed spontaneously without any need of drawing it out. If a woman has any trouble whatsoever, you will soon hear something like this: ‘We are poor miserable creatures, we women!’ or, ‘Men are so different from women!’ or even without any circumlocution, ‘Akh! why was I not a man?’ ”
Viérotchka smiled. “True; every woman has said that.”
“And now you see how women are to be pitied; for if their dearest wish were to be fulfilled, there would not be any women in the world!”
“Yes, it seems as if it were so,” said Viérotchka.
“It is exactly the same way; if the eager desires of every poor man were fulfilled, there would not be a single poor man in the world. Don’t you see how pitiable women are? They are just as much to be pitied as the poor are. Who likes to see poor people? Just the same way, it is painful for me to see women since I have learned their secret. And it was revealed to me by my jealous bride on the very day of our engagement. Till that time I was very fond of being in the society of women. After that, it was snatched away from me. My bride cured me.”
“Your bride must be a kind and sensible young lady; yes, we women are pitiable creatures, we are poor,” said Viérotchka; “but who is your bride? You speak so mysteriously!”
“That is one of my secrets which Feódor does not tell you. I entirely share the wish of the poor that there should not be any in existence, and some time this wish is going to be realized; sooner or later we shall be able to lay out our lives in such a way that there’ll be no poor; but—”
“What, no more poor?” interrupted Viérotchka. “I myself have thought that the time might come when there would not be any more poverty; but how it would come about I could not tell; tell me how!”
“I myself cannot tell this; only my bride can tell. I am alone here. I can only say this much: that she is looking out for that, and she is very strong; she is stronger than anyone else in the world. But let us not talk about her, but about women. I perfectly agree with the wish of the poor that there should not be any more poor, and my bride is going to bring this about. But I do not agree with the wish of women that there shouldn’t be more women in the world, because this wish cannot be realized; and I never agree with what cannot be realized. But I have a different kind of a wish: I should like all women to get acquainted with my bride; she takes as much care of them as she does of everything else. If they would make friends with her, I should have no reason to pity them and their wish ‘Akh, why wasn’t I born a man!’ would vanish; for if women get acquainted with her, then they would not be worse off than men are.”
“Monsieur Lopukhóf! one more quadrille, without fail!”
“I shall be very much pleased.” He pressed her hand as calmly and gravely as though he were an old friend, or she his comrade. “Which one?”
“The last one.”
“Very well.”
Marya Alekséyevna several times passed near them while they were dancing the quadrille.
What would Marya Alekséyevna have thought had she heard this conversation? We who have heard every word of it from beginning to end, all of us will say that such a conversation during a quadrille is very unnatural.
The last quadrille came.
“We spoke all the time about myself,” said Lopukhóf; “and that is very bad manners on my part, to be speaking all the time about myself. Now I want to make up for my impoliteness by speaking about you, Viéra Pavlovna. Did you know that I had a far worse opinion of you than you did of me. And now—well, we’ll speak about this afterwards. Now first of all, there is one question that I cannot answer; please answer it for me. Will your marriage take place soon?”
“Never!”
“I thought so, for the last three hours—ever since I left the card-table to come in here. But why is he considered to be your bridegroom?”
“Why is he considered to be my bridegroom? why, indeed? There’s one reason I cannot tell you; it is too hard for me: but there’s another I can. I pity him; he loves me so! You will say, ‘I must tell him frankly what I think about our marriage’; I did tell him, but he replied, ‘Don’t speak; it kills me; be silent.’ ”
“That is the second reason; but the first one which you find hard to tell me, I can tell you; it’s because your position in your family is terrible.”
“At the present time it is tolerable. Now no one torments me; they are waiting for me to decide and they leave me almost entirely alone.”
“But this may not last very long; they will begin to bring pressure upon you; what then?”
“Nothing. I have thought about it and made up my mind what to do; I shall not stay here any longer; I can be an actress. What an enviable life it is! Liberty! Liberty!”
“And applause.”
“Yes; that’s also pleasant, but the main thing is liberty; to do what I please; to live as I please, not asking anybody for anything, not be dependent on anybody; that’s the way I want to live!”
“That is true, that is good! Now I want to ask you something: I will find out how this can be done, to whom application must be made—shall I?”
“Thank you.” Viérotchka pressed his hand. “Do it very soon; I want to tear myself away as quick as I can from this miserable, intolerable, and degrading situation. I say, ‘I am calm, I can bear it,’ but is it so in reality? don’t I see what is done with my good name? don’t I know what all those who are here think of me? They say, ‘She’s a schemer, she’s cunning, she wants to be rich, she wants to get into fine society, to shine; she will keep her husband under the shoe, twist him around her little finger, deceive him.’ Don’t I know that they think this about me? I don’t want to live so, no indeed!” Suddenly she fell into deep thought, “Don’t laugh because I said, ‘I pity him—he loves me so.’ ”
“Does he love you? does he look at you the same way that I do or not? has he such a look?”
“Your eyes are frank, honest. No; your look does not offend me.”
“You see, Viéra Pavlovna, it is because—but no matter. Does he look so?”
Viérotchka blushed and made no reply.
“Then he does not love you. That is not love, Viéra Pavlovna.”
“But—” Viérotchka did not finish her sentence, but stopped.
“You were going to say, ‘What is it, then, if it is not love?’ Let that go; but you yourself say that is not love. Whom do you love best of all? I am not speaking of this kind of love—but of your relations, your friends.”
“It seems to me, no one in particular, none of them very much; but no, not long ago, I met a very peculiar woman. She spoke very badly to me, called herself very hard names; she forbade me to keep up my acquaintance with her; we met in a very extraordinary way; she said that if ever I found myself in such need that I was in danger of dying, then only I might come to her, but not otherwise; I loved her very much.”
“Would you want her to do anything for you that would be disagreeable or injurious for her?”
Viérotchka smiled. “But how could it be so?”
“But no; now imagine that you were very, very much in need of her help, and that she said to you, ‘If I do this for you, it would torment me,’ would you repeat your request, would you insist on it?”
“I would sooner die.”
“Now you just told me that you loved her. But this love is only feeling, not a passion. And what is love—passion! and how can you distinguish passion from simple feeling?—by its strength. Consequently, if when one is moved by simple feeling, which is weak, very weak compared to passion, love places you in such relations to a man that you say, ‘I would rather die than be the cause of torment to him.’ If a simple feeling speaks so, what will passion say which is a thousandfold stronger? It will say, ‘I will sooner die than—not ask, not demand—but even admit that any man should do anything for me except what is agreeable to himself; I would sooner die than admit the possibility of his doing anything for my sake under compulsion or at inconvenience to himself.’ Such a passion, speaking this way, is love. But passion that speaks otherwise is passion and not love. I am going home now; I have told you everything, Viéra Pavlovna.”
Viérotchka pressed his hand. “Au revoir, but why don’t you congratulate me? today is my birthday.”
Lopukhóf looked at her. “Maybe, maybe! if you have not made this mistake, then I am glad.”