Chapter 11 "Wife" three

three My wife suddenly lost her temper and it reminded me of our married life. In the past, every time we lost our temper, we would find each other unbearably, and when we met, all the dynamite accumulated in our hearts would explode.Now, after Ivan Ivanitch is gone, I still want to go to her.I meant to go downstairs and tell her that she had insulted me by what she had done at tea, that she was cruel, that she was superficial, and that her philistine mind would never understand what I said or what I did.I walked a long time through those rooms, trying to figure out what to say to her, what to say in reply.

I felt that, after Ivan Ivanitch's departure this evening, the uneasiness which had lately bored me was manifested in a particularly disturbing form. I neither sat nor stood, but kept walking, and at the same time went in and out of brightly lit rooms, often near the one where Marya Gerasimovna was sitting.My mood is very similar to that I experienced when I was sailing in a storm on the German Sea, and everyone was afraid that the ship with neither cargo nor ballast would capsize.This evening, I realized that my restless mood was not the disillusionment I thought before, but something else. As for what it was, I didn't understand it, which made me more irritable. .

"I'm going to find her," I decided. "You can make up excuses. I'll just say I want Ivan Ivanitch." I went downstairs, treading the carpet without haste through the vestibule and hall.Ivan Ivanitch was sitting on a sofa in the drawing-room, drinking tea again, and chattering.My wife stood opposite him, leaning on the back of an armchair.There was a quiet, fascinated, submissive look on her face, as one listens to mad monks or fanatics, and wonders what special meaning lies in their idle words and chatter.I think my wife looks and poses a bit like a mental patient or a nun, and her low, semi-dark, very warm room with its ancient furniture, birds sleeping in cages, and the smell of geraniums always Reminds me of the room of a priory or of an old and religious general's wife.

I go into the living room.My wife showed neither surprise nor panic, but just looked at me sternly and calmly, as if she knew I would come. "I'm sorry," I said softly. "I'm glad you're still here, Ivan Ivanitch. I forgot to ask you upstairs just now: do you know the real name and father's name of the Chairman of our Zemstvo Executive?" "Andrei Stanislavovich. Yes. . . . " "Merci," I said, taking a little notebook from my pocket and writing it down. Then there was silence, during which my wife and Ivan Ivanitch were probably waiting for me to go.My wife doesn't believe that I'm going to ask for the name of the head of the Zemstvo Executive, I can see that in her eyes.

"Then I'm going, my beauty," murmured Ivan Ivanitch, while I had walked up and down the drawing-room once or twice, and sat down by the fireplace. "No," said Natalya Gavrilovna quickly, touching his hand. "Sit another quarter of an hour. . . . I beg you." She clearly didn't want to be alone with me without anyone else present. "Well, I'll wait a quarter of an hour, too," I thought. "Oh, it's snowing!" I said, standing up and looking out the window. "What a snow! Ivan Ivanitch," I continued, walking up and down the drawing-room, "I'm sorry I'm not a hunter myself.I can imagine how much fun it would be to chase rabbits and wolves in this snowy day! "

My wife stood still and didn't turn her head. She just followed my movements with squinted eyes. From her expression, it seemed that I had a sharp knife or a pistol hidden in my pocket. "Ivan Ivanitch, take me hunting at any rate," I continued softly. "I will be very, very grateful to you." At this moment a visitor came into the drawing room.He was a gentleman I didn't know, about forty years old, tall and strong, with a bald head, a big flaxen beard, and a pair of small eyes.From his baggy, wrinkled coat, from his manner, I thought he was a chapel chaplain or teacher, but my wife introduced me to him as Dr. Sobol.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, a pleasure!" the doctor exclaimed in a tenor voice, holding my hand tightly and smiling innocently. "very happy!" He sat down at the table, picked up a cup of tea, and said aloud: "Perhaps you have rum or brandy here? Please, Olga," he said to the maid, "look in the cupboard. I'm freezing." I sat down by the fire again, watching, listening, and occasionally interjecting into the conversation.My wife smiled courteously at the guests, and fixed her pointed eyes on me as if she were a wild animal.Her distress in my presence aroused in me jealousy, annoyance, and a stubborn desire to make her miserable.I thought to myself: my wife, these cozy rooms, this little warm spot by the fireplace, they belong to me and have been mine for a long time, but for some reason this stupid Ivan Ivanitch or Sobol have more power over these things than I do.Now I don't stand at the window and see my wife, she's right next to me, in the normal family atmosphere that I need as I'm getting older.Though she hated me, I was in love with her, as I was with my mother and my nurse when I was a child.I feel that although I am approaching old age now, I love her purer and nobler than before.It is also for this reason that I want to approach her, step on her toe with the heel of my shoe even harder, and make her suffer, while smiling slightly.

"Mr. Yenoter," I said, turning to the doctor, "how many hospitals are there in our county?" "Sobol, . . . " corrected my wife. "Two, sir," replied Sobol. "So how many people die a year in each hospital?" "Pavel Andreitch, I have something to tell you," my wife said to me. She apologized to her guests and went into the next room.I stood up and followed her out. "You go upstairs to your room at once," she said. "You're being rude," I said. "You go upstairs to your room at once," she repeated sharply, looking at my face with hatred.

She was standing so close that if I stooped even a little bit, my beard would touch her face. "But what's going on here?" I said. "Where did I suddenly go wrong?" Her jaw began to tremble, she hastily wiped her eyes, looked in the mirror, and whispered: "It's the same old thing again. You, of course, won't go. Well, it's up to you. I'll go, You stay here." She returned to the living room with a determined face, and I, shrugging my shoulders and trying to make a mocking smile, returned to the living room.There have been new guests here, an elderly lady and a young man with spectacles.I walked back to my room without greeting the new visitor or saying goodbye to the old one.

Ever since something happened while drinking tea, and then some things happened downstairs one after another, I realized in my heart that our "family happiness" that we have begun to forget in the past two years is due to some trivial and boring reasons. Now it's making a comeback.Neither I nor my wife could stop myself.I judge from the experience of past years that once this hatred breaks out, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow there will be an abominable situation, which will upset the whole order of our lives.I started walking up and down those rooms of mine, thinking to myself: So we haven't gotten any wiser, cooler, or more composed these two years.So there will be tears again, shouting, cursing, suitcases, going abroad, and then the constant, morbid fear that she will be there, abroad, with some Italian or Russian dandy. A good friend, tarnished my reputation, followed by my refusal to give her an ID card, letters back and forth, complete loneliness, and missing her, so, five years later, I was old and my hair was gray. … I walked up and down, secretly imagining the impossible: she was beautiful and plump, with her arms around a man I didn't recognize. ... I finally believed that this kind of thing was bound to happen, so I asked myself in a desperate mood: Why didn't I ask her for a divorce once in the past, during the years of quarrels?Or, why didn't she leave me right then and never come back?Why?If that was the case, now I would not be attached to her, would not have hatred and anxiety, I would be calm, think about nothing, concentrate on my work, and live my whole life. ... A carriage with two lamps on it drove into the yard, followed by a broad sleigh drawn by three horses.Apparently my wife was throwing a party.

It was quiet downstairs until midnight, and I heard nothing, but at midnight, the chairs were moving and the dishes were rattling.From this point of view, it's time for dinner downstairs.Then the chairs moved again, and I heard a commotion through the floor, and they seemed to be cheering.Maria Gerasimovna was asleep, and I was alone upstairs.In the portraits on the living room wall, my ancestors, small and cruel, stared at me.The lamp in my study was reflected on the window pane, and I blinked unhappily.I felt envious and jealous of the situation downstairs, and while listening to it, I thought: "I am the master here, as long as I want to, I can drive away all these respectable people in a minute." But I know it's crazy, I can't drive anyone away, the word "Master" means nothing.One can think of himself as master, married, rich, and page as he likes, and not know what it means. After dinner, a tenor downstairs sang. "Actually, nothing serious happened!" I convinced myself. "Why should I be so excited? I'll just go downstairs to find her tomorrow, and our quarrel will be over." At a quarter past one, I went to sleep. "Have the people downstairs gone?" I asked Alexei, who was undressing me. "Yes, sir, we're gone." "Why were they cheering just now?" "Alexey Dmitrich Makhonov donated a thousand poods of flour and a thousand rubles in cash to the starving. There was also an old lady whose name I do not know, who promised to be in her There is a dining-room on the estate where one hundred and fifty people can eat. Thank God. . . . Natalya Gavrilovna decided immediately that all the gentlemen and wives should come to a meeting every Friday." "Gathering here downstairs?" "Yes, sir. Before supper they read a list: From August to today Natalya Gavrilovna has collected eight thousand rubles, grain excluded. Thank God. . . . Think of it this way, my lord, if the mistress would go to some trouble to save her soul, she'd get a lot of money. There's a lot of rich people here." I sent Alexei away, then I blew out the lamp and pulled the quilt over my head. "Actually, why am I so restless?" I thought, "What pushes me, like a moth to a flame, to run for the hungry? Yes, I don't know them, and I don't know them." I know them, I've never seen them, I don't like them. So where does this restlessness come from?" I suddenly raised my hand under the quilt and made a sign of the cross on my chest. "But what's the matter with her?" I thought to myself, thinking of my wife. "She's running a serious committee in this house, without telling me. Why keep it from me? Why are they in collusion? What can I do to them?" Ivan Ivanitch is right: I must get out of here! When I woke up the next day, I made up my mind: just leave.The events of yesterday, the conversation at tea, my wife, Sobol, the supper, and my fears, had troubled me very much.I am secretly glad that I can get out of this environment soon, and I won't worry about those things anymore.While I drank my coffee, Vladimir Prokhorich, the superintendent, gave me a lengthy report on various affairs. He saves the happiest news for last. "The thieves who stole our rye are caught," he reported, smiling slightly. "Yesterday the court investigators took three peasants in the village of Petrovo." "Get out!" I yelled at him in a rage.For no apparent reason, I picked up the biscuit basket and threw it on the floor. "Notes" ①Mr. Raccoon (Yenote's original meaning in Russian is "raccoon").