Антон Чехов
Love and Other Stories
MARI D'ELLE
IT was a free night. Natalya Andreyevna Bronin (her married name was Nikitin), the opera singer, is lying in her bedroom, her whole being abandoned to repose. She lies, deliciously drowsy, thinking of her little daughter who lives somewhere far away with her grandmother or aunt… The child is more precious to her than the public, bouquets, notices in the papers, adorers.. and she would be glad to think about her till morning. She is happy, at peace, and all she longs for is not to be prevented from lying undisturbed, dozing and dreaming of her little girl.
All at once the singer starts, and opens her eyes wide: there is a harsh abrupt ring in the entry. Before ten seconds have passed the bell tinkles a second time and a third time. The door is opened noisily and some one walks into the entry stamping his feet like a horse, snorting and puffing with the cold.
"Damn it all, nowhere to hang one's coat!" the singer hears a husky bass voice. "Celebrated singer, look at that! Makes five thousand a year, and can't get a decent hat-stand!"
"My husband!" thinks the singer, frowning. "And I believe he has brought one of his friends to stay the night too… Hateful!"
No more peace. When the loud noise of some one blowing his nose and putting off his goloshes dies away, the singer hears cautious footsteps in her bedroom… It is her husband, mari d'elle, Denis Petrovitch Nikitin. He brings a whiff of cold air and a smell of brandy. For a long while he walks about the bedroom, breathing heavily, and, stumbling against the chairs in the dark, seems to be looking for something..
"What do you want?" his wife moans, when she is sick of his fussing about. "You have woken me."
"I am looking for the matches, my love. You.. you are not asleep then? I have brought you a message… Greetings from that.. what's-his-name?.. red-headed fellow who is always sending you bouquets… Zagvozdkin… I have just been to see him."
"What did you go to him for?"
"Oh, nothing particular… We sat and talked and had a drink. Say what you like, Nathalie, I dislike that individual – I dislike him awfully! He is a rare blockhead. He is a wealthy man, a capitalist; he has six hundred thousand, and you would never guess it. Money is no more use to him than a radish to a dog. He does not eat it himself nor give it to others. Money ought to circulate, but he keeps tight hold of it, is afraid to part with it… What's the good of capital lying idle? Capital lying idle is no better than grass."
Mari d'elle gropes his way to the edge of the bed and, puffing, sits down at his wife's feet.
"Capital lying idle is pernicious," he goes on. "Why has business gone downhill in Russia? Because there is so much capital lying idle among us; they are afraid to invest it. It's very different in England… There are no such queer fish as Zagvozdkin in England, my girl… There every farthing is in circulation.. Yes… They don't keep it locked up in chests there.."
"Well, that's all right. I am sleepy."
"Directly… Whatever was it I was talking about? Yes… In these hard times hanging is too good for Zagvozdkin… He is a fool and a scoundrel… No better than a fool. If I asked him for a loan without security – why, a child could see that he runs no risk whatever. He doesn't understand, the ass! For ten thousand he would have got a hundred. In a year he would have another hundred thousand. I asked, I talked.. but he wouldn't give it me, the blockhead."
"I hope you did not ask him for a loan in my name."
"H'm… A queer question.." Mari d'elle is offended. "Anyway he would sooner give me ten thousand than you. You are a woman, and I am a man anyway, a business-like person. And what a scheme I propose to him! Not a bubble, not some chimera, but a sound thing, substantial! If one could hit on a man who would understand, one might get twenty thousand for the idea alone! Even you would understand if I were to tell you about it. Only you.. don't chatter about it.. not a word.. but I fancy I have talked to you about it already. Have I talked to you about sausage-skins?"
"M'm.. by and by."
"I believe I have… Do you see the point of it? Now the provision shops and the sausage-makers get their sausage-skins locally, and pay a high price for them. Well, but if one were to bring sausage-skins from the Caucasus where they are worth nothing, and where they are thrown away, then.. where do you suppose the sausage-makers would buy their skins, here in the slaughterhouses or from me? From me, of course! Why, I shall sell them ten times as cheap! Now let us look at it like this: every year in Petersburg and Moscow and in other centres these same skins would be bought to the.. to the sum of five hundred thousand, let us suppose. That's the minimum. Well, and if.."
"You can tell me to-morrow.. later on.."
"Yes, that's true. You are sleepy, pardon, I am just going.. say what you like, but with capital you can do good business everywhere, wherever you go… With capital even out of cigarette ends one may make a million… Take your theatrical business now. Why, for example, did Lentovsky come to grief? It's very simple. He did not go the right way to work from the very first. He had no capital and he went headlong to the dogs… He ought first to have secured his capital, and then to have gone slowly and cautiously.. Nowadays, one can easily make money by a theatre, whether it is a private one or a people's one… If one produces the right plays, charges a low price for admission, and hits the public fancy, one may put a hundred thousand in one's pocket the first year… You don't understand, but I am talking sense… You see you are fond of hoarding capital; you are no better than that fool Zagvozdkin, you heap it up and don't know what for… You won't listen, you don't want to… If you were to put it into circulation, you wouldn't have to be rushing all over the place.. You see for a private theatre, five thousand would be enough for a beginning… Not like Lentovsky, of course, but on a modest scale in a small way. I have got a manager already, I have looked at a suitable building… It's only the money I haven't got… If only you understood things you would have parted with your Five per cents.. your Preference shares.."
"No, merci… You have fleeced me enough already… Let me alone, I have been punished already.."
"If you are going to argue like a woman, then of course." sighs
Nikitin, getting up. "Of course.."
"Let me alone… Come, go away and don't keep me awake..
I am sick of listening to your nonsense."
"H'm… To be sure.. of course! Fleeced.. plundered..
What we give we remember, but we don't remember what we take."
"I have never taken anything from you."
"Is that so? But when we weren't a celebrated singer, at whose expense did we live then? And who, allow me to ask, lifted you out of beggary and secured your happiness? Don't you remember that?"
"Come, go to bed. Go along and sleep it off."
"Do you mean to say you think I am drunk?.. if I am so low in the eyes of such a grand lady.. I can go away altogether."
"Do. A good thing too."
"I will, too. I have humbled myself enough. And I will go."
"Oh, my God! Oh, do go, then! I shall be delighted!"
"Very well, we shall see."
Nikitin mutters something to himself, and, stumbling over the chairs, goes out of the bedroom. Then sounds reach her from the entry of whispering, the shuffling of goloshes and a door being shut. Mari d'elle has taken offence in earnest and gone out.
"Thank God, he has gone!" thinks the singer. "Now I can sleep."
And as she falls asleep she thinks of her mari d'elle, what sort of a man he is, and how this affliction has come upon her. At one time he used to live at Tchernigov, and had a situation there as a book-keeper. As an ordinary obscure individual and not the mari d'elle, he had been quite endurable: he used to go to his work and take his salary, and all his whims and projects went no further than a new guitar, fashionable trousers, and an amber cigarette-holder. Since he had become "the husband of a celebrity" he was completely transformed. The singer remembered that when first she told him she was going on the stage he had made a fuss, been indignant, complained to her parents, turned her out of the house. She had been obliged to go on the stage without his permission. Afterwards, when he learned from the papers and from various people that she was earning big sums, he had 'forgiven her,' abandoned book-keeping, and become her hanger-on. The singer was overcome with amazement when she looked at her hanger-on: when and where had he managed to pick up new tastes, polish, and airs and graces? Where had he learned the taste of oysters and of different Burgundies? Who had taught him to dress and do his hair in the fashion and call her 'Nathalie' instead of Natasha?"
"It's strange," thinks the singer. "In old days he used to get his salary and put it away, but now a hundred roubles a day is not enough for him. In old days he was afraid to talk before schoolboys for fear of saying something silly, and now he is overfamiliar even with princes.. wretched, contemptible little creature!"
But then the singer starts again; again there is the clang of the bell in the entry. The housemaid, scolding and angrily flopping with her slippers, goes to open the door. Again some one comes in and stamps like a horse.
"He has come back!" thinks the singer. "When shall I be left in peace? It's revolting!" She is overcome by fury.
"Wait a bit… I'll teach you to get up these farces! You shall go away. I'll make you go away!"
The singer leaps up and runs barefoot into the little drawing-room where her mari usually sleeps. She comes at the moment when he is undressing, and carefully folding his clothes on a chair.
"You went away!" she says, looking at him with bright eyes full of hatred. "What did you come back for?"
Nikitin remains silent, and merely sniffs.
"You went away! Kindly take yourself off this very minute! This very minute! Do you hear?"
Mari d'elle coughs and, without looking at his wife, takes off his braces.
"If you don't go away, you insolent creature, I shall go," the singer goes on, stamping her bare foot, and looking at him with flashing eyes. "I shall go! Do you hear, insolent.. worthless wretch, flunkey, out you go!"
"You might have some shame before outsiders," mutters her husband..
The singer looks round and only then sees an unfamiliar countenance that looks like an actor's… The countenance, seeing the singer's uncovered shoulders and bare feet, shows signs of embarrassment, and looks ready to sink through the floor.
"Let me introduce." mutters Nikitin, "Bezbozhnikov, a provincial manager."
The singer utters a shriek, and runs off into her bedroom.
"There, you see." says mari d'elle, as he stretches himself on the sofa, "it was all honey just now.. my love, my dear, my darling, kisses and embraces.. but as soon as money is touched upon, then… As you see.. money is the great thing… Good night!"
A minute later there is a snore.
A LIVING CHATTEL
GROHOLSKY embraced Liza, kept kissing one after another all her little fingers with their bitten pink nails, and laid her on the couch covered with cheap velvet. Liza crossed one foot over the other, clasped her hands behind her head, and lay down.
Groholsky sat down in a chair beside her and bent over. He was entirely absorbed in contemplation of her.
How pretty she seemed to him, lighted up by the rays of the setting sun!
There was a complete view from the window of the setting sun, golden, lightly flecked with purple.
The whole drawing-room, including Liza, was bathed by it with brilliant light that did not hurt the eyes, and for a little while covered with gold.
Groholsky was lost in admiration. Liza was so incredibly beautiful. It is true her little kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn up nose was fresh, and even piquant, his scanty hair was black as soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole… However my taste has nothing to do with it. Groholsky who was spoilt by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times in his life, saw her as a beauty. He loved her, and blind love finds ideal beauty everywhere.
"I say," he said, looking straight into her eyes, "I have come to talk to you, my precious. Love cannot bear anything vague or indefinite… Indefinite relations, you know, I told you yesterday, Liza.. we will try to-day to settle the question we raised yesterday. Come, let us decide together.."
"What are we to do?"
Liza gave a yawn and scowling, drew her right arm from under her head.
"What are we to do?" she repeated hardly audibly after Groholsky.
"Well, yes, what are we to do? Come, decide, wise little head.. I love you, and a man in love is not fond of sharing. He is more than an egoist. It is too much for me to go shares with your husband. I mentally tear him to pieces, when I remember that he loves you too. In the second place you love me… Perfect freedom is an essential condition for love… And are you free? Are you not tortured by the thought that that man towers for ever over your soul? A man whom you do not love, whom very likely and quite naturally, you hate… That's the second thing… And thirdly… What is the third thing? Oh yes… We are deceiving him and that.. is dishonourable. Truth before everything, Liza. Let us have done with lying!"
"Well, then, what are we to do?"
"You can guess… I think it necessary, obligatory, to inform him of our relations and to leave him, to begin to live in freedom. Both must be done as quickly as possible… This very evening, for instance… It's time to make an end of it. Surely you must be sick of loving like a thief?"
"Tell! tell Vanya?"
"Why, yes!"
"That's impossible! I told you yesterday, Michel, that it is impossible."
"Why?"
"He will be upset. He'll make a row, do all sorts of unpleasant things… Don't you know what he is like? God forbid! There's no need to tell him. What an idea!"
Groholsky passed his hand over his brow, and heaved a sigh.
"Yes," he said, "he will be more than upset. I am robbing him of his happiness. Does he love you?"
"He does love me. Very much."
"There's another complication! One does not know where to begin.
To conceal it from him is base, telling him would kill him..
Goodness knows what's one to do. Well, how is it to be?"
Groholsky pondered. His pale face wore a frown.
"Let us go on always as we are now," said Liza. "Let him find out for himself, if he wants to."
"But you know that.. is sinful, and besides the fact is you are mine, and no one has the right to think that you do not belong to me but to someone else! You are mine! I will not give way to anyone!.. I am sorry for him – God knows how sorry I am for him, Liza! It hurts me to see him! But.. it can't be helped after all. You don't love him, do you? What's the good of your going on being miserable with him? We must have it out! We will have it out with him, and you will come to me. You are my wife, and not his. Let him do what he likes. He'll get over his troubles somehow… He is not the first, and he won't be the last… Will you run away? Eh? Make haste and tell me! Will you run away?"
Liza got up and looked inquiringly at Groholsky.
"Run away?"
"Yes… To my estate… Then to the Crimea… We will tell him by letter… We can go at night. There is a train at half past one. Well? Is that all right?"
Liza scratched the bridge of her nose, and hesitated.
"Very well," she said, and burst into tears.
Patches of red came out of her cheeks, her eyes swelled, and tears flowed down her kittenish face..
"What is it?" cried Groholsky in a flutter. "Liza! what's the matter?
Come! what are you crying for? What a girl! Come, what is it?
Darling! Little woman!"
Liza held out her hands to Groholsky, and hung on his neck. There was a sound of sobbing.
"I am sorry for him." muttered Liza. "Oh, I am so sorry for him!"
"Sorry for whom?"
"Va – Vanya.."
"And do you suppose I'm not? But what's to be done? We are causing him suffering… He will be unhappy, will curse us.. but is it our fault that we love one another?"
As he uttered the last word, Groholsky darted away from Liza as though he had been stung and sat down in an easy chair. Liza sprang away from his neck and rapidly – in one instant – dropped on the lounge.
They both turned fearfully red, dropped their eyes, and coughed.
A tall, broad-shouldered man of thirty, in the uniform of a government clerk, had walked into the drawing-room. He had walked in unnoticed. Only the bang of a chair which he knocked in the doorway had warned the lovers of his presence, and made them look round. It was the husband.
They had looked round too late.
He had seen Groholsky's arm round Liza's waist, and had seen Liza hanging on Groholsky's white and aristocratic neck.
"He saw us!" Liza and Groholsky thought at the same moment, while they did not know what to do with their heavy hands and embarrassed eyes..
The petrified husband, rosy-faced, turned white.
An agonising, strange, soul-revolting silence lasted for three minutes. Oh, those three minutes! Groholsky remembers them to this day.
The first to move and break the silence was the husband. He stepped up to Groholsky and, screwing his face into a senseless grimace like a smile, gave him his hand. Groholsky shook the soft perspiring hand and shuddered all over as though he had crushed a cold frog in his fist.
"Good evening," he muttered.
"How are you?" the husband brought out in a faint husky, almost inaudible voice, and he sat down opposite Groholsky, straightening his collar at the back of his neck.
Again, an agonising silence followed.. but that silence was no longer so stupid… The first step, most difficult and colourless, was over.
All that was left now was for one of the two to depart in search of matches or on some such trifling errand. Both longed intensely to get away. They sat still, not looking at one another, and pulled at their beards while they ransacked their troubled brains for some means of escape from their horribly awkward position. Both were perspiring. Both were unbearably miserable and both were devoured by hatred. They longed to begin the tussle but how were they to begin and which was to begin first? If only she would have gone out!
"I saw you yesterday at the Assembly Hall," muttered Bugrov (that was the husband's name).
"Yes, I was there.. the ball.. did you dance?"
"M'm.. yes.. with that.. with the younger Lyukovtsky.. She dances heavily… She dances impossibly. She is a great chatterbox." (Pause.) "She is never tired of talking."
"Yes… It was slow. I saw you too.."
Groholsky accidentally glanced at Bugrov… He caught the shifting eyes of the deceived husband and could not bear it. He got up quickly, quickly seized Bugrov's hand, shook it, picked up his hat, and walked towards the door, conscious of his own back. He felt as though thousands of eyes were looking at his back. It is a feeling known to the actor who has been hissed and is making his exit from the stage, and to the young dandy who has received a blow on the back of the head and is being led away in charge of a policeman.
As soon as the sound of Groholsky's steps had died away and the door in the hall creaked, Bugrov leapt up, and after making two or three rounds of the drawing-room, strolled up to his wife. The kittenish face puckered up and began blinking its eyes as though expecting a slap. Her husband went up to her, and with a pale, distorted face, with arms, head, and shoulders shaking, stepped on her dress and knocked her knees with his.
"If, you wretched creature," he began in a hollow, wailing voice, "you let him come here once again, I'll… Don't let him dare to set his foot… I'll kill you. Do you understand? A-a-ah.. worthless creature, you shudder! Fil-thy woman!"
Bugrov seized her by the elbow, shook her, and flung her like an indiarubber ball towards the window..
"Wretched, vulgar woman! you have no shame!"
She flew towards the window, hardly touching the floor with her feet, and caught at the curtains with her hands.
"Hold your tongue," shouted her husband, going up to her with flashing eyes and stamping his foot.
She did hold her tongue, she looked at the ceiling, and whimpered while her face wore the expression of a little girl in disgrace expecting to be punished.
"So that's what you are like! Eh? Carrying on with a fop! Good! And your promise before the altar? What are you? A nice wife and mother. Hold your tongue!"
And he struck her on her pretty supple shoulder. "Hold your tongue, you wretched creature. I'll give you worse than that! If that scoundrel dares to show himself here ever again, if I see you – listen! – with that blackguard ever again, don't ask for mercy! I'll kill you, if I go to Siberia for it! And him too. I shouldn't think twice about it! You can go, I don't want to see you!"
Bugrov wiped his eyes and his brow with his sleeve and strode about the drawing-room, Liza sobbing more and more loudly, twitching her shoulders and her little turned up nose, became absorbed in examining the lace on the curtain.
"You are crazy," her husband shouted. "Your silly head is full of nonsense! Nothing but whims! I won't allow it, Elizaveta, my girl! You had better be careful with me! I don't like it! If you want to behave like a pig, then.. then out you go, there is no place in my house for you! Out you pack if… You are a wife, so you must forget these dandies, put them out of your silly head! It's all foolishness! Don't let it happen again! You try defending yourself! Love your husband! You have been given to your husband, so you must love him. Yes, indeed! Is one not enough? Go away till.. Torturers!"
Bugrov paused; then shouted:
"Go away I tell you, go to the nursery! Why are you blubbering, it is your own fault, and you blubber! What a woman! Last year you were after Petka Totchkov, now you are after this devil. Lord forgive us!.. Tfoo, it's time you understood what you are! A wife! A mother! Last year there were unpleasantnesses, and now there will be unpleasantnesses… Tfoo!"
Bugrov heaved a loud sigh, and the air was filled with the smell of sherry. He had come back from dining and was slightly drunk..
"Don't you know your duty? No!.. you must be taught, you've not been taught so far! Your mamma was a gad-about, and you.. you can blubber. Yes! blubber away.."
Bugrov went up to his wife and drew the curtain out of her hands.
"Don't stand by the window, people will see you blubbering… Don't let it happen again. You'll go from embracing to worse trouble. You'll come to grief. Do you suppose I like to be made a fool of? And you will make a fool of me if you carry on with them, the low brutes… Come, that's enough… Don't you… Another time… Of course I. Liza.. stay.."
Bugrov heaved a sigh and enveloped Liza in the fumes of sherry.
"You are young and silly, you don't understand anything… I am never at home… And they take advantage of it. You must be sensible, prudent. They will deceive you. And then I won't endure it… Then I may do anything… Of course! Then you can just lie down, and die. I.. I am capable of doing anything if you deceive me, my good girl. I might beat you to death… And.. I shall turn you out of the house, and then you can go to your rascals."
And Bugrov (horribile dictu) wiped the wet, tearful face of the traitress Liza with his big soft hand. He treated his twenty-year-old wife as though she were a child.
"Come, that's enough… I forgive you. Only God forbid it should happen again! I forgive you for the fifth time, but I shall not forgive you for the sixth, as God is holy. God does not forgive such as you for such things."
Bugrov bent down and put out his shining lips towards Liza's little head. But the kiss did not follow. The doors of the hall, of the dining-room, of the parlour, and of the drawing-room all slammed, and Groholsky flew into the drawing-room like a whirlwind. He was pale and trembling. He was flourishing his arms and crushing his expensive hat in his hands. His coat fluttered upon him as though it were on a peg. He was the incarnation of acute fever. When Bugrov saw him he moved away from his wife and began looking out of the other window. Groholsky flew up to him, and waving his arms and breathing heavily and looking at no one, he began in a shaking voice:
"Ivan Petrovitch! Let us leave off keeping up this farce with one another! We have deceived each other long enough! It's too much! I cannot stand it. You must do as you like, but I cannot! It's hateful and mean, it's revolting! Do you understand that it is revolting?"
Groholsky spluttered and gasped for breath.
"It's against my principles. And you are an honest man. I love her! I love her more than anything on earth! You have noticed it and.. it's my duty to say this!"
"What am I to say to him?" Ivan Petrovitch wondered.
"We must make an end of it. This farce cannot drag on much longer!
It must be settled somehow."
Groholsky drew a breath and went on:
"I cannot live without her; she feels the same. You are an educated man, you will understand that in such circumstances your family life is impossible. This woman is not yours, so.. in short, I beg you to look at the matter from an indulgent humane point of view… Ivan Petrovitch, you must understand at last that I love her – love her more than myself, more than anything in the world, and to struggle against that love is beyond my power!"
"And she?" Bugrov asked in a sullen, somewhat ironical tone.
"Ask her; come now, ask her! For her to live with a man she does not love, to live with you is.. is a misery!"
"And she?" Bugrov repeated, this time not in an ironical tone.
"She.. she loves me! We love each other, Ivan Petrovitch! Kill us, despise us, pursue us, do as you will, but we can no longer conceal it from you. We are standing face to face – you may judge us with all the severity of a man whom we.. whom fate has robbed of happiness!"
Bugrov turned as red as a boiled crab, and looked out of one eye at Liza. He began blinking. His fingers, his lips, and his eyelids twitched. Poor fellow! The eyes of his weeping wife told him that Groholsky was right, that it was a serious matter.
"Well!" he muttered. "If you… In these days… You are always.."
"As God is above," Groholsky shrilled in his high tenor, "we understand you. Do you suppose we have no sense, no feeling? I know what agonies I am causing you, as God's above! But be indulgent, I beseech you! We are not to blame. Love is not a crime. No will can struggle against it… Give her up to me, Ivan Petrovitch! Let her go with me! Take from me what you will for your sufferings. Take my life, but give me Liza. I am ready to do anything… Come, tell me how I can do something to make up in part at least! To make up for that lost happiness, I can give you other happiness. I can, Ivan Petrovitch; I am ready to do anything! It would be base on my part to leave you without satisfaction… I understand you at this moment."
Bugrov waved his hand as though to say, 'For God's sake, go away.' His eyes began to be dimmed by a treacherous moisture – in a moment they would see him crying like a child.
"I understand you, Ivan Petrovitch. I will give you another happiness, such as hitherto you have not known. What would you like? I have money, my father is an influential man… Will you? Come, how much do you want?"
Bugrov's heart suddenly began throbbing… He clutched at the window curtains with both hands..
"Will you have fifty thousand? Ivan Petrovitch, I entreat you… It's not a bribe, not a bargain… I only want by a sacrifice on my part to atone a little for your inevitable loss. Would you like a hundred thousand? I am willing. A hundred thousand?"
My God! Two immense hammers began beating on the perspiring temples of the unhappy Ivan Petrovitch. Russian sledges with tinkling bells began racing in his ears..
"Accept this sacrifice from me," Groholsky went on, "I entreat you!
You will take a load off my conscience… I implore you!"
My God! A smart carriage rolled along the road wet from a May shower, passed the window through which Bugrov's wet eyes were looking. The horses were fine, spirited, well-trained beasts. People in straw hats, with contented faces, were sitting in the carriage with long fishing-rods and bags… A schoolboy in a white cap was holding a gun. They were driving out into the country to catch fish, to shoot, to walk about and have tea in the open air. They were driving to that region of bliss in which Bugrov as a boy – the barefoot, sunburnt, but infinitely happy son of a village deacon – had once raced about the meadows, the woods, and the river banks. Oh, how fiendishly seductive was that May! How happy those who can take off their heavy uniforms, get into a carriage and fly off to the country where the quails are calling and there is the scent of fresh hay. Bugrov's heart ached with a sweet thrill that made him shiver. A hundred thousand! With the carriage there floated before him all the secret dreams over which he had gloated, through the long years of his life as a government clerk as he sat in the office of his department or in his wretched little study… A river, deep, with fish, a wide garden with narrow avenues, little fountains, shade, flowers, arbours, a luxurious villa with terraces and turrets with an Aeolian harp and little silver bells (he had heard of the existence of an Aeolian harp from German romances); a cloudless blue sky; pure limpid air fragrant with the scents that recall his hungry, barefoot, crushed childhood… To get up at five, to go to bed at nine; to spend the day catching fish, talking with the peasants… What happiness!
"Ivan Petrovitch, do not torture me! Will you take a hundred thousand?"
"H'm.. a hundred and fifty thousand!" muttered Bugrov in a hollow voice, the voice of a husky bull. He muttered it, and bowed his head, ashamed of his words, and awaiting the answer.
"Good," said Groholsky, "I agree. I thank you, Ivan Petrovitch
