The Abyss and Other Stories (Alma Classics) Page 3

  When Maslennikov looked at his hand, after the cards had been dealt by gloomy Prokopy Vasilyevich, his heart began thumping and immediately sank, and things went so dark before his eyes that he lurched over – he had twelve tricks in his hand: clubs and hearts from the ace to the ten, and the ace and king of diamonds. If he drew the ace of spades, he would have a grand slam in no trumps.

  “Two no trumps,” he began, controlling his voice with difficulty.

  “Three spades,” replied Yevpraksia Vasilyevna, who was highly agitated too: she had almost all the spades, starting with the king.

  “Four hearts,” responded Yakov Ivanovich dryly.

  Nikolai Dmitriyevich immediately raised the bid to a little slam, but the excited Yevpraksia Vasilyevna did not mean to give in and, although she could see she would not make it, she bid a grand slam in spades. Nikolai Dmitriyevich fell into thought for a second, and with a certain solemnity, behind which was hidden fear, slowly pronounced:

  “A grand slam in no trumps!”

  Nikolai Dmitriyevich is playing a grand slam in no trumps! Everyone was stunned, and the hostess’s brother even cried:

  “Oho!”

  Nikolai Dmitriyevich reached a hand out for the kitty, but gave a lurch and knocked a candle over. Yevpraksia Vasilyevna caught it, and Nikolai Dmitriyevich, having put his cards on the table, sat upright and motionless for a second, then flung his hands up in the air and slowly began to topple over onto his left side. As he fell, he overturned the side table on which stood a saucer with tea in it, and his body bore down on its leg with a crunch.

  When the doctor came, he found that Nikolai Dmitriyevich had died of a heart attack, and to console the living he said a few words about the painlessness of such a death. The deceased was put onto a Turkish divan in that same room where they had been playing, and, covered with a sheet, he seemed enormous and terrible. One foot, with the toe of its boot turned inwards, remained uncovered and seemed alien, as if taken from another man; on the boot’s sole, black and brand new where it curved up, a toffee wrapper had got stuck. The card table had not yet been cleared away, and lying about on it with their backs downwards were the untidily scattered cards of the partners, and Nikolai Dmitriyevich’s cards lay tidily in a slim little stack, the way he had put them down.

  Yakov Ivanovich walked around the room with uncertain little steps, trying not to look at the deceased and not to move off the rug onto the polished parquet, where his big heels produced a sharp staccato knocking. After walking past the table several times, he stopped and cautiously picked up Nikolai Dmitriyevich’s cards, examined them and, stacking them in the same little pile, quietly put them back in place. Then he looked at the kitty: there was the ace of spades, the very one that Nikolai Dmitriyevich had been short of for the grand slam. After walking up and down a few times more, Yakov Ivanovich went out into the next room, buttoned his padded frock coat up tight and started to cry, because he felt sorry for the deceased. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine Nikolai Dmitriyevich’s face the way it had been during his lifetime, when he was winning and laughing. He felt especially sorry remembering Nikolai Dmitriyevich’s frivolity and how he had wanted to win a grand slam in no trumps. He went through the whole of the current evening in his memory, starting with the five diamonds the deceased had made, and ending with the uninterrupted flow of good cards in which something terrible was to be sensed. And now Nikolai Dmitriyevich was dead – dead, when he could at last have made a grand slam.

  But one thought, dreadful in its simplicity, shook Yakov Ivanovich’s thin body and made him leap up from his armchair. Looking around from side to side, as though the idea had not occurred to him of its own accord but had been whispered in his ear by somebody, Yakov Ivanovich said loudly:

  “But he’ll never find out, will he, that the ace was in the kitty and he had a certain grand slam in his hand. Never!”

  And it seemed to Yakov Ivanovich that never before had he understood what death was. But now he did understand, and what he had clearly seen was to such a degree senseless, dreadful and irremediable. He would never find out! If Yakov Ivanovich were to start shouting about it right in his ear, were to cry and show him the cards, Nikolai Dmitriyevich would not hear and would never find out, because there was no Nikolai Dmitriyevich in the world. Just one more movement, one second of the something that was life, and Nikolai Dmitriyevich would have seen the ace and found out that he had a grand slam, but now everything was over, and he did not know and would never find out.

  “Ne-ver,” Yakov Ivanovich pronounced slowly, by syllables, to satisfy himself that such a word existed and meant something.

  Such a word did exist and did mean something, but the meaning was so monstrous and bitter that Yakov Ivanovich fell back again into the armchair and started helplessly crying out of pity for the man who would never find out, pity for himself and for everyone, since the same terribly and senselessly cruel thing would happen both to him and everyone else. He cried and played Nikolai Dmitriyevich’s cards for him, and picked up the tricks, one after another, until there were thirteen of them gathered, and he thought of how much would have had to be noted down, and that Nikolai Dmitriyevich would never find it out. This was the first and last time that Yakov Ivanovich deviated from his bids of four and, in the name of friendship, played a grand slam in no trumps.

  “Are you here, Yakov Ivanovich?” said Yevpraksia Vasilyevna, coming in, and she lowered herself onto the chair that was standing alongside and started to cry. “How dreadful, how dreadful!”

  Neither of them looked at the other, and they both cried silently, sensing that in the next room, on the divan, lay the dead man – cold, heavy and mute.

  “Have you sent word?” asked Yakov Ivanovich, blowing his nose noisily and assiduously.

  “Yes, my brother’s gone with Annushka. But how are they going to find his apartment – after all, we don’t know the address.”

  “Isn’t he at the same apartment as last year, then?” asked Yakov Ivanovich absent-mindedly.

  “No, he changed it. Annushka says he used to take a cab to somewhere on Novinsky Boulevard.”

  “They’ll find it through the police,” the little old man reassured her. “He has a wife, I think, doesn’t he?”

  Yevpraksia Vasilyevna looked pensively at Yakov Ivanovich and did not reply. It seemed to him that the same idea could be seen in her eyes that had occurred to him too. He blew his nose again, put the handkerchief away in the pocket of his padded frock coat and, raising his brows enquiringly above his reddened eyes, said:

  “And wherever are we going to find a fourth person now?”

  But Yevpraksia Vasilyevna, busy with considerations of a household nature, did not hear him. After a short silence she asked:

  “And you, Yakov Ivanovich, are you still at the same apartment?”

  1899

  SILENCE

  I

  One moonlit May night, when the nightingales were singing, into Fr. Ignaty’s study came his wife. Her face expressed suffering, and a little lamp was trembling in her hands. Going up to her husband, she touched his shoulder and said with a sob:

  “Let’s go to Verochka, Father.”

  Without turning his head, Fr. Ignaty glanced at his wife from under his brows and over the top of his glasses and looked intently for a long time until she waved her free hand and dropped onto a low couch.

  “The two of you are so… pitiless!” she pronounced slowly, with a strong emphasis on the last word, and her kind, chubby face was distorted by a grimace of pain and bitterness, as though she wanted to show on her face what cruel people they were – her husband and daughter.

  Fr. Ignaty gave a smirk and stood up. Closing his book, he removed his glasses, put them into their case and fell into thought. His big black beard, laced with silver threads, lay in a handsome curve on his chest and rose slowly with his deep breathing.

>   “All right, let’s go!” he said.

  Olga Stepanovna stood up quickly and in a timid, ingratiating voice begged:

  “Only don’t scold her, Father! You know what she’s like…”

  Vera’s room was on the mezzanine, and the narrow little wooden staircase bent and groaned under Fr. Ignaty’s heavy footsteps. Tall and bulky, he lowered his head to avoid hitting himself on the floor of the top storey, and frowned fastidiously when his wife’s white blouse caught him lightly on the face. He knew that nothing would come of their conversation with Vera.

  “What do you want?” asked Vera, raising one bare arm to put a hand to her eyes. The other arm lay on top of the white summer blanket, from which it was hardly distinguishable, so white, transparent and cold was it.

  “Verochka…” her mother began, but let out a sob and fell silent.

  “Vera!” said her father, trying to soften his firm, dry voice. “Vera, tell us: what’s the matter with you?”

  Vera was silent.

  “Vera, are we, your mother and I, truly unworthy of your trust? Don’t we love you? And is there anyone closer to you than us? Tell us about your woe, and believe me, an old and experienced man, it’ll make things easier for you. And for us too. Look at your old mother, how she’s suffering…”

  “Verochka!”

  “And me…” the dry voice faltered, as though something in it had fractured. “Do you think it’s easy for me? As if I can’t see that there’s some sort of woe eating away at you? And I, your father, don’t know what it is. Is this the way things ought to be?”

  Vera was silent. Fr. Ignaty ran a hand over his beard with especial care, as though afraid his fingers would sink into it against his will, and continued:

  “Against my wishes you went to St Petersburg: did I curse you for a disobedient girl? Or give you no money? Or will you say I wasn’t gentle? Well, why are you silent? Here it is, your St Petersburg!”

  Fr. Ignaty fell silent, and he pictured something big, granite, terrible, full of unknown dangers and remote, indifferent people. And there, lonely and weak, was his Vera, and there she had been ruined. Vicious hatred for the terrible and incomprehensible city rose up in Fr. Ignaty’s soul, and rage against his daughter who was silent – obstinately silent.

  “St Petersburg has nothing to do with it,” said Vera morosely, closing her eyes. “And there’s nothing the matter with me. Better go to bed – it’s late.”

  “Verochka!” groaned her mother. “My dear daughter, do open up to me!”

  “Oh, Mama!” Vera interrupted her impatiently.

  Fr. Ignaty sat down on a chair and laughed.

  “Well, miss – so nothing, then?” he asked ironically.

  “Father,” said Vera sharply, raising herself a little on the bed, “you know that I love you and Mamochka. But… Well, you know, I’m feeling a little dreary. It’ll pass, all of this. Really, better go to bed; I want to sleep too. And tomorrow or some other time, we’ll have a talk.”

  Fr. Ignaty stood up so abruptly that the chair banged against the wall, and he took his wife by the hand.

  “Come on!”

  “Verochka…”

  “Come on, I’m telling you!” Fr. Ignaty shouted. “If she’s already forgotten God, then we!… What are we?”

  Almost by force did he lead Olga Stepanovna out, and as they were going down the staircase, Olga Stepanovna, slowing her steps, said in an angry whisper:

  “Ooh! You’re the one, priest, that’s made her like this. She’s got this manner from you. And it’s you that’ll answer. Oh, woe is me…”

  And she burst into tears, blinking her eyes rapidly, unable to see the steps and lowering her foot just as though there were a chasm below into which she would have liked to fall.

  From that day on, Fr. Ignaty stopped talking to his daughter, but it was as if she did not notice it. As before, she would either lie in her room or else walk about, rubbing her eyes ever so often with the palms of her hands, as though she had something in them. And squeezed in between these two silent people, the priest’s wife – who herself loved a joke and a laugh – grew timid and bewildered, not knowing what to say or what to do.

  Sometimes Vera would go out for a walk. A week after the conversation, she went out in the evening, as usual. She was seen alive no more, for that evening she threw herself under a train, and the train cut her in two.

  Fr. Ignaty buried her himself. His wife was not in the church, for at the news of Vera’s death she had a stroke. She lost the use of her legs, arms and tongue, and she lay immobile in a darkened room while near her, in the bell tower, the bells were being rung. She heard everyone leaving the church, the choristers singing opposite their house, and she tried to raise a hand to cross herself, but the hand would not obey. She wanted to say: “Farewell, Vera!”, but her tongue lay huge and heavy in her mouth. And her pose was so peaceful that, had anybody given her a glance, they would have thought this was someone resting or sleeping. Only her eyes were open.

  There were a lot of people in church at the funeral – some known to Fr. Ignaty, some unknown – and all who had gathered were sorry for Vera, who had died such a dreadful death, and tried to find in Fr. Ignaty’s gestures and voice the signs of great woe. They disliked Fr. Ignaty for the fact that he was stern and proud in manner, hated sinners and would not forgive them, yet at the same time, envious and greedy himself, exploited every opportunity to take something extra from a parishioner. And everyone wanted to see him suffering, broken and conscious that he was doubly to blame for the death of his daughter as a cruel father and a bad clergyman who had been unable to keep his very own flesh from sin. And everyone looked at him searchingly, while he, sensing the gazes directed at his back, tried to straighten that broad, strong back, and thought not of the daughter who had died but about not discrediting himself.

  “Dirty rotten priest!” said Karzenov the joiner, whom he had failed to pay five roubles for frames, with a nod in his direction.

  And thus, firm and upright, did Fr. Ignaty walk to the graveyard, and he came back again just the same. And only by the doors into his wife’s room did his back bend a little, but that might also have been because the majority of the doors were low for his height. Going in from the light, he could hardly make out his wife’s face, and when he did, he was surprised that it was quite calm and there were no tears in the eyes. And there was neither rage in the eyes nor woe – they were mute, and heavily, obstinately silent, as was the entire corpulent, impotent body pressing down into the mattress.

  “Well, how do you feel?” asked Fr. Ignaty.

  But the lips were mute; silent, too, were the eyes. Fr. Ignaty placed a hand on her forehead: it was cold and moist, and in no way did Olga Stepanovna show that she had felt the touch. And when Fr. Ignaty’s hand had been removed, looking at him, unblinking, were two deep, grey eyes, which seemed almost black because of the dilated pupils, and in them there was neither sorrow nor rage.

  “Well, I’ll go to my room,” said Fr. Ignaty, who had become cold and afraid.

  He went into the drawing room, where everything was clean and tidy, as always, and the tall armchairs clothed in white covers stood like dead men in shrouds. At one of the windows hung a wire cage, but it was empty and the door open.

  “Nastasya!” shouted Fr. Ignaty, and his voice seemed to him rude, and he began to feel awkward about shouting so loudly in these quiet rooms immediately after his daughter’s funeral. “Nastasya!” he called more quietly. “Where’s the canary?”

  The cook, who had been crying so much that her nose had swollen and turned red as a beetroot, answered rudely:

  “It’s obvious where. It’s flown away.”

  “Why did you let it out?” Fr. Ignaty knitted his brows sternly.

  Nastasya burst out crying and, wiping herself with the ends of her cotton headscarf, said through her tears:
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  “The young mistress’s… little soul… How could you possibly keep it?”

  And it seemed to Fr. Ignaty that the cheerful little yellow canary which had always sung with its head tilted was indeed Vera’s soul, and that, had it not flown away, it would not have been possible to say that Vera had died. And he got even more cross with the cook and shouted:

  “Get out!” and when Nastasya did not immediately make it through the door, he added: “Idiot!”

  II

  From the day of the funeral, silence fell in the little house. It was not quietness, because quietness is only an absence of sounds – rather it was silence when it would seem that those who are silent might speak, but do not want to. That is what Fr. Ignaty thought when he entered his wife’s room and encountered an obstinate gaze – so heavy it was as though all the air turned to lead and pressed down on his head and back. That is what he thought, examining his daughter’s sheet music, in which her voice had imprinted itself, her books and her portrait – the large, painted portrait she had brought with her from St Petersburg. Fr. Ignaty had established a particular order in his examination of the portrait: first he looked at the cheek that was lit in the portrait, and imagined on it the scratch there had been on Vera’s dead cheek and whose origin he could not understand. And every time he fell into thought about the causes: if it had been the train that had caught it, it would have smashed the entire head to pieces, but the dead Vera’s head had been quite unharmed.