I  

When those arriving to the regional city C. complained about the boredom and drudgery of life, it somehow amused the local inhabitants, they said that, to the contrary, in C. it is very nice, that there is a library in C., theatre, club, there are dances, that, finally, there are clever, interesting, pleasant families, with whom one can make acquaintance. And they would point out the Turkin family as the most educated and talented.
   The family lived on main street near the governor, in their own house. Turkin himself, Ivan Petrovich, a large figured, handsome brunette with sideburns, put on amateur theatrical shows for charitable ends, played the old generals himself and so he coughed very funny. He knew many anecdotes, charades, sayings, loved to joke and make witticisms, and always wore an expression so that it was difficult to grasp whether he was joking, or talking seriously. His wife, Vera Josefovna, a skinny, pretty woman in pince-nez, wrote stories and novels and eagerly read them out loud to her guests. The daughter, Catherine Ivanovna, a young girl, played the piano. In short, each member of the family had their own kind of talent. The Turkins accepted guests warmly and displayed their talents to them gaily, with heartfelt simplicity. In their large stone house it was spacious and cool during the summer, half of the windows looked out to the old shady garden, where the nightingales sang in spring; when guests were staying at the house, then knives were pounding in the kitchen, in the yard it smelled of fried onions— and every time this foretold a wonderful and delicious dinner.
   And doctor Startsev, Dmitri Ionych, when he was just appointed municipal doctor and settled in Dyalizh, nine versts from C., they were also saying that he, as an intelligent person, must become acquainted with the Turkins. Once in the winter outside, they introduced him to Ivan Petrovich; they spoke about the weather, theatre, cholera, an invitation followed. In spring, on a holiday — it was the Day of the Ascension,— after receiving patients, Startsev set out to town in order to entertain himself a bit and buy himself some things. He went on foot, not in a hurry (he did not have his own horses yet), and sang along the whole time:   

   When I still did not drink tears, from the chalice of life…  
             
   He ate lunch in town, strolled in the garden, then somehow in his mind came the invitation of Ivan Petrovich, and he decided to go to the Turkins’ to see what sort people they were.  
     —Greetings please, — said Ivan Petrovich, meeting him on the porch. — Very, very glad to meet such a pleasant guest. Let us go, I will introduce you to my wife. I am speaking to him, Verochka, — he continued, introducing the doctor to his wife, — I am telling him, that he has no roman right to sit in his room at the hospital, he must give his free time to society. Isn’t that right, dear?   
   —Sit down here, — Vera Josefovna said, placing the guest near herself. — You can look after me. My husband is jealous, that Othello, but even so, we will try to behave ourselves so that he will not notice anything.
       — Oh you, chickadee, little rascal… — tenderly muttered Ivan Petrovich and kissed her on the forehead. — You are very welcome, — he turned again towards the guest, — my wife wrote a long novel and today we will read it aloud.
   —Zhanchik, — said Vera Josefovna to her husband— dites que l’on nous donne du thé.  
    Startsev was introduced to Catherine Ivanovna, an eighteen year old girl, very similar to her mother, just as skinny and pleasing to the eyes. Her expression was childlike and her waist skinny, tender; and virginal, chest already developed, beautiful, hearty, she talked of spring, authentic spring. Then they were drinking tea with preserves, honey, candies, and very delicious cookies, which melted in the mouth. With the onset of evening little by little guests arrived, and to each of them Ivan Petrovich directed his laughing eyes and said:
   —Greetings please.
   Then everyone was sitting down in the dining room, with very serious faces, and Vera Josefovna was reading from her novel. She started out like: “The frost hardened…” the windows were opened wide, it was audible how the knives were pounding in the kitchen, and the scent of fried onions carried in… in the soft, deep armchairs it was peaceful, the fires winked so gently in the evening dusk of the dining room; and now, on a summer evening, when voices, laughter drifted in from and lilac was pulled in from the garden, it was hard to understand, how this was hardening the frost and how the setting sun, with its cold rays illuminated the snowy plain and a traveler, walking the road alone; Vera Josefovna read about how a young, beautiful countess in her village built schools, hospitals, libraries, and how she fell in love with a nomadic artist, — she read about what never occurs in life, and it was pleasurable to listen to all the same, comfortable, and such lovely, peaceful thoughts went through one’s head, — one preferred not to stand up.
    —Not bad at all… — Ivan Petrovich quietly said out loud.
   But one of the guests, listening and getting carried away in his thoughts somewhere very, very far away, said hardly out loud—         
     —Yes… really….
   An hour passed, then another. On the town green next door an orchestra was playing and a choir of singers was singing. When Vera Josefovna closed her notebook, they were silent for five minutes and listened to “Luchinushka”, which the choir was singing, and the song expressed that, which was not in the novel, but occurs in real life.
     —Are you printing your composition in magazines? — Startsev asked Vera Josefovna.
   —No, — she answered, — I do not print anywhere. I will write and hide it in my cabinet. To print, what for? — she clarified. — You know we have the means to do so.
   —And everyone sighed for some reason.      
   —And now Kotik, you play something,—said Ivan Petrovich to his daughter.
    They lifted the cover of the piano and revealed the music, laid already in preparation. Catherine Ivanovna sat and struck the keys with both hands; and then immediately struck once again with all her strength, and again, and again; her shoulders and chest shook, she was stubbornly hitting all in one place, and it seemed that she would not stop until the keys were beaten inside of the piano. The dining room filled up with noise; everything groaned: the floor, and ceiling, and furniture… Catherine Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting precisely for its difficulty, long and tedious, and Startsev, listening, was imagining himself as if stones were breaking off from a tall mountain, fell and kept on falling, and he wanted for them to cease to break off, and at this same time Catherine Ivanovna, pink from embarrassment, powerful, energetic, with a lock fallen on her forehead, he liked very much. After the winter spent in Dyalizh among patients and commoners, to sit in the dining room, to watch this young, elegant, and probably, pure creature and listen to these noisy, exhausting, but still cultured sounds, —was so pleasant, so new…                                                       —Well, Kotik, today you played, like never before,— said Ivan Petrovich with tears in his eyes, when his daughter finished and stood up.— Die now, Dennis, you will not write any better.
   Everyone surrounded her giving congratulations, amazed; they believed that such music had not been heard for a long time, but she listened silently, barely smiling, and on all her form was written celebration.
   —Beauitful! Outstanding!
   —Beautiful! — said Startsev too, yielding himself to the general enthusiasm. — Where did you study music? — he asked Catherine Ivanovna. — In a conservatory?    
       —No, I am still only planning to go to the conservatory, but I study here with Madame Zavlovsky.
   —You finished a course in the local school?
   —Oh, no!—Vera Josefovna answered for her. — We invited the teacher to the house, in the school or in the institute, you must agree, there could have been negative influences; while the girl is growing, she must be under the influence only of her mother alone.
   —But nevertheless, I will go to the conservatory, — said Catherine Ivanovna.
   —No, Kotik loves her mama. Kotik will not make her papa and mama upset.
   —No, I will go! I will go! — said Catherine Ivanovna, joking and capricious, and stamping her foot.
   But at dinner Ivan Petrovich already was displaying his own talents. He, laughing with only his eyes, narrated anecdotes, joked, suggested humorous riddles and solved them all by himself and the whole time spoke in his unusual language, developed with long exercises in wit and, obviously, already long become his habit: Bolshinsky, not bad, I humbly thank you….
   But that was not all. When the guests, satisfied and pleased, crowded in the entryway, sorting out their overcoats and canes, the servant Pavlusha fussed around them, or as they called him here, Pava, a boy of fourteen years old, hair cut short, with full cheeks.
   — But now then, Pava, show them! —Ivan Ivanich said to him. Pava went into a pose, lifted up his arms and said in a tragic tone:
   — Die, unhappiness!
   And everyone cracked up.
   “Interesting,” — thought Startsev, exiting to the outside. He stopped at a restauraunt and drank a beer, then set out on foot to his place in Dyalizh. He was walking and the whole way sang along:    

   Your voice for me, is tender and languorous…

   Crossing nine versts and then going to sleep, he did not feel even the least bit tired, but on the contrary, it seemed to him the he could walk another twenty versts with pleasure.
   “Not bad” — he recalled, falling asleep, and laughed aloud.
 

​

II

   Startsev always planned to go to the Turkins, but there was too much work at the hospital, and he could not pick a free time. More than a year passed this way in toil and solitude; but then they brought a letter from town in a blue envelope…
   Vera Josefovna had long been suffering with a migraine, but more recently, when Kotik was threatening each day that she would leave for the conservatory, the fits began to repeat themselves more often. All the town doctors visited the Turkins: the line finally reached also the state doctor. Vera Josefovna wrote him a touching letter, in which she asked him to come and relieve her suffering. Startsev came and after that began to be at the Turkin’s often, very often… He actually helped Vera Josefovna a little, and she was already telling all of the guests, that he was an unusual, wonderful doctor. But he was going to the Turkin’s already not to take care of her migraines…
   It was a festival day. Catherine Ivanovna finished her long, tiring exercises on the piano. Then they sat for a long time in the dining room drinking tea, and Ivan Petrovich was relating something funny. But there was a call; he had to go to the entry hall to meet a guest; Startsev took advantage of the minute of confusion and said to Catherine Ivanovna in a whisper, getting very anxious:
   — For God’s sake, I beg of you, do not torture me, come with me to the garden!
   She shrugged her shoulders, as if perplexed and not grasping what he needed, but stood up and went.
   —You play the piano for three or four hours, — he said, walking behind her, — then you sit with mama, and there is not any possibility of talking with you. Give me even a quarter hour, I beg of you.
   Autumn was approaching, and in the old garden it was quiet, sad, and in the rows of trees laid dark leaves. It was already getting dark early.
   —I did not see you the whole week, — continued Startsev,— but if you only would know, what suffering this is! Sit down with me. Hear me out.        
   Both of them had a favorite place in the garden: the bench beneath an old, broad maple. And now they were sitting on this bench.
    —What is it you want? — asked Catherine Ivanovna dryly, with a businesslike tone.
   —I have not see you the whole week, I have not heard you for so long. I dearly want, I thirst for your voice. Speak.
   She captivated him with her freshness, the naive expression of her eyes and cheeks.  Even with how she looked in her dress he saw something unusually sweet, touching in its simplicity and naive gracefulness. Also, at the same time, despite this naiveté, she seemed very clever to him and developed beyond her years. He could speak with her about literature, about art, about anything, he could complain to her about life, about people, although during a serious conversation, what took place, she suddenly inappropriately started to laugh or ran away into the house. She, like almost all girls from C, read a lot (generally in C. they read very little, and in the local library they said, that if there were no girls and no young Jewish people, they might as well close the library); This charmed Startsev endlessly, all the time he asked her with excitement what she was reading about the past day, and, charmed, was listening when she told him about it.      
   —What did you read this week, when we did not see each other? — he asked presently.—Tell me, I ask you.
   —I was reading Pisemsky.
   —What exactly?
   —One thousand souls,” — answered Kotik. And how funny Pisemsky is named: Aleksy Theofilaktich!
   —Where are you off to? —Startsev was horrified when she suddenly got up and walked towards the house. —I must speak with you, I must explain…Remain with me only five minutes! I beg of you!
   She paused, as if wanting to say something, then clumsily shoved a note into his hand and ran to the house, and there again sat down at the piano.    
   “Today, at eleven o’ clock in the evening, — read Startsev, — be at the cemetery near the grave of Demetti.”
   “Well, this is already not smart,—he thought, coming to his senses.—Why the cemetery? For what?”
   It was obvious: Kotik was playing a trick. To who, really, does it seriously come to mind to set up a meeting at night, far from the town, in a cemetery, when it easily could be arranged outside, in the village park? And is it worthy of him, a state doctor, an intelligent, decent person, to sigh, receive notes, drag himself around a cemetery, act in a frivolous way, that even schoolchildren would now laugh at? Why carry on this romance? What will colleagues say, when they realize? Startsev was thinking this way, wandering the club around the tables, but at ten thirty he suddenly got up and went to the cemetery.
   He already had his pair of horses and the coach driver Pantelemon in a velvet jacket. The moon shined. It was quiet, warm, but warm like autumn. In the suburbs, near the butcheries, dogs howled. Starsev left the horses on the edge of the city, in one of the alleys, and carried himself on foot to the cemetery. “With all its strangeness, — he was thinking. — Kotik is also strange and— who knows? —maybe, she is not joking, she will come,”— and he gave himself to this weak, empty hope, and she intoxicated him.
             In half a verst he passed a field. The cemetery appeared in the distance with a dark stripe, like a forest or a large garden. A fence of white stones appeared, the gate… in the moonlight on one the gates could be read: “The hour is nigh” Startsev passed the gate, and the first things he saw were white crosses and monuments on both sides of a wide lane and black shadows cast from them and from the poplars; black and white was visible a long way all around, and sleepy trees inclined their branches on the white. It seemed that it was brighter here than in the field; the leaves of the maples sharply stuck out, like paws, on the yellow sand of the lane and on the graves, and the inscriptions on the monuments were visible. At first it struck Startsev, that which he was seeing now for the first time in his life and that, probably, he would never be able to see again: a world unlike anything else, — a world with such nice and soft moonlight, as if his cradle was here, where there was no life, none and none, but in every shady poplar, in every grave the presence is felt of a secret, promising a quiet, beautiful, eternal life. From the graves and withered flowers, together with the autumn smell of the leaves, wafts forgiveness, grief and peace.
   It was silent all around; in deep humility the stars gazed from the sky, and Startsev’s steps resounded sharply and out of place this way. And just when the church bell rang the hour and he imagined himself dead, buried here forever, then it seemed to him that someone was watching him, and he thought for a minute that this was not peace and not quiet, but soundless grief of non-existence, repressed despair…
   The grave of Demetti in the shape of a small chapel, with an angel above; once in C. there was an Italian opera show, one of the singers died, they buried her and placed this grave. In the city no one remembered her anymore, but the lantern above the entrance reflected the moonlight and it appeared like it was burning.
    No one was around. Besides, who will come here at midnight? But Startsev waited, and, it was as if the moonlight heated up the passion in him, he waited passionately and pictured in his imagination kisses, embraces. He sat down near the grave a half hour, then walked down the side lane, with hat in hand, waiting and thinking about, how many were here, in these graves, buried women and girls, who were beautiful, charming, who loved, burned in the nights with passion, giving themselves to caresses. How genuinely bad to joke about human mother-nature, how insulting to recognize this! Startsev thought like this, and at the same time wanted to scream, that he wants, that he waits for a love that would not come, before him whitened already not only pieces of marble, but beautiful bodies, he saw forms which shyly hid themselves in the shade of trees, he felt warmth, and this languorousness was getting burdensome…
          And as if a curtain had fallen, the moon departed under the cloud, and suddenly everything around became darker. Startsev hardly found the gate, — it was already dark, like an autumn night, then he wandered a half an hour, looking for the alley, where he had left his horses.
   —I am tired, I can hardly stay on my legs,— he said to Pantelemon. And, sitting with delight in the carriage, he thought: “Oh, no need to get fat!”

                                                    III

   On another day in the evening he went to the Turkin’s to make a proposal. But this seemed uncomfortable, because the barber was in Catherine Ivanovna’s room cutting her hair. She was getting ready to go to the club for an evening of dance.
   He was compelled to sit a very long time in the dining room and drink tea. Ivan Petrovich, seeing that the guest was pensive and bored, pulled a note from a jacket pocket, read a humorous letter by a German housekeeper about how, in the estate everything was spoiled by blamelessness and propriety had collapsed.    
   “But the dowry they give, must be substantial,” — thought Startsev, absent-mindedly listening.
   After a sleepless night he found himself in a state of shock, as if they gave him something sweet and sedative; in his soul was foggy, but joyful, warm, and at the same time in his head some cold, heavy part was reasoning:
   “Stop, before it is too late! Is she a match to you? She is spoiled, fickle, sleeps until two o’ clock, but you are son of Dyachkovsky, a state doctor…”       
   “Well what of it?— he thought. — So it goes.”
   “To the same point, if you marry her, — continued the part, — then her relatives will force you to quit the government job and live in the city.”
   “Well what of it?— he thought. — In the city, as it is in the city. They will give a dowry, we will set up the furniture…”  
   Finally entered Catherine Ivanovna in a ball gown,  with a low cut neck, pretty, clean, and Startsev was enamored and came to such agitation, the he could not even speak one word, but only looked at her and laughed.
   She began to say farewell and he— he had no reason to stay there anymore— got up, saying, that it was time for him to go home: patients waiting.
   —Do something, — said Ivan Petrovich, — go, you should really take Kotik to the club.
   In the yard rain was drizzling, it was very dark, and only from the wheezing cough of Pantelemon was it possible to guess the location of the horses. They got up on the top of the carriage.
   — I am walking upon the carpet, —you are up on the parapet.” said Ivan Petrovich, seating his daughter in the carriage,— he is walking, he is talking…Go! Farewell kindly!
   They left.   
   —Yet I was in the cemetery yesterday, — began Startsev. — How unkind and unmerciful this was from your side…  
   —You were at the cemetery?
   —Yes, I was there and waited for you almost two hours. I was suffering…
   —And you suffer, if you do not get the joke.
   Catherine Ivanovna, amused, that she so cleverly played a joke on someone in love and that they loved her so much, chuckled and suddenly screamed out from fright, since the horses turned sharply around at this same time at the gate of the club and the carriage tilted askance. Startsev embraced Catherine Ivanovna around the waist; she pressed against him, frightened, and he did not hold back and passionately kissed her on the lips, on the chin, and embraced her tighter.
   —Amusing, — she said dryly. And after a moment she was already out of the carriage, and the policeman near the illuminated approach to the club shouted with a repulsive voice at Pantelemon:
   — What happened, dummy! Keep going!
   Startsev went home, but quickly returned. Dressed in another’s tailcoat and stiff white tie, which somehow always stuck out and wanted to slip down from the collar, at midnight he sat in the club in the dining room and told Catherine Ivanovna passionately:
   — Oh, how little those know, who were never in love! It seems to me, no one has ever truly described love, and it is hardly even possible to describe this tender, joyful, torturous feeling, and someone experienced it even once, will not be able to put it into words. To what purpose are useless descriptions? My love is limitless… I ask, I beg you, — finally spoke out Startsev,— be my wife!
   —Dmitri Iyonich,— said Catherine Ivanovna with a very serious expression, having considered it. —Dmitri Iyonich, I am very grateful to you for the honor, I respect you, but… —she stood up and continued standing, — but, excuse me, I cannot be your wife. We will talk seriously. Dmitri Iyonich, you know, I love art more than everything in life, I madly love, I adore music, I devoted all my life to it. I want to be an artist, I want recognition, success, freedom, and you want me to continue to live in this city, continue this empty, useless life, which has become unbearable to me. To make a wife— oh no, sorry! A man must aspire to higher, more brilliant goals, but family life would constrain me forever. Dmitri Iyonich (she smiled just a bit, as if, pronouncing “Dmitri Iyonich”, she recalled “Aleksey Theofilaktich”), Dmitry Iyonich, you are a good, noble, intelligent man, you are better than everyone…—tears welled up in her eyes, — I feel for you with all my soul, but… but you will not understand…
   And, in order not to cry, she turned away and exited the dining room. Startsev’s heart stopped beating nervously. Exiting the club outside, he first tore off from himself the stiff necktie and took a breath with all his chest. He felt somewhat ashamed and his pride insulted, — he did not expect a rejection,— and it was not believe, that all of his dreams, languishing and hopes led him to such a frivolous ending, as in a little drama at an amateur theatre. And his feeling was pity, with this love of his, such a pity that, it seemed, he would begin to cry hysterically, or hit Pantelemon across his wide back with an umbrella using all of his strength.
   For three days the business slipped from his hands, he was not eating, or sleeping, but when the rumor arrived to him that Catherine Ivanovna departed to Moscow to enter the conservatory, he calmed down and began to live as before. Then sometimes recalling how he wandered the cemetery, or how he drove across the whole city and searched for a tailcoat, he lazily stretched out and said:
   —But really, how much trouble!    
     
 

                                                 IV    

   Four years had gone by. Startsev had a large practice in the city. Each morning he hurriedly took patients at his home in Dyalizh, then left to the urban patients, leaving already not on a two horse carriage, but on a three piece with bells, and returned home late at night. He filled out, put on weight, and lethargically walked on foot, as he suffered from being short of breath. And Pantalemon also filled out, and the more he grew in width, the more ruefully he took a deep breath and complained about his bitter lot: ride completed!
   Startsev called in different houses and saw many people, but he did not become close to anyone. The residents, with their conversations, views on life and even with their look bothered him. Experience taught him little by little, that while you play cards with a local or have a snack with them, then they are a peaceful, good natured, and not even dumb person, but it is only worth it to speak with them about something inedible, for example, politics or science, that puts them at a dead end or leads to a kind of philosophy, dumb and nasty, that it remains only to wave goodbye and walk away. When Startsev tried to speak even with liberal locals, for example, about how humankind, thank God, is moving forwards and that in time it will move around without documents and without the death penalty, then the local gazes at him askance and disbelievingly and asks: “That means it is possible for anyone to knife whoever they want to, on the street?” And when Startsev was out, over dinner or tea he was saying, that hard labor is necessary, that without hard labor it is impossible to live, then everyone took this as a reproach and started to get mad and argue incessantly. Nevertheless residents did nothing, decisively nothing, were not interested in anything, and it was impossible to think in any way, what to talk about with them. And Startsev avoided conversations, but only snacked and played cards, and whenever a  family holiday found him someone’s house and they invited him to eat, then he sat and ate silently, starting at the plate; and everything they said during this time was uninteresting, unfair, dumb, he felt annoyance, became agitated, but was silent, and because he always dryly remained quiet and glanced at the plate, they called him in the city “Puffed-Up Pole”, even though he was not Polish.
   He avoided diversions such as the theatre and concerts, but played cards every evening for three hours, with enjoyment. He had one more entertainment still, in which he was drawn in imperceptibly, little by little, this—was to take bills from his pockets in the evenings, obtained from the practice, and, so it happened, the papers — yellow and green, from which wafted the smells of perfumes, and vinegar, and incense, and blubber,— stuffed in all the pockets was seventy rubles; and when he gathered up around one hundred, he took out public loans in Society and stored them in an account.
   In all four years after the departure of Catherine Ivanovna he was at the Turkin’s only twice, at the invitation of Vera Josefovna, who was still always being treated for migraines. Every summer Catherine Ivanovna came to her parents to stay, but he did not see her even once; somehow it did not happen.
   But here passed the fourth year. On one quiet, warm morning in the hospital they brought a letter. Vera Josefovna wrote to Dmitry Iyonich, that she missed him very much, and asked him to call on her and lighten her suffering, and especially since it was her birthday. There was a postscript:  
“At mama’s request I will also join. K.”
       Startsev thought about it and went to the Turkins in the evening.
   — But, greetings please! — Ivan Petrovich met him, smiling only with his eyes. — Bonjour.     
      Vera Josefovna, already aged much, with white hair, shook Startsev’s hand, politely took a breath and said:   
   — You, doctor, do not want to care for me, you are never visiting with us, I am already too old for you. But here a young person arrived, maybe, she will be more happy.
   But Kotik? She had gotten skinnier, paler, became more beautiful and well-proportioned; but this was already Catherine Ivanovna, and not Kotik; there was none of the prior freshness now and expression of childlike naïveté. Both in look and manners there was something new— timid and guilty, as if here, in the Turkins house, she was already not feeling herself at home.
   —It has been so long, so long! — she said, shaking Startsev’s hand, and it was evident that her heart beat anxiously; and deliberately, with curiosity, looking him in the eyes, she continued: — How you’ve filled out! You got tan, matured, but overall you changed little.
       And now he liked her, very much liked her, but something was already wanting in her, or something was excessive, — he himself also could not say what exactly, but something prevented him from feeling like before. He did not like her paleness, new way of speaking, weak smile, voice, and a bit later he already did not like the dress, the armchair she was sitting in, he did not like something in the past, when he almost had gotten married to her. He recalled his love, dreams and hopes, which had excited him four years ago, — and he began to feel uncomfortable.
   They were drinking tea with sweet deserts. Then Vera Josefovna read a novel aloud, she was reading about what never happens in life, and Startsev listened, watching her gray, beautiful head, and waited for her to finish.
   “Mediocre, — he was thinking, — not that which knows how to write a story, but that who writes them and knows not how to hide it.”
   —Not bad, — said Ivan Petrovich. Then Catherine Ivanovna played the piano loudly and for a long time, and when she finished they took a long time gratifying and praising her.    
   “But it is good, that I did not get married to her,” — thought Startsev. She watched him and apparently waited for him to suggest to her to go to the garden, but he remained quiet.
   —We must have a chat, — she said, approaching him. —How are you? What’s new? I was thinking about you all of these days, — she continued nervously, — I wanted to send you a letter, I wanted to travel myself to Dyalizh and visit you, and I already decided to go, but then I reconsidered, — God knows, how you will treat me now. I expected you today with such excitement. For God’s sake, let’s go to the garden.
   They walked to the garden and sat there on the bench under the old maple, like four years ago. It was dark.            
   —So, how are you getting along? — asked Catherine Ivanovna.
   —Fine, we are living alright, — answered Startsev.
   And he could not think of anything else. They were silent.
   —I am worried— said Catherine Ivanovna and covered her face with her hands, — but you are not paying attention. It is so good for me to be home, I am so happy to see everyone and I cannot get used to it. So many memories! It seemed to me that we could talk without stopping until morning.  
   Now he looked closely at her face, shining eyes, and here, in the darkness, she seemed younger than in the room, and even as if the former childlike expression returned to her. And actually, she watched him with naive curiosity, as if she wanted to look closer at and understand the person, who once loved her so burningly, with such tenderness and so unfortunately; her eyes thanked him for this love. And he remembered everything that happened, every little detail, how he wandered around the cemetery, how then before morning, he returned to his house exhausted, and the past suddenly became sad and pitiful to him.  In his spirit a small fire was kindled.
   —But you remember, how I accompanied you on an evening to the club? — he said. — Then it was raining, it was dark…
   The small fire flared up up in the spirit, and he already wanted to talk, to complain about life…
   —Ech! — he said with a sigh. —You are asking how I am doing here. How are we doing here? Surely it seems so. We will get older, get fat, let ourselves go. Day into night— days away, life passes dully, without sadness, without thoughts…Profit during the day, but the club in the evening, the company of hustlers, alcoholics, wheezers, who I cannot bear. What is good?    
   —But we have work, a noble objective in life. You loved to talk about your hospital so much. I was somehow strange back then, I fancied myself a great pianist. Now all the young ladies play on the piano, and I also was playing, like everyone, and I was nothing special; I am the same type of pianist as mother is a writer. And of course, I did not understand you then, but then, in Moscow, I thought of you often. I only thought about you, as well. How fortunate it is to be a state doctor, to help   the suffering, to work for the nation. What fortune! — repeated Catherine Ivanovna with enthusiasm. —When I thought of you in Moscow, I pictured you as such an ideal, elevated…   
   Startsev remembered the papers, which he took out of his pockets in the evening with such delight and the fire in the spirit was extinguished.
   He stood up to walk to the house. She grabbed him by the arm.
   —You are the best of the people, who I ever knew in my life, — she continued. — We will see each other, speak, is it not true? Promise me. I am not a pianist, on my account I am not committing an error and will not play in front of you, or talk about music.
   When they entered the house, Startsev also saw her face by the evening light and sad, grateful, searching eyes turning to him, then he felt nervous and thought again:
   “But good, that I did not get married back then.”
   He started to say farewell.   
   —You do not have any Roman right to leave without dinner, — said Ivan Petrovich, accompanying him. — That is very perpendicular on your part. Come on, say something! — he said, turning in the entry hall to Pava.
   —Pava, already no boy, but a young man with a moustache, got in a pose, lifted up his arm and said in a tragic voice:
   —Die, unfortunate one!   
   All this annoyed Startsev. Sitting in the carriage and looking at the dark house and garden, which were to him so sweet and dear at one time, he remembered everything suddenly— the novels of Vera Ivanovna, and the noisy playing of Kotik, and the witticisms of Ivan Petrovich, and the tragic pose of Pava, and he thought, that if the most talented people in the whole city were so dull, then so must be the city itself.
   Three days later Pava brought a letter from Catherine Ivanovna.
   “You are not visiting us. Why? —she wrote. I am afraid, that you changed your attitude towards us; I am afraid, and it is fearful to me only thinking about this. Put me well at ease, come and say, that everything is good. I need to speak with you. Yours, E.T.”
   He read this letter, thought and told Pava:
   —Tell her politely that I cannot go today, I am very busy. I will come, say, in three days.
   But three days passed, a week passed, and he still did not go. Once, driving past the Turkin’s house, he remembered that he would need to drop in even just for a minute, but he thought about it and… did not drop in.
   And he was never again visiting at Turkins.   

                                               V

A few more years passed by. Startsev filled out even more, got fat, breathes heavily and already, walks with his head thrown back. When swollen, red, he goes in a three piece carriage with bells and Pantelemon, also swollen and red, with a fleshy scalp, sitting on the horses, stretched out straight forwards, as like wooden hands, and screams to passing vehicles “Keep right!”, then the picture is impressive, and it seems, that a man is not driving, but a pagan God. In the city he owns a large practice, there is not a moment to breathe, and already an estate and two houses in the city, and is picking out a third one, more advantageous, and when he is in the Society of loan credit they speak about some house put up on the market, then without ceremony he goes to this house and passing through all the rooms, not paying attention do the undressed women and children, who look at him with amazement and fear, pokes all the doors with a walking stick and says:
   — This is an office? this is a bedroom? And what is this here?         
   And doing this he breathes heavily and wipes sweat from his brow.
   He is very busy, but all the same he does not get rid of the state job; greed took over, it was desirable to have time both here and there. Now in Dyalizh, and in the city his name is simply Iyonich. — “Where is it Iyonich is going?” or: “Shouldn’t we invite Iyonich to the council?”
   Probably because his throat was bloated with fat, his voice had changed, become thin and sharp. His personality also was different: he became serious, irritable. Taking patients, he typically gets angry, impatiently taps his cane on the floor and shouts in his unpleasant voice:
   —If you will answer only to the questions! Do not start a conversation!
   He is alone. Life is boring to him, nothing interests him. Over the whole time he lived in Dyalizh, love for Kotik was his only happiness and, probably, the last. In the evenings he plays cards at the club and then sits alone behind a large table and eats dinner. The waiter Ivan serves him, the most old and experienced, serves him Lafite number 17, and already everyone — the old-timers of the club, and the chef, and the waiter— knows what he likes and what he does not like, try with all their effort to please him, but then, as may be so, he will suddenly get angry and start to tap his cane on the floor.
   At dinner, he occasionally turns around and gets involved in some conversation:
   —What are you talking about? But? Who?
   And when, it happens, at some neighboring table the conversation turns to the Turkins, he asks:
   —You are talking about which Turkins? This is about them, whose daughter plays the piano?
   And that is all that can be said about him. What about the Turkins? Ivan Petrovich did not get older, did not change in any way and as before always makes witty remarks and tells anecdotes; Vera Josefovna reads guests her novels energetically as before, with heartfelt earnestness. And Kotik plays the piano every day four hours. She visibly aged, became ill, and every fall goes with her mother to Crimea. Accompanying them to the station, Ivan Petrovich, when the train sets off, wipes
away tears and shouts:
— Farewell kindly!