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The poetical month of May had passed…

The lilacs and tulips were over, and fate decreed that with them the ecstasies of love, which, notwithstanding their guiltiness and painfulness, had yet occasionally afforded us sweet moments that can never be effaced from our memory, should likewise wither. There are moments for which one would give months, yea, even years!

On a June evening when the sun was already set, but its broad track in purple and gold still glowed in the distant West, foretelling a calm and clear day for the morrow, I rode on Zorka up to the house where Urbenin lived. On that evening the Count was giving a musical party. The guests were already arriving, but the Count was not at home; he had gone for a ride and had left word he would return soon.

A little later I was standing at the porch, holding my horse by the bridle and chatting with Urbenin’s little daughter, Sasha. Urbenin himself was sitting on the steps with his head supported on his fists, looking into the distance, which could be seen through the open gates. He was gloomy and answered my questions reluctantly. I left him in peace and occupied myself with Sasha.

‘Where is your new mama?’ I asked her.

‘She has gone riding with the Count. She rides with him every day.’

‘Every day!’ Urbenin grumbled with a sigh.

Much could be heard in that sigh. The same feelings could be heard in it that were agitating my soul and that I was trying to explain to myself, but was unable to do so, and therefore became lost in conjecture.

Every day Olga went out for rides with the Count. But that was a trifle. Olga could not fall in love with the Count, and Urbenin’s jealousy was groundless. We ought not to have been jealous of the Count, but of something else which, however, I could not understand for a long time. This ‘something else’ built up a whole wall between Olga and me. She continued to love me, but after the visit which has been described in the last chapter, she had not been to my house more than twice, and when we met in other places she flared up in a strange way and obstinately refused to answer my questions. She returned my caresses with passion, but her movements were sudden and startled, so that our short rendezvous only left a feeling of painful perplexity in my mind. Her conscience was not clean; this was clear, but what was the real cause? Nothing could be read on Olga’s guilty face.

‘I hope your new mama is well?’ I asked Sasha.

‘She’s quite well. Only in the night she had toothache. She cried.’

‘She cried,’ Urbenin repeated, looking at Sasha. ‘Did you see it? My darling, you only dreamed it.’

Olga had not had toothache. If she had cried it was not with pain, but for something else… I wanted to continue talking to Sasha, but I did not succeed in this, as at that moment the noise of horses’ hoofs was heard and we soon saw the riders — a man inelegantly jumping about in his saddle, and a graceful lady rider. In order to hide my joy from Olga, I took Sasha into my arms and, smoothing her fair hair with my hand, I kissed her on the forehead.

‘Sasha, how pretty you are!’ I said. ‘And what nice curls you have!’

Olga cast a rapid glance at me, returned my bow in silence, and leaning on the Count’s arm, entered the house. Urbenin rose and followed her.

Five minutes later the Count came out of the house. He was gay. I had never seen him so gay before. Even his face had a fresher look.

‘Congratulate me,’ he said, giggling, as he took my arm.

‘What on?’

‘On my conquest… One more ride like this, and I swear by the ashes of my noble ancestors I shall tear the petals from this flower.’

‘You have not torn them off yet?’

‘As yet?… Almost! During ten minutes, “Thy hand in my hand,” ‘ the Count sang, ‘and… not once did she draw it away… I kissed it! Wait for tomorrow. Now let us go. They are expecting me. Oh, by-the-by, golubchek, I want to talk to you about something. Tell me, old man, is it true what people say - that you are… that you entertain evil intentions with regard to Nadenka Kalinin?’

‘Why?’

‘If that were true, I won’t come in your way. It’s not in my principles to put a spoke in another’s wheels. If, however, you have no sort of intentions, then of course—’

‘I have none.’

‘Merci, my soul!’

The Count thought of killing two hares at the same time, and was firmly convinced that he would succeed. On the evening I am describing I watched the chase of these two hares. The chase was stupid and as comical as a good caricature. When watching it one could only laugh or be revolted at the Count’s vulgarity, but nobody could have thought that this schoolboy chase would end with the moral fall of some, the ruin and the crimes of others!

The Count not only killed two hares, but more! He killed them, but he did not get their skins and their flesh.

I saw him secretly press Olga’s hand, who received him each time with a friendly smile and looked after him with a contemptuous grimace. Once, evidently wishing to show that there were no secrets between us, he even kissed her hand in my presence.

‘What a blockhead!’ she whispered into my ear, and wiped her hand.

‘I say, Olga,’ I asked, when the Count had gone away, ‘I think there is something you want to tell me. What is it?’

I looked searchingly into her face. She blushed scarlet and began to blink in a frightened manner, like a cat who has been caught stealing.

‘Olga,’ I said sternly, ‘you must tell me! I demand it!’

‘Yes, there is something I want to tell you,’ she whispered. ‘I love you — I can’t live without you — but… my darling, don’t come to see me any more. Don’t love me any more, and don’t call me Olia. It can’t go on… It’s impossible… And don’t let anybody see that you love me.’

‘But why is this?’

‘I want it. The reasons you need not know, and I won’t tell you. Go… Leave me!’

I did not leave her, and she herself was obliged to bring our conversation to an end. Taking the arm of her husband, who was passing us at that moment, she nodded to me with a hypocritical smile, and went away.

The Count’s other hare - Nadenka Kalinin - was honoured that evening by the Count’s special attention. The whole evening he hovered around her, he told her anecdotes, he was witty, he flirted with her, and she, pale and exhausted, drew her lips to one side in a forced smile. The Justice of the Peace, Kalinin, watched them all the time, stroking his beard and coughing importantly. That the Count was paying court to his daughter was agreeable to him. ‘He has a Count as son-in-law!’ What thought could be sweeter for a provincial bon vivant? From the moment that the Count began to pay court to his daughter he had grown at least three feet in height in his own estimation. And with what stately glances he measured me, how maliciously he coughed when he talked to me! ‘So you stood on ceremonies and went away - it was all one to us! Now we have a Count!’

The day after the party I was again at the Count’s estate. This time I did not talk with Sasha but with her brother, the schoolboy. The boy led me into the garden and poured out his whole soul to me. These confidences were the result of my questions as to how he got on with his ‘new mother’.

‘She’s a friend of yours,’ he began, nervously unbuttoning his uniform. ‘You will repeat it to her; but I don’t care. You may tell her whatever you like! She’s spiteful, she’s base!’

He told me that Olga had taken his room from him, she had sent away their old nurse who had served at Urbenin’s for ten years, she was always screaming about something and always angry.

‘Yesterday you admired sister Sasha’s hair… Hadn’t she pretty hair? Just like flax! This morning she cut it all off!’

‘That was jealousy,’ I thus explained to myself Olga’s invasion into the hairdresser’s domain.

‘She was evidently envious that you had praised Sasha’s hair and not her own,’ the boy said in confirmation of my thought. ‘She worries papasha, too. Papasha is spending a terrible lot of money on her, and is neglecting his work… He has begun to drink again! Again! She’s a little fool… She cries all day that she has to live in poverty in such a small house. Is it papasha’s fault that he has little money?’

The boy told me many sad things. He saw that which his blinded father did not see or did not want to see. In the poor boy’s opinion his father was wronged, his sister was wronged, his old nurse had been wronged. He had been deprived of his little den where he had been used to occupy himself with his books, and feed the goldfinches he had caught. Everybody had been wronged, everybody was scorned by his stupid and all-powerful stepmother! But the poor boy could not have imagined the terrible wrong that his young stepmother would inflict on his family, and which I was to witness that very evening after my talk with him. Everything else grew dim before that wrong, the cropping of Sasha’s hair appeared as a mere trifle in comparison with it.