WHEN Foma arrived in the city he was seized with sad, revengeful anger. He was burning with a passionate desire to insult Medinskaya, to abuse her. His teeth firmly set together, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he walked for a few hours in succession about the deserted rooms of his house, he sternly knitted his brow, and constantly threw his chest forward. His breast was too narrow to hold his heart, which was filled with wrath. He stamped the floor with heavy and measured steps, as though he were forging his anger.
"The vile wretch--disguised herself as an angel!" Pelageya vividly arose in his memory, and he whispered malignantly and bitterly:
"Though a fallen woman, she is better. She did not play the hypocrite. She at once unfolded her soul and her body, and her heart is surely just as her breast--white and sound."Sometimes Hope would whisper timidly in his ear:
"Perhaps all that was said of her was a lie."But he recalled the eager certainty of his godfather, and the power of his words, and this thought perished. He set his teeth more firmly together and threw his chest still more forward. Evil thoughts like splinters of wood stuck into his heart, and his heart was shattered by the acute pain they caused.
By disparaging Medinskaya, Mayakin made her more accessible to his godson, and Foma soon understood this. A few days passed, and Foma's agitated feelings became calm, absorbed by the spring business cares. The sorrow for the loss of the individual deadened the spite he owed the woman, and the thought of the woman's accessibility increased his passion for her. And somehow, without perceiving it himself, he suddenly understood and resolved that he ought to go up to Sophya Pavlovna and tell her plainly, openly, just what he wanted of her--that's all! He even felt a certain joy at this resolution, and he boldly started off to Medinskaya, thinking on the way only how to tell her best all that was necessary.
The servants of Medinskaya were accustomed to his visits, and to his question whether the lady was at home the maid replied:
"Please go into the drawing-room. She is there alone."He became somewhat frightened, but noticing in the mirror his stately figure neatly clad with a frock-coat, and his swarthy, serious face in a frame of a downy black beard, set with large dark eyes--he raised his shoulders and confidently stepped forward through the parlour. Strange sounds of a string instrument were calmly floating to meet him; they seemed to burst into quiet, cheerless laughter, complaining of something, tenderly stirring the heart, as though imploring it for attention and having no hopes of getting it. Foma did not like to hear music--it always filled him with sadness. Even when the "machine" in the tavern played some sad tune, his heart filled with melancholy anguish, and he would either ask them to stop the "machine" or would go away some little distance feeling that he could not listen calmly to these tunes without words, but full of lamentation and tears. And now he involuntarily stopped short at the door of the drawing-room.
A curtain of long strings of parti-coloured glass beads hung over the door. The beads had been strung so as to form a fantastic figure of some kind of plants; the strings were quietly shaking and it seemed that pale shadows of flowers were soaring in the air.
This transparent curtain did not hide the inside of the drawing-room from Foma's eyes. Seated on a couch in her favourite corner, Medinskaya played the mandolin. A large Japanese umbrella, fastened up to the wall, shaded the little woman in black by its mixture of colours; the high bronze lamp under a red lamp-shade cast on her the light of sunset. The mild sounds of the slender strings were trembling sadly in the narrow room, which was filled with soft and fragrant twilight. Now the woman lowered the mandolin on her knees and began running her fingers over the strings, also to examine fixedly something before her. Foma heaved a sigh.
A soft sound of music soared about Medinskaya, and her face was forever changing as though shadows were falling on it, falling and melting away under the flash of her eyes.
Foma looked at her and saw that when alone she was not quite so good-looking as in the presence of people--now her face looked older, more serious--her eyes had not the expression of kindness and gentleness, they had a rather tired and weary look. And her pose, too, was weary, as if the woman were about to stir but could not. Foma noticed that the feeling which prompted him to come to her was now changing in his heart into some other feeling. He scraped with his foot along the floor and coughed.
"Who is that?" asked the woman, starting with alarm. And the strings trembled, issuing an alarmed sound.
"It is I," said Foma, pushing aside the strings of the beads.
"Ah! But how quietly you've entered. I am glad to see you. Be seated! Why didn't you come for such a long time?"Holding out her hand to him, she pointed with the other at a small armchair beside her, and her eyes were gaily smiling.
"I was out on the bay inspecting my steamers," said Foma, with exaggerated ease, moving his armchair nearer to the couch.
"Is there much snow yet on the fields?"
"As much as one may want. But it is already melting considerably.
There is water on the roads everywhere."
He looked at her and smiled. Evidently Medinskaya noticed the ease of his behaviour and something new in his smile, for she adjusted her dress and drew farther away from him. Their eyes met--and Medinskaya lowered her head.
"Melting!" said she, thoughtfully, examining the ring on her little finger.
"Ye-es, streams everywhere." Foma informed her, admiring his boots.
"That's good. Spring is coming."
Now it won't be delayed long."
"Spring is coming," repeated Medinskaya, softly, as if listening to the sounds of her words.
"People will start to fall in love," said Foma, with a smile, and for some reason or other firmly rubbed his hands.
"Are you preparing yourself?" asked Medinskaya, drily.
