“Why, hasn’t be been here yet?”
“No.
I thought if he didn’t come I must talk things over with you,” she added, after a pause
“And this evening, did you expect him?”
“No, this evening he’s there.”
“What do you think, Natasha, won’t he come back at all?”
“Of course he’ll come,” she answered, looking at me with peculiar earnestness.
She did not like the abruptness of my question.
We lapsed into silence, walking up and down the room.
“I’ve been expecting you all this time, Vanya”, she began again with a smile. “And do you know what I was doing?
I’ve been walking up and down, reciting poetry. Do you remember the bells, the winter road,
‘My samovar boils on the table of oak’ . . . ? We read it together:
“The snowstorm is spent; there’s a glimmer of light From the millions of dim watching eyes of the night.
“And then: “There’s the ring of a passionate voice in my ears In the song of the bell taking part;
Oh, when will my loved one return from afar To rest on my suppliant heart?
My life is no life!
Rosy beams of the dawn Are at play on the pane’s icy screen; My samovar boils on my table of oak, With the bright crackling fire the dark corner awoke, And my bed with chintz curtains is seen.
“How fine that is.
How tormenting those verses are, Vanya. And what a vivid, fantastic picture!
It’s just a canvas with a mere pattern chalked on it. You can embroider what you like!
Two sensations: the earliest, and the latest.
That samovar, that chintz curtain – how homelike it all is. It’s like some little cottage in our little town at home; I feel as though I could see that cottage: a new one made of logs not yet weatherboarded ... And then another picture:
“Of a sudden I hear the same voice ringing out With the bell; its sad accents I trace;
Oh, where’s my old friend?
And I fear he’ll come in With eager caress and embrace.
What a life, I endure! But my tears are in vain.
Oh, how dreary my room! Through the chinks the wind blows
And outside the house but one cherrytree grows, Perhaps that has perished by now though – who knows?
It’s hid by the frost on the pane.
The flowers on the curtain have lost their gay tone, And I wander sick; all my kinsfolk I shun, There’s no one to scold me or love me, not one,
The old woman grumbles alone....
‘I wander sick.’ That sick is so well put in.
‘There’s no one to scold me.’ That tenderness, what softness in that line; and what agonies of memory, agonies one has caused oneself, and one broods over them. Heavens, how fine it is!
How true it is! ...”
She ceased speaking, as though struggling with a rising spasm in her throat.
“Dear Vanya!” she said a minute later, and she paused again, as though she had forgotten what she meant to say, or had spoken without thinking, from a sudden feeling.
Meanwhile we still walked up and down the room.
A lamp burned before the ikon.
Of late Natasha had become more and more devout, and did not like one to speak of it to her.
“Is tomorrow a holiday?” I asked. “Your lamp is lighted.”
“No, it’s not a holiday ... but, Vanya, sit down. You must be tired.
Will you have tea?
I suppose you’ve not had it yet?”
“Let’s sit down, Natasha.
I’ve had tea already.”
“Where have you come from?”
“From them.”
That’s how we always referred to her old home.
“From them?
How did you get time?