Softness, sincerity, simplicity, the complete absence of hypocrisy and hypocrisy in the work of A.P. Chekhov perhaps the best way reflected the features of the Russian national character. Each story or play of the writer is a reminder of something very dear and necessary, infinitely close, even irrevocable.
The writer should write a lot, but should not be in a hurry.
Marrying is interesting only for love; to marry a girl just because she is pretty is like buying an unnecessary thing in the market just because she is good.
People who live alone always have something in their hearts that they would gladly tell.
The university develops all abilities, including stupidity.
It is good where we are not: in the past we are no longer there, and it seems beautiful.
If you are afraid of loneliness, then do not marry.
Beware of fancy language. The language should be simple and elegant.
People only drink tea, and a tragedy happens in their souls.
Where art is, where talent is, there is no old age, no loneliness, no illness, and half death itself.
A Russian person loves to remember, but does not like to live.
The art of writing is the art of cutting.
Vodka is white, but paints the nose and blackens the reputation.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
A woman is an intoxicating product that has not yet been thought of excise duty.
Each dog must bark with its own voice.
It's not about pessimism or optimism, but about the fact that ninety-nine out of a hundred have no mind.
A wonderful day today .. Either go to drink tea, or hang yourself.
You can lie in love, in politics, in medicine you can deceive people, but in art you cannot deceive.
Life is at odds with philosophy: there is no happiness without idleness, only what is not needed gives pleasure.
How sometimes unbearable are people who are happy, who succeed in everything!
A man without a mustache is like a woman with a mustache.
They say the truth will prevail in the end, but it's not the truth.
Russia is a vast plain on which a dashing man rushes.
The intelligentsia is good for nothing, because they drink a lot of tea, talk a lot, the room is smoky, the bottles are empty...
Anything that old people cannot do is forbidden or considered reprehensible.
A Russian man's only hope is to win two hundred thousand.
Solomon made a big mistake by asking for wisdom.
If the most talented people in the whole city are so mediocre, then what a city!
He who is alien to life, who is incapable of it, has no choice but to become an official.
Current page: 2 (total book has 3 pages)
Apparently, from the middle of winter, Dymov began to guess that he was being deceived. He, as if he had an unclean conscience, could no longer look his wife straight in the eye, did not smile joyfully when he met her, and in order to be less alone with her, he often brought his comrade Korostelev to dinner, a little shorn man with a rumpled face. , who, when talking with Olga Ivanovna, out of embarrassment, unbuttoned all the buttons of his jacket and buttoned them again, and then began to pluck his left mustache with his right hand. At dinner, both doctors talked about the fact that when the diaphragm is high, there are sometimes interruptions in the heart, or that multiple neuritis in recent times are observed very often, or that yesterday Dymov, having opened a corpse with a diagnosis of pernicious anemia, found pancreatic cancer. And it seemed that both of them were having a medical conversation only in order to give Olga Ivanovna the opportunity to remain silent, that is, not to lie. After dinner Korostelev sat down at the piano, and Dymov sighed and said to him:
- Oh, brother! Well, what! Play something sad.
Raising his shoulders and spreading his fingers wide, Korostelev took a few chords and began to sing in tenor “Show me such a monastery where the Russian peasant would not moan,” and Dymov sighed again, propped his head on his fist and thought.
Recently, Olga Ivanovna has been behaving extremely carelessly. Every morning she woke up in the worst possible mood and with the thought that she no longer loved Ryabovsky and that, thank God, it was all over. But as she drank her coffee, she reflected that Ryabovsky had taken her husband away from her, and that now she was left without a husband and without Ryabovsky; then she recalled the conversations of her acquaintances that Ryabovsky was preparing something amazing for the exhibition, a mixture of landscape and genre, in the taste of Polenov, which is why everyone who visits his studio is delighted; but this, she thought, he created under her influence, and in general, thanks to her influence, he changed greatly for the better. Her influence is so beneficial and significant that if she leaves him, then he, perhaps, may perish. She also recalled that last time he came to her in some kind of gray frock coat with sparks and a new tie and asked languidly: "Am I handsome?" And in fact, he, elegant, with his long curls and with blue eyes, was very handsome (or, perhaps, it seemed so) and was affectionate with her.
Remembering a lot and realizing, Olga Ivanovna dressed in strong excitement went to Ryabovsky's workshop. She made him cheerful and delighted with her own great picture; he jumped, fooled around and on serious questions answered with jokes. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of Ryabovsky for the picture and hated it, but out of politeness she stood silently in front of the picture for about five minutes and, sighing, as one sighs before a shrine, she said quietly:
Yes, you've never written anything like this before. You know, even scary.
Then she began to beg him to love her, not to leave her, to take pity on her, poor and unhappy. She wept, kissed his hands, demanded that he swear his love to her, proved to him that without her good influence he would go astray and perish. And spoiling him good mood spirit and feeling humiliated, she left for a dressmaker or an actress she knew to ask for a ticket.
If she did not find him in the workshop, then she left him a letter in which she swore that if he did not come to her today, she would certainly be poisoned. He was a coward, came to her and stayed for dinner. Not embarrassed by the presence of her husband, he spoke impudently to her, she answered him the same. Both felt that they were binding each other, that they were despots and enemies, and they got angry, and from anger did not notice that both of them were indecent and that even the shorn Korostelev understood everything. After dinner, Ryabovsky hurried to say goodbye and leave.
- Where do you go? Olga Ivanovna asked him in the hall, looking at him with hatred.
Wincing and screwing up his eyes, he called some lady, a common acquaintance, and it was clear that he was laughing at her jealousy and trying to annoy her. She went to her bedroom and lay down in bed; from jealousy, vexation, feelings of humiliation and shame, she bit the pillow and began to sob loudly. Dymov left Korostelev in the drawing room, went into the bedroom, and, embarrassed and bewildered, said quietly:
– Don't cry loudly, mother... Why? We must be silent about this ... We must not give a look ... You know what happened, you can’t fix it.
Not knowing how to subdue the heavy jealousy in herself, from which even her temples ached, and thinking that it was still possible to improve the matter, she washed herself, powdered her tear-stained face and flew to the lady she knew. Not finding Ryabovsky with her, she went to another, then to a third ... At first she was ashamed to travel like that, but then she got used to it, and it happened that one evening she went around all the women she knew to find Ryabovsky, and everyone understood this.
Once she said to Ryabovsky about her husband:
She liked this phrase so much that, meeting with artists who knew about her affair with Ryabovsky, she always spoke about her husband, making an energetic gesture with her hand:
This man oppresses me with his generosity!
The order of life was the same as last year. There were parties on Wednesdays. The artist read, artists painted, the cellist played, the singer sang, and invariably at half past eleven the door leading to the dining room opened, and Dymov, smiling, said:
- Please, gentlemen, have a bite.
As before, Olga Ivanovna searched for great people, found them, and was not satisfied, and searched again. As before, she returned late at night every day, but Dymov no longer slept, as he had last year, but sat in his office and worked on something. He went to bed at three o'clock and got up at eight.
One evening, when she was standing in front of the dressing table, getting ready for the theatre, Dymov came into the bedroom in a tailcoat and a white cravat. He smiled meekly and, as before, joyfully looked his wife straight in the eyes. His face was beaming.
“I just defended my dissertation,” he said, sitting down and stroking his knees.
- Protected? Olga Ivanovna asked.
- Wow! he laughed and craned his neck to see in the mirror the face of his wife, who continued to stand with her back to him and straighten her hair. - Wow! he repeated. – You know, it is very possible that I will be offered a privat docent in general pathology. It smells like this.
It was evident from his blissful, radiant face that if Olga Ivanovna had shared his joy and triumph with him, he would have forgiven her everything, both the present and the future, and would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what Privatdozentura meant and general pathology, besides she was afraid to be late for the theater and did not say anything.
He sat for two minutes, smiled guiltily and left.
It was the most hectic day.
Dymov had a severe headache; he did not drink tea in the morning, did not go to the hospital, and lay all the time in his office on a Turkish sofa. Olga Ivanovna, as usual, went to Ryabovsky's at one o'clock to show him her sketch nature morte and ask him why he had not come yesterday. The sketch seemed insignificant to her, and she wrote it only in order to have an extra excuse to go to the artist.
She went in to him without a call, and when she was taking off her galoshes in the hall, she heard something run quietly through the workshop, rustling like a woman’s dress, and when she hurried to look into the workshop, she saw only a piece of a brown skirt, which flickered for a moment and disappeared behind big picture, curtained along with an easel to the floor with black calico. There was no doubt, it was a woman hiding. How often Olga Ivanovna herself found refuge behind this picture! Ryabovsky, apparently very embarrassed, as if surprised at her coming, stretched out both his hands to her and said, smiling forcedly:
- A-a-a-a! I am very glad to see you. What do you say nice?
Olga Ivanovna's eyes filled with tears. She was ashamed, bitter, and for a million she would not have agreed to speak in the presence of an outside woman, a rival, a liar, who now stood behind the picture and, probably, giggled maliciously.
“I brought you a sketch…” she said timidly, in a thin voice, and her lips trembled, “nature morte.”
– Aaaa… study?
The artist picked up the sketch and, examining it, as if mechanically passed into another room.
Olga Ivanovna meekly followed him.
“Nature morte ... first class,” he muttered, choosing a rhyme, “resort ... damn ... port ...
Hurried footsteps and the rustle of a dress could be heard from the workshop. Means, she is gone. Olga Ivanovna wanted to shout loudly, hit the artist on the head with something heavy and leave, but she could not see anything through her tears, she was crushed by her shame and felt herself no longer Olga Ivanovna and not an artist, but a little goat.
“I’m tired…” the artist said languidly, looking at the sketch and shaking his head to overcome his drowsiness. - It's nice, of course, but today there is an etude, and last year there is an etude, and in a month there will be an etude ... How can you not get bored? If I were you, I'd give up painting and get serious about music or something. After all, you are not an artist, but a musician. However, you know how tired I am! I'll tell you to give tea ... Huh?
He left the room, and Olga Ivanovna heard him order something to his footman. In order not to say goodbye, not to explain, and most importantly, not to sob, she, until Ryabovsky returned, quickly ran into the hall, put on galoshes and went out into the street. Here she sighed lightly and felt forever free from Ryabovsky, and from painting, and from the heavy shame that had weighed so heavily on her in the studio. Its end!
She went to the dressmaker's, then to Barnai, who had just arrived yesterday, from Barnai to the music shop, and all the time she thought about how she would write Ryabovsky a cold, harsh, full dignity a letter and how in the spring or summer she would go with Dymov to the Crimea, where she would completely free herself from the past and begin a new life.
Returning home late in the evening, she, without changing clothes, sat down in the living room to compose a letter. Ryabovsky told her that she was not an artist, and in retaliation she would now write to him that he paints the same thing every year and says the same thing every day, that he is frozen and that nothing will come of him except, what's already out. She also wanted to write that he owes a lot to her good influence, and if he does bad things, it is only because her influence is paralyzed by various ambiguous persons, like the one who hid behind the picture today.
- Mum! Dymov called from his office without opening the door. - Mum!
- What do you want?
- Mom, do not come in to me, but just go to the door. Here's what... The third day I contracted diphtheria in the hospital, and now... I'm not feeling well. Send for Korostelev as soon as possible.
Olga Ivanovna always called her husband, like all the men she knew, not by name, but by surname; she did not like his name Osip, because it resembled Gogol's Osip and a pun: "Osip is hoarse, and Arkhip is hoarse." Now she cried out:
- Osip, it can't be!
- Went! I’m not well…” Dymov said outside the door, and they could hear him go up to the sofa and lie down. "Let's go," his voice was muffled.
"What is it? thought Olga Ivanovna, going cold with horror. "It's dangerous!"
Unnecessarily, she took a candle and went to her bedroom, and then, thinking about what she had to do, she inadvertently glanced at herself in the dressing table. With a pale, frightened face, in a jacket with high sleeves, with yellow frills on her chest, and with an unusual direction of stripes on her skirt, she seemed to herself terrible and disgusting. She suddenly felt painfully sorry for Dymov, his boundless love for her, his young life, and even this orphaned bed of his, on which he had not slept for a long time, and she remembered his usual, meek, submissive smile. She wept bitterly and wrote a pleading letter to Korostelev. It was two in the morning.
When, at eight o'clock in the morning, Olga Ivanovna, with her head heavy from insomnia, uncombed, ugly, and with a guilty expression, came out of the bedroom, some gentleman with a black beard, apparently a doctor, passed her into the hall. It smelled like medicine. Near the door to the office stood Korostelev and right hand twisted the young mustache.
“Excuse me, I won’t let you in with him,” he said sullenly to Olga Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and nothing to you, in essence. He's still delirious.
Does he have real diphtheria? Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper.
“Those who climb on the rampage really need to be brought to justice,” muttered Korostelev, not answering Olga Ivanovna's question. Do you know why he got infected? On Tuesday, he sucked the diphtheria bacilli out of the boy through a tube. Why? Stupid... Yes, foolishly...
- Dangerously? Highly? Olga Ivanovna asked.
- Yes, they say that the form is heavy. We should send for Shrek, in essence.
A small, red-haired man with a long nose and a Jewish accent would come, then a tall, round-shouldered, shaggy one, who looked like a protodeacon; then a young one, very plump, with a red face and glasses. It was the doctors who came to be on duty near their comrade. Korostelev, having finished his duty, did not go home, but remained and, like a shadow, wandered through all the rooms. The maid served tea to the doctors on duty and often ran to the pharmacy, and there was no one to clean the rooms. It was quiet and gloomy.
Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that God was punishing her for deceiving her husband. Silent, uncomplaining, incomprehensible creature, impersonal by its meekness, spineless, weak from excessive kindness, suffered dully somewhere on its sofa and did not complain. And if it had complained, even in delirium, then the doctors on duty would have known that diphtheria was not the only one to blame. They would ask Korostelev: he knows everything and it’s not for nothing that he looks at his friend’s wife with such eyes as if she were the most important, real villain, and diphtheria is only her accomplice. She no longer remembered either the moonlit evening on the Volga, or the declarations of love, or the poetic life in the hut, but she only remembered that out of an empty whim, out of pampering, all, with her hands and feet, she smeared herself into something dirty, sticky. something you will never get rid of...
“Oh, how I lied terribly! she thought, remembering the restless love she had with Ryabovsky. "Damn it all!"
At four o'clock she dined with Korostelev. He ate nothing, drank only red wine and frowned. She didn't eat anything either. Then she mentally prayed and made a vow to God that if Dymov recovers, then she will love him again and be a faithful wife. Then, forgetting herself for a minute, she looked at Korostelev and thought: “Is it really not boring to be a simple, unremarkable, unknown person, and even with such a wrinkled face and bad manners?” It seemed to her that God would kill her this minute because, fearing to get infected, she had never been in her husband's office. But in general there was a dull dull feeling and confidence that life had already been ruined and that nothing could fix it ...
After lunch, darkness fell. When Olga Ivanovna went into the drawing room, Korostelev was asleep on the couch, with a silk pillow embroidered with gold under his head. “Khi-pua…” he snored, “khee-pua.”
And the doctors who came on duty and left did not notice this disorder. The fact that a stranger slept in the drawing-room and snored, and the sketches on the walls, and the quaint furnishings, and the fact that the hostess was unkempt and slovenly dressed—all this now did not arouse the slightest interest. One of the doctors accidentally laughed at something, and this laugh sounded somehow strange and timid, it even became eerie.
When Olga Ivanovna went out into the drawing-room another time, Korostelev was no longer sleeping, but sitting and smoking.
“He has nasal diphtheria,” he said in an undertone. – Even the heart is not working well. Basically, things are bad.
“And you send for Shrek,” said Olga Ivanovna.
- Was already. It was he who noticed that the diphtheria had passed into the nose. Oh yes, Shrek! In essence, nothing Shrek. He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more.
Time dragged on for an awfully long time. Olga Ivanovna lay dressed in her bed, which had not been made since morning, and dozed off. It seemed to her that the whole apartment from floor to ceiling was occupied by a huge piece of iron, and that as soon as the iron was taken out, everyone would become cheerful and easy. Waking up, she remembered that it was not iron, but Dymov's disease.
“Nature morte, port…” she thought, again falling into oblivion, “sports… resort… How about Shrek? Shrek, Greek, wrek... crack... Where are my friends now? Do they know that we are in grief? Lord, save... deliver. Shrek, Greek ... "
And again iron ... Time dragged on for a long time, and the clock on the lower floor chimed frequently. And now and then there were calls; doctors came ... The maid came in with an empty glass on a tray and asked:
- Madam, will you order to make a bed?
And, having received no answer, she left. The clock chimed downstairs, I dreamed of rain on the Volga, and again someone entered the bedroom, it seems, a stranger. Olga Ivanovna jumped up and recognized Korostelev.
- What time is it now? she asked.
- About three.
- Well?
- What! I came to say: it ends ...
He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her, and wiped his tears away with his sleeve. She didn’t understand right away, but she turned cold all over and slowly began to cross herself.
“It’s over…” he repeated in a thin voice, and sobbed again. – He is dying because he sacrificed himself… What a loss for science! he said bitterly. - This, if all of us are compared with him, was a great, extraordinary person! What gifts! What hope he gave us all! continued Korostelev, wringing his hands. - My God, my God, it would be such a scientist, which now you will not find with fire. Oska Dymov, Oska Dymov, what have you done! Ay-ay, my God!
Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair and shook his head.
What moral strength! he continued, getting more and more angry at someone. - A kind, pure, loving soul is not a person, but glass! Served science and died from science. And he worked like an ox, day and night, no one spared him, and the young scientist, the future professor, had to look for a practice for himself and do translations at night in order to pay for these ... vile rags!
Korostelev looked with hatred at Olga Ivanovna, seized the sheet with both hands and jerked angrily, as if it were her fault.
- And he did not spare himself, and they did not spare him. Eh, yes, in fact!
Yes, a rare person! someone said in a bass voice in the living room.
Olga Ivanovna remembered her whole life with him, from beginning to end, with all the details, and suddenly realized that he was indeed an extraordinary, rare and, in comparison with those whom she knew, a great man. And, remembering how her late father and all fellow doctors treated him, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity. The walls, the ceiling, the lamp and the carpet on the floor blinked mockingly at her, as if they wanted to say: “I missed it! missed!” She rushed out of the bedroom crying, darted past some unknown person in the living room and ran into her husband's office. He lay motionless on a Turkish divan, covered to the waist with a blanket. His face was terribly haggard, emaciated and had a grayish-yellow color, such as never happens among the living; and only by the forehead, by the black eyebrows, and by the familiar smile could one recognize that it was Dymov. Olga Ivanovna quickly felt his chest, forehead and arms. His chest was still warm, but his forehead and hands were uncomfortably cold. And half-open eyes looked not at Olga Ivanovna, but at the blanket.
- Dymov! she called loudly. - Dymov!
She wanted to explain to him that it was a mistake, that everything was not lost, that life could still be beautiful and happy, that he was a rare, extraordinary, great person, and that she would revere him all her life, pray and experience sacred fear ...
- Dymov! she called to him, shaking him by the shoulder and not believing that he would never wake up again. - Dymov, Dymov!
And in the living room Korostelev said to the maid:
- What is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask where the almshouses live. They will wash the body and remove it - they will do everything that is necessary.
...Olga Ivanovna's wedding was attended by all her friends and good acquaintances.
Look at him: isn't there something in him? she said
to her friends, nodding at her husband and as if wanting to explain why she
for a simple, very ordinary and unremarkable person.
Her husband, Osip Stepanych Dymov, was a doctor and had the rank of titular
adviser. He served in two hospitals: in one as a supernumerary intern, and
in the other - a dissector. Every day from nine o'clock in the morning until noon he
received patients and studied in his ward, and in the afternoon rode a horse
to another hospital, where he opened the dead patients. His private practice was
negligible, five hundred rubles a year. That's all. What else can you say about him
say? Meanwhile, Olga Ivanovna and her friends and good acquaintances were not
at all ordinary people. Each of them was something wonderful and
a little known, already had a name and was considered a celebrity, or, although not
was still famous, but showed brilliant promises. Artist from
drama theater, a large, long-recognized talent, graceful intelligent and
humble person and an excellent reader who taught Olga Ivanovna to read; singer from
opera, a good-natured fat man who assured Olga Ivanovna with a sigh that she
destroys herself: if she had not been lazy and pulled herself together, then she would have come out of her
wonderful singer; then several artists and at the head of their genre painter,
animal painter and landscape painter Ryabovsky, a very handsome blond young man,
twenty-five years old, who had success at exhibitions and sold his last
a picture for five hundred rubles; he corrected Olga Ivanovna her sketches and said,
that from it, perhaps, there will be a sense; then the cellist, who
the instrument wept, and who frankly confessed that of all the
only Olga Ivanovna can accompany women; then a writer
young, but already famous, who wrote novels, plays and short stories. Who else? Well,
also Vasily Vasilyich, gentleman, landowner, amateur illustrator and vignettist,
strongly felt the old Russian style, epic and epic; on paper, on
porcelain and on smoked plates, he produced literally miracles. Among
this artistic, free and spoiled by the fate of the company, the truth
delicate and modest, but remembering the existence of some doctors
only during an illness and for whom the name Dymov sounded just as indifferent,
like Sidorov or Tarasov - among this company Dymov seemed a stranger, superfluous
and small, although he was tall and broad-shouldered. It seemed that on it
someone else's tailcoat and that he has a clerk's beard. However, if he were
writer or artist, they would say that with his beard he resembles
The artist told Olga Ivanovna that with his flaxen hair and
in her wedding dress, she looks very much like a slender cherry tree when
in spring it is completely covered with delicate white flowers.
No, you listen! Olga Ivanovna told him, grabbing him by the
hand. - How could this happen all of a sudden? You listen, listen ... You need
say that my father served together with Dymov in the same hospital. When the poor thing
father fell ill, then Dymov spent whole days and nights on duty near his bed.
So much self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky ... And you, writer, listen,
it is very interesting. Come closer. How much self-sacrifice
sincere participation! I also did not sleep at night and sat near my father, and suddenly -
hello, won the good fellow! My Dymov crashed up to his ears.
Really, fate can be so bizarre. Well, after his father died, he sometimes
I met on the street and one fine evening suddenly - bam! done
proposal ... like snow on my head ... I cried all night and fell in love myself
hellishly. And now, as you can see, she became a wife. Isn't there something in it?
strong, powerful, bearish? Now his face is turned to us in three quarters,
poorly lit, but when he turns around, you look at his forehead. Ryabovsky,
what do you say about this forehead? Dymov, we're talking about you! she shouted
husband. - Go here. Extend your honest hand to Ryabovsky... That's it. Be
friends.
Dymov, smiling good-naturedly and naively, held out his hand to Ryabovsky and
I am very glad... A certain Ryabovsky also completed the course with me. Is not
your relative?
Olga Ivanovna was 22 years old, Dymov 31. They healed after the wedding
excellent. Olga Ivanovna hung all the walls in the living room entirely with her own and
other people's sketches in frames and without frames, and near the piano and furniture she arranged a beautiful
tightness from Chinese umbrellas, easels, multi-colored rags, daggers,
busts, photographs ... In the dining room, she pasted over the walls popular prints,
hung up bast shoes and sickles, put a scythe and a rake in the corner, and it turned out
dining room in Russian style. In the bedroom she looks like a cave
draped the ceiling and walls with dark cloth, hung over the beds
a Venetian lantern, and at the door she placed a figure with a halberd.
And everyone found that the young spouses had a very nice little corner.
Every day, getting out of bed at eleven o'clock, Olga Ivanovna
played the piano or, if it was sunny, wrote something in oils
paints. Then, at one o'clock, she went to her dressmaker's. Since she has
Dymov had very little money, barely enough, then to often appear in
new dresses and impress with their outfits, she and her dressmaker had to
indulge in tricks. Very often from an old repainted dress, from
worthless pieces of tulle, lace, plush and silk came out just
miracles, something charming, not a dress, but a dream. From the dressmaker Olga
Ivanovna usually went to some actress she knew to find out
theatrical news and, by the way, ask about a ticket to the first
submission new play or for a benefit. From the actress it was necessary to go to
artist's workshop or to an art exhibition, then to someone from
celebrities - invite to your place, or give a visit, or just chat.
And everywhere she was greeted cheerfully and friendly and assured her that she was good,
dear, rare ... Those whom she called famous and great, accepted
her as her own, as an equal, and they prophesied to her with one voice that with her talents,
taste and mind, if it does not scatter, it will be a big deal. She sang,
played the piano, painted, sculpted, participated in amateur
performances, but all this not somehow, but with talent; did she make lanterns
for illumination, whether she dressed up, whether she tied someone's tie - she has everything
came out unusually artistic, graceful and sweet. But in nothing
talent did not show itself so clearly as in her ability to quickly get to know each other and
meet famous people briefly. Someone got famous
at least a little and make her talk about herself, as she had already met him, in
the same day she became friends and invited to her place. Every new acquaintance was for
her real holiday. She idolized famous people proud of them and
I saw them every night in my dreams. She craved them and could not satisfy her
thirst. The old ones left and were forgotten, new ones came to replace them, but also to
With this, she soon got used to or became disillusioned with them and began to eagerly seek
new and new great people, fished and again looked for. For what?
At five o'clock she dined at home with her husband. Its simplicity common sense and
good nature brought her to tenderness and delight. She kept jumping up
impulsively hugged his head and showered it with kisses.
You, Dymov, are smart, noble man she said, but you
There is one very important drawback. You're not interested in art at all.
You deny both music and painting.
I don't understand them," he said meekly. - I've been doing all my life
natural sciences and medicine, and I had no time to be interested in
arts.
But this is terrible, Dymov!
Why? Your acquaintances do not know the natural sciences and medicine,
yet you do not reproach them for this. Everyone has their own. I don't understand
landscapes and operas, but I think this: if one smart people dedicate their whole
life, and other smart people pay huge money for them, then, therefore, they
needed. I do not understand, but not to understand - does not mean to deny.
Let me shake your honest hand!
After dinner, Olga Ivanovna went to see friends, then to the theater or to
concert and returned home after midnight. So every day.
She had parties on Wednesdays. At these parties, the hostess and guests
they did not play cards and did not dance, but entertained themselves with various arts.
The actor from the drama theater read, the singer sang, the artists painted in
albums, of which Olga Ivanovna had many, the cellist played, and
the hostess herself also drew, sculpted, sang and accompanied.
In the intervals between reading, music and singing, they talked and argued about
literature, theater and art. There were no ladies, because Olga Ivanovna of all
ladies, except for actresses and her dressmaker, she considered boring and vulgar. none
the party was not complete without the hostess flinching at every
call and did not say with a victorious expression on her face: "It's him!", meaning by
word "he" some new invited celebrity. Dymova in the living room
was not, and no one recalled its existence. But exactly half
on the twelfth, the door leading to the dining room opened, Dymov appeared with
with his good-natured, meek smile, and said, rubbing his hands:
Everyone went to the dining room and every time they saw the same thing on the table: a dish with
oysters, a piece of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviar, mushrooms, vodka and
two decanters of wine.
My dear maître d'! said Olga Ivanovna, clasping her hands
from delight. - You're just adorable! Lord, look at his forehead!
Dymov, turn in profile. Gentlemen, look: the face of a Bengal tiger, and
the expression is kind and sweet, like that of a deer. U (cute!
The guests ate and, looking at Dymov, thought: "Indeed, nice fellow",
but soon they forgot about him and continued to talk about the theater, music and painting.
The young spouses were happy, and their life flowed like clockwork.
However, the third week honeymoon was not carried out completely
happy, even sad. Dymov contracted erysipelas in the hospital, lay in
bed for six days and had to cut his beautiful black hair naked.
Olga Ivanovna sat beside him and wept bitterly, but when he felt better,
she put a white handkerchief on his cropped head and began to write from it
Bedouin. And both had fun. Three days after he
having recovered, he began to go to hospitals again, something new happened to him.
misunderstanding.
I'm out of luck, mom! he said one day at dinner. - Today I have
There were four autopsies, and I immediately cut two of my fingers. And I'm only at home
noticed it.
Olga Ivanovna was frightened. He smiled and said it was nothing and
that he often had to make cuts on his arms during autopsies.
I get carried away, mom, and I get distracted.
Olga Ivanovna anxiously expected a cadaveric infection and at night
I prayed to God, but everything went well. And again flowed peaceful,
happy life without sadness and anxiety. The present was beautiful, but to replace
spring was approaching him, already smiling from afar and promising a thousand joys.
Happiness will never end! In April, in May and in June the cottage is far from the city,
walks, sketches, fishing, nightingales, and then, from July until autumn,
trip of artists to the Volga, and on this trip, as an indispensable member of the societe
[society (French societe)], will be
Olga Ivanovna also took part. She has already sewn two travel
canvas suit, bought paints, brushes, canvas and a new
palette. Almost every day Ryabovsky came to see her
what progress she made in painting. When she showed him her
painting, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, tightly compressed his lips, sniffed and
So, sir... This cloud is screaming: it is not illuminated in the evening.
The foreground is somehow chewed up and something, you know, is not right ... And the hut at
choked on something and squeaked plaintively... We ought to take this corner darker.
But in general, not bad ... I praise.
And the more incomprehensibly he spoke, the easier Olga Ivanovna understood him.
On the second day of Trinity, after dinner, Dymov bought snacks and. sweets and
went to his wife's cottage. He had not seen her for two weeks, and
missed you. Sitting in the carriage and then looking for his dacha in a large grove, he
all the time he felt hungry and tired and dreamed about how he was free
have dinner with his wife and then fall asleep. And he had fun
look at your bundle, in which caviar, cheese and white salmon were wrapped.
When he found his dacha and recognized it, the sun was already setting. Old woman
the maid said that the lady was not at home, and that she must be soon
will come. In the country house, very unsightly in appearance, with low ceilings, pasted
writing paper, and with uneven slatted floors, there were only three rooms. AT
one had a bed, in the other canvases, brushes were lying on chairs and windows,
greasy paper and men's coats and hats, and in the third Dymov found three
some unknown men. Two were brunettes with beards and the third
shaven and fat, apparently - an actor. The samovar was boiling on the table.
What do you want? the actor asked in a bass voice, looking at Dymov in an unsociable way. -
Do you need Olga Ivanovna? Wait, she's coming right now.
Dymov sat down and waited. One of the brunettes, looking sleepily and listlessly
poured himself some tea and asked:
Maybe you want some tea? ;
Dymov wanted to eat and drink, but in order not to spoil his appetite, he
refused tea. Soon footsteps and familiar laughter were heard; slammed the door and
Olga Ivanovna ran into the room in a wide-brimmed hat and with a box in her hand, and
after her, with a large umbrella and a folding chair, a cheerful,
red-cheeked Ryabovsky.
Dymov! cried Olga Ivanovna, and flushed with joy. -
Dymov! she repeated, laying her head and both hands on his chest. - It's you!
Why didn't you come for so long? From what? From what?
When will I, mother? I'm always busy, and when I'm free, that's all
It happens that the train schedule is not suitable.
But how glad I am to see you! I dreamed about you all night, and I
I was afraid you might get sick. Ah, if you knew how sweet you are, how you are
by the way arrived! You will be my savior. You alone can save
me! Tomorrow there will be a pre-original wedding here,” she continued, laughing.
and tying her husband's tie. - Marries a young telegraph operator at the station, someone
Chikeldeev. A handsome young man, well, not stupid, and there is in the face,
you know, something strong, bearish ... You can write a young Varangian from him.
We, all summer residents, take part in it and gave him our word of honor to be at
him at the wedding ... A man of modest means, lonely, timid, and, of course, it would be
it is a sin to refuse him participation. Imagine, after the mass wedding, then from
churches all on foot to the bride's apartment ... you know, a grove, Birdsong,
sun spots on the grass and we are all multi-colored spots on bright green
background - preoriginal, in the taste of the French expressionists. But, Dymov,
How will I go to church? - said Olga Ivanovna and did crying face. -
I have nothing here, literally nothing! No dress, no flowers, no
gloves... You have to save me. If you come, then it means fate itself
tells you to save me. Take, my dear, the keys, go home and take
there in my wardrobe pink dress. Do you remember it, it hangs first...
Then in the clade with right side on the floor you will see two cartons. As
open the top, so there is all tulle, tulle, tulle and various shreds, and under
them flowers. Take out all the flowers carefully, try, darling, not to crush them, then
I'll choose... And buy some gloves.
Good, - said Dymov. - I'll go tomorrow and send.
When is tomorrow? asked Olga Ivanovna, and looked at him with
surprise. - When will you have time tomorrow? The first train leaves tomorrow
nine o'clock, and the wedding at eleven. No, my dear, it is necessary today,
definitely today! If you can't come tomorrow, then come with
messenger. Well, go on... The passenger train is about to arrive. Not
be late, dude.
Oh, how I'm sorry to let you go! said Olga Ivanovna, and the tears
turned up before her eyes. - And why did I, fool, gave the floor to the telegraph operator?
Dymov quickly drank a glass of tea, took a bagel and, smiling meekly, went
to the station. And the caviar, cheese and whitefish were eaten by two brunettes and a fat actor.
On a quiet moonlit July night, Olga Ivanovna stood on the deck of the Volga
steamer and looked first at the water, then at the beautiful shores. Standing next to her
Ryabovsky and told her that the black shadows on the water were not shadows, but a dream that
in the sight of this magical water with a fantastic brilliance, in the sight of the bottomless sky
and sad, thoughtful shores, talking about the vanity of our lives and about
the existence of something higher, eternal, blissful, it would be good to forget,
die, become a memory. The past is gone and uninteresting, the future
insignificant, but this wonderful, unique night in life will soon end, merge
with eternity - why live?
night and thought that she was immortal and would never die. Turquoise
water like she had never seen before, sky, shores, black shadows and
unaccountable joy that filled her soul, told her what would come out of her
a great artist, am I somewhere out there, beyond the distance, beyond moonlit night, in
endless space await her success, fame, love of the people... When
she, without blinking, looked into the distance for a long time, she fancied crowds of people, lights,
solemn sounds of music, cries of delight, she herself in a white dress, I
flowers that rained down on her from all sides. She also thought that
next to her, leaning against the side, stands a real great man, a genius,
God's chosen one ... Everything that he has created so far is beautiful, new and
unusual, but what he will create with time, when with manhood
his rare talent will grow stronger, it will be amazingly, immeasurably high, and this
You can see it in his face, in his manner of expression, and in his attitude towards nature. O
shadows, evening tones, about the moonlight, he speaks in a special way, with his
language, so that the charm of his power over nature is involuntarily felt. Myself
he is very handsome, original, and his life, independent, free, alien
everything worldly, similar to the life of a bird.
It's getting fresher," said Olga Ivanovna, and shuddered.
Ryabovsky wrapped her in his cloak and said sadly:
I feel in your power. I'm a slave. Why are you like this today
charming?
He kept gazing at her all the time, and his eyes were terrible, and
she was afraid to look at him.
I love you madly ... - he whispered, breathing on her cheek. - Tell me
one word, and I will not live, I will give up art ... - he muttered in a strong
excitement. - Love me, love...
Don't talk like that,' said Olga Ivanovna, closing her eyes. - This
scary. And Dymov?
What is Dymov? Why Dymov? What do I care about Dymov? Volga, moon,
beauty, my love, my delight, but there is no Dymov ... Oh, I don’t
I know... I don't need the past, give me one moment... one moment!
Olga Ivanovna's heart began to beat. She wanted to think about her husband, but all her
the past, with the wedding, with Dymov and parties, seemed small to her,
insignificant, dull, unnecessary, and far, far away... Really: what is Dymov?
why Dymov? what does she care about Dymov? Does it exist in nature and not
is he just a dream?
"For him, a simple and ordinary person, even that
happiness that he has already received, - she thought, covering her face with her hands. -
Let them condemn There, curse, but in spite of everyone I will take and die, I will take
so I will die ... We must experience everything in life. God, how creepy and how good!"
Well? What? muttered the artist, embracing her and kissing her hands greedily,
with which she feebly tried to push him away from her. - Do you love me? Yes?
Yes? Oh what a night! Great night!
Yes, what a night! she whispered, looking into his eyes shining with
tears, then quickly looked around, hugged him and kissed him hard on the lips.
We are approaching Kineshma! said someone on the other side of the deck.
Heavy footsteps were heard. It was the man from the cafeteria who was passing by.
Listen, - Olga Ivanovna told him, laughing and crying from
happiness, bring us some wine.
The artist, pale with excitement, sat down on a bench and looked at Olga.
Ivanovna with adoring, grateful eyes, then he closed his eyes and said,
smiling languidly:
I'm tired.
And leaned his head against the side.
The second of September was a warm and quiet day, but overcast. Early in the morning on
A light fog wandered along the Volga, and after nine o'clock it began to drizzle. And
there was no hope that the sky would clear up. Over tea Ryabovsky spoke
Olga Ivanovna, that painting is the most ungrateful and most boring
art, that he is not an artist, that only fools think that he has
there is talent, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, he grabbed a knife and scratched his
the best sketch. After tea, gloomy, he sat at the window and looked at the Volga.
And the Volga was already without shine, dull, dull, cold in appearance. Everything, everything
reminiscent of the approach of a dreary, gloomy autumn. And it seemed that luxurious
green carpets on the banks, diamond reflections of rays, transparent blue distance and
everything dandy and ceremonial nature has now removed from the Volga and put in chests
until next spring, and the crows flew around the Volga and teased her: “Naked!
naked!" Ryabovsky listened to their croaking and thought that he was already exhausted and
lost his talent, that everything in this world is conditional, relative and stupid, and that
he should not associate himself with this woman ... In a word, he was not in
spirit and moping.
Olga Ivanovna was sitting on the bed behind the partition, fingering
her beautiful flaxen hair, imagined herself now in the living room, now in
bedroom, then in her husband's study; her imagination took her to the theatre, to the seamstress and
famous friends. What are they doing now? Do they remember her?
The season has already begun, and it's time to think about parties. And Dymov? Dear Dymov!
How meekly and childishly plaintively he asks her in his letters to go as soon as possible.
home! Every month he sent her 75 rubles, and when she wrote to him,
that she owed the artists a hundred rubles, he sent her those hundred as well. Which
kind, generous man! The journey tired Olga Ivanovna, she
was bored, and she wanted to get away from these peasants as soon as possible, from the smell of the river
dampness and throw off this feeling of physical impurity, which she
I experienced it all the time, living in peasant huts and wandering from village to village.
If Ryabovsky had not given parole artists that he will live with them
here until the twentieth of September, it would be possible to leave today. And how would
that was good!
My God, - groaned Ryabovsky, - when will the sun finally come?
I can’t continue the sunny landscape without the sun! ..
And you have a sketch with a cloudy sky, - said Olga Ivanovna,
coming out of the barrier. - Remember, on the right plan there is a forest, and on the left -
herd of cows and geese. Now you could finish it.
E! - grimaced the artist. - Cum! Do you think that I myself
so stupid that I don't know what to do!
How you changed for me! Olga Ivanovna sighed.
Very well.
Olga Ivanovna's face trembled, she went to the stove and began to cry.
Yes, only tears were missing. Stop it! I have a thousand reasons
cry, but I don't cry.
Thousand reasons! Olga Ivanovna sobbed. - The most important
the reason that you are already burdened by me. Yes! she said and sobbed. - If
tell the truth, then you are ashamed of our love. You are all trying to
the artists did not notice, although this cannot be hidden, and everything has long been
known.
Olga, I ask you one thing, - said the artist imploringly and putting
hand to heart, - about one thing: do not torment me! I have nothing more from you
But swear you still love me!
It's painful! - the artist gritted through his teeth and jumped up. -
It will end with me throwing myself into the Volga or going crazy! Leave me!
Well, kill, kill me! shouted Olga Ivanovna. - Kill!
She sobbed again and went behind the partition. On the thatched roof of the hut
rain rustled. Ryabovsky grabbed his head and walked from corner to
corner, then with a determined face, as if wanting to prove something to someone,
put on his cap, slung his gun over his shoulder, and left the hut.
After he left, Olga Ivanovna lay on the bed for a long time and wept. First
she thought that it would be good to poison herself so that the returned Ryabovsky
found her dead, then she was carried away by her thoughts into the living room, into her husband's study
and imagined how she was sitting motionless next to Dymov and enjoying
physical peace and purity, and how in the evening he sits in the theater and listens to Mazini.
And longing for civilization, for city noise and famous people pinched her
a heart. A woman entered the hut and began to slowly heat the stove in order to cook
dinner. It smelled of burning, and the air turned blue with smoke. Artists came to
high dirty boots and with faces wet from the rain, examined studies and
they said to themselves as a consolation that the Volga, even in bad weather, has its own
charm. And the cheap clock on the wall: tick-tic-tic... Chilled flies crowded
in the front corner near the icons and buzzing, and you can hear how under the benches in thick
Prussians are busy with folders ...
Ryabovsky returned home when the sun was setting. He threw it on the table
cap and, pale, exhausted, in dirty boots, sank down on a bench and
closed his eyes.
I'm tired ... - he said and moved his eyebrows, trying to raise his eyelids.
To caress him and show that she is not angry, Olga
Ivanovna went up to him, silently kissed him, and ran the comb over his
blond hair. She wanted to brush him.
What's happened? he asked, shuddering, as if someone had touched him.
something cold, and opened his eyes. - What's happened? Leave me alone please
He pushed her away with his hands and walked away, and it seemed to her that his face
expressed disgust and annoyance. At this time, the woman carefully carried him in both
a plate of cabbage soup in her hands, and Olga Ivanovna saw how she dipped it in the cabbage soup
Your thumbs. And a dirty woman with a constricted belly, and cabbage soup, which
began to greedily eat Ryabovsky, and the hut, and all this life, which at first she
loved for its simplicity and artistic disorder, seemed to her now
terrible. She suddenly felt insulted and said coldly:
We need to part for a while, otherwise out of boredom we can
seriously quarrel. I am tired of this. Today I will leave.
On what? On a stick?
Today is Thursday, which means the steamer will arrive at half past ten.
AND? Yes, yes ... Well, then, go ... - Ryabovsky said softly,
wiping yourself with a towel instead of a napkin. - You're bored here and have nothing to do, and
you have to be a big egoist to keep you. Go and then
See you on the twentieth.
Olga Ivanovna went to bed cheerfully, and even her cheeks flushed with
pleasure. Is it really true, she asked herself, that soon she will
write in the living room, but sleep in the bedroom and dine with a tablecloth? She felt relieved
from the heart, and she was no longer angry with the artist.
I will leave the paints and brushes to you, Ryabusha, she said. - What
stay, bring it... Look, don't be lazy here without me, don't be depressed, but
Work. You are a good fellow, Ryabusha.
At ten o'clock Ryabovsky kissed her goodbye, for the way she
thought not to kiss on the steamer in the presence of artists, and spent on
pier. A steamboat soon came and took her away.
She arrived home two and a half days later. without taking off your hat and
waterproof [Waterproof (English - waterproof) - waterproof women's coat],
breathing heavily with excitement, she went into the living room, and from there into the dining room. Dymov
without a frock coat, in an unbuttoned vest, sat at the table and sharpened a knife on a fork;
in front of him on a plate lay a hazel grouse. When Olga Ivanovna entered the apartment,
she was convinced that it was necessary to hide everything from her husband and that
her skill and strength, but now, when she saw a wide, meek,
happy smile and bright, joyful eyes, she felt that
to hide from this person is just as vile, disgusting and just as impossible
and it is beyond her power to slander, steal or kill, and in an instant she
I decided to tell him everything that happened. Letting him kiss you and hug you,
she knelt before him and covered her face.
What? What mom? he asked softly. - Missed you?
She lifted her face, red with shame, and looked at him guiltily and
pleadingly, but fear and shame prevented her from speaking the truth.
Nothing ... - she said. - I'm so...
Let's sit down, - he said, lifting her and seating her at the table. - Like this...
Eat a hazel grouse. You're hungry, poor thing!
She greedily breathed in her native air and ate hazel grouse, and he. with
looked at her tenderly and laughed joyfully.
Apparently, from the middle of winter, Dymov began to guess that his
deceive. He, as if he had a bad conscience, could no longer look
wife directly in the eyes, did not smile joyfully at a meeting with her, and, so as not to
to be alone with her, often brought his comrade to dinner
Korostelev, a small shaven-haired man with a rumpled face, who, when
talked to Olga Ivanovna, then, out of embarrassment, unbuttoned all the buttons
his jacket and buttoned them again and then began to pinch with his right hand
his left mustache. At dinner, both doctors talked about the fact that with a high
when the diaphragm is standing, sometimes there are interruptions of the heart, or that there are multiple
neuritis has recently been observed very often, or that yesterday Dymov,
having opened the corpse with a diagnosis of "pernicious anemia", found cancer
pancreas. And it seemed like both of them were having a medical conversation
only to give Olga Ivanovna the opportunity to remain silent, that is, not
lie After dinner, Korostelev sat down at the piano, while Dymov sighed and spoke
Eh, brother! Well, what! Play something sad.
Raising his shoulders and spreading his fingers wide, Korostechev took several
chords and began to sing in tenor "Show me such a monastery, where would the Russian
the peasant did not moan," but Dymov sighed once more, propped his head on his fist, and
thought.
Recently, Olga Ivanovna has been behaving extremely carelessly. Each
in the morning she woke up in the worst mood and with the thought that she
He no longer loves Ryabovsky and that, thank God, it's all over. But getting drunk
coffee, she thought that Ryabovsky had taken her husband away from her and that now she
was left without a husband and without Ryabovsky; then she remembered the conversations of her
acquaintances that Ryabovsky is preparing something amazing for the exhibition, a mixture
landscape with a genre, in the taste of Polenov, from which everyone who happens to be in his
workshop, are delighted; but this, she thought, he created for her
influence, and in general, thanks to her influence, he changed a lot for the better.
Her influence is so beneficial and significant that if she leaves him, he,
perhaps he may die. And she also remembered that the last time he
came to her in some kind of gray frock coat with sparks and a new tie and
asked languidly: "Am I handsome?" And in fact, he, graceful, with his
with long curls and blue eyes, was very handsome (or perhaps
so it seemed) and was affectionate with her.
Remembering a lot and realizing, Olga Ivanovna dressed in a strong
excitedly went to the studio to Ryabovsky. She made him cheerful and
admiring his truly magnificent picture; he jumped, fooled around
and answered serious questions with jokes. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of Ryabovsky
to the picture and hated it, but out of politeness she stood in front of the picture
silently for about five minutes and, sighing, as one sighs before a shrine, she said softly:
Yes, you've never written anything like this before. You know, even scary.
Then she began to beg him to love her, |?
took pity on her, poor and unfortunate. She cried, kissed his hands, demanded
so that he swears love to her, proves to him that without her good influence he
go astray and die. And, ruining his good mood and
feeling humiliated, she went to a dressmaker or to a familiar actress
ask for a ticket.
If she did not find him in the workshop, then she left him a letter, in
whom she swore that if he did not come to her today, then she would certainly
get poisoned. He was a coward, came to her and stayed for dinner. not shy
the presence of her husband, he spoke impudently to her, she answered him the same. Both
felt that they bound each other, that they were despots and enemies, and
were angry, and from anger did not notice that both of them were indecent and that even
shorn Korostelev understands everything. After dinner, Ryabovsky hurried to say goodbye
Where do you go? Olga Ivanovna asked him in the hall, looking at
him with hatred.
Wincing and screwing up his eyes, he called some lady, a common acquaintance, and
it was evident that he was laughing at her jealousy and wanted to annoy her.
She went to her bedroom and lay down in bed; from jealousy, vexation,
feelings of humiliation and shame, she bit the pillow and began to sob loudly. Dymov
left Korostelev in the living room, went into the bedroom and, embarrassed,
confused, spoke quietly:
Don't cry loudly, mother... Why? We must be silent about this ... We must not
pretend... You know what happened, you can't fix it.
Not knowing how to subdue the heavy jealousy in oneself, from which even in
her temples ached, and thinking that it was still possible to improve the matter, she washed herself,
powdered her tear-stained face and flew to the familiar lady. Don't make her
Ryabovsky, she went to another, then to a third ... At first she was ashamed
to ride like that, but then she got used to it, and it happened that one evening she
traveled around all the women she knew to find Ryabovsky, and everyone understood
Once she said to Ryabovsky about her husband:
This man oppresses me with his generosity!
She liked this phrase so much that, meeting with artists who
knew about her affair with Ryabovsky, she always spoke about her husband, making
energetic hand gesture
It's x man oppresses me with his generosity! The order of life was
the same as last year.
There were parties on Wednesdays. The artist read, the artists drew,
the cellist played, the singer sang, and invariably at half past eleven
the door leading to the dining-room would open, and Dymov, smiling, would say:
Please, gentlemen, have a bite.
As before, Olga Ivanovna was looking for great people, found and did not
Satisfied and searched again. Still she came back every day
late at night, but Dymov no longer slept, as he had last year, but sat in his
cabinet and something worked. He went to bed at three o'clock and got up at eight.
One evening, when she was going to the theater, she was standing in front of the dressing table,
Dymov entered the bedroom in a tailcoat and a white cravat. He smiled softly and
Before, he joyfully looked his wife straight in the eyes. His face was beaming.
I just defended my dissertation, - he said, sitting down and stroking
Protected? asked Olga Ivanovna.
Wow! he laughed and craned his neck to see his face in the mirror.
wife, who continued to stand with her back to him and straighten her hair. -
Wow! he repeated. - You know, it is very possible that they will offer me
Privatdozentura on general pathology. It smells like this.
It was clear from his blissful, radiant face that if Olga
Ivanovna shared his joy and triumph with him, then he would forgive her everything,
and the present and the future, and would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what it meant
Privatdozentura and general pathology, besides, she was afraid to be late for the theater and
didn't say anything.
He sat for two minutes, smiled guiltily and left.
It was the most hectic day.
Dymov had a severe headache; he did not drink tea in the morning, did not go to
hospital and all the time lay in his office on a Turkish sofa. Olga
Ivanovna, as usual, went to Ryabovsky's at one o'clock to
show him your sketch nature morte [Still life (French) - picturesque
the image of flowers, household items, game, fish, etc.] and ask him
Why didn't he come yesterday? The sketch seemed insignificant to her, and she wrote it
only to have an extra excuse to go to the artist.
She went in to him without ringing, and when she was taking off her galoshes in the hall, she
it was heard, as if something quietly ran in the workshop, rustling like a woman
dress, and when she hurried to look into the workshop, she saw only
a piece of brown skirt, which flashed for a moment and disappeared behind a large
a picture, curtained along with an easel to the floor with black calico.
There was no doubt - it was a woman hiding. How often Olga herself
Ivanovna found refuge behind this picture! Ryabovsky, apparently
very embarrassed, as if surprised at her coming, stretched out both hands to her and
said with a tight smile:
Ah-ah-ah-ah! I am very glad to see you. What do you say nice?
Olga Ivanovna's eyes filled with tears. She was ashamed, bitter, and
she would not agree to speak in the presence of a stranger for a million
woman, rival, liar, who now stood behind the picture and, probably,
giggled wickedly.
I brought you a study ... - she said timidly, in a thin voice, and her lips
she was trembling, - nature morte.
A-ah-ah ... a sketch?
The artist picked up a sketch and, examining it, as if mechanically
went into another room.
Olga Ivanovna meekly followed him.
Nature morte ... first class, - he muttered, choosing a rhyme, -
resort... hell... port...
Hasty footsteps and rustling dresses were heard from the workshop. Means,
she left. Olga Ivanovna wanted to shout loudly, to hit the artist on the
head with something heavy and leave, but she did not see anything through her tears,
was overwhelmed by her shame and felt that she was no longer Olga Ivanovna and
an artist, but a little goat.
I'm tired ... - the artist said languidly, looking at the sketch and shaking
head to fight drowsiness. - It's nice, of course, but today is an etude, and
last year there was a sketch, and in a month there will be a sketch ... How can you not get bored? I'd
in your place, he gave up painting and took up seriously music or something.
After all, you are not an artist, but a musician. However, you know how tired I am. I am now
I'll tell them to give tea ... Eh?
He left the room, and Olga Ivanovna heard him say something.
ordered his footman. So as not to say goodbye, not to explain, and most importantly, not
sobbing, she, until Ryabovsky returned, quickly ran into the hall,
put on galoshes and went out into the street. Then she sighed lightly and felt
myself forever free both from Ryabovsky, and from painting, and from the heavy
the shame that weighed so heavily on her in the workshop. Its end!
She went to the dressmaker's, then to Barnay, who had only arrived yesterday,
from Barnaya to the music shop, and all the time she thought about how she would write
Ryabovsky a cold, hard, self-respecting letter, and how
in the spring or summer she will go with Dymov to the Crimea, and there she will finally be freed.
from the past and start a new life.
Returning home late in the evening, she, without changing clothes, sat down in the living room
compose a letter. Ryabovsky told her that she was not an artist, and she
will now write to him in retaliation that he writes the same thing every year and
every day he says the same thing, that he is frozen and that he will not come out of it
nothing but what's already out. She also wanted to write that he
owes a lot to her good influence, and if he does bad things, it only
because her influence is paralyzed by various ambiguous persons, such as
the one that was hiding behind the picture today.
Mum! Dymov called from his office without opening the door. - Mum!
What do you want?
Mom, don't come to me, just come to the door. That's what...
On the third day, I contracted diphtheria in the hospital, and now... I don't feel well.
Send for Korostelev as soon as possible.
Olga Ivanovna always called her husband, like all the men she knew, not by
name, but by last name; she did not like his name Osip, because it reminded
Gogol's Osip and a pun: "Osip is hoarse, and Arkhip is hoarse." Now she
cried out:
Osip, it can't be!
Went! I don’t feel well ... - said Dymov outside the door, and it was heard how
he went to the sofa and lay down. - Went! - his voice was muffled.
“What is this?” thought Olga Ivanovna, going cold with horror.
it is dangerous!"
Without any need, she took a candle and went to her bedroom and then,
pondering what she must do, Inadvertently glanced at herself in the dressing-glass. With
pale, frightened face, in a jacket with high sleeves, with yellow flounces
on her chest and with an unusual direction of stripes on her skirt, she seemed to herself
terrible and ugly. She suddenly felt painfully sorry for Dymov, his boundless
love for her, his young life, and even this orphaned bed of his, on
which he had not slept for a long time, and she remembered his usual meek,
submissive smile. She wept bitterly and wrote to Korostelev pleading
letter. It was two in the morning.
When at eight o'clock in the morning Olga Ivanovna, with severe insomnia
head, unkempt, ugly and with a guilty expression, came out of
bedroom, some gentleman with black beard,
apparently a doctor. It smelled like medicine. Near the door to the office stood
Korostelev twisted his left mustache with his right hand.
To him, sorry, I won’t let you in, - he said sullenly to Olga
Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and nothing to you, in essence. He doesn't care
Does he have real diphtheria? asked Olga Ivanovna in a whisper.
Those who climb on the rampage should really be put on trial, -
muttered Korostelev, without answering Olga Ivanovna's question. - You know
why did he get infected? On Tuesday, the boy sucked through a straw
diphtheria films. Why? Stupid... Yes, foolishly...
Dangerously? Highly? asked Olga Ivanovna.
Yes, they say that the form is heavy. We should send for Shrek,
entities.
A small, red-haired man with a long nose and a Jewish accent came;
then tall, round-shouldered, shaggy, resembling a protodeacon; then young,
very fat, with a red face and glasses. This doctors came to watch about
his comrade. Korostelev, having finished his time on duty, did not go home, but
remained and, like a shadow, wandered through all the rooms. The maid served
tea for the doctors on duty and often ran to the pharmacy, and there was no one to clean
rooms. It was quiet and gloomy.
Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that this was her god.
punishes her for cheating on her husband. Silent, uncomplaining,
incomprehensible creature, depersonalized by its meekness, spineless, weak
from excessive kindness, deafly suffered somewhere there On my sofa and did not
complained. And if it craved, at least in delirium, then the duty
doctors would have known that diphtheria was not the only culprit. Would they ask
Korosteleva: he knows everything and it’s not for nothing that he looks at his friend’s wife like that
eyes, as if she were the most important, real villainess, and
diphtheria is only her accomplice. She no longer remembered a moonlit evening on the Volga,
no declarations of love, no poetic life in the hut, but only remembered that
out of an empty whim, out of self-indulgence, all with arms and legs, she smeared herself in
something dirty, sticky, from which you can never wash off ...
"Oh, how terribly I lied!" she thought, remembering the restless
love that she had with Ryabovsky. "Damn it all!"
At four o'clock she dined with Korostelev. He didn't eat anything, he drank
only red wine and a frown. She didn't eat anything either. Then she mentally
prayed and made a vow to God that if Dymov recovers, then she will fall in love
him again and will be a faithful wife. Then, forgetting for a moment, she looked at
Korosteleva and thought: "Isn't it boring to be simple, nothing
wonderful, unknown person, and even with such a rumpled face and with
bad manners?" Then it seemed to her that God would kill her this very minute because
she, afraid of getting infected, had never yet been in her husband's office. And in general,
there was a dull, dull feeling and the certainty that life had already been ruined and that
nothing can fix it...
After lunch, darkness fell. When Olga Ivanovna went into the drawing-room,
Korostelev slept on a couch, with a silk pillow under his head, embroidered
gold. "Khi-pua..." he snored, "khee-pua."
And the doctors who came on duty and left did not notice this
mess. The fact that a stranger slept in the living room and snored, and studies on
walls, and quaint furnishings, and the fact that the hostess was not combed and
not neatly dressed - all this now did not arouse the slightest interest.
One of the doctors accidentally laughed at something, and somehow strangely and timidly
this laugh sounded, it even became terribly.
When Olga Ivanovna went out into the living room another time, Korostelev no longer
slept, and sat and smoked.
He has nasal diphtheria,” he said in an undertone. - already and
the heart doesn't work well. Basically, things are bad.
And you send for Shrek, - said Olga Ivanovna.
Was already. It was he who noticed that diphtheria was going up his nose. Eh, what
Shrek! In essence, nothing is Shrek, He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more.
Time dragged on for an awfully long time. Olga Ivanovna was lying down dressed in
unmade bed in the morning and dozing. It seemed to her that the whole apartment was from the floor
up to the ceiling is occupied by a huge piece of iron and that one has only to take it out
iron, how it will become fun and easy for everyone. Waking up, she remembered that it was
not iron, but Dymov's disease,
"Nature morte, port ... - she thought, again falling into oblivion, -
sports... resort... How about Shrek? Shrek, Greek, wrek... crack. And somewhere now
my friends? Do they know that we are in grief? Lord, save... deliver. shrek,
And again iron ... Time dragged on for a long time, and the clock on the lower floor was striking
often. And every now and then the bells were heard: the doctors came ... The maid came in with
with an empty glass on a tray and asked:
Lady, would you like to make a bed?
And, having received no answer, she left. The clock struck downstairs, it rained on
Volga, and again someone entered the bedroom, it seems an outsider. Olga Ivanovna
jumped up and recognized Korostelev.
What time is it now? she asked.
About three.
What! I came to say: it ends...
He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her, and wiped his tears away with his sleeve. She is
I didn’t understand right away, but she went cold all over and slowly began to cross herself.
He is dying because he sacrificed himself... What a loss for science! - said
he is bitter. - This, if all of us are compared with him, was a great
extraordinary person! What gifts! What hope did he give us?
everyone! - continued Korosteli wringing his hands. - Oh my God, that would be
such a scientist, whom you will not find with fire now. Oska Dymov. Oska Dymov,
what have you done! Ay-ay, my God!
In despair, Korostelev covered the lees with both hands and shook his head.
And what moral strength! he continued, more and more
getting angry at someone. - A kind, pure, loving soul is not a person, but
glass! Served science and died from science. And he worked like an ox, day and night, no one
did not spare him, and the young scientist, the future professor, had to look for
practice and translate at night to pay for these...
dirty rags!
Korostelev looked with hatred at Olga Ivanovna, grabbed hold of
sheet with both hands and angrily tugged at it as if it was her fault.
And he did not spare himself and he was not spared. Eh, yes, in fact!
Yes, a rare person! - said someone in a bass voice in the living room.
Olga Ivanovna remembered her whole life with him, from beginning to end,
all the details, and suddenly realized that it was really
extraordinary, rare, and compared to those she knew, great
human. And, remembering how her late father treated him and all
fellow doctors, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity.
The walls, the ceiling, the lamp, and the carpet on the floor, winked mockingly at her, as if wishing
say: "Missed! Missed!" She ran out of the bedroom crying.
slipped past some stranger in the living room and ran into the office
to her husband. He lay motionless on a Turkish divan, covered to the waist with a blanket.
His face was terribly haggard, thinner and had a grayish-yellow color, which
never happens to the living; and only on the forehead, on black eyebrows and on the familiar
with a smile one could recognize that it was Dymov. Olga Ivanovna quickly felt him
chest, forehead and arms. The chest was still warm, but the forehead and arms were unpleasant.
cold. And half-open eyes looked not at Olga Ivanovna, but at the blanket.
Dymov! she called loudly. - Dymov!
She wanted to explain to him that it was a mistake, that all was not lost,
that life can still be beautiful and happy, that he is rare,
an extraordinary, great person and that she would all her life revere
them, to pray and experience sacred fear...
Dymov! she called him, shaking him by the shoulder and not believing that he
will never wake up again. - Dymov, Dymov!
And in the living room Korostelev said to the maid:
What is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask
where the poor people live. They will wash the body and clean it - they will do everything that is necessary.
On our website you can also read a summary of the story "The Jumper". Links to texts and summaries other works of A.P. Chekhov - see below in the block "More on the topic ..."
I
Olga Ivanovna's wedding was attended by all her friends and good acquaintances.
Look at him: isn't there something in him? - she said to her friends, nodding at her husband and as if wanting to explain why she married a simple, very ordinary and unremarkable person.
Her husband, Osip Stepanych Dymov, was a doctor and had the rank of titular councillor. He served in two hospitals: in one as a supernumerary intern, and in the other as a dissector. Every day from nine o'clock in the morning until noon, he received patients and studied in his ward, and in the afternoon he rode a horse to another hospital, where he opened the dead patients. His private practice was negligible, five hundred rubles a year. That's all. What else can be said about him? Meanwhile, Olga Ivanovna and her friends and good acquaintances were not quite ordinary people. Each of them was remarkable in some way and a little known, already had a name and was considered a celebrity, or, although he was not yet famous, he showed brilliant promises. An artist from the drama theater, a great, long-recognized talent, an elegant, intelligent and modest person and an excellent reader who taught Olga Ivanovna to read; an opera singer, a good-natured fat man, who with a sigh assured Olga Ivanovna that she was ruining herself: if she had not been lazy and pulled herself together, then a wonderful singer would have come out of her; then several artists and at their head the genre painter, animal painter and landscape painter Ryabovsky, a very handsome blond young man, about twenty-five years old, who had success at exhibitions and sold his last picture for five hundred rubles; he corrected Olga Ivanovna's sketches and said that perhaps she would be good; then the cellist, whose instrument wept and who frankly confessed that of all the women he knew, only Olga Ivanovna could accompany; then a writer, young, but already well-known, who wrote novels, plays and stories. Who else? Well, also Vasily Vasilyich, a gentleman, a landowner, an amateur illustrator and a vignettist, who strongly felt the old Russian style, epic and epic; on paper, on porcelain, and on finished plates, he produced literally miracles. Among this artistic, free and spoiled by fate company, though delicate and modest, but who remembered the existence of some doctors only during illness and for which the name Dymov sounded as indifferent as Sidorov or Tarasov, among this company Dymov seemed a stranger, superfluous and small, although he was tall and broad-shouldered. It seemed that he was wearing someone else's tailcoat and that he had a clerk's beard. However, if he were a writer or artist, they would say that with his beard he resembles Zola.
Chekhov. Jumper. audiobook
The artist told Olga Ivanovna that with her flaxen hair and in her wedding dress she looked very much like a slender cherry tree, when in spring it is completely covered with delicate white flowers.
- No, you listen! Olga Ivanovna told him, grabbing his hand. How could this happen all of a sudden? You listen, listen ... I must tell you that my father served together with Dymov in the same hospital. When the poor father fell ill, Dymov spent whole days and nights on duty near his bed. So much self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky... And you, a writer, listen, this is very interesting. Come closer. How much self-sacrifice, sincere participation! I, too, did not sleep at night and sat near my father, and suddenly - hello, I won the good fellow! My Dymov crashed up to his ears. Really, fate can be so bizarre. Well, after the death of his father, he sometimes visited me, met on the street and one fine evening suddenly - bam! - made an offer ... like snow on my head ... I cried all night and fell in love like hell myself. And now, as you can see, she became a wife. Isn't it true that there is something strong, powerful, bearish in him? Now his face is facing us in three quarters, poorly lit, but when he turns around, you look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what can you say about this forehead? Dymov, we're talking about you! she called to her husband. - Go here. Extend your honest hand to Ryabovsky... That's it. Be friends.
Dymov, smiling good-naturedly and naively, held out his hand to Ryabovsky and said:
- Very glad. A certain Ryabovsky also finished the course with me. Is this a relative of yours?
II
Olga Ivanovna was twenty-two, Dymov thirty-one. They healed excellently after the wedding. Olga Ivanovna hung all the walls in the living room entirely with her own and other people's sketches, framed and without frames, and near the piano and furniture she arranged a beautiful crowd of Chinese umbrellas, easels, multi-colored rags, daggers, busts, photographs ... In the dining room she pasted over the walls with popular prints, hung bast shoes and sickles, put a scythe and a rake in the corner, and the result was a dining room in the Russian style. In the bedroom, to make it look like a cave, she draped the ceiling and walls with dark cloth, hung a Venetian lantern over the beds, and placed a figure with a halberd at the door. And everyone found that the young spouses had a very nice little corner.
Every day, getting out of bed at eleven o'clock, Olga Ivanovna played the piano or, if it was sunny, wrote something. oil paints. Then, at one o'clock, she went to her dressmaker's. Since she and Dymov had very little money, to spare, in order to often appear in new dresses and amaze with their outfits, she and her dressmaker had to indulge in tricks. Very often, from an old repainted dress, from worthless pieces of tulle, lace, plush and silk, simply miracles came out, something charming, not a dress, but a dream. From the dressmaker, Olga Ivanovna usually went to some actress she knew, in order to find out the theatrical news and, by the way, to inquire about a ticket to the first performance of a new play or to a benefit performance. From the actress it was necessary to go to the artist's studio or to an art exhibition, then to one of the celebrities - to invite them to her place, or give a visit, or just chat. And everywhere she was greeted cheerfully and friendly and assured her that she was good, sweet, rare ... Those whom she called famous and great, accepted her as their own, as an equal and prophesied to her with one voice that with her talents, taste and mind , if it does not scatter, it will be a big deal. She sang, played the piano, painted, sculpted, participated in amateur performances, but all this not somehow, but with talent; whether she made lanterns for illumination, whether she dressed up, whether she tied someone's tie - everything came out with her unusually artistic, graceful and sweet. But in nothing her talent was not so pronounced as in her ability to quickly get acquainted and briefly converge with famous people. As soon as someone became famous at least a little and forced to talk about himself, she already got to know him, on the same day she became friends and invited to her place. Every new acquaintance was a real holiday for her. She idolized famous people, was proud of them and saw them every night in a dream. She craved them and could not quench her thirst in any way. The old ones left and were forgotten, new ones came to replace them, but she soon got used to these or became disillusioned with them and began to eagerly look for new and new great people, found and searched again. For what?
At five o'clock she dined at home with her husband. His simplicity, common sense and good nature led her to emotion and delight. She jumped up every now and then, impetuously hugged his head and showered it with kisses.
“You, Dymov, are an intelligent, noble person,” she said, “but you have one very important shortcoming. You're not interested in art at all. You deny both music and painting.
"I don't understand them," he said meekly. “I have been involved in the natural sciences and medicine all my life, and I had no time to be interested in the arts.
“But it’s terrible, Dymov!
Why not? Your friends don't know natural sciences and medicine, but you do not blame them for this. Everyone has their own. I don’t understand landscapes and operas, but I think this: if some smart people devote their whole lives to them, while other smart people pay huge money for them, then they are needed. I do not understand, but not to understand does not mean to deny.
Let me shake your honest hand!
After dinner, Olga Ivanovna went to see friends, then to the theater or to a concert, and returned home after midnight. So every day.
She had parties on Wednesdays. At these parties, the hostess and guests did not play cards or dance, but entertained themselves with various arts. The actor from the drama theater read, the singer sang, the artists drew in albums, which Olga Ivanovna had many, the cellist played, and the hostess herself also drew, sculpted, sang and accompanied. Between reading, music and singing, they talked and argued about literature, theater and painting. There were no ladies, because Olga Ivanovna considered all ladies, except actresses and her dressmaker, boring and vulgar. Not a single party was complete without the hostess flinching at every call and saying with a triumphant expression: “It's him!”, meaning by the word “he” some new invited celebrity. Dymov was not in the living room, and no one remembered his existence. But exactly at half-past eleven the door leading to the dining-room opened, Dymov appeared with his good-natured meek smile and said, rubbing his hands:
Everyone went to the dining room and each time they saw the same thing on the table: a dish of oysters, a piece of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviar, mushrooms, vodka and two carafes of wine.
- My dear maître d'! said Olga Ivanovna, clasping her hands in delight. - You're just adorable! Lord, look at his forehead! Dymov, turn in profile. Gentlemen, look: the face of a Bengal tiger, and the expression is kind and sweet, like that of a deer. Wu, honey!
The guests ate and, looking at Dymov, thought: “Really, a nice fellow,” but soon forgot about him and continued talking about the theater, music and painting.
The young spouses were happy, and their life flowed like clockwork. However, the third week of their honeymoon was not entirely happy, even sad. Dymov contracted erysipelas in the hospital, lay in bed for six days and had to cut his beautiful black hair naked. Olga Ivanovna sat beside him and wept bitterly, but when he felt better, she put a little white handkerchief on his cropped head and began to write from him a Bedouin. And both had fun. About three days after he, having recovered, began to go to hospitals again, a new misunderstanding occurred to him.
I'm out of luck, Mom! he said one day at dinner. “Today I had four autopsies, and I cut two of my fingers at once. And only at home I noticed it.
Olga Ivanovna was frightened. He smiled and said that it was nothing and that he often had to make cuts on his arms during autopsies.
“I get carried away, mother, and I become absent-minded.
Olga Ivanovna anxiously expected a cadaveric infection and prayed to God at night, but everything turned out well. And again a peaceful happy life flowed without sorrows and anxieties. The present was beautiful, and spring was approaching to replace it, already smiling from afar and promising a thousand joys. Happiness will never end! In April, in May and in June, a dacha far outside the city, walks, sketches, fishing, nightingales, and then, from July until autumn, a trip of artists to the Volga, and in this trip, as an indispensable member of the societe, will take part and Olga Ivanovna. She had already made herself two traveling suits of linen, bought paints, brushes, canvas and a new palette for the journey. Almost every day Ryabovsky came to her to see what progress she had made in painting. When she showed him her painting, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, pressed his lips tightly, sniffed and said:
- So, sir ... This cloud is screaming with you: it is not illuminated in the evening. The foreground is somehow chewed up and something, you know, is not right ... And your hut is choking on something and squeaking plaintively ... this corner should be taken darker. But in general, not bad ... I praise.
And the more incomprehensibly he spoke, the easier Olga Ivanovna understood him.
III
On the second day of Trinity, after dinner, Dymov bought snacks and sweets and went to his wife's dacha. He had not seen her for two weeks and missed her greatly. Sitting in the carriage and then looking for his dacha in a large grove, he felt hungry and tired all the time and dreamed of how he would have dinner with his wife in freedom and then fall asleep. And it was fun for him to look at his bundle, in which caviar, cheese and white salmon were wrapped.
When he found his dacha and recognized it, the sun was already setting. The old maid said that the lady was not at home and that they must be coming soon. In the dacha, very unsightly in appearance, with low ceilings covered with writing paper, and with uneven slatted floors, there were only three rooms. In one there was a bed, in another, canvases, brushes, greasy paper, and men's coats and hats were lying on chairs and windows, and in the third, Dymov found three unfamiliar men. Two were brunettes with beards, and the third was completely shaven and fat, apparently an actor. The samovar was boiling on the table.
– What do you want? the actor asked in a bass voice, looking at Dymov in an unsociable way. - Do you need Olga Ivanovna? Wait, she's coming right now.
Dymov sat down and waited. One of the brunettes, looking at him sleepily and languidly, poured himself some tea and asked:
- Would you like some tea?
Dymov wanted to eat and drink, but in order not to spoil his appetite, he refused tea. Soon footsteps and familiar laughter were heard; the door slammed, and Olga Ivanovna ran into the room in a wide-brimmed hat and with a box in her hand, and after her, with a large umbrella and with a folding chair, the cheerful, red-cheeked Ryabovsky entered.
- Dymov! cried Olga Ivanovna, and flushed with joy. - Dymov! she repeated, laying her head and both hands on his chest. - It's you! Why didn't you come for so long? From what? From what?
- When will I, mother? I am always busy, and when I am free, everything happens so that the train schedule does not fit.
"But I'm glad to see you!" I dreamed of you all, all night long, and I was afraid that you might get sick. Ah, if only you knew how sweet you are, how by the way you have come! You will be my savior. You alone can save me! Tomorrow there will be a pre-original wedding here,” she continued, laughing and tying her husband's tie. - A young telegraph operator is getting married at the station, a certain Chikeldeev. A handsome young man, well, not stupid, and there is, you know, something strong, bearish in his face ... You can write a young Varangian from him. We, all summer residents, take part in it and gave him our word of honor to be at his wedding ... A man is not rich, lonely, timid, and, of course, it would be a sin to refuse him participation. Imagine, after mass, the wedding, then from the church everything is on foot to the bride’s apartment ... you see, a grove, birdsong, sun spots on the grass, and we are all multi-colored spots on a bright green background - pre-original, in the taste of French expressionists. But, Dymov, what will I wear to church? - said Olga Ivanovna and made a weeping face. “I have nothing here, literally nothing! No dress, no flowers, no gloves... You have to save me. If you came, it means that fate itself tells you to save me. Take, my dear, the keys, go home and take my pink dress in the wardrobe there. You remember it, it hangs first ... Then in the pantry on the right side on the floor you will see two cartons. As soon as you open the top, it's all tulle, tulle, tulle and various shreds, and under them there are flowers. Take out all the flowers carefully, try, darling, not to crush them, then I will choose ... And buy gloves.
"Good," said Dymov. - I'll go tomorrow and send.
- When is tomorrow? Olga Ivanovna asked and looked at him with surprise. – When will you have time tomorrow? Tomorrow the first train leaves at nine o'clock, and the wedding is at eleven. No, my dear, it is necessary today, definitely today! If you can't come tomorrow, then come with a messenger. Well, go on... Now the passenger train should come. Don't be late, baby.
- Okay.
“Oh, how sorry I am to let you go,” said Olga Ivanovna, and tears welled up in her eyes. - And why did I, fool, give the floor to the telegraph operator?
Dymov quickly drank a glass of tea, took a bagel and, smiling meekly, went to the station. And the caviar, cheese and whitefish were eaten by two brunettes and a fat actor.
IV
On a quiet moonlit July night, Olga Ivanovna stood on the deck of the Volga steamer and looked first at the water, then at the beautiful shores. Ryabovsky stood next to her and told her that the black shadows on the water were not shadows, but a dream, that in view of this magical water with a fantastic brilliance, in view of the bottomless sky and sad, thoughtful shores, speaking of the vanity of our life and the existence of something something higher, eternal, blissful, it would be good to forget, to die, to become a memory. The past is gone and uninteresting, the future is insignificant, and this wonderful, unique night in life will soon end, merge with eternity - why live?
And Olga Ivanovna listened now to Ryabovsky's voice, now to the silence of the night, and thought that she was immortal and would never die. The turquoise color of the water, which she had never seen before, the sky, the shores, black shadows and the unaccountable joy that filled her soul, told her that a great artist would come out of her and that somewhere beyond the distance, beyond the moonlit night, in endless space her success, glory, love of the people await her ... When she looked into the distance without blinking for a long time, she seemed to see crowds of people, lights, solemn sounds of music, cries of delight, she herself in a white dress and flowers that rained down on her from all sides. She also thought that next to her, leaning on the side, stands a real great man, a genius, God's chosen one ... Everything that he has created so far is beautiful, new and unusual, but what he will create over time, when with maturity, his rare talent will grow stronger, it will be amazingly, immeasurably high, and this can be seen from his face, his manner of expression and his attitude to nature. About shadows, evening tones, about the moonlight, he speaks in a special way, with his own language, so that the charm of his power over nature is involuntarily felt. He himself is very handsome, original, and his life, independent, free, alien to everything worldly, is similar to the life of a bird.
"It's getting fresher," said Olga Ivanovna, and shuddered.
Ryabovsky wrapped her in his cloak and said sadly:
“I feel in your power. I'm a slave. Why are you so charming today?
He kept looking at her without looking up, and his eyes were terrible, and she was afraid to look at him.
“I love you madly…” he whispered, breathing on her cheek. “Say one word to me, and I will not live, I will give up art ...” he muttered in great excitement. - Love me, love me...
"Don't talk like that," said Olga Ivanovna, closing her eyes. - This is scary. And Dymov?
- What is Dymov? Why Dymov? What do I care about Dymov? The Volga, the moon, beauty, my love, my delight, but there is no Dymov... Ah, I don't know anything... I don't need the past, give me one moment... one moment!
Olga Ivanovna's heart began to beat. She wanted to think about her husband, but all her past with the wedding, with Dymov and with parties seemed to her small, insignificant, dull, unnecessary and far, far away ... Really: what about Dymov? why Dymov? what does she care about Dymov? does it exist in nature, and is it not only a dream?
For him, simple and ordinary person enough of the happiness that he has already received, she thought, covering her face with her hands. - Let them condemn there, curse, but in spite of everyone I will take it and die, I will take it and die ... We must experience everything in life. God, how creepy and how good!”
- Well? What? muttered the artist, embracing her and greedily kissing her hands, with which she weakly tried to push him away from her. - Do you love me? Yes? Yes? Oh what a night! Wonderful night!
Yes, what a night! she whispered, looking into his eyes, shining with tears, then quickly looked around, hugged him and kissed him hard on the lips.
- We are approaching Kineshma! someone on the other side of the deck said.
Heavy footsteps were heard. It was the man from the cafeteria who was passing by.
“Listen,” Olga Ivanovna said to him, laughing and crying with happiness, “bring us some wine.”
The artist, pale with excitement, sat down on a bench, looked at Olga Ivanovna with adoring, grateful eyes, then closed his eyes and said, smiling languidly:
- I'm tired.
And leaned his head against the side.
V
The second of September was a warm and quiet day, but overcast. Early in the morning a light fog wandered on the Volga, and after nine o'clock it began to drizzle. And there was no hope that the sky would clear up. Over tea, Ryabovsky was telling Olga Ivanovna that painting was the most ungrateful and most boring art, that he was not an artist, that only fools thought he had talent, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, grabbed a knife and scratched his the best sketch. After tea, gloomy, he sat at the window and looked at the Volga. And the Volga was already without shine, dull, dull, cold in appearance. Everything, everything reminded me of the approach of a dreary, gloomy autumn. And it seemed that the luxurious green carpets on the banks, the diamond reflections of the rays, the transparent blue distance, and everything smart and ceremonial, nature had now removed from the Volga and put it in chests until next spring, and the crows flew around the Volga and teased her: “Naked! Naked! Ryabovsky listened to their croaking and thought that he had already run out of steam and lost his talent, that everything in this world was conditional, relative and stupid, and that he should not have associated himself with this woman ... In a word, he was out of sorts and depressed.
Olga Ivanovna sat on the bed behind the partition, and, running her fingers through her beautiful flaxen hair, imagined herself first in the drawing-room, now in the bedroom, now in her husband's study; her imagination took her to the theatre, to the dressmaker and to famous friends. What are they doing now? Do they remember her? The season has already begun, and it's time to think about parties. And Dymov? Dear Dymov! How meekly and childishly plaintively he asks her in his letters to go home as soon as possible! Every month he sent her seventy-five rubles, and when she wrote to him that she owed the artists one hundred rubles, he sent her those hundred as well. What a kind, generous man! The journey tired Olga Ivanovna, she was bored, and she wanted to get away as soon as possible from these peasants, from the smell of the dampness of the river, and to get rid of this feeling of physical uncleanness, which she experienced all the time, living in peasant huts and wandering from village to village. If Ryabovsky had not given his word of honor to the artists that he would live here with them until the twentieth of September, then he could have left today. And how good it would be!
“My God,” groaned Ryabovsky, “when will the sun finally come out?” I can’t continue the sunny landscape without the sun! ..
“And you have a sketch with a cloudy sky,” said Olga Ivanovna, coming out from behind the partition. “Remember, there is a forest on the right plane, and a herd of cows and geese on the left. Now you could finish it.
- E! – grimaced the artist. - Cum! Do you really think that I myself am so stupid that I do not know what I need to do!
How have you changed for me? Olga Ivanovna sighed.
- Very well.
Olga Ivanovna's face trembled, she went to the stove and began to cry.
Yes, only tears were missing. Stop it! I have a thousand reasons to cry, but I don't cry.
- A thousand reasons! Olga Ivanovna sobbed. – The most main reason that you are already weighed down by me. Yes! she said and sobbed. “To tell the truth, you are ashamed of our love. You are all trying not to notice the artists, although this cannot be hidden and they have long known everything.
“Olga, I ask you one thing,” the artist said imploringly and putting his hand to his heart, “one thing: do not torture me! I don't need anything more from you!
"But swear you still love me!"
- It's painful! - the artist gritted through his teeth and jumped up. - It will end with me throwing myself into the Volga or going crazy! Leave me!
- Well, kill me, kill me! shouted Olga Ivanovna. - Kill!
She sobbed again and went behind the partition. The rain rustled on the thatched roof of the hut. Ryabovsky grabbed his head and paced from corner to corner, then with a determined face, as if wanting to prove something to someone, he put on his cap, slung his gun over his shoulder, and left the hut.
After he left, Olga Ivanovna lay on the bed for a long time and wept. At first she thought that it would be good to poison herself so that Ryabovsky, who had returned, would find her dead, then she was carried away in her thoughts to the living room, to her husband’s study and imagined how she was sitting motionless next to Dymov and enjoying physical peace and cleanliness, and how she was sitting in the evening in theater and listens to Mazini. And longing for civilization, for city noise and famous people crushed her heart. A woman entered the hut and slowly began to heat the stove in order to cook dinner. It smelled of burning, and the air turned blue with smoke. Artists came in high, dirty boots and with their faces wet from the rain, looked at sketches and told themselves to console themselves that the Volga even in bad weather had its own charm. And the cheap clock on the wall: tick-tic-tic... Chilled flies crowded in the front corner near the icons and buzzed, and you could hear the Prussians fumbling in thick folders under the benches...
Ryabovsky returned home when the sun was setting. He threw his cap on the table and, pale, exhausted, in dirty boots, sank down on a bench and closed his eyes.
“I’m tired…” he said and moved his eyebrows, trying to raise his eyelids.
In order to caress him and show that she was not angry, Olga Ivanovna went up to him, silently kissed him, and ran a comb through his blond hair. She wanted to brush him.
- What's happened? he asked, shuddering as if something cold had touched him, and he opened his eyes. - What's happened? Leave me alone, please.
He pushed her away with his hands and walked away, and it seemed to her that his face expressed disgust and annoyance. At this time, the woman carefully carried him a plate of cabbage soup in both hands, and Olga Ivanovna saw how she dipped her thumbs in the cabbage soup. And a dirty woman with a constricted stomach, and cabbage soup, which Ryabovsky began to greedily eat, and the hut, and all this life, which at first she loved so much for its simplicity and artistic disorder, now seemed terrible to her. She suddenly felt insulted and said coldly:
- We need to part for a while, otherwise we can seriously quarrel out of boredom. I am tired of this. Today I will leave.
- On what? On a stick?
“Today is Thursday, which means that the steamer will come at half past nine.
- AND? Yes, yes ... Well, then, go ... - Ryabovsky said softly, wiping himself with a towel instead of a napkin. - You are bored here and have nothing to do, and you have to be a big egoist to keep you. Go and see you after the twentieth.
Olga Ivanovna put herself into bed cheerfully, and even her cheeks flushed with pleasure. Is it really true, she asked herself, that soon she will write in the living room and sleep in the bedroom and dine with a tablecloth? Her heart was relieved, and she was no longer angry with the artist.
“I will leave the paints and brushes to you, Ryabusha,” she said. - What remains, you will bring ... Look, without me, do not be lazy here, do not be depressed, but work. You are a good fellow, Ryabusha.
At nine o'clock Ryabovsky kissed her goodbye in order, as she thought, not to kiss on the steamer in front of the artists, and escorted her to the pier. A steamboat soon came and took her away.
She arrived home two and a half days later. Without removing her hat and water proof, breathing heavily with excitement, she went into the living room, and from there into the dining room. Dymov, without a coat, in an unbuttoned waistcoat, sat at the table and sharpened a knife on a fork; in front of him on a plate lay a hazel grouse. When Olga Ivanovna entered the apartment, she was convinced that it was necessary to hide everything from her husband and that she had enough skill and strength for this, but now, when she saw a wide, meek, happy smile and bright, joyful eyes, she felt that to hide from this man is just as vile, disgusting and just as impossible and beyond her power as to slander, steal or kill, and in an instant she decided to tell him everything that had happened. Letting him kiss her and hug her, she knelt before him and covered her face.
- What? What mom? he asked softly. - Did you miss it?
She lifted her face, red with shame, and looked at him guiltily and pleadingly, but fear and shame prevented her from speaking the truth.
“Nothing…” she said. - I am so...
"Let's sit down," he said, lifting her up and seating her at the table. - Like this ... Eat hazel grouse. You're hungry, poor thing.
She greedily breathed in her native air and ate hazel grouse, and he looked at her with emotion and laughed joyfully.
VI
Apparently, from the middle of winter, Dymov began to guess that he was being deceived. He, as if he had an unclean conscience, could no longer look his wife straight in the eye, did not smile joyfully when he met her, and in order to be less alone with her, he often brought his comrade Korostelev to dinner, a little shorn man with a rumpled face. , who, when talking with Olga Ivanovna, out of embarrassment, unbuttoned all the buttons of his jacket and buttoned them again, and then began to pluck his left mustache with his right hand. At dinner, both doctors talked about the fact that when the diaphragm is high, heart failures sometimes occur, or that multiple neuritis has recently been observed very often, or that yesterday Dymov, having opened a corpse with a diagnosis of "malignant anemia", found pancreatic cancer. And it seemed that both of them were having a medical conversation only in order to give Olga Ivanovna the opportunity to remain silent, that is, not to lie. After dinner Korostelev sat down at the piano, and Dymov sighed and said to him:
- Oh, brother! Well, what! Play something sad.
Raising his shoulders and spreading his fingers wide, Korostelev took a few chords and began to sing in tenor “Show me such a monastery where the Russian peasant would not moan,” and Dymov sighed again, propped his head on his fist and thought.
Recently, Olga Ivanovna has been behaving extremely carelessly. Every morning she woke up in the worst possible mood and with the thought that she no longer loved Ryabovsky and that, thank God, it was all over. But as she drank her coffee, she reflected that Ryabovsky had taken her husband away from her, and that now she was left without a husband and without Ryabovsky; then she recalled the conversations of her acquaintances that Ryabovsky was preparing something amazing for the exhibition, a mixture of landscape and genre, in the taste of Polenov, which is why everyone who visits his studio is delighted; but this, she thought, he created under her influence, and in general, thanks to her influence, he changed greatly for the better. Her influence is so beneficial and significant that if she leaves him, then he, perhaps, may perish. And she also recalled that the last time he came to her in a gray frock coat with sparkles and a new tie and asked languidly: "Am I handsome?" And in fact, he, elegant, with his long curls and blue eyes, was very handsome (or, perhaps, it seemed so) and was affectionate with her.
Remembering a lot and realizing, Olga Ivanovna got dressed and, in great excitement, went to Ryabovsky's workshop. She found him cheerful and delighted with her really magnificent picture; he jumped, fooled around and answered serious questions with jokes. Olga Ivanovna was jealous of Ryabovsky for the picture and hated it, but out of politeness she stood silently in front of the picture for about five minutes and, sighing, as one sighs before a shrine, she said quietly:
Yes, you've never written anything like this before. You know, even scary.
Then she began to beg him to love her, not to leave her, to take pity on her, poor and unhappy. She wept, kissed his hands, demanded that he swear his love to her, proved to him that without her good influence he would go astray and perish. And, spoiling his good mood and feeling humiliated, she would go to a dressmaker or an actress she knew to ask for a ticket.
If she did not find him in the workshop, then she left him a letter in which she swore that if he did not come to her today, she would certainly be poisoned. He was a coward, came to her and stayed for dinner. Not embarrassed by the presence of her husband, he spoke impudently to her, she answered him the same. Both felt that they were binding each other, that they were despots and enemies, and they got angry, and from anger did not notice that both of them were indecent and that even the shorn Korostelev understood everything. After dinner, Ryabovsky hurried to say goodbye and leave.
- Where do you go? Olga Ivanovna asked him in the hall, looking at him with hatred.
Wincing and screwing up his eyes, he called some lady, a common acquaintance, and it was clear that he was laughing at her jealousy and trying to annoy her. She went to her bedroom and lay down in bed; from jealousy, vexation, feelings of humiliation and shame, she bit the pillow and began to sob loudly. Dymov left Korostelev in the drawing room, went into the bedroom, and, embarrassed and bewildered, said quietly:
– Don't cry loudly, mother... Why? We must be silent about this ... We must not give a look ... You know what happened, you can’t fix it.
Not knowing how to subdue the heavy jealousy in herself, from which even her temples ached, and thinking that it was still possible to improve the matter, she washed herself, powdered her tear-stained face and flew to the lady she knew. Not finding Ryabovsky with her, she went to another, then to a third ... At first she was ashamed to travel like that, but then she got used to it, and it happened that one evening she went around all the women she knew to find Ryabovsky, and everyone understood this.
Once she said to Ryabovsky about her husband:
She liked this phrase so much that, meeting with artists who knew about her affair with Ryabovsky, she always spoke about her husband, making an energetic gesture with her hand:
This man oppresses me with his generosity!
The order of life was the same as last year. There were parties on Wednesdays. The artist read, the artists drew, the cellist played, the singer sang, and invariably at half past eleven the door leading to the dining room opened, and Dymov, smiling, said:
- Please, gentlemen, have a bite.
As before, Olga Ivanovna searched for great people, found them, and was not satisfied, and searched again. As before, she returned late at night every day, but Dymov no longer slept, as he had last year, but sat in his office and worked on something. He went to bed at three o'clock and got up at eight.
One evening, when she was standing in front of the dressing table, getting ready for the theatre, Dymov came into the bedroom in a tailcoat and a white cravat. He smiled meekly and, as before, joyfully looked his wife straight in the eyes. His face was beaming.
“I just defended my dissertation,” he said, sitting down and stroking his knees.
- Protected? Olga Ivanovna asked.
- Wow! he laughed and craned his neck to see in the mirror the face of his wife, who continued to stand with her back to him and straighten her hair. - Wow! he repeated. – You know, it is very possible that I will be offered a privat docent in general pathology. It smells like this.
It was evident from his blissful, radiant face that if Olga Ivanovna had shared his joy and triumph with him, he would have forgiven her everything, both the present and the future, and would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what Privatdozentura meant and general pathology, besides she was afraid to be late for the theater and did not say anything.
He sat for two minutes, smiled guiltily and left.
VII
It was the most hectic day.
Dymov had a severe headache; he did not drink tea in the morning, did not go to the hospital, and lay all the time in his office on a Turkish sofa. Olga Ivanovna, as usual, went to Ryabovsky's at one o'clock to show him her sketch nature morte and ask him why he had not come yesterday. The sketch seemed insignificant to her, and she wrote it only in order to have an extra excuse to go to the artist.
She went in to him without a call, and when she was taking off her galoshes in the hall, she heard something run quietly through the workshop, rustling like a woman’s dress, and when she hurried to look into the workshop, she saw only a piece of a brown skirt, which flickered for a moment and disappeared behind a large picture, curtained along with an easel to the floor with black calico. There was no doubt, it was a woman hiding. How often Olga Ivanovna herself found refuge behind this picture! Ryabovsky, apparently very embarrassed, as if surprised at her coming, stretched out both his hands to her and said, smiling forcedly:
- A-a-a-a! I am very glad to see you. What do you say nice?
Olga Ivanovna's eyes filled with tears. She was ashamed, bitter, and for a million she would not have agreed to speak in the presence of an outside woman, a rival, a liar, who now stood behind the picture and, probably, giggled maliciously.
“I brought you a sketch…” she said timidly, in a thin voice, and her lips trembled, “nature morte.”
– Aaaa… study?
The artist picked up the sketch and, examining it, as if mechanically passed into another room.
Olga Ivanovna meekly followed him.
“Nature morte ... first class,” he muttered, choosing a rhyme, “resort ... damn ... port ...
Hurried footsteps and the rustle of a dress could be heard from the workshop. So she left. Olga Ivanovna wanted to shout loudly, hit the artist on the head with something heavy and leave, but she could not see anything through her tears, she was crushed by her shame and felt herself no longer Olga Ivanovna and not an artist, but a little goat.
“I’m tired…” the artist said languidly, looking at the sketch and shaking his head to overcome his drowsiness. - It's nice, of course, but today there is an etude, and last year there is an etude, and in a month there will be an etude ... How can you not get bored? If I were you, I'd give up painting and get serious about music or something. After all, you are not an artist, but a musician. However, you know how tired I am! I'll tell you to give tea ... Huh?
He left the room, and Olga Ivanovna heard him order something to his footman. In order not to say goodbye, not to explain, and most importantly, not to sob, she, until Ryabovsky returned, quickly ran into the hall, put on galoshes and went out into the street. Here she sighed lightly and felt forever free from Ryabovsky, and from painting, and from the heavy shame that had weighed so heavily on her in the studio. Its end!
She went to the dressmaker's, then to Barnai, who had just arrived yesterday, from Barnai to the music shop, and all the time she thought about how she would write Ryabovsky a cold, harsh, self-respecting letter, and how in the spring or summer she would go with Dymov to the Crimea, where he will finally free himself from the past and begin a new life.
Returning home late in the evening, she, without changing clothes, sat down in the living room to compose a letter. Ryabovsky told her that she was not an artist, and in retaliation she would now write to him that he paints the same thing every year and says the same thing every day, that he is frozen and that nothing will come of him except, what's already out. She also wanted to write that he owes a lot to her good influence, and if he does bad things, it is only because her influence is paralyzed by various ambiguous persons, like the one who hid behind the picture today.
- Mum! Dymov called from his office without opening the door. - Mum!
- What do you want?
- Mom, do not come in to me, but just go to the door. Here's what... The third day I contracted diphtheria in the hospital, and now... I'm not feeling well. Send for Korostelev as soon as possible.
Olga Ivanovna always called her husband, like all the men she knew, not by name, but by surname; she did not like his name Osip, because it resembled Gogol's Osip and a pun: "Osip is hoarse, and Arkhip is hoarse." Now she cried out:
- Osip, it can't be!
- Went! I’m not well…” Dymov said outside the door, and they could hear him go up to the sofa and lie down. "Let's go," his voice was muffled.
"What is it? thought Olga Ivanovna, going cold with horror. "It's dangerous!"
Unnecessarily, she took a candle and went to her bedroom, and then, thinking about what she had to do, she inadvertently glanced at herself in the dressing table. With a pale, frightened face, in a jacket with high sleeves, with yellow frills on her chest, and with an unusual direction of stripes on her skirt, she seemed to herself terrible and disgusting. She suddenly felt painfully sorry for Dymov, his boundless love for her, his young life, and even this orphaned bed of his, on which he had not slept for a long time, and she remembered his usual, meek, submissive smile. She wept bitterly and wrote a pleading letter to Korostelev. It was two in the morning.
VIII
When, at eight o'clock in the morning, Olga Ivanovna, with her head heavy from insomnia, uncombed, ugly, and with a guilty expression, came out of the bedroom, some gentleman with a black beard, apparently a doctor, passed her into the hall. It smelled like medicine. Korostelev was standing near the door to the office, twirling his young mustache with his right hand.
“Excuse me, I won’t let you in with him,” he said sullenly to Olga Ivanovna. - You can get infected. Yes, and nothing to you, in essence. He's still delirious.
Does he have real diphtheria? Olga Ivanovna asked in a whisper.
“Those who climb on the rampage really need to be brought to justice,” muttered Korostelev, not answering Olga Ivanovna's question. Do you know why he got infected? On Tuesday, he sucked the diphtheria bacilli out of the boy through a tube. Why? Stupid... Yes, foolishly...
- Dangerously? Highly? Olga Ivanovna asked.
- Yes, they say that the form is heavy. We should send for Shrek, in essence.
A small, red-haired man with a long nose and a Jewish accent would come, then a tall, round-shouldered, shaggy one, who looked like a protodeacon; then a young one, very plump, with a red face and glasses. It was the doctors who came to be on duty near their comrade. Korostelev, having finished his duty, did not go home, but remained and, like a shadow, wandered through all the rooms. The maid served tea to the doctors on duty and often ran to the pharmacy, and there was no one to clean the rooms. It was quiet and gloomy.
Olga Ivanovna sat in her bedroom and thought that God was punishing her for deceiving her husband. Silent, uncomplaining, incomprehensible creature, impersonal by its meekness, spineless, weak from excessive kindness, suffered dully somewhere on its sofa and did not complain. And if it had complained, even in delirium, then the doctors on duty would have known that diphtheria was not the only one to blame. They would ask Korostelev: he knows everything and it’s not for nothing that he looks at his friend’s wife with such eyes as if she were the most important, real villain, and diphtheria is only her accomplice. She no longer remembered either the moonlit evening on the Volga, or the declarations of love, or the poetic life in the hut, but she only remembered that out of an empty whim, out of pampering, all, with her hands and feet, she smeared herself into something dirty, sticky. something you will never get rid of...
“Oh, how I lied terribly! she thought, remembering the restless love she had with Ryabovsky. "Damn it all!"
At four o'clock she dined with Korostelev. He ate nothing, drank only red wine and frowned. She didn't eat anything either. Then she mentally prayed and made a vow to God that if Dymov recovers, then she will love him again and be a faithful wife. Then, forgetting herself for a minute, she looked at Korostelev and thought: “Is it really not boring to be a simple, unremarkable, unknown person, and even with such a wrinkled face and bad manners?” It seemed to her that God would kill her this minute because, fearing to get infected, she had never been in her husband's office. But in general there was a dull dull feeling and confidence that life had already been ruined and that nothing could fix it ...
After lunch, darkness fell. When Olga Ivanovna went into the drawing room, Korostelev was asleep on the couch, with a silk pillow embroidered with gold under his head. “Khi-pua…” he snored, “khee-pua.”
And the doctors who came on duty and left did not notice this disorder. The fact that a stranger slept in the drawing-room and snored, and the sketches on the walls, and the quaint furnishings, and the fact that the hostess was unkempt and slovenly dressed—all this now did not arouse the slightest interest. One of the doctors accidentally laughed at something, and this laugh sounded somehow strange and timid, it even became eerie.
When Olga Ivanovna went out into the drawing-room another time, Korostelev was no longer sleeping, but sitting and smoking.
“He has nasal diphtheria,” he said in an undertone. – Even the heart is not working well. Basically, things are bad.
“And you send for Shrek,” said Olga Ivanovna.
- Was already. It was he who noticed that the diphtheria had passed into the nose. Oh yes, Shrek! In essence, nothing Shrek. He is Shrek, I am Korostelev - and nothing more.
Time dragged on for an awfully long time. Olga Ivanovna lay dressed in her bed, which had not been made since morning, and dozed off. It seemed to her that the whole apartment from floor to ceiling was occupied by a huge piece of iron, and that as soon as the iron was taken out, everyone would become cheerful and easy. Waking up, she remembered that it was not iron, but Dymov's disease.
“Nature morte, port…” she thought, again falling into oblivion, “sports… resort… How about Shrek? Shrek, Greek, wrek... crack... Where are my friends now? Do they know that we are in grief? Lord, save... deliver. Shrek, Greek ... "
And again iron ... Time dragged on for a long time, and the clock on the lower floor chimed frequently. And now and then there were calls; doctors came ... The maid came in with an empty glass on a tray and asked:
- Madam, will you order to make a bed?
And, having received no answer, she left. The clock chimed downstairs, I dreamed of rain on the Volga, and again someone entered the bedroom, it seems, a stranger. Olga Ivanovna jumped up and recognized Korostelev.
- What time is it now? she asked.
- About three.
- Well?
- What! I came to say: it ends ...
He sobbed, sat down on the bed next to her, and wiped his tears away with his sleeve. She didn’t understand right away, but she turned cold all over and slowly began to cross herself.
“It’s over…” he repeated in a thin voice, and sobbed again. – He is dying because he sacrificed himself… What a loss for science! he said bitterly. - This, if all of us are compared with him, was a great, extraordinary person! What gifts! What hope he gave us all! continued Korostelev, wringing his hands. - My God, my God, it would be such a scientist, which now you will not find with fire. Oska Dymov, Oska Dymov, what have you done! Ay-ay, my God!
Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair and shook his head.
What moral strength! he continued, getting more and more angry at someone. - A kind, pure, loving soul is not a person, but glass! Served science and died from science. And he worked like an ox, day and night, no one spared him, and the young scientist, the future professor, had to look for a practice for himself and do translations at night in order to pay for these ... vile rags!
Korostelev looked with hatred at Olga Ivanovna, seized the sheet with both hands and jerked angrily, as if it were her fault.
- And he did not spare himself, and they did not spare him. Eh, yes, in fact!
Yes, a rare person! someone said in a bass voice in the living room.
Olga Ivanovna remembered her whole life with him, from beginning to end, with all the details, and suddenly realized that he was indeed an extraordinary, rare and, in comparison with those whom she knew, a great man. And, remembering how her late father and all fellow doctors treated him, she realized that they all saw him as a future celebrity. The walls, the ceiling, the lamp and the carpet on the floor blinked mockingly at her, as if they wanted to say: “I missed it! missed!” She rushed out of the bedroom crying, darted past some unknown person in the living room and ran into her husband's office. He lay motionless on a Turkish divan, covered to the waist with a blanket. His face was terribly haggard, emaciated and had a grayish-yellow color, such as never happens among the living; and only by the forehead, by the black eyebrows, and by the familiar smile could one recognize that it was Dymov. Olga Ivanovna quickly felt his chest, forehead and arms. His chest was still warm, but his forehead and hands were uncomfortably cold. And half-open eyes looked not at Olga Ivanovna, but at the blanket.
- Dymov! she called loudly. - Dymov!
She wanted to explain to him that it was a mistake, that everything was not lost, that life could still be beautiful and happy, that he was a rare, extraordinary, great person, and that she would revere him all her life, pray and experience sacred fear ...
- Dymov! she called to him, shaking him by the shoulder and not believing that he would never wake up again. - Dymov, Dymov!
And in the living room Korostelev said to the maid:
- What is there to ask? You go to the church gatehouse and ask where the almshouses live. They will wash the body and remove it - they will do everything that is necessary.
