Dark Avenues / Темные аллеи. Книга для чтения на английском языке

The humiliation in front of the servants…

At about ten o’clock, not knowing what to do, I put on my sheepskin coat, took a rifle for some reason, and set off down the main road to see Zavistovsky, thinking: “As if on purpose, he hasn’t come today either, and I still have a whole terrible night ahead! Is it really true that she’s left, abandoned me? Of course not, it can’t be!” I walk, crunching along the well-trodden path amidst the snows, and the snowy fields are gleaming on the left beneath the low, meagre moon… I turned off the main road and went towards Zavistovsky’s estate: an avenue of bare trees leading towards it across a field, then the entrance to the yard, to the left the old, beggarly house; the house is dark… I went up onto the ice-covered porch, with difficulty opened the heavy door, its upholstery all in shreds – in the entrance hall is the red of the open, burning stove, warmth and darkness… But the reception hall is dark as well.

“Vikenty Vikentich!”

And noiselessly, in felt boots, he appeared on the threshold of the study, lit too only by the moon through the triple window.

“Ah, it’s you… Come in, please, come in… As you see, I’m sitting in the dusk, whiling the evening away without light…”

I went and sat on a lumpy couch.

“Just imagine, Muza’s disappeared somewhere…”

He remained silent. Then in an almost inaudible voice:

“Yes, yes, I understand you…”

“That is, what do you understand?”

And at once, also noiselessly, also in felt boots, with a shawl on her shoulders, from the bedroom adjoining the study came Muza.

“You’ve got a rifle,” she said. “If you want to shoot, shoot not at him, but at me.”

And she sat down on the other couch opposite.

I looked at her felt boots, at the knees under the grey skirt – everything was easily visible in the golden light falling from the window – and I wanted to shout out: “Better you kill me, I can’t live without you, for those knees alone, for the skirt, for the felt boots, I’m prepared to give my life!”

“The matter’s clear and done with,” she said.

“You’re monstrously cruel,” I articulated with difficulty.

“Give me a cigarette, dear,” she said to Zavistovsky.