Short Fiction, Ivan Bunin [reading women .TXT] 📗

foot in its patent-leather boot upon a bench⁠—just like a big iron pillar, his leg was; I bent down, wanting to wipe it off, but he grabs me by the neck, even tearing my kerchief off; then he grabbed me tight about the bosom and was already dragging me behind the stove. I try this way and that⁠—can’t get away from him nohow. And he is hot all over, just swelling up with blood⁠—trying to overpower me, that is; to get at my face and kiss me.

“What are you doing!” I says. “The mistress is coming⁠—go away, for the love of Christ!”

“If you will get to love me,” he says, “I won’t begrudge you anything!”

“Oh yes, now, we know all about those promises!”

“May I never leave this spot⁠—may I die without absolution!”

Well, of course, there was more of the same sort of thing. But, to tell the honest truth, what did I know at that time? I could have very easily been taken in by his words; but, glory be to God, things didn’t turn out his way. Somehow he caught hold of me another time, at an unlucky moment. I broke away, all mussed up, and got mortal angry⁠—and there was the mistress, now; she was coming down, dressed up, all yellow, fat, like a dead person, groaning, her dress rustling on the stairs. I break away, and stand there without my kerchief⁠—and there she is, heading straight for us. He goes past her and shows his heels, but I stand there like a fool, not knowing what to do. She stood opposite me, and she stood some more, holding the silk skirt of her dress⁠—I remember like it was today: she was going out visiting, and had on a brown silk dress, and white mittens without fingers, and she carried a parasol, and wore a hat like a basket. She stood for a while, let out a groan, and went out. To tell the truth, though, she never said a word to him or to me. But when the colonel went away to Kiev, she just took and drove me out.

So I got all my little belongings together and went back to my sister⁠—Vanniya was living at her house, you understand. I went away from this place, and again I figure: my brains are just going for nothing; I can’t save up anything, nor make a decent match and have a business of my own⁠—God has wronged me! I’ll get in harness once again, thinks I, turn about somehow, and I will get what I’m after, and will have a capital of my own, or die trying! So I thought it all out, apprenticed Vanniya to a tailor, and then got a place for myself as maid with Samokhvalov the merchant.⁠ ⁠… And that was the beginning of my rise.

They gave me a wage of two and a quarter. There was two servants⁠—me, and a girl by the name of Vera. One day I wait at table, and she washes the dishes; the next day I wash the dishes, and she waits at table. You couldn’t call it a large family: there was the master, Matvei Ivannich; the mistress, Liubov Ivanna; two grownup daughters; and two sons. The master himself was a serious-minded man, not much given to talking⁠—he was never even at home on weekdays, and whenever there was a holiday, he’d be sitting upstairs in his room, reading all sorts of newspapers and smoking a cigar. As for the mistress, she was a simple soul, kind, and, like myself, from the middle classes. They wasn’t long in marrying off their daughters, Anna and Klasha, and held two weddings in one year⁠—married them off to military men. Right there, to tell the truth, is where I begun to save up⁠—for the military men did give me a great deal in tips. If you just did anything, even a trifle⁠—like handing them the matches, say, or their overcoats and rubbers⁠—right off you’d have twenty kopecks, or thirty.⁠ ⁠… But then I used to go about awful neat, and I pleased the military. Vera, to tell the truth, was always putting on some airs, like some miss or something; she took short, mincing steps, was tender and awful easy hurt⁠—the minute anything would happen, she’d knit her downy eyebrows, her lips, like cherries, would start to quiver, and there was the tears in her eyelashes. True, she did have pretty eyelashes, great big ones, I never saw anybody else with anything like them. But then, I was wiser. I used to put on a smooth waist, cut on a bias, with openwork; I’d put a switch on my head with a black velvet bow, and I wore a starched white apron⁠—it would interest anybody just to look at me. Vera, she always used to lace herself tight in corsets; she’d lace herself so tight she couldn’t stand it, and at once her head would start aching till she’d throw up⁠—but I never even had no use for a corset, and was all right as I was.⁠ ⁠… And when the military men were gone, the sons started in tipping me.

The elder had already reached twenty when I took the place, and the younger was going on fourteen. This boy had to sit all the while, poor fellow. He had broken all his legs and arms⁠—I seen that business many a time. When he’d break something, the doctor would come to him right away, bandage it up with cotton, lint, and all that sort of thing; then he’d pour something over it like lime; this same lime would dry up together with the lint, would become like a splint; and when the hurt part was healed up, the doctor would just cut all that stuff, taking it all off⁠—and the arm, when you’d look at it, was all grown together. He couldn’t walk by himself, but crawled around on his bottom. He used to simply dash upon sofas, and over thresholds, and up