Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

The squadron left next day. The officers did not see their hosts again, and did not bid them farewell. Neither did they speak to one another. They intended to fight a duel at the first halting-place. But Captain Schulz, a good comrade, a splendid horseman, beloved by everyone in the regiment, and chosen by the Count to act as his second, managed to settle the affair so well that not only did they not fight, but no one in the regiment knew anything about the matter, and Toúrbin and Pólozof, though no longer on the old friendly footing, still continued to speak in familiar terms to one another and to meet at dinners and card-parties.

1856.

It was autumn. Two carriages were driving at a rapid trot along the highroad. In the foremost sat two women. One was a lady, thin and pale; the other, her maid, was plump, with shining, red cheeks. Her short, coarse hair stood out under her faded hat; her red hand, in a torn glove, kept hurriedly putting it tidy; her high bosom, covered with a tapestry kerchief, was eloquent of health; her quick, black eyes watched out of the window the fields flying past, then glanced timidly at her mistress, then shifted uneasily about the corners of the carriage. Just before the maid’s nose swung the lady’s hat, hanging from the rack above; on her lap lay a puppy. Her feet were kept from the floor by the boxes that stood on the carriage floor, and could be faintly heard knocking on it through the shaking of the springs and the rattling of the windows.

With her hands clapped on her knees and her eyes closed, the lady swayed feebly to and fro on the cushions that had been put at her back, and with a slight frown she coughed inwardly. On her head she wore a white nightcap, and a light blue neckkerchief was tied on her soft, white neck. A straight parting, retreating under her cap, divided her fair, pomaded, exceedingly flat hair, and there was a dry, deathlike look about the whiteness of the skin of this wide parting. The faded, yellowish skin hung loose on her delicate and beautiful features, and was flushed on her cheeks. Her lips were dry and restless, her eyelashes were thin and straight, and her cloth travelling cloak fell in straight folds over her sunken bosom. Though her eyes were closed, the lady’s face expressed fatigue, irritation, and habitual suffering. A footman was dozing on the box, one elbow on the rail of the seat. The driver, hired from the posting-station, shouted briskly to the four sturdy, sweating horses, and looked round now and then at the other driver, who called to him from behind on the coach. Smoothly and rapidly the wheels made their broad, parallel tracks along the chalky mud of the road. The sky was grey and cold; a damp mist was falling over the fields and the road. The carriage was close, and smelt of eau de cologne and dust. The sick woman stretched her head back and opened her eyes. Her large, handsome, dark eyes were very bright.

“Again,” she said, her beautiful, thin hand nervously thrusting away a corner of the maid’s cloak which was just brushing against her knees, and her mouth twitched painfully. Matryosha gathered up her cloak in both hands, lifted it up on her lap, and edged further away. Her blooming face flushed bright red. The sick woman’s fine dark eyes kept eager watch on the servant’s actions. She leaned with both hands on the seat and tried to raise herself, so as to be sitting higher up; but her strength failed her. Her mouth twitched and her whole face worked with an expression of helpless, wrathful irony. “You might at least help me!⁠ ⁠… Ah, you needn’t! I can do it myself, only be so good as not to lay your bundles, bags, or whatever they are behind me, please! You had better not touch me if you’re so awkward!”

The lady shut her eyes, and rapidly raising her eyelids again glanced at the maid. Matryosha was staring at her and biting her red underlip. A heavy sigh rose from the sick woman’s chest, but changed to a cough before it was uttered. She turned away, frowning, and clutched at her chest with both hands. When the cough was over, she closed her eyes again and sat without stirring. The carriage and the coach drove into a village. Matryosha put her stout arm out from under her kerchief and crossed herself.

“What is it?” asked the lady.

“A station, madam.”

“What do you cross yourself for, I ask?”

“The church, madam.”

The sick woman turned towards the window, and began slowly crossing herself, her great eyes fastened on the big village church as the carriage drove by it.

The two carriages stopped together at the station. The sick woman’s husband and the doctor got out of the other carriage and came up to her.

“How do you feel?” asked the doctor, taking her pulse.

“Well, how are you, my dear⁠—not tired?” asked her husband, in French. “Wouldn’t you like to get out?”

Matryosha, gathering up her bundles, squeezed into a corner so as not to be in their way as they talked.

“Just the same,” answered the lady. “I won’t get out.”

Her husband stayed a little while beside the carriage, then went into the posting-station. Matryosha got out of the carriage and ran on tiptoe through the mud to the gates.

“If I am ill, it’s no reason you shouldn’t have your lunch,” the invalid said with a faint smile to the doctor, who was standing at the carriage window.

“None of them care anything about me,” she added to herself, as soon as the doctor had moved with sedate step away from her and run at a trot up the steps of the station-house. “They are all right, so they don’t care. O my