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

the captain, sitting down on a chair and unlacing his white shoe. “What didn’t I go through, Chang, when I felt for the first time that she was not entirely mine⁠—on that night when for the first time she had gone alone to the Yacht Club ball and had returned toward morning, like a wilted rose, pale from fatigue and her still unabated excitement, with her eyes all dark, widened, and distant from me! If you only knew how inimitably she wanted to hoodwink me, with what artless wonder she asked: ‘But aren’t you asleep yet, poor dear?’ Right then I could not have uttered even a word, and she understood me at once and became silent; she merely threw a quick glance at me⁠—and began undressing in silence. I wanted to kill her, but she dryly and calmly said: ‘Help me unfasten my dress at the back,’⁠—and I submissively approached her and began with trembling hands to unfasten all these hooks and snaps⁠—and just as soon as I saw her body through the open dress, saw her back between the shoulder blades, and her chemise, dropping off the shoulders and tucked into the corset; just as soon as I felt the scent of her black hair and caught a glimpse of her breasts, raised up by the corset, reflected in the bright pier glass.⁠ ⁠…”

And, without finishing, the captain waved his hand in a hopeless gesture.

He undressed, lay down, and extinguished the light, and Chang, turning and settling; in the morocco chair near the writing table, saw how the black cerement of the sea was furrowed by rows of white flame, flaring up and fading out; saw how some lights flashed up ominously upon the black horizon; saw how an awesome living wave would run up from thence and with a menacing noise would grow higher than the side of the ship, and look into the cabin⁠—like some serpent of fairy tale shining through and through with eyes of the natural colours of precious stones, shining through and through with translucent emeralds and sapphires. And he saw how the steamer thrust it aside and evenly kept on in its course, amid the ponderous and vacillant masses of this primordial element, now foreign and inimical to us, that is called Ocean.⁠ ⁠…

In the night the captain emitted some sudden cry; and, frightened himself by this cry, which rang with some basely-plaintive passion, he instantly awoke. Having lain for a minute in silence, he sighed and said mockingly:

“Yes, there’s a story for you! ‘As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman!⁠ ⁠…’ Thrice right art thou, Solomon, Sage of Sages!”

He found in the darkness his cigarette case and lit a cigarette, but, having taken two deep puffs at it, he let his hand drop⁠—and fell asleep so, with the little red glow of the cigarette in his hand. And again it grew quiet⁠—only the waves glittered, swayed, and noisily rushed past the ship’s side. The Southern Cross from behind the black clouds.⁠ ⁠…

But here Chang is deafened by an unexpected thunder peal. He jumps up in terror. What has happened? Has the steamer again struck against underwater rocks through the fault of the intoxicated captain, as was the case three years ago? Has the captain again fired a pistol at his beautiful and pensive wife? No; this is not night all about them now; neither are they at sea, nor in Elissavetinskaya Street on a wintry noonday⁠—but in a brightly-lit restaurant, filled with noise and smoke. It is the intoxicated captain, who had struck his fist against the table, and is now shouting to the artist:

“Bosh, bosh! As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout⁠—that’s what your Woman is! ‘I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.⁠ ⁠… Come, let us take our fill of love⁠ ⁠… for the goodman is not at home.⁠ ⁠…’ Bah! Woman! ‘For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.⁠ ⁠…’ But that is enough, that is enough, my friend. It is time to go⁠—they are closing up this place; come on!”

And a minute later the captain, Chang, and the artist are already in the street, where the wind and the snow make the street-lamps flicker. The captain embraces and kisses the artist, and they go in different directions. Chang, sullen and half asleep, is running sidewise over the sidewalk after the captain, who walks rapidly and unsteadily.⁠ ⁠… Again a day has passed⁠—dream or reality?⁠—and again darkness, cold, and fatigue reign over the universe.⁠ ⁠… No, the captain is right, most assuredly right: life is simply poisonous and malodorous alcohol, nothing more.⁠ ⁠…

Thus, monotonously, do the days and nights of Chang pass. But suddenly one morning the universe, like a steamer, runs at full speed against an underwater reef, hidden from heedless eyes. Awaking on a certain wintry morning, Chang is struck by the great silence reigning in the room. He quickly jumps up from his place, rushes toward the captain’s bed⁠—and sees that the captain is lying with his head convulsively thrown back, with his face grown pallid and chill, with his eyelashes half-open and unmoving. And, upon seeing these eyelashes, Chang emits a howl as despairing as if he had been thrown off his feet and cut in two by a speeding automobile.⁠ ⁠… Then, when the door of the room has been taken off its hinges, when people enter, depart, and arrive again, speaking loudly⁠—the most diversified people: porters, police men, the artist in the high silk hat, and all sorts of other gentlemen who used to sit in restaurants with the captain⁠—then Chang seems to turn to stone.⁠ ⁠… Oh, how fearfully the captain had said at one time: “On that day the keepers of the house shall tremble⁠ ⁠… and those that look out of the windows be darkened⁠ ⁠… also they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way⁠ ⁠… because man goeth to his long home, and