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The Grasshopper
by
“Dymov!” cried Olga Ivanovna, and she flushed crimson with pleasure.”Dymov!” she repeated, laying her head and both arms on his bosom.”Is that you? Why haven’t you come for so long? Why? Why?”
“When could I, little mother? I am always busy, and whenever I am free it always happens somehow that the train does not fit.”
“But how glad I am to see you! I have been dreaming about you the whole night, the whole night, and I was afraid you must be ill. Ah! if you only knew how sweet you are! You have come in the nick of time! You will be my salvation! You are the only person who can save me! There is to be a most original wedding here tomorrow,” she went on, laughing, and tying her husband’s cravat.”A young telegraph clerk at the station, called Tchikeldyeev, is going to be married. He is a handsome young man and — well, not stupid, and you know there is someth
ing strong, bearlike in his face … you might paint him as a young Norman. We summer visitors take a great interest in him, and have promised to be at his wedding…. He is a lonely, timid man, not well off, and of course it would be a shame not to be sympathetic to him. Fancy! the wedding will be after the service; then we shall all walk from the church to the bride’s lodgings … you see the wood, the birds singing, patches of sunlight on the grass, and all of us spots of different colours against the bright green background — very original, in the style of the French impressionists. But, Dymov, what am I to go to the church in?” said Olga Ivanovna, and she looked as though she were going to cry.”I have nothing here, literally nothing! no dress, no flowers, no gloves … you must save me. Since you have come, fate itself bids you save me. Take the keys, my precious, go home and get my pink dress from the wardrobe. You remember it; it hangs in front…. Then, in the storeroom, on the floor, on the right side, you will see two cardboard boxes. When you open the top one you will see tulle, heaps of tulle and rags of all sorts, and under them flowers. Take out all the flowers carefully, try not to crush them, darling; I will choose among them later…. And buy me some gloves.”
“Very well!” said Dymov; “I will go tomorrow and send them to you.”
“Tomorrow?” asked Olga Ivanovna, and she looked at him surprised.”You won’t have time tomorrow. The first train goes tomorrow at nine, and the wedding’s at eleven. No, darling, it must be today; it absolutely must be today. If you won’t be able to come tomorrow, send them by a messenger. Come, you must run along…. The passenger train will be in directly; don’t miss it, darling.”
“Very well.”
“Oh, how sorry I am to let you go!” said Olga Ivanovna, and tears came into her eyes.”And why did I promise that telegraph clerk, like a silly?”
Dymov hurriedly drank a glass of tea, took a cracknel, and, smiling gently, went to the station. And the caviare, the cheese, and the white salmon were eaten by the two dark gentlemen and the fat actor.
IV
On a still moonlight night in July Olga Ivanovna was standing on the deck of a Volga steamer and looking alternately at the water and at the picturesque banks. Beside her was standing Ryabovsky, telling her the black shadows on the water were not shadows, but a dream, that it would be sweet to sink into forgetfulness, to die, to become a memory in the sight of that enchanted water with the fantastic glimmer, in sight of the fathomless sky and the mournful, dreamy shores that told of the vanity of our life and of the existence of something higher, blessed, and eternal. The past was vulgar and uninteresting, the future was trivial, and that marvellous night, unique in a lifetime, would soon be over, would blend with eternity; then, why live?