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Updated: May 2, 2025
Sometimes he would sit down at the piano, play a chord or two, and begin singing softly: "What does the coming day bring to me?" But at once, as though afraid, he would get up and walk from the piano. The visitors usually arrived about ten o'clock. They played cards in Orlov's study, and Polya and I handed them tea.
"I've no doubt Polya and you are as thick as thieves. . . . You rascal!" In spite of my experience of life, I knew very little of mankind at that time, and it is very likely that I often exaggerated what was of little consequence and failed to observe what was important. It seemed to me it was not without motive that Kukushkin tittered and flattered me.
Polya, who was tidying the drawing-room, did not recognise me, but Orlov knew me at once. "Ah, Mr. Revolutionist!" he said, looking at me with curiosity, and laughing. "What fate has brought you?" He was not changed in the least: the same well-groomed, unpleasant face, the same irony. And a new book was lying on the table just as of old, with an ivory paper-knife thrust in it.
I went out of the study, and I don't know what answer Orlov received. Whatever it was, Polya remained. After that Zinaida Fyodorovna never applied to her for anything, and evidently tried to dispense with her services. When Polya handed her anything or even passed by her, jingling her bangle and rustling her skirts, she shuddered.
When she rang the bell, Polya, who considered me her favourite and hated me for it, used to say with a jeering smile: "Go along, your mistress wants you." Zinaida Fyodorovna considered me as a being of a lower order, and did not suspect that if any one in the house were in a humiliating position it was she.
A minute later Zinaida Fyodorovna had forgotten the trick played by the spirits, and was telling with a laugh how the week before she had ordered some notepaper and had forgotten to give her new address, and the shop had sent the paper to her old home at her husband's, who had to pay twelve roubles for it. And suddenly she turned her eyes on Polya and looked at her intently.
Five or six days had already passed since Orlov went on his tour of inspection, and no one knew when he would be back, but this time she did not send telegrams and did not expect them. She did not seem to notice the presence of Polya, who was still living with us. "So be it, then," was what I read on her passionless and very pale face. Like Orlov, she wanted to be unhappy out of obstinacy.
I am only sorry I can't send a thousand kisses and my very heart by telegraph. Enjoy yourself, my darling. I sent the telegram, and next morning I gave her the receipt. The worst of it was that Orlov had thoughtlessly let Polya, too, into the secret of his deception, telling her to bring his shirts to Sergievsky Street.
"There's no need to be in a hurry over the kitchen arrangements," said Orlov, looking at me coldly. "We must first move into another flat." We had never had cooking done at home nor kept horses, because, as he said, "he did not like disorder about him," and only put up with having Polya and me in his flat from necessity.
And don't leave the house," she called after me. "I am afraid to be left alone." After that I had to run down almost every hour to ask the porter whether a telegram had come. I must own it was a dreadful time! To avoid seeing Polya, Zinaida Fyodorovna dined and had tea in her own room; it was here that she slept, too, on a short sofa like a half-moon, and she made her own bed.
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