The Darling | Page 2

smile. . . .
He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer
view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his hands,
and said:
"You darling!"
He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, his
face still retained an expression of despair.
They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to look
after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay the wages.
And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve, radiant smile, were to be seen
now at the office window, now in the refreshment bar or behind the
scenes of the theatre. And already she used to say to her acquaintances
that the theatre was the chief and most important thing in life and that it
was only through the drama that one could derive true enjoyment and
become cultivated and humane.
"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say.

"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' and
almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had been
producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would have been
packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in Hell.' Do
come."
And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. Like
him she despised the public for their ignorance and their indifference to
art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected the actors, she kept an
eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and when there was an
unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed tears, and then went to
the editor's office to set things right.
The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," and
"the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them small sums
of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a few tears in
private, but did not complain to her husband.
They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the town
for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little Russian
company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. Olenka grew
stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while Kukin grew
thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their terrible
losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He used to cough
at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea or lime-flower
water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap him in her warm
shawls.
"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity,
stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!"
Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without
him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking at the
stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake all night
and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin was detained
in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, adding some
instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before Easter, late in
the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the gate; some one was
hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- boom, boom, boom! The
drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet through the puddles, as
she ran to open the gate.
"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a

telegram for you."
Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this time
for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands she
opened the telegram and read as follows:
"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING
IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS FUFUNERAL TUESDAY."
That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the
utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage
manager of the operatic company.
"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why
did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor
heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!"
Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned
home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself
on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, and in
the street.
"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. "Olga
Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!"
Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy
and in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily
Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back
beside her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's.
He