The Party | Page 4

sickened by his lying: he was for ever
posing, flirting, saying what he did not think, and trying to seem
different from what he was and what he ought to be. Why this falsity?
Was it seemly in a decent man? If he lied he was demeaning himself
and those to whom he lied, and slighting what he lied about. Could he
not understand that if he swaggered and posed at the judicial table, or
held forth at dinner on the prerogatives of Government, that he, simply
to provoke her uncle, was showing thereby that he had not a ha'p'orth of
respect for the Court, or himself, or any of the people who were
listening and looking at him?

Coming out into the big avenue, Olga Mihalovna assumed an
expression of face as though she had just gone away to look after some
domestic matter. In the verandah the gentlemen were drinking liqueur
and eating strawberries: one of them, the Examining Magistrate--a stout
elderly man, blagueur and wit--must have been telling some rather free
anecdote, for, seeing their hostess, he suddenly clapped his hands over
his fat lips, rolled his eyes, and sat down. Olga Mihalovna did not like
the local officials. She did not care for their clumsy, ceremonious wives,
their scandal-mongering, their frequent visits, their flattery of her
husband, whom they all hated. Now, when they were drinking, were
replete with food and showed no signs of going away, she felt their
presence an agonizing weariness; but not to appear impolite, she smiled
cordially to the Magistrate, and shook her finger at him. She walked
across the dining-room and drawing-room smiling, and looking as
though she had gone to give some order and make some arrangement.
"God grant no one stops me," she thought, but she forced herself to stop
in the drawing-room to listen from politeness to a young man who was
sitting at the piano playing: after standing for a minute, she cried,
"Bravo, bravo, M. Georges!" and clapping her hands twice, she went
on.
She found her husband in his study. He was sitting at the table, thinking
of something. His face looked stern, thoughtful, and guilty. This was
not the same Pyotr Dmitritch who had been arguing at dinner and
whom his guests knew, but a different man--wearied, feeling guilty and
dissatisfied with himself, whom nobody knew but his wife. He must
have come to the study to get cigarettes. Before him lay an open
cigarette-case full of cigarettes, and one of his hands was in the table
drawer; he had paused and sunk into thought as he was taking the
cigarettes.
Olga Mihalovna felt sorry for him. It was as clear as day that this man
was harassed, could find no rest, and was perhaps struggling with
himself. Olga Mihalovna went up to the table in silence: wanting to
show that she had forgotten the argument at dinner and was not cross,
she shut the cigarette-case and put it in her husband's coat pocket.

"What should I say to him?" she wondered; "I shall say that lying is
like a forest--the further one goes into it the more difficult it is to get
out of it. I will say to him, 'You have been carried away by the false
part you are playing; you have insulted people who were attached to
you and have done you no harm. Go and apologize to them, laugh at
yourself, and you will feel better. And if you want peace and solitude,
let us go away together.'"
Meeting his wife's gaze, Pyotr Dmitritch's face immediately assumed
the expression it had worn at dinner and in the garden--indifferent and
slightly ironical. He yawned and got up.
"It's past five," he said, looking at his watch. "If our visitors are
merciful and leave us at eleven, even then we have another six hours of
it. It's a cheerful prospect, there's no denying!"
And whistling something, he walked slowly out of the study with his
usual dignified gait. She could hear him with dignified firmness cross
the dining-room, then the drawing-room, laugh with dignified
assurance, and say to the young man who was playing, "Bravo! bravo!"
Soon his footsteps died away: he must have gone out into the garden.
And now not jealousy, not vexation, but real hatred of his footsteps, his
insincere laugh and voice, took possession of Olga Mihalovna. She
went to the window and looked out into the garden. Pyotr Dmitritch
was already walking along the avenue. Putting one hand in his pocket
and snapping the fingers of the other, he walked with confident
swinging steps, throwing his head back a little, and looking as though
he were very well satisfied with himself, with his dinner, with his
digestion, and with nature. . . .
Two little schoolboys, the