Bon mots, jests, and anecdotes were incessantly exchanged, some of them very stale and told for the fiftieth time at that very table. On these occasions Iván Mikhailovich never failed to recount with evident pride that he and Xenia had married for love. “Ours was a love match. I can almost say that I abducted Xenia Pavlovna.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, just so! I remember it as if it happened to-day. I nearly committed suicide! Yes! We had an appointment in the garden (a luxurious garden it was! They very foolishly sold both the house and garden!) Well, so I stand there in the old arbor, stand and wait. And my heart is beating so loudly that it seems to me that a train must be passing somewhere—tock-tock-tock!” Here Iván Mikhailovich began to tell in detail how it all happened, and Xenia Pavlovna listened to his narrative from where she sat, slightly blushing, with half-closed eyes, and a little shiver. “At last she arrived in a carriage!”
“Came on foot, not in a carriage!” Xenia Pavlovna unexpectedly corrected him, because every stroke, every detail of these far-away recollections was inexpressibly dear to her.
“Well, in a carriage or on foot. What material difference does it make!” angrily remarked Iván Mikhailovich, greatly displeased at being interrupted, and continued his story, totally ignoring the correction as well as Xenia Pavlovna herself, as if this Xenia Pavlovna and—that other one—about whom he was telling his guests had nothing whatsoever in common.
After supper they once more drank tea, yawned, covering the mouth with the hand, or with the napkin, and breathed hard, looking at their watches, and exchanging glances with their wives. “Yes, it is about time!” replied the wives, and the guests began to take their leave, the women kissed good-by, the men looked for their rubbers and hats, and again joked.
After the guests had gone, leaving behind them tobacco smoke, glasses half-full of undrunk tea, and the scraps of the supper, the house suddenly subsided into quiet and peace, and Xenia Pavlovna sank into a chair, and remained motionless in a silent antipathy to her surroundings. She rested from the idle talk, noise, amiable smiles, and entertaining, and felt as if she were just recovering from a serious illness or had had to go through some severe penance. The mother, passing through the drawing-room, quickly threw open the ventilators, and remarked: “Just like a barrack,” pulling out of the jardinieres the cigarette-stubs which had been stuck into the earth by the smokers, and, waxing angry: “I purposely placed two ash-trays on each card-table, but no! they must go and stick their cigarette-stubs into the flower-pots!” Then she began to set the house to rights and clear the tables; and all this she did with irritation. Iván Mikhailovich threw off his coat, opened his vest, and, walking through the rooms, yawned, opening his mouth wide and displaying his teeth. Then he went into the bedroom, undressed, and stretched himself comfortably on the soft mattress of the splendid, wide bed.
“Can’t you leave off putting the things in order till morning! Eh, how cleanliness has suddenly taken hold of them!” he shouted through the whole house, and listened: “Well, now the babes have revolted!”
From the nursery came the crying of the children and the soothing voice of his wife. Well, now he knew that the racket would go on for a long time—she would not get away from them so soon. And, turning to the wall, he pulled the coverlet higher.
Once or twice during the month they went visiting. And there the same story was repeated: conversations about the health of the little ones, the dwelling-houses, servants, the green tables, cigarette smoke, disputes about the Knave of Spades, and a supper with vodka, cheap wine, caviar, pickled herrings, and the indispensable cutlets and green pease. And after they left here, too, no doubt, was an opening of ventilators, and a perfect enjoyment of the ensuing quiet and peace.