Short Fiction

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A Living Chattel

I
Groholsky embraced Liza, kept kissing one after another all her little fingers with their bitten pink nails, and laid her on the couch covered with cheap velvet. Liza crossed one foot over the other, clasped her hands behind her head, and lay down.
Groholsky sat down in a chair beside her and bent over. He was entirely absorbed in contemplation of her.
How pretty she seemed to him, lighted up by the rays of the setting sun!
There was a complete view from the window of the setting sun, golden, lightly flecked with purple.
The whole drawing room, including Liza, was bathed by it with brilliant light that did not hurt the eyes, and for a little while covered with gold.
Groholsky was lost in admiration. Liza was so incredibly beautiful. It is true her little kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn up nose was fresh, and even piquant, her scanty hair was black as soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole.⁠ ⁠… However my taste has nothing to do with it. Groholsky who was spoilt by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times in his life, saw her as a beauty. He loved her, and blind love finds ideal beauty everywhere.
“I say,” he said, looking straight into her eyes, “I have come to talk to you, my precious. Love cannot bear anything vague or indefinite.⁠ ⁠… Indefinite relations, you know, I told you yesterday, Liza⁠ ⁠… we will try today to settle the question we raised yesterday. Come, let us decide together.⁠ ⁠…”
“What are we to do?”
Liza gave a yawn and scowling, drew her right arm from under her head.
“What are we to do?” she repeated hardly audibly after Groholsky.
“Well, yes, what are we to do? Come, decide, wise little head⁠ ⁠… I love you, and a man in love is not fond of sharing. He is more than an egoist. It is too much for me to go shares with your husband. I mentally tear him to pieces, when I remember that he loves you too. In the second place you love me.⁠ ⁠… Perfect freedom is an essential condition for love.⁠ ⁠… And are you free? Are you not tortured by the thought that that man towers forever over your soul? A man whom you do not love, whom very likely and quite naturally, you hate.⁠ ⁠… That’s the second thing.⁠ ⁠… And thirdly.⁠ ⁠… What is the third thing? Oh yes.⁠ ⁠… We are deceiving him and that⁠ ⁠… is dishonourable. Truth before everything, Liza. Let us have done with lying!”
“Well, then, what are we to do?”
“You can guess.⁠ ⁠… I think it necessary, obligatory, to inform him of our relations and to leave him, to begin to live in freedom. Both must be done as quickly as possible.⁠ ⁠… This very evening, for instance.⁠ ⁠… It’s time to make an end of it. Surely you must be sick of loving like a thief?”
“Tell! tell Vanya?”
“Why, yes!”
“That’s impossible! I told you yesterday, Michel, that it is impossible.”
“Why?”
“He will be upset. He’ll make a row, do all sorts of unpleasant things.⁠ ⁠… Don’t you know what he is like? God forbid! There’s no need to tell him. What an idea!”
Groholsky passed his hand over his brow, and heaved a sigh.
“Yes,” he said, “he will be more than upset. I am robbing him of his happiness. Does he love you?”
“He does love me. Very much.”
“There’s another complication! One does not know where to begin. To conceal it from him is base, telling him would kill him.⁠ ⁠… Goodness knows what’s one to do. Well, how is it to be?”
Groholsky pondered. His pale face wore a frown.
“Let us go on always as we are now,” said Liza. “Let him find out for himself, if he wants to.”
“But you know that⁠ ⁠… is sinful, and besides the fact is you are mine, and no one has the right to think that you do not belong to me but to someone else! You are mine! I will not give way to anyone!⁠ ⁠… I am sorry for him⁠—God knows how sorry I am for him, Liza! It hurts me to see him! But⁠ ⁠… it can’t be helped after all. You don’t love him, do you? What’s the good of your going on being miserable with him? We must have it out! We will have it out with him, and you will come to me. You are my wife, and not his. Let him do what he likes. He’ll get over his troubles somehow.⁠ ⁠… He is not the first, and he won’t be the last.⁠ ⁠… Will you run away? Eh? Make haste and tell me! Will you run away?”
Liza got up and looked inquiringly at Groholsky.
“Run away?”
“Yes.⁠ ⁠… To my estate.⁠ ⁠… Then to the Crimea.⁠ ⁠… We will tell him by letter.⁠ ⁠… We can go at night. There is a train at half past one. Well? Is that all right?”
Liza scratched the bridge of her nose, and hesitated.
“Very well,” she said, and burst into tears.
Patches of red came out of her cheeks, her eyes swelled, and tears flowed down her kittenish face.⁠ ⁠…
“What is it?” cried Groholsky in a flutter. “Liza! what’s the matter? Come! what are you crying for? What a girl! Come, what is it? Darling! Little woman!”
Liza held out her hands to Groholsky, and hung on his neck. There was a sound of sobbing.
“I am sorry for him⁠ ⁠…” muttered Liza. “Oh, I am so sorry for him!”
“Sorry for whom?”
“Va⁠—Vanya.⁠ ⁠…”
“And do you suppose I’m not? But what’s to be done? We are causing him suffering.⁠ ⁠… He will be unhappy, will curse us⁠ ⁠… but is it our fault that we love one another?”
As he uttered the last word, Groholsky darted away from Liza as though he had been stung and sat down in an easy chair. Liza sprang away from his neck and rapidly⁠—in one instant⁠—dropped on the lounge.
They both turned fearfully red, dropped their