BERYASHEVA ARRIVED ABOUT an hour later; she was a tall, graceful young woman with a pale face, a slender, aquiline nose, and large dark eyes reflecting her unhealthy exhaustion. Her cousin, Tsipa Zvulovina,1 came along with her, a clever, round-faced, freckled young woman, with small, lively eyes and an overly audacious manner. Zvulovina entered first; glancing around quickly and turning her head from side to side like a bird, she announced boldly, “Well, here we are!”
Beryasheva followed her in with a downtrodden appearance, her head hanging low. Preparing for a conversation about her misfortunes and realizing that everyone would feel sorry for her, she unconsciously assumed the guise of a browbeaten victim. The young men were completely flustered by the girls’ arrival; they bustled about the room, shook their hands awkwardly, and kept repeating, “Sit down! Sit down!”
“On our way here I was—trembling like a leaf all the while, afraid of meeting any of my acquaintances,” Beryasheva said feebly and dejectedly.
“What’s there to be afraid of?” Zvulovina exclaimed bravely. “I came boldly, like a Cossack.”2
Turning her head like a bird, with jerky movements, she once again surveyed those present.
The young women sat next to each other on the sleeping-bench; Mirkin sat down at the table opposite them.
“I’m leaving . . . what am I going to do here?” Tsiporin whispered sullenly.
“Me, too . . . ,” Uler echoed just as sullenly, casting a melancholy glance at Beryasheva.
“And me!” Kornblat said, glad to join forces with them. “I’m going out to the garden. I’ll study my Slavic grammar there.”
Stealthily, one at a time, the three of them crept out of the room.
“It’s good of you to come,” Mirkin began, having recovered from his initial confusion. “Now we can talk about what to do. . . .”
“You should discuss it! You should advise her! You should rescue her! Do you hear?” Zvulovina cried decisively. “Or else she’ll undoubtedly lay hands on herself! Isn’t that right, Sonechka?”3 she added softly, glancing at Beryasheva’s face as if she had a seriously ill patient in front of her.
Beryasheva let her head hang down ever lower and emitted a sigh.
“You can’t imagine what sort of terrible torments she has to endure!” Zvulovina continued, growing more excited. “If I hadn’t been there today, God knows what might’ve happened! Do you understand? Some young men came into the shop—and my uncle, that deranged fellow, decided that they wanted to ‘betroth’ her! How do you like that? I tell you, had I not been there—something awful could have happened! I gave it to my uncle!! I’m not afraid of him! I’m not afraid of anyone! I’m a Cossack!”
Beryasheva raised her head and looked at Mirkin expressively, letting him know that Zvulovina wasn’t aware of the secret intended “betrothal.” Mirkin understood and exchanged glances with Faevich.
“Listen,” Mirkin said, addressing Beryasheva, interrupting Zvulovina’s rapid delivery. “We’ve discussed your plight. All your thoughts are now directed at somehow getting rid of your intended. Of course, that’s the most urgent thing to do! But that’s still not enough! Let’s say you manage to avoid this noose. Then what? In a month another match will be found, another noose. So what sort of life is that?”
“You’re telling me!” Beryasheva replied, smiling feebly and unhappily. “You don’t know even a fraction of what I have to endure! I’ll tell you only that . . .”
“Wait! I’ll tell it better than you! I’ll tell you . . . ,” Zvulovina interrupted her swiftly.
But Beryasheva stopped her with a gentle gesture. “No, Tsipa, I can tell it better. . . . Each of us knows best how to describe our own sufferings. . . . You know very well,” she said, turning to Mirkin, “how I was living before. I had to hide and pretend. But that was genuine paradise, compared to what happened later. . . . Rumors about me have started to circulate in town. Every day some relative or acquaintance arrives and whispers into my mother’s ear that people in town are ‘slandering’ me, saying I’m not devout, that I’m friends with young people, even ‘progressive’ youth, and that I’ve been spotted strolling around in the ‘Christian quarter.’ The parents of my closest girlfriends have forbidden them to see me, even meet or greet me. . . . My father’s begun to pester me with his questions, reproaches, and threats. Once it happened that he caught me walking with Meerov. . . . I can’t even recall this episode without horror! My father dragged me along behind him for two blocks, as if running a gauntlet, holding me firmly by the arm. As soon as we entered the house, he shouted, ‘You worthless creature! You loose woman!’ and he slapped me twice. . . . It felt like I caught on fire and that everything around me was burning—I raced around the room like a madwoman shouting, ‘Ay-yay-yay! I’m on fire! Put it out!’ I thought I’d lose my mind. . . . Then the real hell began. They didn’t let me out of their sight, wouldn’t let me go out of the house alone. My father kept nagging, all the time, without stopping, hurling insults, threats, and reproaches; my mother tormented me with her tears and exhortations. And to make matters worse, a suitor appeared. . . . It’s more than human strength can endure! At times my arms drop to my sides, I become catatonic and apathetic: let my father beat me, let him bury me alive, marry me off to a mangy rat. At other times my heart aches unbearably and I want so much to live. . . .”
Beryasheva, uttering all this in low tones, but with deep emotion, broke off immediately, an agonizing note sounding in her voice. Then she straightened up, jettisoned her look of oppressed helplessness, and glanced around audaciously.
Her tale produced quite an impression on Mirkin and Faevich. The former sat immobile, never averting the stern gaze of his wide-open eyes from Beryasheva’s face. Faevich paced the room in great agitation and tousled his hair. Even Zvulovina quieted down, overcome by the impact of the story; she turned her head in her birdlike manner and kept glancing in disbelief first at Mirkin, then at Faevich. When Beryasheva had finished, she couldn’t refrain from exclaiming half tragically, half triumphantly, “Well? Did you hear? Do you understand? Do you see?”
1. Tsipa is a diminutive form of the Hebrew name Tsiporah, which means “bird.”
2. A member of a people of southern European Russia and adjacent parts of Asia especially noted as warriors and cavalrymen.
3. Another diminutive form of the name Sonya.