“I wish to work, somehow or other.”
“I have heard of you, and I think read of you in the newspapers.”| “I believe so; but I’m not sure.” |
“Every one of them has been saying it--every one of them--all these three days! And I will never, never marry him!”
“At all events tell me whether he slept at home last night, and whether he came alone?”
“H’m! and you take no notice of it?”
The prince commended his aspirations with warmth.
| Five seconds after the disappearance of the last actor in this scene, the police arrived. The whole episode had not lasted more than a couple of minutes. Some of the spectators had risen from their places, and departed altogether; some merely exchanged their seats for others a little further off; some were delighted with the occurrence, and talked and laughed over it for a long time. |
| “In Petersburg? Oh no! hardly at all, and now they say so much is changed in the place that even those who did know it well are obliged to relearn what they knew. They talk a good deal about the new law courts, and changes there, don’t they?” |
| But this was too much for the general. |
“That she did not disgrace me at Moscow with that officer, Zemtuznikoff? I know for certain she did, after having fixed our marriage-day herself!”
“Simply--my dear prince,--simply she is in love with you,--that’s the whole of the secret!” replied Colia, with authority.
“I don’t think we have a copy of Pushkin in the house.”
| “Never more--from that sweet moment-- Gazéd he on womankind; He was dumb to love and wooing And to all their graces blind. |
“They do not at all approve of women going to see an execution there. The women who do go are condemned for it afterwards in the newspapers.”
II.| “You suspect him?” |
“Really!” said Rogojin vaguely, not taking in what the prince meant by his rather obscure remarks.
“You astonish me,” said the lady, gazing as before. “Fits, and hungry too! What sort of fits?”Little by little a sort of inspiration, however, began to stir within him, ready to spring into life at the right moment. When he did begin to speak, it was accidentally, in response to a question, and apparently without any special object.
| “Parfen,” he said, “tell me honestly, did you know that I was coming to Petersburg or no?” |
“Well, what do you think? The old fellow went straight off to Nastasia Philipovna, touched the floor with his forehead, and began blubbering and beseeching her on his knees to give him back the diamonds. So after awhile she brought the box and flew out at him. ‘There,’ she says, ‘take your earrings, you wretched old miser; although they are ten times dearer than their value to me now that I know what it must have cost Parfen to get them! Give Parfen my compliments,’ she says, ‘and thank him very much!’ Well, I meanwhile had borrowed twenty-five roubles from a friend, and off I went to Pskoff to my aunt’s. The old woman there lectured me so that I left the house and went on a drinking tour round the public-houses of the place. I was in a high fever when I got to Pskoff, and by nightfall I was lying delirious in the streets somewhere or other!”
| “Observe,” he gasped, through his coughing, “what a fellow Gania is! He talks about Nastasia’s ‘leavings,’ but what does he want to take himself?” |
“But, my goodness me,” laughed Ivan Petrovitch, “why can’t I be cousin to even a splendid man?”
“Nastasia Philipovna, I can’t; my hands won’t obey me,” said Ferdishenko, astounded and helpless with bewilderment. “Then it was _you_ who came--_you_--_you?_”| “Well, all right! All right, my dear! I shall put that down to your account.” |
And so they parted.
| “Just as before, sir, just as before! To a certain person, and from a certain hand. The individual’s name who wrote the letter is to be represented by the letter A.--” |
| “Le roi de Rome,” whispered the general, trembling all over. |
| After this performance, he smiled sweetly and left the room on tiptoe. |
“Oh, I don’t know about that! I’ve heard much that is good about our legal administration, too. There is no capital punishment here for one thing.”
“Get away then, all of you. I shall do as I like with my own--don’t meddle! Ferdishenko, make up the fire, quick!” His wife, Colia, and Ptitsin ran out after him.“What do you think about it?” said the general in a low voice to Totski. “Is she mad? I mean mad in the medical sense of the word .... eh?”
Aglaya stamped her foot.
“She gave it me just now, when I called in to congratulate her. I asked her for it long ago. I don’t know whether she meant it for a hint that I had come empty-handed, without a present for her birthday, or what,” added Gania, with an unpleasant smile.| “Come,” he said. |
“Let’s see it.”
| “What, receive him! Now, at once?” asked Mrs. Epanchin, gazing vaguely at her husband as he stood fidgeting before her. |
“‘Nurse, where is your tomb?’
“The woman’s mad!” cried Evgenie, at last, crimson with anger, and looking confusedly around. “I don’t know what she’s talking about! What IOU’s? Who is she?” Mrs. Epanchin continued to watch his face for a couple of seconds; then she marched briskly and haughtily away towards her own house, the rest following her. “You shall hear all this directly, gentlemen. I--I--listen!”| “The face was depicted as though still suffering; as though the body, only just dead, was still almost quivering with agony. The picture was one of pure nature, for the face was not beautified by the artist, but was left as it would naturally be, whosoever the sufferer, after such anguish. |
“You are going to Pavlofsk too?” asked the prince sharply. “Everybody seems to be going there. Have you a house in that neighbourhood?”
| When the prince reached home, about nine o’clock, he found Vera Lebedeff and the maid on the verandah. They were both busy trying to tidy up the place after last night’s disorderly party. |
“Confess that you are pleased to have read it.”
“No, I don’t--not at all! I hardly know anyone in Russia. Why, is that your name?”
| He knew well that Nastasia thoroughly understood him and where to wound him and how, and therefore, as the marriage was still only in embryo, Totski decided to conciliate her by giving it up. His decision was strengthened by the fact that Nastasia Philipovna had curiously altered of late. It would be difficult to conceive how different she was physically, at the present time, to the girl of a few years ago. She was pretty then... but now!... Totski laughed angrily when he thought how short-sighted he had been. In days gone by he remembered how he had looked at her beautiful eyes, how even then he had marvelled at their dark mysterious depths, and at their wondering gaze which seemed to seek an answer to some unknown riddle. Her complexion also had altered. She was now exceedingly pale, but, curiously, this change only made her more beautiful. Like most men of the world, Totski had rather despised such a cheaply-bought conquest, but of late years he had begun to think differently about it. It had struck him as long ago as last spring that he ought to be finding a good match for Nastasia; for instance, some respectable and reasonable young fellow serving in a government office in another part of the country. How maliciously Nastasia laughed at the idea of such a thing, now! |
| “You’ve been _there?_” he asked, suddenly. |
“Probably there’s some new silliness about it,” said Mrs. Epanchin, sarcastically.
| “Stay a little,” said Parfen, not leaving his chair and resting his head on his right hand. “I haven’t seen you for a long time.” |
“You were quite right to go away!” he said. “The row will rage there worse than ever now; and it’s like this every day with us--and all through that Nastasia Philipovna.”
| “I guess what you mean--I should be an Osterman, not a Gleboff--eh? Is that what you meant?” |
“I guess what you mean--I should be an Osterman, not a Gleboff--eh? Is that what you meant?”
| “So it is!” said Rogojin, unexpectedly. They had now reached the front door. |
“Come, come! the less _you_ say about it the better--to judge from all I have heard about you!” replied Mrs. Epanchin.
The prince was instantly covered with confusion; for it appeared to be plain that everyone expected something of him--that everyone looked at him as though anxious to congratulate him, and greeted him with hints, and smiles, and knowing looks.
| “Are you in love with her?” |
“Yes.”