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“Ye-yes, foot and mouth disease, or something of that s-sort,” said the prince; “so I st-stayed at home. Well, and how’s your h-husband, my dear Anna Nic-Nicolaevna? Still at his proc-procuror’s work?”
“No, prince!” said Maria Alexandrovna, a little disconcerted. “My husband is not a procurer.”
“I’ll bet anything that uncle has mixed you up with Anna Nicolaevna Antipova,” said Mosgliakoff, but stopped suddenly on observing the look on Maria Alexandrovna’s face.
“Ye-yes, of course, Anna Nicolaevna. A-An. What the deuce! I’m always f-forgetting; Antipova, Antipova, of course,” continued the prince.
“No, prince, you have made a great mistake,” remarked Maria Alexandrovna, with a bitter smile. “I am not Anna Nicolaevna at all, and I confess I should never have believed that you would not recognise me. You have astonished me, prince. I am your old friend, Maria Alexandrovna Moskaloff. Don’t you remember Maria Alexandrovna?”
“M-Maria Alexandrovna! think of that; and I thought she was w-what’s her name. Y-yes, Anna Vasilievna! C’est délicieux. W-why I thought you were going to take me to this A-Anna Matveyevna. Dear me! C'est ch-charmant! It often happens so w-with me. I get taken to the wrong house; but I’m v-very pleased, v-very pleased! So you’re not Nastasia Vasilievna? How interesting.”
“I’m Maria Alexandrovna, prince; Maria Alexandrovna! Oh! how naughty you are, Prince, to forget your best, best friend!”
“Ye-es! ye-yes! best friend; best friend, for-forgive me!” stammered the old man, staring at Zina.
“That’s my daughter Zina. You are not acquainted yet, prince. She wasn’t here when you were last in the town, in the year … you know.”
“Oh, th-this is your d-daughter!” muttered the old man, staring hungrily at Zina through his glasses. “Dear me, dear me. Ch-charmante, ch-armante! But what a lo-ovely girl,” he added, evidently impressed.
“Tea! prince,” remarked Maria Alexandrovna, directing his attention to the page standing before him with the tray. The prince took a cup, and examined the boy, who had a nice fresh face of his own.
“Ah! this is your l-little boy? Wh-what a charming little b-boy! and does he be-behave nicely?”
“But, prince,” interrupted Maria Alexandrovna, impatiently, “what is this dreadful occurrence I hear of? I confess I was nearly beside myself with terror when I heard of it. Were you not hurt at all? Do take care. One cannot make light of this sort of thing.”
“Upset, upset; the c-coachman upset me!” cried the prince, with unwonted vivacity. “I thought it was the end of the world, and I was fri-frightened out of my wits. I didn’t expect it; I didn’t, indeed! and my co-oachman is to blame for it all. I trust you, my friend, to lo-ok into the matter well. I feel sure he was making an attempt on my life!”
“All right, all right, uncle,” said Paul; “I’ll see about it. But look here-forgive him, just this once, uncle; just this once, won’t you?”
“N-not I! Not for anything! I’m sure he wants my life, he and Lavrenty too. It’s-it’s the ’new ideas;’ it’s Com-Communism, in the fullest sense of the word. I daren’t meet them anywhere.”
“You are right, you are quite right, prince,” cried Maria Alexandrovna. “You don’t know how I suffer myself from these wretched people. I’ve just been obliged to change two of my servants; and you’ve no idea how stupid they are, prince.”
“Ye-yes! quite so!” said the prince, delighted-as all old men are whose senile chatter is listened to with servility. “But I like a fl-flunky to look stupid; it gives them presence. There’s my Terenty, now. You remember Terenty, my friend? Well, the f-first time I ever looked at him I said, ‘You shall be my ha-hall porter.’ He’s stupid, phen-phen-omenally stupid, he looks like a she-sheep; but his dig-dignity and majesty are wonderful. When I look at him he seems to be composing some l-learned dis-sertation. He’s just like the German philosopher, Kant, or like some fa-fat old turkey, and that’s just what one wants in a serving-man.”
Maria Alexandrovna laughed, and clapped her hands in the highest state of ecstasy; Paul supported her with all his might; Nastasia Petrovna laughed too;
and even Zina smiled.
“But, prince, how clever, how witty, how humorous you are!” cried Maria Alexandrovna. “What a wonderful gilt of remarking the smallest refinements of character. And for a man like you to eschew all society, and shut yourself up for five years! With such talents! Why, prince, you could write, you could be an author. You could emulate Von Vezin, Gribojedoff, Gogol!”
“Ye-yes! ye-yes!” said the delighted prince. “I can reproduce things I see, very well. And, do you know, I used to be a very wi-witty fellow indeed, some time ago. I even wrote a play once. There were some very smart couplets, I remember; but it was never acted.”
“Oh! how nice it would be to read it over, especially just now, eh, Zina? for we are thinking of getting up a play, you must know, prince, for the benefit of the ‘martyrs of the Fatherland,’ the wounded soldiers. There, now, how handy your play would come in!”
“Certainly, certainly. I-I would even write you another. I think I’ve quite forgotten the old one. I remember there were two or three such epigrams that (here the prince kissed his own hand to convey an idea of the exquisite wit of his lines) I recollect when I was abroad I made a real furore. I remember Lord Byron well; we were great friends; you should have seen him dance the mazurka one day during the Vienna Congress.”
“Lord Byron, uncle?-Surely not!”
“Ye-yes, Lord Byron. Perhaps it was not Lord Byron, though, perhaps it was someone else; no, it wasn’t Lord Byron, it was some Pole; I remember now. A won-der-ful fellow that Pole was! He said he was a C-Count, and he turned out to be a c-cookshop man! But he danced the mazurka won-der-fully, and broke his leg at last. I recollect I wrote some lines at the time: —
“Our little Pole Danced like blazes.”
– How did it go on, now? Wait a minute! No, I can’t remember.”
“I’ll tell you, uncle. It must have been like this,” said Paul, becoming more and more inspired: —
“But he tripped in a hole, Which stopped his crazes.”
“Ye-yes, that was it, I think, or something very like it. I don’t know, though – perhaps it wasn’t. Anyhow, the lines were very sm-art. I forget a good deal of what I have seen and done. I’m so b-busy now!”
“But do let me hear how you have employed your time in your solitude, dear prince,” said Maria Alexandrovna. “I must confess that I have thought of you so often, and often, that I am burning with impatience to hear more about you and your doings.”
“Employed my time? Oh, very busy; very busy, ge-generally. One rests, you see, part of the day; and then I imagine a good many things.”
“I should think you have a very strong imagination, haven’t you, uncle?” remarked Paul.
“Exceptionally so, my dear fellow. I sometimes imagine things which amaze even myself! When I was at Kadueff, – by-the-by, you were vice-governor of Kadueff, weren’t you?”
“I, uncle! Why, what are you thinking of?”
“No? Just fancy, my dear fellow! and I’ve been thinking all this time how f-funny that the vice-governor of Kadueff should be here with quite a different face: he had a fine intelligent, dig-dignified face, you know. A wo-wonderful fellow! Always writing verses, too; he was rather like the Ki-King of Diamonds from the side view, but – “
“No, prince,” interrupted Maria Alexandrovna. “I assure you, you’ll ruin yourself with the life you are leading! To make a hermit of oneself for five years, and see no one, and hear no one: you’re a lost man, dear prince! Ask any one of those who love you, they’ll all tell you the same; you’re a lost man!”
“No,” cried the prince, “really?”
“Yes, I assure you of it! I am speaking to you as a sister – as a friend! I am telling you this because you are very dear to me, and because the memory of the past is sacred to me. No, no! You must change your way of living; otherwise you will fall ill, and break up, and die!”
“Gracious heavens! Surely I shan’t d-die so soon?” cried the old man. “You-you are right about being ill; I am ill now and then. I’ll tell you all the sy-symptoms! I’ll de-detail them to you. Firstly I – “
“Uncle, don’t you think you had better tell us all about it another day?” Paul interrupted hurriedly. “I think we had better be starting just now, don’t you?”
“Yes-yes, perhaps, perhaps. But remind me to tell you another time; it’s a most interesting case, I assure you!”
“But listen, my dear prince!” Maria Alexandrovna resumed, “why don’t you try being doctored abroad?”
“Ab-road? Yes, yes – I shall certainly go abroad. I remember when I was abroad, about ‘20; it was delightfully g-gay and jolly. I very nearly married a vi-viscountess, a French woman. I was fearfully in love, but som-somebody else married her, not I. It was a very s-strange thing. I had only gone away for a coup-couple of hours, and this Ger-German baron fellow came and carried her off! He went into a ma-madhouse afterwards!”
“Yes, dear prince, you must look after your health. There are such good doctors abroad; and – besides, the mere change of life, what will not that alone do for you! You must desert your dear Donchanovo, if only for a time!”
“C-certainly, certainly! I’ve long meant to do it. I’m going to try hy-hydropathy!”
“Hydropathy?”
“Yes. I’ve tried it once before: I was abroad, you know, and they persuaded me to try drinking the wa-waters. There wasn’t anything the matter with me, but I agreed, just out of deli-delicacy for their feelings; and I did seem to feel easier, somehow. So I drank, and drank, and dra-ank up a whole waterfall;
and I assure you if I hadn’t fallen ill just then I should have been quite well, th-thanks to the water! But, I confess, you’ve frightened me so about these ma-maladies and things, I feel quite put out. I’ll come back d-directly!”
“Why, prince, where are you off to?” asked Maria Alexandrovna in surprise.
“Directly, directly. I’m just going to note down an i-idea!”
“What sort of idea?” cried Paul, bursting with laughter.
Maria Alexandrovna lost all patience.
“I cannot understand what you find to laugh at!” she cried, as the old man disappeared; “to laugh at an honourable old man, and turn every word of his into ridicule – presuming on his angelic good nature. I assure you I blushed for you, Paul Alexandrovitch! Why, what do you see in him to laugh at? I never saw anything funny about him!”
“Well, I laugh because he does not recognise people, and talks such nonsense!”
“That’s simply the result of his sad life, of his dreadful five years’ captivity, under the guardianship of that she-devil! You should pity, not laugh at him! He did not even know me; you saw it yourself. I tell you it’s a crying shame; he must be saved, at all costs! I recommend him to go abroad so that he may get out of the clutches of that – beast of a woman!”
“Do you know what – we must find him a wife!” cried Paul.
“Oh, Mr. Mosgliakoff, you are too bad; you really are too bad!”
“No, no, Maria Alexandrovna; I assure you, this time I’m speaking in all seriousness. Why not marry him off? Isn’t it rather a brilliant idea? What harm can marriage do him? On the contrary, he is in that position that such a step alone can save him! In the first place, he will get rid of that fox of a woman; and, secondly, he may find some girl, or better still some widow – kind, good, wise and gentle, and poor, who will look after him as his own daughter would, and who will be sensible of the honour he does her in making her his wife! And what could be better for the old fellow than to have such a person about him, rather than the – woman he has now? Of course she must be nice-looking, for uncle appreciates good looks; didn’t you observe how he stared at Miss Zina?”
“But how will you find him such a bride?” asked Nastasia Petrovna, who had listened intently to Paul’s suggestion.
“What a question! Why, you yourself, if you pleased! and why not, pray? In the first place, you are good-looking, you are a widow, you are generous, you are poor (at least I don’t think you are very rich). Then you are a very reasonable woman: you’ll learn to love him, and take good care of him; you’ll send that other woman to the deuce, and take your husband abroad, where you will feed him on pudding and lollipops till the moment of his quitting this wicked world, which will be in about a year, or in a couple of months perhaps. After that, you emerge a princess, a rich widow, and, as a prize for your goodness to the old gentleman, you’ll marry a fine young marquis, or a governor-general, or somebody of the sort! There – that’s a pretty enough prospect, isn’t it?”
“Tfu! Goodness me! I should fall in love with him at once, out of pure gratitude, if he only proposed to me!” said the widow, with her black eyes all ablaze; “but, of course, it’s all nonsense!”
“Nonsense, is it? Shall I make it sound sense, then, for you? Ask me prettily, and if I don’t make you his betrothed by this evening, you may cut my little finger off! Why, there’s nothing in the world easier than to talk uncle into anything you please! He’ll only say, ‘Ye-yes, ye-yes,’ just as you heard him now! We’ll marry him so that he doesn’t know anything about it, if you like? We’ll deceive him and marry him, if you please! Any way you like, it can be done! Why, it’s for his own good; it’s out of pity for himself! Don’t you think, seriously, Nastasia Petrovna, that you had better put on some smart clothes in any case?”
Paul’s enthusiasm amounted by now to something like madness, while the widow’s mouth watered at his idea, in spite of her better judgment.
“I know, I know I look horridly untidy!” she said. “I go about anyhow, nowadays! There’s nothing to dress for. Do I really look like a regular cook?”
All this time Maria Alexandrovna sat still, with a strange expression on her face. I shall not be far wrong if I say that she listened to Paul’s wild suggestion with a look of terror, almost: she was confused and startled; at last she recollected herself, and spoke.
“All this is very nice, of course; but at the same time it is utter nonsense, and perfectly out of the question!” she observed cuttingly.
“Why, why, my good Maria Alexandrovna? Why is it such nonsense, or why out of the question?”
“For many reasons; and, principally because you are, as the prince is also, a guest in my house; and I cannot permit anyone to forget their respect towards my establishment! I shall consider your words as a joke, Paul Alexandrovitch, and nothing more! Here comes the prince – thank goodness!”
“Here I am!” cried the old man as he entered. “It’s a wo-wonderful thing how many good ideas of all s-sorts I’m having to-day! and another day I may spend the whole of it without a single one! As-tonishing? not one all day!”
“Probably the result of your accident, to-day, uncle! Your nerves got shaken up, you see, and … ”
“Ye-yes, I think so, I think so too; and I look on the accident as pro-fitable, on the whole; and therefore I’m going to excuse the coachman. I don’t think it was an at-tempt on my life, after all, do you? Besides, he was punished a little while a-go, when his beard was sh-shaved off!”
“Beard shaved off? Why, uncle, his beard is as big as a German state!”
“Ye-yes, a German state, you are very happy in your ex-pressions, my boy! but it’s a fa-false one. Fancy what happened: I sent for a price-current for false hair and beards, and found advertisements for splendid ser-vants’ and coachmen’s beards, very cheap – extraordinarily so! I sent for one, and it certainly was a be-auty. But when we wanted to clap it on the coachman, we found he had one of his own t-twice as big; so I thought, shall I cut off his, or let him wear it, and send this one b-back? and I decided to shave his off, and let him wear the f-false one!”
“On the theory that art is higher than nature, I suppose uncle?”
“Yes, yes! Just so – and I assure you, when we cut off his beard he suffered as much as though we were depriving him of all he held most dear! But we must be go-going, my boy!”
“But I hope, dear prince, that you will only call upon the governor!” cried Maria Alexandrovna, in great agitation. “You are mine now, Prince; you belong to my family for the whole of this day! Of course I will say nothing about the society of this place. Perhaps you are thinking of paying Anna Nicolaevna a visit? I will not say a word to dissuade you; but at the same time I am quite convinced that – time will show! Remember one thing, dear Prince, that I am your sister, your nurse, your guardian for to-day at least, and oh! – I tremble for you. You don’t know these people, Prince, as I do! You don’t know them fully: but time will teach you all you do not know.”
“Trust me, Maria Alexandrovna!” said Paul, “it shall all be exactly as I have promised you!”
“Oh – but you’re such a weathercock! I can never trust you! I shall wait for you at dinner time, Prince;
we dine early. How sorry I am that my husband happens to be in the country on such an occasion! How happy he would have been to see you! He esteems you so highly, Prince; he is so sincerely attached to you!”
“Your husband? dear me! So you have a h-husband, too!” observed the old man.
“Oh, prince, prince! how forgetful you are! Why, you have quite, quite forgotten the past! My husband, Afanassy Matveyevitch, surely you must remember him? He is in the country: but you have seen him thousands of times before! Don’t you remember – Afanassy Matveyevitch!”
“Afanassy Matveyevitch. Dear me! – and in the co-country! how very charming! So you have a husband! dear me, I remember a vaudeville very like that, something about —
“The husband’s here,
And his wife at Tvere.”
Charming, charming – such a good rhyme too; and it’s a most ri-diculous story! Charming, charming; the wife’s away, you know, at Jaroslaf or Tv… or somewhere, and the husband is… is… Dear me! I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what we were talking about! Yes, yes – we must be going, my boy! Au revoir, madame; adieu, ma charmante demoiselle[2 - Au revoir, madame; adieu, ma charmante demoiselle – Goodbye, Madame; farewell, my lovely lady]” he added, turning to Zina, and putting the ends of her fingers to his lips.
“Come back to dinner, – to dinner, prince! don’t forget to come back here quick!” cried Maria Alexandrovna after them as they went out; “be back to dinner!”
Chapter V
“Nastasia Petrovna, I think you had better go and see what is doing in the kitchen!” observed Maria Alexandrovna, as she returned from seeing the prince off. “I’m sure that rascal Nikitka will spoil the dinner! Probably he’s drunk already!” The widow obeyed.
As the latter left the room, she glanced suspiciously at Maria Alexandrovna, and observed that the latter was in a high state of agitation. Therefore, instead of going to look after Nikitka, she went through the “Salon,” along the passage to her own room, and through that to a dark box-room, where the old clothes of the establishment and such things were stored. There she approached the locked door on tiptoe; and stifling her breath, she bent to the keyhole, through which she peeped, and settled herself to listen intently. This door, which was always kept shut, was one of the three doors communicating with the room where Maria Alexandrovna and Zina were now left alone. Maria Alexandrovna always considered Nastasia an untrustworthy sort of woman, although extremely silly into the bargain. Of course she had suspected the widow – more than once – of eavesdropping; but it so happened that at the moment Madame Moskaleva was too agitated and excited to think of the usual precautions.
She was sitting in her arm-chair and gazing at Zina. Zina felt that her mother was looking at her, and was conscious of an unpleasant sensation at her heart.
“Zina!”
Zina slowly turned her head towards the speaker, and lifted her splendid dark eyes to hers.
“Zina, I wish to speak to you on a most important matter!”
Zina adopted an attentive air, and sat still with folded hands, waiting for light. In her face there was an expression of annoyance as well as irony, which she did her best to hide.
“I wish to ask you first, Zina, what you thought of that Mosgliakoff, to-day?”
“You have known my opinion of him for a long time!” replied Zina, surlily.
“Yes, yes, of course! but I think he is getting just a little too troublesome, with his continual bothering you – “
“Oh, but he says he is in love with me, in which case his importunity is pardonable!”
“Strange! You used not to be so ready to find his offences pardonable; you used to fly out at him if ever I mentioned his name!”
