The possessed or, The devils
widow and now taken away from her. She carried off three, however.
"Semyon Yakovlevitch," said a voice at the door. "I dreamt of a bird, a
jackdaw; it flew out of the water and flew into the fire. What does the
dream mean?"
"Frost," Semyon Yakovlevitch pronounced.
"Semyon Yakovlevitch, why don't you answer me all this time? I've been
interested in you ever so long," the lady of our party began again.
"Ask him!" said Semyon Yakovlevitch, not heeding her, but pointing to
the kneeling gentleman.
The monk from the monastery to whom the order was given moved sedately
to the kneeling figure.
"How have you sinned? And was not some command laid upon you?"
"Not to fight; not to give the rein to my hands," answered the kneeling
gentleman hoarsely.
"Have you obeyed?" asked the monk.
"I cannot obey. My own strength gets the better of me."
"Away with him, away with him! With a broom, with a broom!" cried Semyon
Yakovlevitch, waving his hands. The gentleman rushed out of the room
without waiting for this penalty.
"He's left a gold piece where he knelt," observed the monk, picking up a
half-imperial.
"For him!" said the saint, pointing to the rich merchant. The latter
dared not refuse it, and took it.
"Gold to gold," the monk from the monastery could not refrain from
saying.
"And give him some with sugar in it," said the saint, pointing to
Mavriky Nikolaevitch. The servant poured out the tea and took it by
mistake to the dandy with the pince-nez.
"The long one, the long one!" Semyon Yakovlevitch corrected him.
Mavriky Nikolaevitch took the glass, made a military half-bow, and began
drinking it. I don't know why, but all our party burst into peals of
laughter.
"Mavriky Nikolaevitch," cried Liza, addressing him suddenly. "That
kneeling gentleman has gone away. You kneel down in his place."
Mavriky Nikolaevitch looked at her in amazement.
"I beg you to. You'll do me the greatest favour. Listen, Mavriky
Nikolaevitch," she went on, speaking in an emphatic, obstinate, excited,
and rapid voice. "You must kneel down; I must see you kneel down. If you
won't, don't come near me. I insist, I insist!"
I don't know what she meant by it; but she insisted upon it
relentlessly, as though she were in a fit. Mavriky Nikolaevitch, as
we shall see later, set down these capricious impulses, which had been
particularly frequent of late, to outbreaks of blind hatred for him,
not due to spite, for, on the contrary, she esteemed him, loved him,
and respected him, and he knew that himself--but from a peculiar
unconscious hatred which at times she could not control.
In silence he gave his cup to an old woman standing behind him, opened
the door of the partition, and, without being invited, stepped into
Semyon Yakovlevitch's private apartment, and knelt down in the middle
of the room in sight of all. I imagine that he was deeply shocked in his
candid and delicate heart by Liza's coarse and mocking freak before
the whole company. Perhaps he imagined that she would feel ashamed of
herself, seeing his humiliation, on which she had so insisted. Of course
no one but he would have dreamt of bringing a woman to reason by
so naïve and risky a proceeding. He remained kneeling with his
imperturbable gravity--long, tall, awkward, and ridiculous. But our
party did not laugh. The unexpectedness of the action produced a painful
shock. Every one looked at Liza.
"Anoint, anoint!" muttered Semyon Yakovlevitch.
Liza suddenly turned white, cried out, and rushed through the partition.
Then a rapid and hysterical scene followed. She began pulling Mavriky
Nikolaevitch up with all her might, tugging at his elbows with both
hands.
"Get up! Get up!" she screamed, as though she were crazy. "Get up at
once, at once. How dare you?"
Mavriky Nikolaevitch got up from his knees. She clutched his arms above
the elbow and looked intently into his face. There was terror in her
expression.
"Milovzors! Milovzors!" Semyon Yakovlevitch repeated again.
She dragged Mavriky Nikolaevitch back to the other part of the room at
last. There was some commotion in all our company. The lady from our
carriage, probably intending to relieve the situation, loudly and
shrilly asked the saint for the third time, with an affected smile:
"Well, Semyon Yakovlevitch, won't you utter some saying for me? I've
been reckoning so much on you."
"Out with the ----, out with the ----," said Semyon Yakovlevitch, suddenly
addressing her, with an extremely indecent word. The words were uttered
savagely, and with horrifying distinctness. Our ladies shrieked, and
rushed headlong away, while the gentlemen escorting them burst into
Homeric laughter. So ended our visit to Semyon Yakovlevitch.
At this point, however, there took place, I am told, an extremely
enigmatic incident, and, I must own, it was chiefly on account of it
that I have described this expedition so minutely.
I am told that when all flocked out, Liza, supported by Mavriky
Nikolaevitch, was jostled against Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch in the crush
in the doorway. I must mention that since that Sunday morning when she
fainted they had not approached each other, nor exchanged a word, though
they had met more than once. I saw them brought together in the doorway.
I fancied they both stood still for an instant, and looked, as it were,
strangely at one another, but I may not have seen rightly in the
crowd. It is asserted, on the contrary, and quite seriously, that Liza,
glancing at Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, quickly raised her hand to the
level of his face, and would certainly have struck him if he had not
drawn back in time. Perhaps she was displeased with the expression of
his face, or the way he smiled, particularly just after such an episode
with Mavriky Nikolaevitch. I must admit I saw nothing myself, but all
the others declared they had, though they certainly could not all have
seen it in such a crush, though perhaps some may have. But I did
not believe it at the time. I remember, however, that Nikolay
Vsyevolodovitch was rather pale all the way home.
III
Almost at the same time, and certainly on the same day, the interview
at last took place between Stepan Trofimovitch and Varvara Petrovna. She
had long had this meeting in her mind, and had sent word about it to
her former friend, but for some reason she had kept putting it off till
then. It took place at Skvoreshniki; Varvara Petrovna arrived at her
country house all in a bustle; it had been definitely decided the
evening before that the fête was to take place at the marshal's, but
Varvara Petrovna's rapid brain at once grasped that no one could
prevent her from afterwards giving her own special entertainment at
Skvoreshniki, and again assembling the whole town. Then every one could
see for themselves whose house was best, and in which more taste was
displayed in receiving guests and giving a ball. Altogether she was
hardly to be recognised. She seemed completely transformed, and instead
of the unapproachable "noble lady" (Stepan Trofimovitch's expression)
seemed changed into the most commonplace, whimsical society woman. But
perhaps this may only have been on the surface.
When she reached the empty house she had gone through all the rooms,
accompanied by her faithful old butler, Alexey Yegorytch, and by
Fomushka, a man who had seen much of life and was a specialist in
decoration. They began to consult and deliberate: what furniture was to
be brought from the town house, what things, what pictures, where they
were to be put, how the conservatories and flowers could be put to
the best use, where to put new curtains, where to have the refreshment
rooms, whether one or two, and so on and so on. And, behold, in the
midst of this exciting bustle she suddenly took it into her head to send
for Stepan Trofimovitch.
The latter had long before received notice of this interview and was
prepared for it, and he had every day been expecting just such a sudden
summons. As he got into the carriage he crossed himself: his fate was
being decided. He found his friend in the big drawing-room on the little
sofa in the recess, before a little marble table with a pencil and paper
in her hands. Fomushka, with a yard measure, was measuring the height
of the galleries and the windows, while Varvara Petrovna herself was
writing down the numbers and making notes on the margin. She nodded in
Stepan Trofimovitch's direction without breaking off from what she was
doing, and when the latter muttered some sort of greeting, she hurriedly
gave him her hand, and without looking at him motioned him to a seat
beside her.
"I sat waiting for five minutes, 'mastering my heart,'" he told me
afterwards. "I saw before me not the woman whom I had known for twenty
years. An absolute conviction that all was over gave me a strength which
astounded even her. I swear that she was surprised at my stoicism in
that last hour."
Varvara Petrovna suddenly put down her pencil on the table and turned
quickly to Stepan Trofimovitch.
"Stepan Trofimovitch, we have to talk of business. I'm sure you have
prepared all your fervent words and various phrases, but we'd better go
straight to the point, hadn't we?"
She had been in too great a hurry to show the tone she meant to take.
And what might not come next?
"Wait, be quiet; let me speak. Afterwards you shall, though really I
don't know what you can answer me," she said in a rapid patter. "The
twelve hundred roubles of your pension I consider a sacred obligation
to pay you as long as you live. Though why a sacred obligation, simply
a contract; that would be a great deal more real, wouldn't it? If you
like, we'll write it out. Special arrangements have been made in case
of my death. But you are receiving from me at present lodging, servants,
and your maintenance in addition. Reckoning that in money it would
amount to fifteen hundred roubles, wouldn't it? I will add another three
hundred roubles, making three thousand roubles in all. Will that be
enough a year for you? I think that's not too little? In any extreme
emergency I would add something more. And so, take your money, send me
back my servants, and live by yourself where you like in Petersburg, in
Moscow, abroad, or here, only not with me. Do you hear?"
"Only lately those lips dictated to me as imperatively and as suddenly
very different demands," said Stepan Trofimovitch slowly and with
sorrowful distinctness. "I submitted... and danced the Cossack dance
to please you. _Oui, la comparaison peut être permise. C'était comme un
petit Cosaque du Don qui sautait sur sa propre tombe._ Now..."
"Stop, Stepan Trofimovitch, you are horribly long-winded. You didn't
dance, but came to see me in a new tie, new linen, gloves, scented
and pomatumed. I assure you that you were very anxious to get married
yourself; it was written on your face, and I assure you a most unseemly
expression it was. If I did not mention it to you at the time, it was
simply out of delicacy. But you wished it, you wanted to be married, in
spite of the abominable things you wrote about me and your betrothed.
Now it's very different. And what has the Cosaque du Don to do with it,
and what tomb do you mean? I don't understand the comparison. On the
contrary, you have only to live. Live as long as you can. I shall be
delighted."
"In an almshouse?"
"In an almshouse? People don't go into almshouses with three thousand
roubles a year. Ah, I remember," she laughed. "Pyotr Stepanovitch
did joke about an almshouse once. Bah, there certainly is a special
almshouse, which is worth considering. It's for persons who are highly
respectable; there are colonels there, and there's positively one
general who wants to get into it. If you went into it with all your