LITMIR.BIZ

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always does that when she is angry; she throws things on the floor,” my uncle whispered in confusion. “But she only does it when she is angry... Don’t stare, my boy, don’t take any notice, look the other way... What made you speak of Korovkin?...

      But I was looking away already; at that moment I met the eyes of the governess, and it seemed to me that in their expression there was something reproachful, even contemptuous; a flush of indignation glowed upon her pale cheeks. I understood the look in her face, and guessed that by my mean and disgusting desire to make my uncle ridiculous in order to make myself a little less so, I had not gained much in that young lady’s estimation. I cannot express how ashamed I felt!

      “I must go on about Petersburg with you,” Anfisa Petrovna gushed again, when the commotion caused by the breaking of the cup had subsided. “I recall with such enjoyment, I may say, our life in that charming city... We were very intimately acquainted with a family—do you remember, Pavel, General Polovitsin... Oh, what a fascinating, fas-ci-na-ting creature his wife was! You know that aristocratic distinction, beau monde!... Tell me, you have most likely met her?... I must own I have been looking forward to your being here with impatience; I have beer hoping to hear a great deal, a very great deal about our friends in Petersburg...”

      “I am very sorry that I cannot... excuse me.... As I have said already, I have rarely been into society, and I don’t know General Polovitsin; I have never even heard of him,” I answered impatiently, my affability being suddenly succeeded by a mood of extreme annoyance and irritability.

      “He is studying mineralogy,” my incorrigible uncle put in with pride. “Is that investigating all sorts of stones, mineralogy, my boy?”

      “Yes, uncle, stones...”

      “H’m... There are a great many sciences and they are all of use! And do you know, my boy, to tell you the truth, I did not know what mineralogy meant! It’s all Greek to me. In other things I am so-so, but at learned subjects I am stupid—I frankly confess it!”

      “You frankly confess!” Obnoskin caught him up with a snigger.

      “Papa!” cried Sashenka, looking reproachfully at her father.

      “What is it, darling? Oh, dear, I keep interrupting you, Anfisa Petrovna,” my uncle caught himself up suddenly, not understanding Sashenka’s exclamation. “Please forgive me.”

      “Oh, don’t distress yourself,” Anfisa Petrovna answered with a sour smile. “Though I have said everything already to your nephew, and will finish perhaps, Monsieur Serge—that is right, isn’t it?—by telling you that you really must reform. I believe that the sciences, the arts... sculpture, for instance... all those lofty ideas, in fact, have their fas-cin-na-ting side, but they do not take the place of ladies!... Women, women would form you, young man, and so to do without them is impossible, young man, impossible, im-poss-ible!”

      “Impossible, impossible,” Tatyana Ivanovna’s rather shrill voice rang out again. “Listen,” she began, speaking with a sort of childish haste and flushing crimson, of course, “listen, I want to ask you something....”

      “Pray do,” I answered, looking at her attentively.

      “I wanted to ask you whether you have come to stay long or not?”

      “I really don’t know, that’s as my affairs...”

      “Affairs! What sort of affairs can he have? Oh, the mad fellow!...”

      And Tatyana Ivanovna, blushing perfectly crimson and hiding behind her fan, bent down to the governess and at once began whispering something to her. Then she suddenly laughed and clapped her hands.

      “Stay! stay!” she cried, breaking away from her confidante and again addressing me in a great hurry as though afraid I were going away. “Listen, do you know what I am going to tell you? You are awfully, awfully like a young man, a fas-ci-na-ting young man! Sashenka, Nastenka, do you remember? He is awfully like that madman—do you remember, Sashenka? We were out driving when we met him... on horseback in a white waistcoat... he put up his eyeglass at me, too, the shameless fellow! Do you remember, I hid myself in my veil, too, but I couldn’t resist putting my head out of the carriage window and shouting to him: ‘You shameless fellow!’ and then I threw my bunch of flowers on the road?... Do you remember, Nastenka?”

      And the lady, half crazy over eligible young men, hid her face in her hands, all excitement; then suddenly leaped up from her seat, darted to the window, snatched a rose from a bowl, threw it on the floor near me and ran out of the room. She was gone in a flash! This time a certain embarrassment was apparent, though Madame la Générale was again completely unmoved. Anfisa Petrovna, for instance, showed no surprise, but seemed suddenly a little troubled and looked with anxiety at her son; the young ladies blushed, while Pavel Obnoskin, with a look of vexation which at the time I did not understand, got up from his chair and went to the window. My uncle was beginning to make signs to me, but at that instant another person walked into the room and drew the attention of all.

      “Ah, here is Yevgraf Larionitch! Talk of angels!” cried my uncle, genuinely delighted. “Well, brother, have you come from the town?”

      “Queer set of creatures! They seem to have been collected here on purpose!” I thought to myself, not yet understanding fully what was passing before my eyes, and not suspecting either that I was probably adding another to the collection of queer creatures by appearing among them.

Chapter 5 — Yezhevikin

      There walked or rather squeezed himself into the room (though the doors were very wide ones) a little figure which even in the doorway began wriggling, bowing and smirking, looking with extraordinary curiosity at all the persons present. It was a little pockmarked old man with quick and furtive eyes, with a bald patch at the top of his head and another at the back, with a look of undefined subtle mockery on his rather thick lips. He was wearing a very shabby dress-coat which looked as though it were second-hand. One button was hanging by a thread; two or three were completely missing. His high boots full of holes, and his greasy cap, were in keeping with his pitiful attire; he had a very dirty check pocket-handkerchief in his hand, with which he wiped the sweat from his brow and temples. I noticed that the governess blushed slightly and looked rapidly at me. I fancied, too, that there was something proud and challenging in this glance.

      “Straight from the town, benefactor! Straight from there, my kind protector! I will tell you everything, only first let me pay my respects,” said the old man. And he made straight for Madame la Générale, but stopped half-way and again addressed my uncle.

      “You know my leading characteristic, benefactor—a sly rogue, a regular sly rogue! You know that as soon as I walk in I make for the chief person of the house, I turn my toes in her direction first of all, so as from the first step to win favour and protection. A sly rogue, my good sir, a sly rogue, benefactor. Allow me, my dear lady, allow me, your Excellency, to kiss your dress, or I might sully with my lips your hand of gold, of general’s rank.”

      Madame la Générale to my surprise gave him her hand to kiss rather graciously.

      “And my respects to you, our beauty,” he went on, “Miss Perepelitsyn. There is no help for it, Madam, I am a sly rogue. As long ago as 1841 it was settled that I was a rogue, when I was dismissed from the service just at the time when Valentin Ignatyevitch Tihontsev became ‘your honour’. He was made an assessor; he was made an assessor and I was made a rogue. And, you know, I am so open by nature that I make no secret of it. It can’t be helped. I have tried living honestly, I have tried it, but now I must try something else. Alexandra Yegorovna, our little apple in syrup,” he went on, going round the table and making his way up to Sashenka, “let me kiss your dress; there is a smell of apples and all sorts of nice things about you, young lady. Our respects to the hero of the day; I have brought you a bow and arrow, my little sir. I was a whole morning making it, my lads helped me; we will shoot with it presently. And when you grow up you will be an officer and cut off a Turk’s head. Tatyana Ivanovna... but oh, she is not here, my benefactress! Or I would have kissed her dress too. Praskovya Ilvinitchna, my kindest friend,

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