LITMIR.BIZ

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away from Alexandra Mihalovna. “Stand here,” he said, putting me in the middle of the room. “I wish to judge you before her who has been a mother to you. And don’t worry yourself, sit down,” he added, motioning Alexandra Mihalovna to an easy-chair. “It grieves me that I cannot spare you this unpleasant scene; but it must be so.”

      “Good heavens! What is coming?” said Alexandra Mihalovna, in great distress, gazing alternately at me and her husband. I wrung my hands, feeling that the fatal moment was at hand. I expected no mercy from him now.

      “In short,” Pyotr Alexandrovitch went on, “I want you to judge between us. You always (and I can’t understand why, it is one of your whims), you always — yesterday, for instance — thought and said… but I don’t know how to say it, I blush at the suggestion…. In short, you defended her, you attacked me, you charged me with undue severity; you even hinted at another feeling, suggesting that that provoked me to undue severity; you… but I do not understand why, I cannot help my confusion, and the colour that flushes my face at the thought of your suppositions; and so I cannot speak of them directly, openly before her…. In fact you…”

      “Oh, you won’t do that! No, you won’t say that!” cried Alexandra Mihalovna in great agitation, hot with shame. “No, spare her. It was all my fault, it was my idea! I have no suspicions now. Forgive me for them, forgive me. I am ill, you must forgive me, only do not speak of it to her, don’t…. Anneta,” she said, coming up to me, “Anneta, go out of the room, make haste, make haste! He was joking; it is all my fault; it is a tactless joke….”

      “In short, you were jealous of her on my account,” said Pyotr Alexandrovitch, ruthlessly flinging those words in the face of her agonised suspense.

      She gave a shriek, turned pale and leaned against her chair for support, hardly able to stand on her feet.

      “God forgive you,” she said at last in a faint voice. “Forgive me for him, Nyetochka, forgive me; it was all my fault, I was ill, I…”

      “But this is tyrannical, shameless, vile!” I cried in a frenzy, understanding it all at last, understanding why he wanted to discredit me in his wife’s eyes. “It’s below contempt; you…”

      “Anneta!” cried Alexandra Mihalovna, clutching my hands in horror.

      “It’s a farce, a farce, and nothing else!” said Pyotr Alexandrovitch, coming up to us in indescribable excitement. “It’s a farce, I tell you,” he went on, looking intently with a malignant smile at his wife. “And the only one deceived by the farce is — you. Believe me, we,” he brought out breathlessly, pointing at me, “are not at all afraid of discussing such matters; believe me, that we are not so maidenly as to be offended, to blush and to cover our ears, when we are talked to about such subjects. You must excuse me, I express myself plainly, simply, coarsely perhaps, but — it is necessary. Are you so sure, madam, of this… young person’s correctness of behaviour?”

      “My God! What is the matter with you? You are forgetting yourself!” said Alexandra Mihalovna, numb and half dead with horror.

      “Not so loud, please,” Pyotr Alexandrovitch interrupted her contemptuously. “I don’t like it. This is a simple matter, plain, vulgar in the extreme. I am asking you about her behaviour. Do you know…”

      But I did not let him finish, and seizing him by the arm, I forcibly drew him away. Another minute — and everything might have been lost.

      “Don’t speak of the letter,” I said quickly, in a whisper. “You will kill her on the spot. Censure of me will be censure of her too. She cannot judge me, for I know all…. Do you understand? I know all!”

      He looked at me intently with wild curiosity, was confused; the blood rushed to his face.

      “I know all, all!” I repeated.

      He was still hesitating. A question was trembling on his lips. I forestalled him.

      “This is what happened,” I said aloud hurriedly, addressing Alexandra Mihalovna, who was looking at us with timid and anxious amazement. “It was all my fault. I have been deceiving you for the last four years. I carried off the key of the library, and have for four years been secretly reading the books in it. Pyotr Alexandrovitch caught me reading a book which… could not, should not have been in my hands. In his anxiety over me, he has exaggerated the danger!… But I do not justify myself,” I added quickly, noticing a sarcastic smile on his lips. “It is all my fault. The temptation was too great for me, and having once done wrong, I was ashamed to confess what I had done…. That’s all, almost all that has passed between us.”

      “Oho, how smart,” Pyotr Alexandrovitch whispered beside me.

      Alexandra Mihalovna listened to me intently; but there was an unmistakable shade of mistrustfulness on her face. She kept looking first at me, then at her husband. A silence followed. I could hardly breathe. She let her head fall on her bosom and hid her face in her hands, considering and evidently weighing every word I had uttered. At last she raised her head and looked at me intently.

      “Nyetochka, my child,” she said, “I know you cannot He. Was this everything that happened, absolutely all?”

      “Yes, all,” I answered.

      “Was that all?” she asked, addressing her husband.

      “Yes,” he answered with an effort, “all!”

      I heaved a sigh.

      “On your word of honour, Nyetochka?”

      “Yes,” I answered without faltering.

      But I could not refrain from glancing at Pyotr Alexandrovitch. He laughed as he heard my answer. I flushed hotly, and my confusion did not escape poor Alexandra Mihalovna. There was a look of overwhelming agonising misery in her face.

      “That’s enough,” she said mournfully. “I believe you. I cannot but believe you.”

      “I think such a confession is sufficient,” said Pyotr Alexandrovitch. “You have heard! What would you have me think?”

      Alexandra Mihalovna made no answer. The scene became more and more unbearable.

      “I will look through all the books tomorrow,” Pyotr Alexandrovitch went on. “I don’t know what else there was there; but…”

      “But what book was she reading?” asked Alexandra Mihalovna.

      “What book? Answer,” he said, addressing me. “You can explain things better than I can,” he said, with a hidden irony.

      I was confused, and could not say a word. Alexandra Mihalovna blushed and dropped her eyes. A long pause followed Pyotr Alexandrovitch. walked up and down the room in vexation.

      “I don’t know what has passed between you,” Alexandra Mihalovna began at last, timidly articulating each word; “but if that was all,” she went on, trying to put a special significance into her voice, though she was embarrassed by her husband’s fixed stare and trying not to look at him, “if that was all, I don’t know what we all have to be so unhappy and despairing about. I am most to blame, I alone, and it troubles me very much. I have neglected her education, and I ought to answer for it all. She must forgive me, and I cannot and dare not blame her. But, again, what is there to be so desperate about? The danger is over. Look at her,” she went on, speaking with more and more feeling, and casting a searching glance at her husband, “look at her, has her indiscretion left any trace on her? Do you suppose I don’t know her, my child, my darling daughter? Don’t I know that her heart is pure and noble, that in that pretty little head,” she went on, drawing me towards her and fondling me, “there is clear, candid intelligence and a conscience that fears deceit…. Enough of this, my dear! Let us drop it! Surely something else is underlying our distress; perhaps it was only a passing shadow of antagonism. But we will drive it away by love, by goodwill, and let us put away our perplexities. Perhaps there is a good deal that has not been spoken out between us, and I blame myself most. I was first reserved with you, I was the first to be suspicious — goodness

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