LITMIR.BIZ

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whose presence she considered absolutely necessary at this crisis. It was desirable that her husband should appear and invite the prince down to the country: she relied upon the appearance of the father of the family, in dresscoat and white tie, hastening up to town on the first rumours of the prince’s arrival there, to produce a very favourable impression upon the old man’s self-respect: it would flatter him; and after such a courteous action, followed by a polite and warmly-couched invitation to the country, the prince would hardly refuse to go.

      At last the carriage stopped at the door of a long low wooden house, surrounded by old lime trees. This was the country house, Maria Alexandrovna’s village residence.

      Lights were burning inside.

      “Where’s my old fool?” cried Maria Alexandrovna bursting like a hurricane into the sitting-room.

      “Whats this towel lying here for? — Oh! — he’s been wiping his head, has he. What, the baths again! and tea — of course tea! — always tea! Well, what are you winking your eyes at me for, you old fool? — Here, why is his hair not cropped? Grisha, Grisha! — here; why didn’t you cut your master’s hair, as I told you?”

      Maria Alexandrovna, on entering the room, had intended to greet her husband more kindly than this; but seeing that he had just been to the baths and that he was drinking tea with great satisfaction, as usual, she could not restrain her irritable feelings.

      She felt the contrast between her own activity and intellectual energy, and the stolid indifference and sheep-like contentedness of her husband, and it went to her heart!

      Meanwhile the “old fool,” or to put it more politely, he who had been addressed by that title, sat at the tea-urn, and stared with open mouth, in abject alarm, opening and shutting his lips as he gazed at the wife of his bosom, who had almost petrified him by her sudden appearance.

      At the door stood the sleepy, fat Grisha, looking on at the scene, and blinking both eyes at periodical intervals.

      “I couldn’t cut his hair as you wished, because he wouldn’t let me!” he growled at last. “ ’You’d better let me do it!’ — I said, ‘or the mistress’ll be down one of these days, and then we shall both catch it!’ ”

      “No,” he says, “I want it like this now, and you shall cut it on Sunday. I like it long!”

      “What! — So you wish to curl it without my leave, do you! What an idea — as if you could wear curls with your sheep-face underneath! Good gracious, what a mess you’ve made of the place; and what’s the smell — what have you been doing, idiot, eh!” cried Maria Alexandrovna, waxing more and more angry, and turning furiously upon the wretched and perfectly innocent Afanassy!

      “Mam — mammy!” muttered the poor frightened master of the house, gazing with frightened eyes at the mistress, and blinking with all his might— “mammy!”

      “How many times have I dinned into your stupid head that I am not your ‘mammy.’ How can I be your mammy, you idiotic pigmy? How dare you call a noble lady by such a name; a lady whose proper place is in the highest circles, not beside an ass like yourself!”

      “Yes — yes, — but — but, you are my legal wife, you know, after all; — so I — it was husbandly affection you know — —” murmured poor Afanassy, raising both hands to his head as he spoke, to defend his hair from the tugs he evidently expected.

      “Oh, idiot that you are! did anyone ever hear such a ridiculous answer as that — legal wife, indeed! Who ever heard the expression ‘legal wife,’ in good society — nasty low expression! And how dare you remind me that I am your wife, when I use all my power and do all I possibly can at every moment to forget the fact, eh? What are you covering your head with your hands for? Look at his hair — now: wet, as wet as reeds! it will take three hours to dry that head! How on earth am I to take him like this? How can he show his face among respectable people? What am I to do?”

      And Maria Alexandrovna bit her finger-nails with rage as she walked furiously up and down the room.

      It was no very great matter, of course; and one that was easily set right; but Maria Alexandrovna required a vent for her feelings and felt the need of emptying out her accumulated wrath upon the head of the wretched Afanassy Matveyevitch; for tyranny is a habit recallable at need.

      Besides, everyone knows how great a contrast there is between the sweetness and refinement shown by many ladies of a certain class on the stage, as it were, of society life, and the revelations of character behind the scenes at home; and I was anxious to bring out this contrast for my reader’s benefit.

      Afanassy watched the movements of his terrible spouse in fear and trembling; perspiration formed upon his brow as he gazed.

      “Grisha!” she cried at last, “dress your master this instant! Dresscoat, black trousers, white waistcoat and tie, quick! Where’s his hairbrush — quick, quick!”

      “Mam — my! Why, I’ve just been to the bath. I shall catch cold if I go up to town just now!”

      “You won’t catch cold!”

      “But — mammy, my hair’s quite wet!”

      “We’ll dry it in a minute. Here, Grisha, take this brush and brush away till he’s dry, — harder — harder — much harder! There, that’s better!”

      Grisha worked like a man. For the greater convenience of his herculean task he seized his master’s shoulder with one hand as he rubbed violently with the other. Poor Afanassy grunted and groaned and almost wept.

      “Now, then, lift him up a bit. Where’s the pomatum? Bend your head, duffer! — bend lower, you abject dummy!” And Maria Alexandrovna herself undertook to pomade her husband’s hair, ploughing her hands through it without the slightest pity. Afanassy heartily wished that his shock growth had been cut. He winced, and groaned and moaned, but did not cry out under the painful operation.

      “You suck my life-blood out of me — bend lower, you idiot!” remarked the fond wife— “bend lower still, I tell you!”

      “How have I sucked your life blood?” asked the victim, bending his head as low as circumstances permitted.

      “Fool! — allegorically, of course — can’t you understand? Now, then, comb it yourself. Here, Grisha, dress him, quick!”

      Our heroine threw herself into an armchair, and critically watched the ceremony of adorning her husband. Meanwhile the latter had a little opportunity to get his breath once more and compose his feelings generally; so that when matters arrived at the point where the tie is tied, he had even developed so much audacity as to express opinions of his own as to how the bow should be manufactured.

      At last, having put his dresscoat on, the lord of the manor was his brave self again, and gazed at his highly ornate person in the glass with great satisfaction and complacency.

      “Where are you going to take me to?” he now asked, smiling at his reflected self.

      Maria Alexandrovna could not believe her ears.

      “What — what? How dare you ask me where I am taking you to, sir!”

      “But — mammy — I must know, you know — —”

      “Hold your tongue! You let me hear you call me mammy again, especially where we are going to now! you sha’n’t have any tea for a month!”

      The frightened consort held his peace.

      “Look at that, now! You haven’t got a single ‘order’ to put on — sloven!” she continued, looking at his black coat with contempt.

      “The Government awards orders, mammy; and I am not a sloven, but a town councillor!” said Afanassy, with a sudden excess of noble wrath.

      “What, what — what! So you’ve learned to argue now, have you — you mongrel, you? However, I haven’t time to waste over you now, or I’d —— but I sha’n’t forget it. Here,

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