LITMIR.BIZ

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of insulting a woman. All appearances were against me too; I was tortured with shame, distracted, and could not understand this man’s fury. Beside myself with terror, I rushed out of the room without answering him, and only came to myself as I stood on the threshold of Alexandra Mihalovna’s study. At that instant I heard his footsteps; I was just about to go in when I stopped short as though thunderstruck.

      “What will happen to her?” was the thought that flashed through my mind. “That letter!… No; better anything in the world than that last blow to her,” and I was rushing back. But it was too late; he was standing beside me.

      “Let us go where you like, only not here, not here!” I whispered, clutching at his arm. “Spare her! I will go back to the library or… where you like! You will kill her!”

      “It is you who are killing her,” he said, pushing me away.

      Every hope vanished. I felt that to bring the whole scene before Alexandra Mihalovna was just what he wanted.

      “For God’s sake,” I said, doing my utmost to hold him back. But at that instant the curtain was raised, and Alexandra Mihalovna stood facing us. She looked at us in surprise. Her face was paler than usual. She could hardly stand on her feet. It was evident that it had cost her a great effort to get as far as us when she heard our voices.

      “Who is here? What are you talking about here?” she asked, looking at us in the utmost amazement.

      There was a silence that lasted several moments, and she turned as white as a sheet. I flew to her, held her tight in my arms, and drew her back into her room. Pyotr Alexandrovitch walked in after me. I hid my face on her bosom and clasped her more and more tightly in my arms, half dead with suspense.

      “What is it, Nyetochka, what’s happened to you both?” Alexandra Mihalovna asked a second time.

      “Ask her, you defended her so warmly yesterday,” said Pyotr Alexandrovitch, sinking heavily into an armchair.

      I held her more tightly in my embrace.

      “But, my goodness, what is the meaning of it?” said Alexandra Milialovna in great alarm. “You are so irritated, and she is frightened and crying. Anneta, tell me all that has happened.”

      “No, allow me first,” said Pyotr Alexandrovitch, coming up to us, taking me by the arm, and pulling me 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.

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