The Complete Novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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СКАЧАТЬ The latter offered him his hand. Mosgliakoff, like a fool, looked beyond poor Afanassy, and did not take his outstretched hand: annoyed to the limits of endurance, he stepped up to Zina, and muttered, gazing angrily into her eyes:

      “This is all thanks to you! Wait a bit; you shall see this very day whether I am a fool or not!”

      “Why put off the revelation? It is clear enough already!” said Zina, aloud, staring contemptuously at her former lover.

      Mosgliakoff hurriedly left her. He did not half like the loud tone she spoke in.

      “Have you been to your godfather’s?” asked Maria Alexandrovna at last, determined to sound matters in this direction.

      “No, I’ve just been with uncle.”

      “With your uncle! What! have you just come from the prince now?”

      “Oh — oh! and we were told the prince was asleep!” added Natalia Dimitrievna, looking daggers at Maria Alexandrovna.

      “Do not be disturbed about the prince, Natalia Dimitrievna,” replied Paul, “he is awake now, and quite restored to his senses. He was persuaded to drink a good deal too much wine, first at your house, and then here; so that he quite lost his head, which never was too strong. However, I have had a talk with him, and he now seems to have entirely recovered his judgment, thank God! He is coming down directly to take his leave, Maria Alexandrovna, and to thank you for all your kind hospitality; and tomorrow morning early we are off to the Hermitage. Thence I shall myself see him safe home to Donchanovo, in order that he may be far from the temptation to further excesses like that of to-day. There I shall give him over into the hands of Stepanida Matveyevna, who must be back at home by this time, and who will assuredly never allow him another opportunity of going on his travels, I’ll answer for that!”

      So saying, Mosgliakoff stared angrily at Maria Alexandrovna. The latter sat still, apparently dumb with amazement. I regret to say — it gives me great pain to record it — that, perhaps for the first time in her life, my heroine was decidedly alarmed.

      “So the prince is off tomorrow morning! Dear me; why is that?” inquired Natalia Dimitrievna, very sweetly, of Maria Alexandrovna.

      “Yes. How is that?” asked Mrs. Antipova, in astonishment.

      “Yes; dear me! how comes that, I wonder!” said two or three voices. “How can that be? When we were told — dear me! How very strange!”

      But the mistress of the house could not find words to reply in.

      However, at this moment the general attention was distracted by a most unwonted and eccentric episode. In the next room was heard a strange noise — sharp exclamations and hurrying feet, which was followed by the sudden appearance of Sophia Petrovna, the fidgety guest who had called upon Maria Alexandrovna in the morning.

      Sophia Petrovna was a very eccentric woman indeed — so much so that even the good people of Mordasoff could not support her, and had lately voted her out of society. I must observe that every evening, punctually at seven, this lady was in the habit of having, what she called, “a snack,” and that after this snack, which she declared was for the benefit of her liver, her condition was well emancipated, to use no stronger term. She was in this very condition, as described, now, as she appeared flinging herself into Maria Alexandrovna’s salon.

      “Oho! so this is how you treat me, Maria Alexandrovna!” she shouted at the top of her voice. “Oh! don’t be afraid, I shall not inflict myself upon you for more than a minute! I won’t sit down. I just came in to see if what they said was true! Ah! so you go in for balls and receptions and parties, and Sophia Petrovna is to sit at home alone, and knit stockings, is she? You ask the whole town in, and leave me out, do you? Yes, and I was mon ange, and ‘dear,’ and all the rest of it when I came in to warn you of Natalia Dimitrievna having got hold of the prince! And now this very Natalia Dimitrievna, whom you swore at like a pickpocket, and who was just about as polite when she spoke of you, is here among your guests? Oh, don’t mind me, Natalia Dimitrievna, I don’t want your chocolat à la santé at a penny the ounce, six cups to the ounce! thanks, I can do better at home; t’fu, a good deal better.”

      “Evidently!” observed Natalia Dimitrievna.

      “But — goodness gracious, Sophia Petrovna!” cried the hostess, flushing with annoyance; “what is it all about? Do show a little common sense!”

      “Oh, don’t bother about me, Maria Alexandrovna, thank you! I know all about it — oh, dear me, yes! — I know all about it!” cried Sophia Petrovna, in her shrill squeaky voice, from among the crowd of guests who now surrounded her, and who seemed to derive immense satisfaction from this unexpected scene. “Oh, yes, I know all about it, I assure you! Your friend Nastasia came over and told me all! You got hold of the old prince, made him drunk and persuaded him to make an offer of marriage to your daughter Zina — whom nobody else will marry; and I daresay you suppose you are going to be a very great lady, indeed — a sort of duchess in lace and jewellery. Tfu! Don’t flatter yourself; you may not be aware that I, too, am a colonel’s lady! and if you don’t care to ask me to your betrothal parties, you needn’t: I scorn and despise you and your parties too! I’ve seen honester women than you, you know! I have dined at Countess Zalichvatsky’s; a chief commissioner proposed for my hand! A lot I care for your invitations. Tfu!”

      “Look here, Sophia Petrovna,” said Maria Alexandrovna, beside herself with rage; “I assure you that people do not indulge in this sort of sally at respectable houses; especially in the condition you are now in! And let me tell you that if you do not immediately relieve me of your presence and eloquence, I shall be obliged to take the matter into my own hands!”

      “Oh, I know — you’ll get your people to turn me out! Don’t trouble yourself — I know the way out! Goodbye, — marry your daughter to whom you please, for all I care. And as for you, Natalia Dimitrievna, I will thank you not to laugh at me! I may not have been asked here, but at all events I did not dance a can-can for the prince’s benefit. What may you be laughing at, Mrs. Antipova? I suppose you haven’t heard that your great friend Lushiloff has broken his leg? — he has just been taken home. Tfu! Goodbye, Maria Alexandrovna — good luck to you! Tfu!”

      Sophia Petrovna now disappeared. All the guests laughed; Maria Alexandrovna was in a state of indescribable fury.

      “I think the good lady must have been drinking!” said Natalia Dimitrievna, sweetly.

      “But what audacity!”

      “Quelle abominable femme!”

      “What a raving lunatic!”

      “But really, what excessively improper things she says!”

      “Yes, but what could she have meant by a ‘betrothal party?’ What sort of a betrothal party is this?” asked Felisata Michaelovna innocently.

      “It is too bad — too bad!” Maria Alexandrovna burst out at last. “It is just such abominable women as this that sow nonsensical rumours about! it is not the fact that there are such women about, Felisata Michaelovna, that is so surprising; the astonishing part of the matter is that ladies can be found who support and encourage them, and believe their abominable tales, and — —”

      “The prince, the prince!” cried all the guests at once.

      “Oh, oh, here he is — the dear, dear prince!”

      “Well, СКАЧАТЬ