Читать книгу The Complete Novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Страница 119

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I SLEPT soundly without dreaming. Suddenly I felt as though a load of some hundredweights was lying on my feet. I cried out and woke up. It was daylight; the sun was peeping brightly into the room. On my bed, or rather on my feet, was sitting Mr. Bahtcheyev.

It was impossible to doubt that it was he. Managing somehow to release my legs, I sat up in bed and looked at him with the blank amazement of a man just awake.

“And now he is looking about him,” cried the fat man. “Why are you staring at me? Get up, sir, get up. I have been waking you for the last half-hour; rub away at your eyes!”

“Why, what has happened? What’s the time?”

“It’s still early by the clock, but our Fevronya did not wait for dawn, but has given us the slip. Get up, we are going in pursuit!”

“What Fevronya?”

“Why, our young lady, the crazy one! She has given us the slip! She was off before dawn. I came to you, sir, only for a minute, to wake you, and here I have been busy with you a couple of hours. Get up, your uncle’s waiting for you. They waited for the festive day!” he added, with a malignant quiver in his voice.

“But whom and what are you talking about?” I asked impatiently, though I was beginning to guess. “Surely not Tatyana Ivanovna?”

“To be sure. She it is. I said so, I foretold it; they wouldn’t listen to me. A nice treat she has given us for the festive day now! She is mad on amour, and has amour on the brain. Tfoo! And that fellow, what do you say to that fellow? With his little beard, eh?”

“Can you mean Mizintchikov?”

“Tfoo, plague take it! Why, my dear sir, you had better rub your eyes and pull yourself together — if only for the great holy festive day. You must have had a great deal too much at supper last night if you are still hazy this morning I With Mizintchikov I It’s with Obnoskin, not Mizintchikov. Ivan Ivanovitch Mizintchikov is a moral young man and he is coming with us in pursuit.”

‘‘What are you saying?” I cried, jumping up in bed. “Is it really with Obnoskin?”

“Tfoo, you annoying person!” answered the fat man, leaping up from his seat. “I come to him as to a man of culture to inform him of what has happened, and he still doubts it. Well, sir, if you want to come with us, get up, shoot into your breeches. It’s no good my spending more words on you; I’ve wasted golden time on you as it is.”

And he went out in extreme indignation.

Amazed by the news, I jumped out oi bed, hurriedly dressed, and ran downstairs. Thinking to find my uncle in the house, where everyone still seemed asleep and knowing nothing of what had happened, I cautiously mounted the front steps, and in the hall I met Nastenka She seemed to have dressed hurriedly in some sort of peignoir or schlafrock. Her hair was in disorder; it was evident that she had only just jumped out of bed, and she seemed to be waiting for someone in the hall.

“Tell me, is it true that Tatvana Ivanovna has run away with Obnoskin?” she asked hurriedly in a breaking voice, looking pale and frightened.

“I am told it is true. I am looking for my uncle, we want to go after them.”

“Oh, bring her back, make haste and bring her back. She will be ruined if you don’t fetch her back.”

“But where is uncle?”

“Most likely in the stable; they are getting the carriage out. I have been waiting for him here. Listen: tell him from me that I must go home to-day, I have quite made up my mind. My father will take me; I shall go at once if I can. Everything is hopeless now. All is lost!”

Saying this, she looked at me as though she were utterly lost, and suddenly dissolved into tears. I think she began to be hysterical.

“Calm yourself,” I besought her. “Why, it’s all for the best — you will see. What is the matter with you, Nastasya Yevgrafovna?”

“I … I don’t know … what is the matter with me,” she said, sighing and unconsciously squeezing my hands. “Tell him …”

At that instant there was a sound from the other side of the door on the right.

She let go of my hand and, panic-stricken, ran away upstairs without finishing her sentence.

I found the whole party — that is, my uncle, Bahtcheyev, and Mizintchikov — in the back yard by the stable. Fresh horses had been harnessed in Bahtcheyev’s carriage. Everything was ready for setting off; they were only waiting for me.

“Here he is!” cried my uncle on my appearance. “Have you heard, my boy?” he asked, with a peculiar expression on his face.

Alarm, perplexity, and, at the same time, hope were expressed in his looks, in his voice and in his movements. He was conscious that a momentous crisis had come in his life.

I was immediately initiated into all the details of the case. Mr. Bahtcheyev, who had spent a very bad night, left his house at dawn to reach the monastery five miles away in time for early mass. Just at the turning from the high road to the monastery he suddenly saw a chaise dashing along at full trot, and in the chaise Tatyana Ivanovna and Obnoskin. Tatyana Ivanovna, with a tear-stained and as it seemed frightened face, uttered a shriek and stretched out her hands to Mr. Bahtcheyev as though imploring his protection — so at least it appeared from his story; “while he, the scoundrel, with the little beard,” he went on, “sits more dead than alive and tries to hide himself. But you are wrong there, my fine fellow, you can’t hide yourself.” Without stopping, Stepan Alexyevitch turned back to the road and galloped to Stepantchikovo and woke my uncle, Mizintchikov, and finally me. They decided to set off at once in pursuit.

“Obnoskin, Obnoskin,” said my uncle, looking intently at me, looking at me as though he would like to say something else as well. “Who would have thought it?”

“Any dirty trick might have been expected of that low fellow!” cried Mizintchikov with the most vigorous indignation, and at once turned away to avoid my eye.

“What are we going to do, go or not? Or are we going to stand here till night babbling!” interposed Mr. Bahtcheyev as he clambered into the carriage.

“We are going, we are going,” cried my uncle.

“It’s all for the best, uncle,” I whispered to him. “You see how splendidly it has all turned out?”

“Hush, my boy, don’t be sinful… . Ah, my dear I They will simply drive her away now, to punish her for their failure, you understand. It’s fearful, the prospect I sec before me!”

“Well, Yegor Ilyitch, are you going on whispering or starting?” Mr. Bahtcheyev cried out a second time. “Or <hall we unharness the horses and have a snack of something? What do you say; shall we have a drink of vodka?”

These words were uttered with such furious sarcasm that it was impossible not to satisfy Bahtcheyev at once. We all promptly got into the carriage, and the horses set off at a gallop.

For some time we were all silent. My uncle kept looking at me significantly, but did not care to speak to me before the others. He often sank into thought; then ah though waking up, started and looked about him in agitation. Mizintchikov was apparently calm, he smoked a cigar, and his looks expressed the indignation of an unjustly treated man. But Bahteheyev had excitement enough for all of us. He grumbled to himself, looked at everyone and everything with absolute indignation, flushed crimson, fumed, continually spat aside, and could not recover himself.

“Are you sure, Stepan Alexyevitch, that they have gone to Mishino?” my uncle asked suddenly. “It’s fifteen miles from here, my boy,” he added, addressing me. “It’s a little village of thirty souls, lately purchased from the forrnei owners by a provincial official. The most pettifogging fellow in the world. So at least they say about inm, perhaps mistakenly Stepan Alexyevitch declares that that is where Obnoskin has gone, and that that official will be helping him now.”

“To be sure,” cried Bahtcheyev, starting. “I tell you, it is Mishino. Only by now maybe there is no trace of him left at Mishino. I should think not, we have waited three hours chattering in the yard!”

“Don’t be uneasy,” observed Mizint’hikov. “We shall find them.”

“Find them, indeed! I dare say he will wait for you. The treasure is in his hands. You may be sure we have seen the last of him!”

“Calm yourself, Stepan Alexyevitch, calm yourself, we shall overtake them,” said my uncle. “They have not had time to take any steps yet, you will sec that is so”

“Not had time!” Mr. Bahtchcycv brought out angrily. “She’s had time for any mischief, for all she’s such a quiet onel ‘She’s a quiet one/ they say, ‘a quiet one,’ he added in a mincing voice, as though he were mimicking someone. ‘She has had troubles.’ Well, now, she has shown us her heels, for all her troubles. Now you have to chase after her along the high roads with your tongue out before you can see where you are going! They won’t let a man go to church for the holy saint’s day. Tfoo!”

“But she is not under age,” I observed; “she is not under guardianship. We can’t bring her back if she doesn’t want to come. What are we going to do?”

“Of course,” answered my uncle; “but she will want to — I assure you. What she is doing now means nothing. As soon as she sees us she will want to come back — I’ll answer for it. We can’t leave her like this, my boy, at the mercy of fate, to be sacrificed; it’s a duty, so to say. …”

“She’s not under guardianship!” cried Bahtcheyev, pouncing on me at once. “She is a fool, my dear sir, a perfect fool — it’s not a case of her being under guardianship. I didn’t care to talk to you about her yesterday, but the other day I went by mistake into her room and what did I see, there she was before the looking-glass with her arms akimbo dancing a schottische! And dressed up to the nines: a fashion-plate, a regular fashion-plate! I simply spat in disgust and walked away. Then I foresaw all this, as clear as though it were written in a book!”

“Why abuse her so?” I observed with some timidity. “We know that Tatyana Ivanovna … is not in perfect health … or rather she has a mania. … It seems to me that Obnoskin is the one to blame, not she.”

“Not in perfect health! Come, you get along,” put in the fat man, turning crimson with wrath. “Why, he has taken an oath to drive a man to fury! Since yesterday he has taken an oath to! She is a fool, my dear sir, I tell you, an absolute fool. It’s not that she’s not in perfect health; from early youth she has been mad on Cupid. And now Cupid has brought her to this pass. As for that fellow with the beard, it’s no use talking about him. I dare say by now he is racing off double quick with the money in his pocket and a grin on his face.

“Do you really think, then, that he’ll cast her off at once?”

“What else should he do? Is he going to drag such a treasure about with him? And what good is she to him? He’ll fleece her of everything and then sit her down somewhere under a bush on the high road — and make off. While she can sit there under the bush and sniff the flowers.”

“Well, you are too hasty there, Stepan, it won’t be like that!” cried my uncle. “But why are you so cross? I wonder at you, Stepan. What’s the matter with you?”

“Why, am I a man or not? It does make one cross, though it’s no business of mine. Why, I am saying it perhaps in kindness to her… . Ech, damnation take it all! Why, what have I come here for? Why, what did I turn back for? What is it to do with me? What is it to do with me?”

So grumbled Mr. Bahtcheyev, but I left off listening to him and mused on the woman whom we were now in pursuit of — Tatyana Ivanovna. Here is a brief biography of her which I gathered later on from the most trustworthy sources, and which is essential to the explanation of her adventures.

A poor orphan child who grew up in a strange unfriendly house, then a poor girl, then a poor young woman, and at last a poor old maid, Tatyana Ivanovna in the course of her poor life had drained the over-full cup of sorrow, friendlessness, humiliation and reproach, and had tasted to the full the bitterness of the bread of others. Naturally of a gay, highly susceptible and frivolous temperament, she had at first endured her bitter lot in one way or another and had even been capable at times of the gayest careless laughter; but with years destiny at last got the upper hand of her. Little by little Tatyana Ivanovna grew thin and sallow, became irritable and morbidly susceptible, and sank into the most unrestrained, unbounded dreaminess, often interrupted by hysterical tears and convulsive sobbing. The fewer earthly blessings real life left to her lot, the more she comforted and deluded herself in imagination. The more certainly, the more irretrievably her last hopes in real life were passing and at last were lost, the more seductive grew her dreams, never to be realised. Fabulous wealth, unheard-of beauty, rich, elegant, distinguished suitors, always princes and sons of generals, who for her sake had kept their hearts in virginal purity and were dying at her feet from infinite love; and finally, he — he, the ideal of beauty combining in himself every possible perfection, passionate and loving, an artist, a poet, the son of a general — all at once or all by turns — began to appear to her not only in her dreams but almost in reality. Her reason was already beginning to fail, unable to stand the strain of this opiate of secret incessant dreaming… . And all at once destiny played a last fatal jest at her expense. Living in the last extreme of humiliation, in melancholy surroundings that crushed the heart, a com-

panion to a toothless old lady, the most peevish in the world, scolded for everything, reproached for every crust she ate, for every threadbare rag she wore, insulted with impunity by anyone, protected by no one, worn out by her miserable existence and secretly plunged in the luxury of the maddest and most fervid dreams — she suddenly heard the news of the death of a distant relation, all of whose family had died long before (though she in her frivolous way had never taken the trouble to ascertain the fact); he was a strange man, a phrenologist and a moneylender, who led a solitary, morose, unnoticed life, in seclusion somewhere very remote in the wilds. And now all at once immense wealth fell as though by miracle from heaven and scattered gold at Tatyana Ivanovna’s feet; she turned out to be the sole legitimate heiress of the dead moneylender. A hundred thousand silver roubles came to her at once. This jest of destiny was the last straw. Indeed, how could a mind already tottering doubt the truth of dreams when they were actually beginning to come true? And so the poor thing took leave of her last remaining grain of common sense. Swooning with bliss, she soared away beyond recall into her enchanted world of impossible imaginations and seductive fancies. Away with all reflection, all doubt, all the checks of real life, all its laws clear and inevitable as twice two make four. Thirty-five years and dreams of dazzling beauty, the sad chill of autumn and the luxuriance of the infinite bliss of love — all blended in her without discord. Her dreams had once already been realised in life; why should not all the rest come true? Why should not he appear? Tatyana Ivanovna did not reason, but she had faith. But while waiting for hum, the ideal — suitors and knights of various orders and simple gentlemen, officers and civilians, infantry men and cavalry men, grand noblemen and simply poets who had been in Paris or had been only in Moscow, with beards and without beards, with imperials and without imperials, Spaniards and not Spaniards (but Spaniards, by preference), began appearing before her day and night in horrifying numbers that awakened grave apprehensions in onlookers; she was but a step from the madhouse. All these lovely phantoms thronged about her in a dazzling, infatuated procession. In reality, in actual life, everything went the same fantastic way: anyone she looked at was in love with her; anyone who passed by was a Spaniard; if anyone died it must be for love of her. As ill-luck would have it, all this was confirmed in her eyes by the fact that men such as Obnoskin, Mizintchikov, and dozens of others with the same motives began running after her. Everyone began suddenly trying to please her, spoiling her, flattering her. Poor Tatyana Ivanovna refused to suspect that all this was for the sake of her money. She was fully convinced that, as though at some signal, people had suddenly reformed, and all, every one of them, grown gay and kind, friendly and good. He had not appeared himself in person; but though there could be no doubt that he would appear, her daily life as it was was so agreeable, so alluring, so full of all sorts of distractions and diversions, that she could wait. Tatyana Ivanovna ate sweetmeats, culled the flowers of pleasure, and read novels. The novels heated her imagination and were usually flung aside at the sccond page; she could not read longer, but was carried to dreamland by the very first lines, by the most trivial hint at love, sometimes simply by the description of scenery, of a room, of a toilette. New finery, lace, hats, hair ornaments, ribbons, samples, paper patterns, designs, sweetmeats, flowers, lapdogs were being continually sent her. Three girls ^pent whole days rewing for her in the maid’s room, while their lady was trying on bodices and flounces, and twisting and turning before the looking-glass from morning to night, and even in the night. She ac tually seemed younger and prettier on coming into her fortune. To this day I don’t know what was her lelationship to the late General Krahotkin. I have always been persuaded that it was the invention of Madame la (ienerale, who wanted to get possession of Tatyana Ivanovna and at all costs to marry her to my uncle for her money. Mr. Bahtcheyev was right when he spoke of its being Cupid that had brought Tatyana Ivanovna to the last point; and my uncle’s idea on hearing of her elopement with Obnoskin — to run after her and bring her back even by force — was the most rational one The poor creature was not fit to live without a guardian, and would have come to grief at once if she had fallen into evil hands.

It was past nine when we reached Mishino. It was a poor little village, lying in a hole two miles from the high road. Six or seven peasants’ huts, berrimed with ^moke, slanting on one side and barely covered with blackened thatch, looked dejectedly and inhospitably at the traveller. There was not a garden, not a bush, to be seen for a quarter of a mile round. Only an old willow hung drowsily over the greenish pool that passed for a pond. Such a new abode could hardly make a cheering impression on Tatyana Ivanovna. The manor house consisted of a new long, narrow, wooden building with six windows in a row, and had been roughly thatched. The owner, the official, had only lately taken possession. The yard was not even fenced, and only on one side a new hurdle had been begun from which the dry leaves of the nut branches had not yet dropped. Obnoskin’s chaise was standing by the hurdle. We had fallen on the fugitives like snow on the head. From an open window came the sound of cries and weeping.

The barefoot boy who met us dashed away at breakneck speed. In the first room Tatyana Ivanovna with a tear-stained face was seated on a long chintz-covered sofa without a back. On seeing us she uttered a shriek and hid her face in her hands. Beside her stood Obnoskin, frightened and pitifully confused. He was so distraught that he flew to shake hands with us, as though overjoyed at our arrival. From the door that opened into the other room we had a peep of some lady’s dress; someone was listening and looking through a crack imperceptible to us. The people of the house did not put in an appearance; it seemed as though they were not in the house; they were all in hiding somewhere.

“Here she is, the traveller! Hiding her face in her hands too!” cried Mr. Bahtcheyev, lumbering after us into the room.

“Restrain your transports, Stepan Alexyevitch! They are quite unseemly. No one has a right to speak now but Yegor Ilyitch; we have nothing to do here!” Mizintchikov observed sharply.

My uncle, casting a stern glance at Mr. Bahtcheyev, and seeming not to observe the existence of Obnoskin who had rushed to shake hands with him, went up to Tatyana Ivanovna, whose face was still hidden in her hands, and in the softest voice, with the most unaffected sympathy, said to her —

“Tatyana Ivanovna, we all so love and respect you that we have come ourselves to learn your intentions. Would you care to drive back with us to Stepantchikovo? It is Ilyusha’s nameday, mamma is expecting you impatiently, while Sasha and Nastenka have no doubt been crying over you all the morning. …”

Tatyana Ivanovna raised her head timidly, looked at him through her fingers, and suddenly bursting into tears, flung herself on his neck.

“Oh, take me away, make haste and take me away from here!” she said, sobbing. “Make haste, as much haste as you can!”

“She’s gone off on the spree and made an ass of herself!” hissed Mr. Bahtcheyev, nudging my arm.

“Everything is at an end, then,” said my uncle, turning dryly to Obnoskin and scarcely looking at him. “Tatyana Ivanovna, please give me your arm. Let us go!”

There was a rustle the other side of the door; the door creaked and opened wider.

“If you look at it from another point of view though,” Obnoskin observed uneasily, looking at the open door, “you will see yourself, Yegor Ilyitch … your action in my house … and in fact I was bowing to you, and you would not even bow to me, Yegor Ilyitch. …”

“Your action in my house, sir, was a low action,” said my uncle, looking sternly at Obnoskin, “and this house is not yours. You have heard: Tatyana Ivanovna docs not wish to remain here a minute. What more do you want? Not a word — do you hear? not another word, I beg! I am extremely desirous of avoiding further explanations, and indeed it would be more to your interest to do so.”

But at this point Obnoskin was so utterly crestfallen that ho began uttering the most unexpected drivel.

“Don’t despise me, Yegor Ilyitch,” he began in a half-whisper, almost crying with shame and continually glancing towards the door, probably from fear of being overheard. “It’s not my doing, but my mother’s. I didn’t do it from mercenary motives, Yegor Ilyitch; I didn’t mean anything; I did, of course, do it from interested motives, Yegor Ilyitch … but I did it with a noble object, Yegor Ilyitch. I should have used the money usefully … I should have helped the poor. I wanted to support the movement for enlightenment, too, and even dreamed of endowing a university scholarship… . That was what I wanted to turn my wealth to, Yegor Ilyitch; and not to use it just for anything, Yegor Ilyitch.”

We all felt horribly ashamed Even Mizintchikov reddened and turned away, and my uncle was so confused that he did not know what to say.

“Come, come, that’s enough,” he said at last. “Calm yourself, Pavel Scmyonitch. It can’t be helped! It might happen to anyone. … If you like, come to dinner … and I shall be delighted.”

But Mr. Bahtcheyev behaved quite differently.

“Endow a scholarship!” he bawled furiously. “You are not the sort to endow a scholarship! I bet you’d be ready to fleece anyone you come across… . Not a pair of breeches of his own, and here he is bragging of scholarships I Oh, you rag-and-bone man I So you’ve made a conquest of a soft heart, have you? And where is she, the parent? Hiding, is she? I be* she is sitting somewhere behind a screen, or has crept under the bed in a fright. …”

“Stepan, Stepan I” cried my uncle.

Obnoskin flushed and was on the point of protesting; but before he had time to open his mouth the door was flung open and Anfisa Petrovna herself, violently irritated, with flashing eyes, crimson with wrath, flew into the room.

“What’s this?” she shouted. “What’s this going on here? You break into a respectable house with your rabble, Yegor Ilyitch, frighten ladies, give orders! … What’s the meaning of it? I have not taken leave of my senses yet, Yegor Ilyitch! And you, you booby,” she went on yelling, pouncing on her son, “you are snivelling before them already. Your mother is insulted in her own house, and you stand gaping. Do you call yourself a gentlemanly young man after that? You are a rag, and not a young man, after that.”

Not a trace of the mincing airs and fashionable graces of the day before, not a trace of the lorgnette even was to be seen about Anfisa Petrovna now. She was a regular fury, a fury without a mask.

As soon as my uncle saw her he made haste to take Tatyana Ivanovna on his arm, and would have rushed out of the room, but Anfisa Petrovna at once barred the way.

“You are not going away like that, Yegor Ilyitch,” she clamoured again. “By what right are you taking Tatyana Ivanovna away by force? You are annoyed that she has escaped the abominable snares you had caught her in, you and your mamma and your imbecile Foma Fomitch; you would have liked to marry her yourself for the sake of filthy lucre. I beg your pardon, but our ideas here are not so low! Tatyana Ivanovna, seeing that you were plotting against her, that you were bringing her to ruin, confided in Pavlusha of herself. She herself begged him to save her from your snares, so to say; she was forced to run away from you by night — that’s a pretty thing! That’s what you have driven her to, isn’t it, Tatyana Ivanovna? And since that’s so, how dare you burst, a whole gang of you, into a respectable gentleman’s house and carry off a young lady by force in spite of her tears and protests? I will not permit it! I will not permit itl I have not taken leave of my senses! Tatyana Ivanovna will remain because she wishes it! Come, Tatyana Ivanovna, it is useless to listen to them, they are your enemies, not your friends! Come along, don’t be frightened! I’ll see them all out directly! . .

“No, no!” cried Tatyana Ivanovna, terrified, “I don’t want to, I don’t want to I He is no husband for me. I don’t want to many your son! He’s no husband for me I”

“You don’t want to!” shouted Anfisa Petrovna, breathless with rage. “You don’t want to! You have come and you don’t want to! Then how dared you deceive us like this? Then how dared you give him your promise? You ran away with him by night, you forced yourself upon him, and have led us into embarrassment and expense. My son has perhaj>s lost an excellent match through you! He may have lost a dowry of ten thousand through you! … No I you must pay for it, you ought to pay for it; we have proofs; you ran away at night… .”

But we did not hear this tirade to the end. All at once, grouping ourselves round my uncle, we moved forward straight upon Anfisa Petrovna and went out to the steps. The carriage was at hand at once.

“None but dishonourable people, none but scoundrete behave like that,” cried Anfisa Petrovna from the steps, in an absolute frenzy. “I will lodge a petition, you shall pay for it … you are going to a disreputable house, Tatyana Ivanovna. You cannot marry Yegor Ilyitch, under your very nose he is keeping his governess as his mistress.”

My uncle shuddered, turned pale, bit his lip and rushed to assist Tatyana Ivanovna into the carriage. I went round to the other side of the carriage, and was waiting for my turn to get in, when I suddenly found Obnoskin by my side, clutching at my hand.

“Allow me at least to seek your friendship!” he said warmly, squeezing my hand, with an expression of despair on his face.

“What’s that, friendship?” I said, lifting my foot to the carriage step.

“Yes! I recognised in you yesterday a man of culture; do not condemn me… . My mother led me on, I had nothing to do with it. My inclinations are rather for literature — I assure you; this was all my mother. …”

“I believe you, I believe you,” I said. “Goodbye!”

We got in and the horses set off at a gallop. The shouts and curses of Anfisa Petrovna resounded for a long way after us, and unknown faces suddenly poked out of all the windows of the house and stared after us with wild curiosity.

There were five of us now in the carriage, but Mizintchikov got on to the box, giving up his former seat to Mr. Bahtcheyev, who had now to sit directly facing Tatyana Ivanovna. The latter was greatly relieved that we had taken her away, but she was still crying. My uncle consoled her as best he could. He was himself sad and brooding; it was evident that Anfisa Petrovna’s frantic words about Nastenka were echoing painfully and bitterly in his heart. Our return journey would, however, have ended without any disturbance if only Mr. Bahtcheyev had not been with us.

Sitting opposite Tatyana Ivanovna, he seemed not himself, he could not look indifferent, he shifted in his seat, turned as red as a crab, and rolled his eyes fearfully, particularly when my uncle began trying to console Tatyana Ivanovna. The fat man was absolutely beside himself, and growled like a bulldog when it is teased. My uncle looked at him apprehensively. At last Tatyana Ivanovna, noticing the extraordinary state o’f mind of her vis-a-vis, began watching him intently; then she looked at us, smiled, and all at once picking up her parasol gracefully gave Mr. Bahtcheyev a light tap on the shoulder.

“Crazy fellow!” she said with a most enchanting playfulness, and at once hid her face in her fan.

This sally was the last straw.

“Wha-a-at?” roared the fat man. “What’s that, madam? So you are after me now!”

“Crazy fellow! crazy fellow!” repeated Tatyana Ivanovna, and she suddenly burst out laughing and clapped her hands.

“Stop!” cried Bahtcheyev to the coachman, “stop!”

We stopped. Bahtcheyev opened the door, and hurriedly began clambering out of the carriage.

“Why, what is the matter, Stepan Alexyevitch? Where are you off to?” cried my uncle in astonishment.

“No, I have had enough of it,” answered the fat man, trembling with indignation. “Deuce take it all! I am too old, madam, to be besieged with amours. I would rather die on the high road! Goodbye, madam. Comment vous portez-vous?”

And he actually began walking on foot. The carriage followed him at a walking pace.

“Stepan Alexyevitch!” cried my uncle, losing all patience at last. “Don’t play the fool, come, get in! Why, it’s time we were home.”

“Bother you!” Stepan Alexyevitch brought out, breathless with walking, for owing to his corpulence he had quite lost the habit of exercise.

“Drive on full speed,” Mizintchikov shouted to the coachman.

“What are you doing? Stop!” my uncle cried out as the carriage dashed on.

Mizintchikov was not out in his reckoning, the desired result followed at once.

“Stop! Stop!” we heard a despairing wail behind us. “Stop, you ruffian! Stop, you cut-throat …”

The fat man came into sight at Inst, half dead with exhaustion, with drops of sweat on his brow, untying his cravat and taking off his cap. Silently and gloomily he got into the carriage, and this time I gave him my seat; he was not anyway sitting directly opposite Tatyana Ivanovna, who all through this scene had been gushing with laughter and clapping her hands. She could not look gravely at Stepan Alexyevitch all the rest of the journey. He for his part sat without uttering a single word all the way home, staring intently at the hind wheel of the carriage.

It was midday when we got back to Stepantchikovo. I went straight to my lodge, where Gavrila immediately made his appearance with tea. I flew to question the old man, but my uncle walked in almost on his heels and promptly sent him away.