feeling which grows in direct proportion to delay, while decision
decreases in similar measure. In other words the longer the condition
lasts, the more invincible does it become, and the smaller does the
power of decision come to be.
My last remnants of nerve and energy had forsaken me while Karl and
Woloda had been offering their presents, and my shyness now reached its
culminating point, I felt the blood rushing from my heart to my head,
one blush succeeding another across my face, and drops of perspiration
beginning to stand out on my brow and nose. My ears were burning, I
trembled from head to foot, and, though I kept changing from one foot to
the other, I remained rooted where I stood.
'Well, Nicolinka, tell us what you have brought?' said Papa. 'Is it a
box or a drawing?'
There was nothing else to be done. With a trembling hand held out the
folded, fatal paper, but my voiced failed me completely and I stood
before Grandmamma in silence. I could not get rid of the dreadful idea
that, instead of a display of the expected drawing, some bad verses of
mine were about to be read aloud before every one, and that the words
'our Mother dear' would clearly prove that I had never loved, but had
only forgotten, her. How shall I express my sufferings when Grandmamma
began to read my poetry aloud?--when, unable to decipher it, she stopped
half-way and looked at Papa with a smile (which I took to be one of
ridicule)?--when she did not pronounce it as I had meant it to be
pronounced?--and when her weak sight not allowing her to finish it, she
handed the paper to Papa and requested him to read it all over again
from the beginning? I fancied that she must have done this last because
she did not like to read such a lot of stupid, crookedly written stuff
herself, yet wanted to point out to Papa my utter lack of feeling. I
expected him to slap me in the face with the verses and say, 'You bad
boy! So you have forgotten your Mamma! Take that for it!' Yet nothing
of the sort happened. On the contrary, when the whole had been read,
Grandmamma said, 'Charming!' and kissed me on the forehead. Then our
presents, together with two cambric pocket-handkerchiefs and a snuff-box
engraved with Mamma's portrait, were laid on the table attached to the
great Voltairian arm-chair in which Grandmamma always sat.
'The Princess Barbara Ilinitsha!' announced one of the two footmen who
used to stand behind Grandmamma's carriage, but Grandmamma was looking
thoughtfully at the portrait on the snuff-box, and returned no answer.
'Shall I show her in, madam?' repeated the footman.
XVII -- THE PRINCESS KORNAKOFF
'Yes, show her in,' said Grandmamma, settling herself as far back in
her arm-chair as possible. The Princess was a woman of about
forty-five, small and delicate, with a shrivelled skin and disagreeable,
greyish-green eyes, the expression of which contradicted the unnaturally
suave look of the rest of her face. Underneath her velvet bonnet,
adorned with an ostrich feather, was visible some reddish hair, while
against the unhealthy colour of her skin her eyebrows and eyelashes
looked even lighter and redder that they would other wise have done.
Yet, for all that, her animated movements, small hands, and peculiarly
dry features communicated something aristocratic and energetic to her
general appearance. She talked a great deal, and, to judge from her
eloquence, belonged to that class of persons who always speak as though
some one were contradicting them, even though no one else may be saying
