'Benefactress!' moaned Harlov, and he covered his face with his hand. '
This appeal touched my mother almost to tears. 'I am ready and eager to help you, Martin Petrovitch, in everything I am able. But you must promise me that you will listen to me in future and dismiss every evil thought from you.'
Harlov took his hands from his face. 'If need be,' he said, 'I can forgive them, even!'
My mother nodded her head approvingly. 'I am very glad to see you in such a truly Christian frame of mind, Martin Petrovitch; but we will talk of that later. Meanwhile, you put yourself to rights, and, most of all, sleep. Take Martin Petrovitch to what was the master's room, the green room,' said my mother, addressing the butler, 'and whatever he asks for, let him have it on the spot! Give orders for his clothes to be dried and washed, and ask the housekeeper for what linen is needed. Do you hear?'
'Yes, madam,' responded the butler.
'And as soon as he's asleep, tell the tailor to take his measure; and his beard will have to be shaved. Not at once, but after.'
'Yes, madam,' repeated the butler. 'Martin Petrovitch, kindly come.' Harlov got up, looked at my mother, was about to go up to her, but stopped, swinging a bow from the waist, crossed himself three times to the image, and followed the steward. Behind him, I, too, slipped out of the room. XXIV
THE butler conducted Harlov to the green room, and at once ran off for the wardroom maid, as it turned out there were no sheets on the bed. Souvenir, who met us in the passage, and popped into the green room with us, promptly proceeded to dance, grinning and chuckling, round Harlov, who stood, his arms held a little away from him, and his legs apart, in the middle of the room, seeming lost in thought. The water was still dripping from him.
'The Swede! The Swede, Harlus!' piped Souvenir, doubling up and holding his sides. 'Mighty founder of the illustrious race of Harlovs, look down on thy descendant! What does he look like? Dost thou recognise him? Ha, ha, ha! Your excellency, your hand, I beg; why, have you got on black gloves?'
I tried to restrain Souvenir, to put him to shame . . . but it was too late for that now.
'He called me parasite, toady! 'You've no roof,' said he, 'to call your own.' But now, no doubt about it, he's become as dependent as poor little me. Martin Petrovitch and Souvenir, the poor toady, are equal now. He'll have to live on charity too. They'll toss him the stale and dirty crust, that the dog has sniffed at and refused. . . . And they'll tell him to eat it, too. Ha, ha, ha!'
Harlov still stood motionless, his head drawn in, his legs and arms held a little apart.
'Martin Harlov, a nobleman born!' Souvenir went on shrieking. 'What airs he used to give himself. Just look at me! Don't come near, or I'll knock you down! . . . And when he was so clever as to give away and divide his property, didn't he crow! 'Gratitude! . . .' he cackled, 'gratitude!' But why were you so mean to me? Why didn't you make me a present? May be, I should have felt it more. And you see I was right when I said they'd strip you bare, and . . .'
'Souvenir!' I screamed; but Souvenir was in nowise daunted. Harlov still did not stir. It seemed as though he were only now beginning to be aware how soaking wet everything was that he had on, and was waiting to be helped off with his clothes. But the butler had not come back.
'And a military man too!' Souvenir began again. 'In the year twelve, he saved his country; he showed proofs of his valour. I see how it is. Stripping the frozen marauders of their breeches is work he's quite equal to, but when the hussies stamp their feet at him he's frightened out of his skin.'
'Souvenir!' I screamed a second time.
Harlov looked askance at Souvenir. Till that instant he seemed not to have noticed his presence, and only my exclamation aroused his attention.
'Look out, brother,' he growled huskily, 'don't dance yourself into trouble.'
Souvenir fairly rolled about with laughter. 'Ah, how you frighten me, most honoured brother. You're a formidable person, to be sure. You must comb your hair, at any rate, or, God forbid, it'll get dry, and you'll never wash it clean again; you'll have to mow it with a sickle.' Souvenir all of a sudden got into a fury. 'And you give yourself airs still. A poor outcast, and he gives himself airs. Where's your home now? you'd better tell me that, you were always boasting of it. 'I have a home of my own,' he used to say, but you're homeless. 'My ancestral roof,' he would say.' Souvenir pounced on this phrase as an inspiration.
'Mr. Bitchkov,' I protested. 'What are you about? you forget yourself.'
But he still persisted in chattering, and still danced and pranced up and down quite close to Harlov. And still the butler and the wardroom maid did not come.
I felt alarmed. I began to notice that Harlov, who had, during his conversation with my mother, gradually grown quieter, and even towards the end apparently resigned himself to his fate, was beginning to get worked up again. He breathed more hurriedly, it seemed as though his face were suddenly swollen under his ears, his fingers twitched, his eyes again began moving restlessly in the dark mask of his grim face. . . .
'Souvenir, Souvenir!' I cried. 'Stop it, I'll tell mamma.'
But Souvenir seemed possessed by frenzy. 'Yes, yes, most honoured brother,' he began again, 'here we find ourselves, you and I, in the most delicate position. While your daughters, with your son-in-law, Vladimir Vassilievitch, are having a fine laugh at you under your roof. And you should at least curse them, as you promised. Even that you're not equal to. To be sure, how could you hold your own with Vladimir Vassilievitch? Why, you used to call him Volodka, too. You call him Volodka.
A furious roar drowned Souvenir's words. . . . Harlov was aroused. His fists were clenched and lifted, his face was purple, there was foam on his drawn lips, he was shaking with rage. 'Roof, you say!' he thundered in his iron voice, 'curse, you say. . . . No! I will not curse them. . . . They don't care for that . . . But the roof . . . I will tear the roof off them, and they shall have no roof over their heads, like me. They shall learn to know Martin Harlov. My strength is not all gone yet; they shall learn to laugh at me! . . . They shall have no roof over their heads!'
I was stupefied; never in my life had I witnessed such boundless anger. Not a man--a wild beast--paced to and fro before me. I was stupefied . . . as for Souvenir, he had hidden under the table in his fright.
'They shall not!' Harlov shouted for the last time, and almost knocking over the butler and the wardroom maid, he rushed away out of the house. . . . He dashed headlong across the yard, and vanished through the gates. XXV
MY mother was terribly angry when the butler came with an abashed countenance to report Martin Petrovitch's sudden and unexpected retreat. He did not dare to conceal the cause of this retreat; I was obliged to confirm his story. 'Then it was all your doing!' my mother cried, at the sight of Souvenir, who had run in like a hare, and was even approaching to kiss her hand: 'Your vile tongue is to blame for it all!' 'Excuse me, d'rectly, d'rectly . . .' faltered Souvenir, stuttering and drawing back his elbows behind him. 'D'rectly, . . . d'rectly . . . I know your 'd'rectly,'' my mother repeated reprovingly, and she sent him out of the room. Then she rang the bell, sent for Kvitsinsky, and gave him orders to set off on the spot to Eskovo, with a carriage, to find Martin Petrovitch at all costs, and to bring him back. 'Do not let me see you without him,' she concluded. The gloomy Pole bowed his head without a word, and went away.
I went back to my own room, sat down again at the window, and I pondered a long while, I remember, on what had taken place before my eyes. I was puzzled; I could not understand how it was that Harlov, who had endured the insults of his own family almost without a murmur, had lost all self-control, and been unable to put up with the jeers and pin-pricks of such an abject creature as Souvenir. I did not understand in those days what insufferable bitterness there may sometimes be in a foolish taunt, even when it comes from lips one scorns. . . . The hated name of Sletkin, uttered by Souvenir, had been like a spark thrown into powder. The sore spot could not endure this final prick.
About an hour passed by. Our coach drove into the yard; but our steward sat in it alone. And my mother had said to him--'don't let me see you without him.' Kvitsinsky jumped hurriedly out of the carriage, and ran up the steps. His face had a perturbed look--something very unusual with him. I promptly rushed downstairs, and followed at his heels into the drawing-room. 'Well? have you brought him?' asked my mother.
'I have not brought him,' answered Kvitsinsky--'and I could not bring him.'
'How's that? Have you seen him?'
