“To crush like this, and to throw away—there’s your Varvara for you; there’s a big difference between her and my sisters, let me tell you, my good fellow. They are fine, lively girls—take the one you like—but you needn’t be afraid of getting bored with any of them. They’re quite young too—the eldest is three times younger than your Varvara.”
Routilov said all this in his usual brisk and happy manner, smiling—but he was tall and narrow-chested, and seemed consumptive and frail, while from under his new and fashionable hat his scant, close-trimmed bright hair stuck out pitifully.
“No less than three times!” observed Peredonov dryly, as he took off his spectacles and began to wipe them.
“It’s true enough!” exclaimed Routilov. “But you’d better look out, and don’t be slow about it, while I’m alive; they too have a good opinion of themselves—if you try later you may be too late. Any one of them would have you with great pleasure.”
“Yes, everyone falls in love with me here,” said Peredonov with a grave boastfulness.
“There, you see, it’s for you to take advantage of the moment,” said Routilov persuasively.
“The chief thing is that she mustn’t be lean,” said Peredonov with anxiety in his voice. “I prefer a fat one.”
“Don’t you worry on that account,” said Routilov warmly. “Even now they are plump enough girls, but they have far from reached their full growth; all this will come in good time. As soon as they marry, they’ll improve, like the oldest—well, you’ve seen our Larissa, a regular fishpie!”
“I’d marry,” said Peredonov, “but I’m afraid that Vara will make a row.”
“If you’re afraid of a row—I’ll tell you what you ought to do,” said Routilov with a sly smile. “You ought to make quick work of it; marry, say, today or tomorrow, and suddenly show up at home with your young wife. Say the word, and I’ll arrange it for tomorrow evening? Which one do you want?”
Peredonov suddenly burst into loud, cackling laughter.
“Well, I see you like the idea—it’s all settled then?” asked Routilov.
Peredonov stopped laughing quite as suddenly, and said gravely, quietly, almost in a whisper:
“She’ll inform against me—that miserable jade!”
“She’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Routilov persuasively.
“Or she’ll poison me,” whispered Peredonov in fear.
“You leave it all to me,” Routilov prevailed upon him, “I’ll see that you are well protected—”
“I shan’t marry without a dot,” said Peredonov sullenly.
Routilov was not astonished by the new turn in the thoughts of his surly companion. He replied with the same warmth:
“You’re an odd fellow. Of course, my sisters have a dot. Are you satisfied? I’ll run along now and arrange everything. Only keep your mouth shut, not a breath, do you hear, not to anyone!”
He shook Peredonov’s hand, and made off in great haste. Peredonov looked silently after him. A picture rose up in his mind of the Routilov girls, always cheerful and laughing. An immodest thought squeezed a degrading likeness of a smile to his lips—it appeared for an instant and vanished. A confused restlessness stirred within him.
“What about the Princess?” he reflected. “The others have the cash without her power; but if I marry Varvara I’ll fall into an inspector’s job, and later perhaps they’ll make me a Headmaster.”
He looked after the bustling, scampering Routilov and thought maliciously:
“Let him run!”
And this thought gave him a lingering, vague pleasure. Then he began to feel sad because he was alone; he pulled his hat down over his forehead, knitted his bright eyebrows, and quickly turned towards his home across the unpaved, deserted streets, overgrown with pearl grass and white flowers, and watercress and grass that had been stamped down into the mud.
Someone called to him in a quick, quiet voice:
“Ardalyon Borisitch, come in to us.”
Peredonov raised his gloomy eyes, and looked angrily beyond the hedge. In the garden behind the gate stood Natalya Afanasyevna Vershina, a small, slender, dark-skinned woman, black-browed and black-eyed, and all in black. She was smoking a cigarette, in a dark, cherry-wood mouthpiece, and smiling lightly, as though she knew something that was not to be said, but to be smiled at. Not so much by words, as by her light, quick movements, she asked Peredonov into her garden; she opened the gate and stood aside, smiled invitingly, and at the same time motioned persuasively with her hands, as if to say: “Enter, why do you stand there?”
And Peredonov entered, submitting to her witching, silent movements. But he soon paused on the sand path where a few broken twigs caught his eye, and he looked at his watch.
“It’s time for lunch,” he grumbled.
Though his watch had served him a long time, yet even now, in the presence of people, he would glance with satisfaction at its large gold case. It was twenty minutes to twelve. Peredonov decided that he would remain for a short time. He walked morosely after Vershina along the garden-path, past the neglected clumps of raspberry canes and currants with their red and black clusters.
The garden was growing yellow and variegated with fruits and late flowers. There were many fruit and other trees and bushes; low-spreading apple trees, round-leafed pear trees, lindens, cherry trees with smooth, glossy leaves, plum trees and honeysuckle. The elderberry trees were red with berries. Close to the fence was a dense growth of Siberian geraniums—small pale-rose flowers with purple veins. Thorny purple buds stood out with intense vividness among the bushes. A small, one-storey, grey, wooden house stood near by, and a path at its door opened out wide into the garden. It seemed charming and cosy. A part of the vegetable garden was visible behind it. The dry poppy heads rocked there, as well as the large, white-yellow caps of camomile. The yellow heads of sunflowers were beginning to droop with ripeness, while among the useful herbs, some hemlock lifted its white,
