“Yes, my friend, yes … Fyodor Petrovitch … only goodbye.”
II
“You see, my friend … you’ll allow me to call myself your friend, n’est-ce pas?” Stepan Trofimovitch began hurriedly as soon as the trap started. “You see I … J’aime le peuple, c’est indispensable, mais il me semble que je ne m’avais jamais vu de près. Stasie … cela va sans dire qu’elle est aussi du peuple, mais le vrai peuple, that is, the real ones, who are on the high road, it seems to me they care for nothing, but where exactly I am going … But let bygones be bygones. I fancy I am talking at random, but I believe it’s from being flustered.”
“You don’t seem quite well.” Sofya Matveyevna watched him keenly though respectfully.
“No, no, I must only wrap myself up, besides there’s a fresh wind, very fresh in fact, but … let us forget that. That’s not what I really meant to say. Chère et incomparable amie, I feel that I am almost happy, and it’s your doing. Happiness is not good for me for it makes me rush to forgive all my enemies at once. …”
“Why, that’s a very good thing, sir.”
“Not always, chère innocente. L’Evangile … voyez-vous, désormais nous prêcherons ensemble and I will gladly sell your beautiful little books. Yes, I feel that that perhaps is an idea, quelque chose de très nouveau dans ce genre. The peasants are religious, c’est admis, but they don’t yet know the gospel. I will expound it to them. … By verbal explanation one might correct the mistakes in that remarkable book, which I am of course prepared to treat with the utmost respect. I will be of service even on the high road. I’ve always been of use, I always told them so et à cette chère ingrate. … Oh, we will forgive, we will forgive, first of all we will forgive all and always. … We will hope that we too shall be forgiven. Yes, for all, every one of us, have wronged one another, all are guilty!”
“That’s a very good saying, I think, sir.”
“Yes, yes. … I feel that I am speaking well. I shall speak to them very well, but what was the chief thing I meant to say? I keep losing the thread and forgetting. … Will you allow me to remain with you? I feel that the look in your eyes and … I am surprised in fact at your manners. You are simplehearted, you call me ‘sir,’ and turn your cup upside down on your saucer … and that horrid lump of sugar; but there’s something charming about you, and I see from your features. … Oh, don’t blush and don’t be afraid of me as a man. Chère et incomparable, pour moi une femme c’est tout. I can’t live without a woman, but only at her side, only at her side … I am awfully muddled, awfully. I can’t remember what I meant to say. Oh, blessed is he to whom God always sends a woman and … and I fancy, indeed, that I am in a sort of ecstasy. There’s a lofty idea in the open road too! That’s what I meant to say, that’s it—about the idea. Now I’ve remembered it, but I kept losing it before. And why have they taken us farther. It was nice there too, but here—cela devien trop froid. Apropos, j’ai en tout quarante roubles et voilà cet argent, take it, take it, I can’t take care of it, I shall lose it or it will be taken away from me. … I seem to be sleepy, I’ve a giddiness in my head. Yes, I am giddy, I am giddy, I am giddy. Oh, how kind you are, what’s that you are wrapping me up in?”
“You are certainly in a regular fever and I’ve covered you with my rug; only about the money, I’d rather.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, n’en parlons plus parce que cela me fait mal. Oh, how kind you are!”
He ceased speaking, and with strange suddenness dropped into a feverish shivery sleep. The road by which they drove the twelve miles was not a smooth one, and their carriage jolted cruelly. Stepan Trofimovitch woke up frequently, quickly raised his head from the little pillow which Sofya Matveyevna had slipped under it, clutched her by the hand and asked “Are you here?” as though he were afraid she had left him. He told her, too, that he had dreamed of gaping jaws full of teeth, and that he had very much disliked it. Sofya Matveyevna was in great anxiety about him.
They were driven straight up to a large cottage with a frontage of four windows and other rooms in the yard. Stepan Trofimovitch waked up, hurriedly went in and walked straight into the second room, which was the largest and best in the house. An expression of fussiness came into his sleepy face. He spoke at once to the landlady, a tall, thickset woman of forty with very dark hair and a slight moustache, and explained that he required the whole room for himself, and that the door was to be shut and no one else was to be admitted, “parce que nous avons à parler. Oui, j’ai beaucoup à vous dire, chère amie. I’ll pay you, I’ll pay you,” he said with a wave of dismissal to the landlady.
Though he was in a hurry, he seemed to articulate with difficulty. The landlady listened grimly, and was silent in token of consent, but there was a feeling of something menacing about her silence. He did not notice this, and hurriedly (he was in a terrible hurry) insisted on her going away and bringing them their dinner as quickly as possible, without a moment’s delay.
At that point the moustached woman could contain herself no longer.
“This is not an inn, sir; we don’t provide dinners for travellers. We can boil you some crayfish or set the samovar,
