XXVII
When Viéra Pavlovna came out from her room the next morning, her husband and Masha were already packing two valises with things. And all the time Masha was hard at work; Lopukhóf gave her so many things to wrap up, and fold, and stow away, that Masha really could not attend to it all. “Viérotchka, you, too, come and help us.” And all three of them were drinking tea, as they were taking down and stowing away things. Viéra Pavlovna had hardly time to collect her wits, when her husband said, “It is half-past eleven; it is time to go to the station.”
“My dear,58 I am going with thee.”
“My love,59 Viérotchka, I am going to take two valises; there will be no room for you; you can go with Masha.”
“I did not mean that; I mean to Riazan.”
“Ah! if that’s so, then Masha may bring along the valises, and we will go together.”
On the street you cannot well get sentimental in your talk. And besides, there is such a rattling over the pavement. Lopukhóf could not hear all that she said; he made a good many replies that could not be heard, or he would not reply at all.
“I am going with thee to Riazan,” repeated Viéra Pavlovna.
“But you have not got your things ready; how can you go? You can get ready if you want to; do just as seems best to you. But I would ask you one thing: wait till you get a letter from me. You will get it tomorrow; I shall write and mail it somewhere on my journey. Tomorrow you will get it; wait, I beg of you.”
How she throws her arms around him at the gallery of the railway station! With what tears she kisses him, while seeing him into the car! And he speaks all the time about his business in the factory; how fine it is, and how glad his old folks will be to see him, and how everything in the world is dross compared with health, and how important it is for her to look out for her health; and just as he bids her goodbye, he says, speaking through the balustrade: “You wrote that you had never been so fond of me as you are now; this is true, my dear Viérotchka. And I am not less fond of you than you are of me. And the disposition towards a person—the wishing his happiness—this we both firmly believe in. But there is no happiness without freedom. You would not want to restrain me, nor I you. And if you began to use restraint on yourself on my account, you would grieve me; so don’t do it. Do whatever you think is for your best. But we will see about it by and by. Write me, when you want me to come back. Goodbye, my dear;60 the second bell has rung; it’s time for the train to start. Goodbye.”
XXVIII
This was towards the end of April. Towards the middle of June Lopukhóf returned; lived three weeks in Petersburg, then he left for Moscow, on business for the factory, as he said. On the twenty-first of July he left; and on the twenty-third of July, in the morning, happened the misunderstanding in the hotel at the station of the Moscow railroad, on account of the stranger not getting up; and two hours later came the scene in the Kamennoï Ostrof dacha. Now the sapient reader will not fail to have guessed who shot himself. “I saw long ago that it was Lopukhóf,” says the sapient reader, in triumph at his perspicacity. Where could he have hid himself, and how did his cap have a bullet-hole through the top? “There is no need of asking; it is only a trick of his, but he caught himself in a net, the rascal,” says the sapient reader. Nu! God be with thee; decide it just as thou pleasest; there’s no reasoning with thee.
XXIX
An Extraordinary Man
Three hours after Kirsánof left, Viéra Pavlovna came to her senses, and almost her very first thought was, that it was impossible to leave the shop in such a way. Yes; though Viéra Pavlovna loved to assure herself that the shop was getting along by itself, yet in reality she knew that she is only flattering herself with this thought, and, as a matter of fact, the shop needed a director, else it would go astray. However, the business was now very well established, and it took but very little trouble to direct it. Mrs. Mertsálova had two children; but she might spare an hour, or an hour and a half, every day, or not even every day. She surely would not refuse, for already she has a great deal to do with the shop. Viéra Pavlovna began to look over her things, preparatory to the sale of them, and she herself sent Masha first to Mrs. Mertsálova, to ask her to come, and then to the old woman61 who deals in secondhand clothes and other things of every sort, Rachel, one of the most businesslike of Jewesses, and a very good friend of Viéra Pavlovna’s, towards whom Rachel had proved herself absolutely honest, as almost all the small retail dealers among the Hebrews are, whether men or women, when they have to do with respectable people. Rachel and Masha had to stop at their city apartment to collect the remainder of the clothes and things, and on their way to stop at the furrier’s, where Viéra Pavlovna’s shubas were stored away for the summer, and then to come back to their summer dacha with the whole collection, so that Rachel might put a valuation on the things, and buy
