Kirsánof granted his request; it was pleasant acquaintance; they talked about a good many subjects, among others about the shop. He explained that the shop was opened exclusively for mercantile purposes. They talked about the sign of the shop, whether it was a good thing to put upon the sign the word travail. Kirsánof said that travail meant work, and Au Bon Travail meant a shop that did good work. They discussed the question whether it would not be better to put a proper name on instead of such a device. Kirsánof said that his wife’s Russian name would cause a mercantile failure. Finally he devised the following expedient: His wife’s name was Viéra; in French Viéra means foi. If on the sign could be put the words A la Bonne Foi, instead of Au Bon Travail, would not that be sufficient? There would be nothing suspicious about “a shop of good faith,” and the khozyáïka’s name would still be on the sign. After arguing the matter over, they decided that it could be done. Kirsánof, with special eagerness, turned the conversation to questions like this, and he generally succeeded in obtaining his purpose. So that, when he returned home, he was very well content with himself.
But, at all events, Mertsálova and Viéra Pavlovna considerably clipped the wings of their imaginations, and they began to work hard to go ahead with their present enterprise.
Thus, after their superfluous enthusiasm about opening a good many shops had cooled down, the sewing union and the sale-shop still lived, not developing with too great rapidity, but rejoicing in the very fact of existence. Kirsánof’s new acquaintance continued to afford him much pleasure. Thus passed two years or more, without any events of special importance.
XVII
A Letter from Ekaterina Vasílyevna Pólozova
St. Petersburg, Aug. 29, 1860.
My Dear Paulina—
I have been so delighted with an absolute novelty which I have lately discovered, and to which I am now devoting all my energies, that I want to describe it to you. I am sure that you too will become interested in it. But the main thing is, you yourself may find it possible to undertake something of the same sort. It is so delightful, my dear.
The thing which I am going to describe to you is a sewing shop, or rather two shops, both arranged on one plan by a woman with whom I became acquainted only two weeks ago, and who is already a real friend. I am now helping her, on condition that she should help me by and by to arrange a similar shop. This Madame Viéra Pavlovna Kirsánova is still young, gay, kind, and—entirely to my taste; that is, she is more like you, Paulina, than your Kátya, who is such a queer soul—is an openhearted, lively lady. After I heard accidentally about her sewing shop, I was told only about one of them. I went directly to her without any introduction or subterfuges, and simply said that I had become interested in her shop. We were drawn to each other from the very first; all the more, because Kirsánof, her husband, I found the very same Doctor Kirsánof who, five years ago, did me, you remember, such magnificent service.
After we talked half an hour, and she saw that I really sympathized with such things, Viéra Pavlovna took me over her shop, the one in which she has an active part (the first one which she established was taken in charge by one of her acquaintances, a very nice young married lady), and I am going to tell you the impressions of my first visit. They were so new and striking, that I took them down at that time in my diary, though I had long before ceased to keep it, but which I have begun again for a special reason, which maybe I will tell you about at some other time. I am very, very glad that I put these impressions on paper, for by this time I should have forgotten a good many impressions which surprised me then; and today, only two weeks after, it seems to me the most ordinary thing in the world—indeed, as though it could not be otherwise. But the more commonplace this thing becomes to me, the more I get attached to it, because it is a very good thing. And so, Paulina, I shall begin the quotation from my diary, adding such particulars as I have since learned.
A sewing shop—what do you think that I saw there? We stopped at the main entrance. Viéra Pavlovna led me up a very nice flight of stairs, such stairs as you often find decorated with Switzers. We went in on the third floor; Viéra Pavlovna rang the bell, and I found myself in a great parlor with a grand piano and handsome furniture—in a word, the parlor seemed like that of a private family spending for their living four or five thousand rubles a year. Is that the shop? Is this one of the rooms occupied by the seamstresses? “Yes. This is the reception room and parlor for evening gatherings; let us go to those rooms where the seamstresses live. They are now in the working rooms, and we shall disturb no one.” Here is what I saw as I went from room to room, and Viéra Pavlovna explained to me.
The whole establishment of the shop is composed of three apartments, which open upon one landing and which was made into one
