This was quite enough to wake her curiosity and doubt. On the next day she kept thinking: “Kirsánof did not say a word about him. If he had made a good impression on him, Kirsánof would have told me so. Is it possible that he didn’t please him? What can there be that Kirsánof disliked in him?” When the “bridegroom” came in the evening, she scrutinized his behavior, she pondered over his words. She said to herself, “What is he doing this for,” in order to convince herself that Kirsánof had no right or reason in finding any blemish in him. And she did convince herself; but the necessity of proving to yourself that there are no blemishes in the being you love leads to the quick discovery of such blemishes.
After a few days Kirsánof called again, and again he said not a word about his impression of the “bridegroom”; but this time she could not restrain herself, and at the end of the evening, she said:—
“Your opinion? Why are you so silent?”
“I am afraid that you won’t enjoy hearing my opinion; I am afraid that you will think that I am partial.”
“Don’t you like him?”
Kirsánof did not reply.
“You don’t like him, do you?”
“I did not say so.”
“It is evident. Why don’t you like him?”
“I am going to wait till it is also evident to you why I don’t like him.”
On the following evening Katerina Vasílyevna began to scrutinize Sólovtsof still more particularly. “Everything about him is lovely. Kirsánof is not fair; but why can’t I see what there is in him that Kirsánof does not like?” She was vexed at her inability to observe. She asked herself, “Am I really so simple?” Her self-respect was aroused in her in a direction most dangerous for her bridegroom.
When Kirsánof came again a few days later, he perceived the possibility of acting more energetically. Till now he had avoided talk with Sólovtsof, in order to avoid stirring up Katerina Vasílyevna by a premature interference; now he joined the group surrounding her and Sólovtsof, and led the conversations to topics in which Sólovtsof’s character would be shown forth as soon as he was drawn into the current. The conversation turned on riches, and it appeared to Katerina Vasílyevna that Sólovtsof was greatly interested in riches. The conversation turned upon “bridegrooms,” and it seemed to her that Sólovtsof spoke rather slightingly about them. The conversation turned upon family life, and she tried in vain to banish from her mind the impression that possibly it might be cold and hard for a wife to live with such a husband.
A crisis occurred. Katerina Vasílyevna could not go to sleep for a long while; her face was bathed in tears from being vexed at herself for insulting Sólovtsof with such thoughts about him. “No, he is not a cold man; he does not despise women; he loves me and not my money.” If these objections had been given as an answer to the words of somebody else, they would have firmly clung to her memory. But she objected to her own self, and it is impossible long to resist the truth which you yourself have discovered. It is your own; you cannot suspect any trickery. The next evening she examined Sólovtsof just as Kirsánof had done the evening before. She said to herself that she only wanted to be convinced that she insulted him without reason; but she herself felt that a distrust of him had sprung up in her. And again she could not sleep, but she was vexed at him. Why didn’t he speak so as to allay her doubts instead of corroborating them? She was vexed at herself, but in her vexation clearly appeared the motive. “How could I be so blind!”
Naturally, in a day or two, she began to be exclusively absorbed by the fear arising from the thought, “I shall soon lose the possibility of correcting my mistake, if I have been mistaken in him.”
When Kirsánof came the next time, he saw that he could speak with her.
“You asked my opinion about him,” said he; “it is not so important as your own. What do you think of him?”
Now she had nothing to reply.
“I have no right to be inquisitive,” said he; talked about something else, and soon left her to herself.
But in half an hour she herself came to him.
“Give me some counsel; you see my thoughts are disturbed.”
“Why do you want the advice of a stranger when you yourself know what ought to be done when your thoughts are disturbed.”
“Wait till they cease to be disturbed at all?”
“Do according to your best knowledge.”
“I shall postpone the wedding.”
“Why shouldn’t you postpone it if it seems to you better?”
“But how will he take it?”
“When you see how he takes it, then you can decide what is best to be done.”
“But it is hard for me to tell him.”
“If that is the case, then let your bátiushka tell him.”
“I don’t want to get behind anybody’s back; I shall tell him myself.”
“If you feel strong enough to tell him yourself, then it would be much better.”
Of course, with others, Viéra Pavlovna for example, it would not have done to drag out the affair so tediously; but every temperament has its own demands. If a hot-tempered man is irritated by slow methods, then a slow man is vexed by an abrupt measure.
Katerina Vasílyevna’s success in dealing with her “bridegroom” exceeded Kirsánof’s expectations. He thought that Sólovtsof would be able to guard his interests, that he would prolong the matter by humiliation and gentle entreaties. No, with all his tact, Sólovtsof could not control himself when he saw that great wealth was slipping out of his hands, and he himself
