And still she keeps on running and frolicking. And here comes a young girl across the field. How strange! her face and her gait, everything about her, keeps changing, changing constantly. Now she is English, French, now she is already German, Polish, and now she has become Russian, again English, again German, again Russian; and how is it that she has only the one face? An English girl does not look like a French girl, a German girl does not look like a Russian; but her face keeps changing, and yet it is the very same face. What a strange person! And the expression of her face is constantly changing: how gentle she is, how angry; now she is melancholy, now she is gay. She is always changing, and she is always kind; how is that? even when she is angry is she always kind? But only see what a beauty she is! no matter how her face changes, with every change she grows more and more beautiful. She approaches Viérotchka.
“Who are you?”
“He used to call me Viéra Pavlovna; but now he always calls me ‘My dear [Moï drūg].’ ”
“Ah! so this is you! that Viérotchka who fell in love with me?”
“Yes; I love you very much; but who are you?”
“I am your bridegroom’s bride!”
“What bridegroom?”
“I do not know. I do not know my own bridegrooms. They know me; but it is impossible for me to know them, I have so many! You must choose one of them as a bridegroom for yourself—only from among them, from among my bridegrooms.”
“I have already chosen.”
“I do not need to know his name, and I do not know them. But only choose from among them, from my bridegrooms. I want my sisters and my bridegrooms to select from amongst each other. Have you been locked up in a cellar? Have you been paralyzed?”
“I have.”
“Are you free now?”
“I am.”
“It is I who set you free; it is I who cured you. Remember, that there are a good many not yet freed; many not yet cured. Free them; cure them; will you?”
“I will! But what is your name? I am so anxious to know!”
“I have many names; I have various names. According as it is necessary for anyone to call me, an appropriate name I give! You may call me Philanthropy [literally, love for humanity]. This is my real name; not many call me so. But you must call me so.”
And Viérotchka seems to be going about in the city; here is a cellar, in the cellar young girls are locked up. Viérotchka touches the lock, the lock is unfastened. “You are free!” Out they go! Here is a room, in the room young girls are lying stricken with paralysis. “Arise!” They get up, they go out, and here they all are in the field, running and frolicking. Akh! how gay! when there are many together, it is far more lively than to be in solitude! Akh! how gay!
XIII
Lopukhóf during these last weeks has had no time to spend with his acquaintances of the medical school. Kirsánof, who has kept up his intercourse with them, has replied, when asked about Lopukhóf, that he has had among other things, some business to attend to; and one of their common friends, as we know, gave him the address of a lady, the lady to whose house Lopukhóf is now going.
“How excellently the matter will be arranged, if all turns out satisfactorily,” thought Lopukhóf on his way to the lady’s house. “In two years, or certainly in two years and a half, I shall get a professorship. Then we shall have something to live on. And meantime, she will be staying quietly at the B.s’, provided only Mrs. B. prove to be the right sort of woman, and there can hardly be a doubt of that.”
In fact, Lopukhóf found in Mrs. B. a clever, kindhearted woman, without pretence, though from her husband’s position, and from their wealth and connections, she had a right to put on great style. The conditions were favorable, the family circumstances very propitious for Viérotchka. Everything proved to be entirely satisfactory, just as Lopukhóf expected. Mrs. B. also found Lopukhóf’s replies in regard to Viérotchka’s character perfectly satisfactory. The affair was rapidly drawing near a settlement, and after they had talked half an hour, Mrs. B. said, “If your young aunt should consent to my terms, I will ask her to remove to my house, and the sooner, the better for me.”
“She consents; she has authorized me to consent for her. But now that we have settled the matter, I must tell you what would have been wrong for me to tell you before: the young girl is no relation of mine. She is the daughter of a tchinovnik at whose house I give lessons. There is no one besides me to whom she can confide her troubles. But I am an absolute stranger to her.”
“I knew it, Monsieur Lopukhóf. You yourself, Professor N.” (naming the acquaintance through whom her address had been obtained), “and your chum, who spoke to him about this matter of yours, know each other to be so honorable that you can speak among yourselves about the friendship one of you has for a young girl, and not compromise the young girl in the eyes of the others. And Professor N., having the same good opinion of me, and knowing that I was looking for a governess, felt that he was in the right to tell me that the young girl was no relation of yours. Don’t blame him for indiscretion; he knows me very well.
