“Viérotchka, this is Aleksandr Matvéitch Kirsánof, whom you do not like, and whom you have forbidden me to meet.”
“Viéra Pavlovna, what is the reason that you want to separate our tender hearts?”
“For the very reason that they are tender,” said Viérotchka, giving Kirsánof her hand and still smiling; then she fell into thought. “But shall I be able to love him as well as you do? You love him very dearly, don’t you?”
“I? I love no one but myself, Viéra Pavlovna!”
“And you don’t love him?”
“We have lived together, and we have never quarrelled; isn’t that enough?”
“And hasn’t he loved you either?”
“I never observed anything of the sort. However, let us ask him.—Have you ever loved me, Dmitri?”
“I never particularly despised you!”
“Well, if that is the case, Aleksandr Matvéitch, I shall not forbid your meeting, and I myself will love you!”
“Now that is much better, Viéra Pavlovna.”
“And now, I, too, am ready,” said Alekséi Petróvitch, coming in. “Let us go into the church.” Alekséi Petróvitch was gay and full of jests; but when the ceremony began, his voice trembled, “Suppose it should result in a lawsuit? Natasha, you must go back to your father; your husband does not support you, and it is a wretched life to have a husband alive, and to live on your father’s bread!” However, after several words, he again regained complete control of himself.
When the service was half over, Natalia Andréyevna, or Natasha, as Alekséi Petróvitch called his wife, invited the young people to come to her house after the ceremony; she had prepared a little breakfast. They came in, they laughed, they even danced two quadrilles with two couples: they also waltzed. Alekséi Petróvitch, who could not dance, played the violin for them; an hour and a half flew by quickly and unnoticed. It was a gay wedding.
“I think that they must be waiting dinner for me at home,” said Viérotchka, “it is about time.—Now, my mílenki, I shall be able to live three or four days in my cellar without being melancholy, and possibly even more. Why should I worry now? There is nothing for me to fear now. No, don’t go home with me; I am going all alone by myself, so as not to be seen by anybody.”
“It’s all right; they will not eat me up; don’t worry, gentlemen,” said Alekséi Petróvitch, as he escorted Lopukhóf and Kirsánof to the door, who had remained for a few minutes, so as to give Viérotchka a chance to get out of sight. “I am very glad now that Natasha encouraged me!”
On the following day, after a four days’ hunt, a good house was found, at the farther end of the fifth block on the Vasilyevsky Island. Having all in all one hundred and sixty rubles in reserve, Lopukhóf concluded, with his friend, that it would be impossible for him and Viérotchka to think as yet of attempting to keep house, or to have their own furniture and dishes; and therefore they rented three rooms, together with furniture, dishes, and board, from an old man, who quietly spent his days, with a little stock of buttons, ribbons, pins, and other things, at the fence on the Middle Prospekt, between the first and second blocks; while his evenings were passed in quiet conversation with his old woman, who, for her part, spent her days in mending hundreds and thousands of old things of every sort, brought to her in bundles from the Pushing Market. The servants also belonged to the landlord; in other words, they were the landlord and landlady themselves.
All this cost them thirty rubles a month. At that period—ten years ago (1853)—the times were not so hard in Petersburg, judged by the Petersburg standard. With such an arrangement, their means would last for three or even four months. Ten rubles a month is enough for tea, isn’t it? and in four months Lopukhóf hoped to find pupils, some kind of literary work, or even some kind of occupation in a mercantile office—he did not care what. On the very day when the house was found (and, indeed, the house was a very good one; they looked out for that, and therefore they found what they wanted), Lopukhóf, while he was giving his lesson on Thursday, as usual, said to Viérotchka:—
“Tomorrow you can come to me, my dear; here is the address. I shall not say anything more now, lest they may notice something.”
“My mílenki, you have saved me!”
Now, how to leave the house. Shall they confess what they have done? Viérotchka thought seriously about doing so; but her mother might lay violent hands on her, and might even lock her up. Viérotchka concluded to leave a letter in her room. When Marya Alekséyevna heard that her daughter was going to the Nevsky Prospekt, and said that she was going too, Viérotchka went back to her room, and took the letter; it seemed to her that it was better, more honorable, if she herself told her mother to her face; for on the street her mother would not attempt to beat her, and it would only be necessary to stand at a distance from her while speaking, to take an izvoshchik as soon as possible, and then drive off before she had time to catch her by the sleeve.
In such a manner the effective scene came about at Ruzanof’s store.
XXII
But we have had only one-half of this scene.
For about a moment—no, rather less—Marya Alekséyevna, who had suspected nothing of the kind, stood thunderstruck, endeavoring to understand, and absolutely failing to understand, what her daughter had said, what it meant, and how it came about; but it was only for a moment, or even less. She came to herself with a start. She uttered some objurgation or other; but her daughter was already far down the Nevsky.
