As they spoke in Latin the words meaning “which was to be proven,” Viéra Pavlovna did not catch the words.
“And you, Alekséi Petróvitch, have a desire to amuse yourself with hog-Latin and syllogisms,” says her mílenki; that is, her husband.
Viéra Pavlovna here seemed to join them and say, “Now do stop talking about your analyses, identities, and anthropologisms. Please talk about something, gentlemen, so that I may take part in your conversation; or rather, let us play.”
“Yes, let us play,” said Alekséi Petróvitch. “Let us play ‘Confession.’ ”
“Come on! come on! It’ll be very gay,” says Viéra Pavlovna. “You suggested the game; now you must show us how to do it.”
“With pleasure, my sister,” says Alekséi Petróvitch. “But how old are you, my dear sister? eighteen?”
“I shall soon be nineteen.”
“But you are not yet; therefore, let us suppose that you are eighteen, and we will all confess what we did till we were eighteen, because we must have an equality of conditions. I will confess for myself and my wife. My father was a diakŏn in a governmental town, and then he took up the business of bookbinding; and my mother took seminarists to board. From morning till night my father and mother were always worrying and talking about how to live. Father used to drink, but only at times when intolerable want stared him in the face—that was real grief; or, when his income was pretty good, he used to give my mother all he had, and say, ‘Well, mátushka, now thank God, you will not suffer want for two months to come; but I have left half a ruble in my pocket, and I shall take a drink for very joy’—that was a real joy. My mother used to get vexed very often. Sometimes she used to beat me, but only when she had a pain in the small of the back, as she herself used to say, from lifting the boiler and kettles, from washing all the clothes of five of us besides five seminarists, and from washing the floors dirtied by our twenty feet which did not wear galoshes, and from taking care of the cow. It is a real strain upon the nerves to bear too much labor without rest. And for all that, the ends did not used to meet, as she expressed it; that is, she was short of money for getting boots for some one of us brothers, or shoes for the sisters. Then she used to beat us. She used to pet us too, when we, stupid little children that we were, expressed a desire to help her in her work, or whenever we did anything clever, or whenever she took a very rare moment of rest, and her back did not ache, as she used to say—all that was a real joy—”
“Akh! don’t tell us anything more about your real sorrows and joys,” says Viéra Pavlovna.
“If that is the case, perhaps you would like to hear Natasha’s confession?”
“I do not want to hear it. She, too, had the same kind of real sorrows and joys, I am sure of it.”
“That’s absolutely true.”
“But, maybe, you will be interested in hearing my confession,” says Serge, who suddenly appeared to be with them.
“We will see,” says Viéra Pavlovna.
“My father and mother, though they were rich, yet they always worried and talked about money. Rich people, too, are not free from such kinds of worriment—”
“You don’t know how to play ‘Confession,’ Serge,” said Alekséi Petróvitch, politely. “Please tell me why they worried about money matters? What expenses worried them? What necessities put them into embarrassment?”
“Yes, I understand why you ask that,” said Serge; “but let us drop this subject. Let us turn to the other view of their thoughts. They, too, took care of their children.”
“But they always had enough to give their children, didn’t they?” asked Alekséi Petróvitch.
“Of course; but they had to look out that—”
“Don’t play ‘Confession,’ Serge,” said Alekséi Petróvitch. “We know your whole story; care about superfluities, thoughts about things not necessary, have been the soil in which you grew up; that is, a fantastic soil. Just look at yourself! You are naturally not at all a stupid man, but a very good man; maybe not worse and not more stupid than we are; but what are you good for? what is the use of your living?”
“I am good for escorting Julie everywhere that she wants me to go. I help Julie to spend all the money she wants to spend,” replies Serge.
“From this we see,” says Alekséi Petróvitch, “that a fantastic and unhealthy soil—”
“Akh! how tired I am of your realism and fantasticism! I don’t know what they mean by such terms, and still they keep on using them,” says Viéra Pavlovna.
“Wouldn’t you like to talk with me?” asks Marya Alekséyevna, who also appeared suddenly. “You gentlemen get away from here, for I want to talk with my daughter.”
All disappear. Viérotchka finds herself alone with Marya Alekséyevna. Marya Alekséyevna’s face assumes a laughing expression.
“Viéra Pavlovna, you are an educated woman; you are so virtuous and high-toned,” says Marya Alekséyevna, and her voice trembles with anger; “you are so kind; how can I then, who am rough and a drunkard, talk
