When Viérotchka had completed her sixteenth year she stopped taking piano lessons, and no longer went to school, but began to teach in the very same school: afterwards her mother got other teaching for her.
At the end of six months her mother ceased calling her gypsy and scarecrow, and dressed her even more elegantly than before, and Matrióna—this was the third Matrióna since the one whose eye had been black and blue, but she had oftentimes a scratched cheek, but not always—Matrióna told Viérotchka that her father’s natchalnik was going to pay her his addresses, and that still another natchalnik of great importance, with an order around his neck, had the same intention. And in fact the little tchinovniks of the department gossipped among themselves that the natchalnik of Pavel Konstantinuitch’s office was getting very affable to to the latter, and the office natchalnik began to confide to his cronies that he must have a beautiful wife even though she had no dowry, and he would add that Pavel Konstantinuitch was an excellent tchinovnik.
How this would have ended cannot be conjectured, but the natchalnik of the office deliberated a long time, and while he was taking his own time, another opportunity arose.
The khozyáïka’s son came to the manager to say that his mátushka wanted Pavel Konstantinuitch to get specimens of wallpapers, because she was going to re-paper the rooms in which she was living. Hitherto all such orders had been given through the janitor. Certainly such a case as this could be comprehended even by people who were not as shrewd as Marya Alekséyevna and her husband. The landlady’s son sat for more than half an hour and did them the honor of drinking tea with them. It was flower tea. Marya Alekséyevna on the very next day gave her daughter a necklace which had been taken as a pledge and had never been redeemed, and ordered for her daughter two new and very fine dresses; one of a material costing forty rubles, and the other fifty-two. With ruchings and ribbons, and everything in style, these two garments cost one hundred and seventy-four rubles, at least so Marya Alekséyevna said to her husband; but Viérotchka knew that the real cost was less than one hundred rubles, for the purchases were made in her presence, and for one hundred rubles two very fine dresses could be made. Viérotchka was delighted with the dresses, was delighted with the necklace, and was still more delighted because her mother at last consented to buy her shoes for her at Korolyef’s, because the shoes that one gets at the “Pushing Market” are shapeless, while those sold by Korolyef fit the feet so beautifully.
The dresses were not bought in vain; the khozyáïka’s son got into the habit of coming to the manager’s rooms, and naturally used to talk with the daughter more than with the manager or the manager’s wife, and naturally enough they gave him every opportunity. Nu! the mother gave her daughter plenty of advice which need not be repeated, as its tenor can be easily imagined.
One day after dinner the mother said: “Viérotchka, put on your dress, your best dress. I have got up a surprise for you: we are going to the opera. I have got tickets for the second tier, where all the generals’ wives go. This is all for your sake, little goose, [dúrotchka]! This is the last money that I am going to waste on you. Your father has spent so much on you that it has gone to his stomach! How much did it cost to send you to school and to give you piano lessons? You don’t appreciate it in the least, you ungrateful hussy; no, you haven’t any soul in you, you unfeeling minx!” That was all that Marya Alekséyevna said. She no longer scolded her daughter, and that could scarcely be called a scolding. Marya Alekséyevna now only spoke to Viérotchka, and had never really scolded her or beaten her since the rumor about the office natchalnik had been spread abroad.
They went to the opera. After the first act the khozyáïka’s son came into their box with two of his friends; one was a civilian, thin and rather elegant; the other was an army man, fat, and freer from affectation. They took seats and sat down, and they whispered among themselves for a time; the khozyáïka’s son and the civilian said a good deal, the officer said less. Marya Alekséyevna tried to listen, and, though she distinguished almost every word, she understood very little, because they spoke in French. She caught some half a dozen words in their conversation—belle, charmante, amour, bonheur. But what good was it to know so few words—belle, charmante? Marya Alekséyevna knew long ago that her gypsy was belle and charmante. Amour—Marya Alekséyevna could see that he was over head and ears in love; and when there is amour, of course there must be bonheur. What good did these words do? The main question is, will he offer himself before long?
“Viérotchka, you ungrateful thing!” whispers Marya Alekséyevna to her daughter; “why do you turn your head away from them? Do you feel offended because they came in? They do you honor, you fool [dura]!
