She took twenty minutes dressing herself and frizzing her hair, and as—self-conscious, hopeful, and flushed—she came to the open door of the living-room, she stood for a moment outside and heard her husband saying to Seryozha in Russian: “Tell him politely that we are poor and could not possibly afford two yen a day above his keep. But tell him that he shall share and share alike with you—he shall be treated, in fact, like my own son, in addition to a little salary of twenty-five sen a day—”
Anna tightened her lips and came in. She was flattered and astonished to see the brightening of Mr. Chew’s smooth, mobile face as he saw her.
“Ah, Mrs. Malinin, I presume,” he said. “It has seemed long waiting for you, but ladies must be waited for—I remember this in London. I am so interested to hear that you also know London. I have been for four years a law student in London—Middle Temple … you of course know Middle Temple—and I was called to the bar there eight months ago.”
“Ah yes, the bar of London,” said Anna, eagerly. “I am very ignorant of most London matters, but I know of course there are many bars.”
Mr. Chew accepted this innocent remark as a joke so readily that it might almost have been guessed that he had made it himself more than once. When he smiled, Anna noticed his solitary gold tooth and thought that it looked like the royal box glittering in the middle of the row of ordinary boxes at the opera. So she said: “And the opera of London—oh, how happily I remember it! I have been to the opera four times with a lady called Honorable Mrs. Atkinson—there has been Siegfried—The Valkyrie—Magic Flute and La Bohême.”
“I also knew a family called Atkinson,” said Wilfred Chew. “Edward F. Atkinson, but I don’t like him much—such a conceited chap—I worked in the chambers on the same stairs for four months and he scarcely spoke … simply because he was the son of a solor—naturally anybody could get briefs in such circumstances—”
“To me,” said Anna, after a partially smothered hiccup which showed how deeply excited she was, “the scenery of the opera is very, very happy, Mr. Chew—in such scenery one has never been so unfortunate as to see all—do you understand?—there is always a round the corner or an over the hill which one has not seen. How very, very happy it is to me, to know that there has been a round the corner—that I have not seen—even if it is only made with woods and paints. England, to me, Mr. Chew, is a big, big round the corner. … More happy than possible happiness—yes, no?”
“Now there,” said Mr. Chew, “I should scarcely agree with you entirely, though of course I have had many happy hours in London. But to a young man carving out a career the work was often hard, Mrs. Malinin, and English people—with the exception of a gentleman like Reverend Mr. Oswald Fawcett—are nearly always snobs—”
Anna, her burning eyes fixed upon his tooth, said: “Yes, yes, Mr. Chew. And the pillars of this opera-house—do you remember?—all gold and twisted—so” (for a moment she seemed to think that she could twist her fat upraised forefinger into an imitation of barley sugar)—“like … like … pillars of that thing—how do you call it?—horses-merrily-go-galloping-round on the Hampstead Heath. These go-rounds are very, very good things, I think, but Betti was being sick afterward in the hot tent.”
Old Sergei and Seryozha sat back in their chairs, their hands folded across their diaphragms, proud of their wife and mother, listening hopefully to this loud and genial conversation, though they did not understand very much of it. During a short check, Old Sergei said in Russian, “My love, do you not think that Mr. Chew would be just the man to—”
“Kensington Gardens, too, is good,” said Anna, bounding in her chair. “Each day, at , Betti and I have walked through the Kensington Gardens as far as Queen Cleopatra’s Needle—”
Wilfred Chew started as if stung. “There is some mistake, surely, Mrs. Malinin. Cleopatra’s Needle is not in the Kensington Gardens.”
“Yes. But yes. A little spike in the middle of the Kensington Gardens.”
“This is the Albert Memorial.”
“Tcht, Mr. Chew! King Albert’s Memorial is very well known by me. I make no mistake. A very, very big spike—King Albert in middle—bull—elephant—lady at corners. It is all known by me.”
“Nevertheless, Cleopatra’s Needle is, beyond question, on the Embankment of the river Thames, Mrs. Malinin.”
“Tcht, tcht!”
“Anna my dear,” said Old Sergei. “It has just occurred to me that we might induce Mr. Chew—”
“But I know the Kensington Gardens very, very good, Mr. Chew. Each morning have I walked to that little spike, builded in a pink stone, very shining—”
“Ladies always know best, Mrs. Malinin,” said Mr. Chew, archly. “But in this case—”
“Ah tschah! But I have seen—”
“Well, well … you ladies must have your own way. Reverend Mr. Fawcett used to say, ‘Always allow a lady the courtesy of the last word, Wilfred.’ So let us say Cleopatra’s Needle had wings and flew every morning at to the Kensington Gardens to make her bow to you, Mrs. Malinin.”
Anna, only half understanding, rocked backward and forward in restored satisfaction, patting her fat knees with every forward swing. But as she did so she became secretly more and more doubtful of the accuracy of her memory of Cleopatra’s Needle. Her pleased face clouded slowly as the doubt crystallized, her rocking was gradually braked and stilled by inward questionings. There was silence in the room.
“Annitchka my dove,” said Old Sergei, rapidly, in Russian. “Mr. Chew has just come from acting as guide to a young English nobleman, and it has occurred to me that we might persuade him to look after our Seryozha on this trip down to Seoul—”
Anna sighed.
“I know you are not very anxious that he
