“The Japanese police, Mr. Ozz …” said Wilfred, “show themselves indeed marticrats—(marticrats? Yes, mautonets)—to travelers crossing the border, and at one point I really began to think, I really began to think that I really began to think—oh, well, Mr. Ozzabanko, you know all that without really beginning to think—I mean, without my telling you. But being a barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple, London, I could say to them. … And the Diamond Mountains—Kongo-san—though honeysuckled with soup—I mean soupstition—su‑per‑stit‑ion—Saggay Saggayitch said ‘Buddhanok on every up-look,’ twelve thousand peaks, you know, but not really more than—well—what would be a conservatory estimate?” He began to think very deeply.
Seryozha in the passage took out of his pack the little smelly package that contained the heart, gall, and liver of the fish he had caught at Pa-tao-kou. It was in a perfectly disgusting condition, yet to Seryozha the smell was a smell of fate and magic; everything that Wilfred had said about it seemed to fit the circumstances so well. Blindness. Woman’s coldness. Real magic indeed. The thing must have other powers besides its powerful smell. With his clasp-knife he cut a small piece from the heart and another small piece from the liver, and then, wrapping the rest in its paper, he replaced it in his pack. The two small flabby chunks he concealed in his hand and, striding into the kitchen, dropped them in the fire.
“What a curious smell!” said Varvara at once. Tatiana, pouring sauce into a bowl on the table, made no comment. She held her body too upright—almost bent a little backward; her head was high and she was looking down over her pale cheeks at the sauce as though she despised it. Really she was thinking of Seryozha’s skin. As he had stood for a second at the fireplace, she had noticed that the skin at the back of his neck was not pitted or pimpled like Sasha’s or Petya’s. This meant a great deal to her. His neck was as neat as the fur of a dog, or the charming behind of a well-kept horse, she thought.
The servant, Katya, seized the dish that bore the gosling in her brawny bare arms and carried it towards the sitting-room. Varvara followed with the vegetables.
Tatiana still stood at the table, but now, instead of looking down at the sauce, she looked sidelong at Seryozha, soberly tightening her lips.
“Why do you look like that, Tatiana Pavlovna?” asked Seryozha, holding the corner of the table, for he felt extremely dizzy.
Tatiana was silent for an unexpectedly long second, and then, “O Christ!” she exclaimed in a high sudden voice. “Can I not even look like myself without being asked questions—without surprising somebody, offending somebody, hurting somebody’s feelings, making somebody reproach me? Even if I do nothing—good or bad—only just be—my being’s not allowed.”
“Who doesn’t allow it?” asked Seryozha, swaying over the table toward her, feeling very uneasy.
“You—papa—mamma—Petya—Sasha. Why do you look like that, Tanya? Why do you do like that, Tanya? Why are you alive in that way, Tanya? Why aren’t you alive in this way, Tanya? What can I do less than just be born, breathe, and at last die? I’m not attacking, not pretending … I just am. I only ask to leave you all alone and be left alone.”
“Oh, not be left alone, surely!” exclaimed Seryozha, shocked to imagine such a small creature growing old alone.
“No, not to be left alone any more than a common sparrow is left alone because it is a sparrow,” said Tatiana, violently. “Just to be allowed to walk on the earth in my natural way, as a sparrow is allowed to fly in the air. No bird cuts its throat for the sake of another bird. No father bird nags at his egg for just lying quiet in the nest.”
They both smiled for a second or two at this.
“I could leave you alone,” said Seryozha. “God knows it’s a thing I ought to understand. I only want things to walk about and fly about by themselves. … I like my dog to go on laughing at his own jokes without me. … What am I saying? I’d never cut my throat for anybody, Tatiana Pavlovna.”
“Come, children, come,” called Varvara from the sitting-room.
But as Tatiana and Seryozha, carrying plates and sauce, joined their elders, Pavel said, “Here’s this snake of a daughter of mine … here’s this virtuous murderous heroine coming back with the head of a new murdered lover in her hands. Here’s this—”
“Pavlik! Pavlik! Think! Think!” said Varvara, in a low violent voice.
“Come, everybody,” she added, clapping her hands with a relapse into her unnatural shrill vivacity. “Gosling to eat—good gosling to eat. Come and eat gosling.”
“I won’t eat,” said Seryozha, suddenly seizing the end of the table and bending, with an insolent but tremulous grin, toward his host and hostess—“I won’t eat until you say I can marry Tanya. Please, Mr. Chew, help me. Oh, but, damn it, he can’t speak the language! Well, there it is. … Pavel Nicholaievitch, may I marry your daughter?”
“God bless you, why not?” shouted Pavel. “I’ve told you the truth once and I’ll tell it to you again. She’s been betrothed seven times and all seven men are dead—dead, aren’t they, Tanya? Or if not all, what do you care? She kills lovers for pleasure. She bites them when they kiss her. She slits their throats when they touch her. She cuts off their heads when—”
“Pavlik! Pavlik!” said Varvara. “Think! You are talking nonsense.”
“Well, you can’t say
