He fixed his round eyes on Seryozha all the time, as if, in spite of the complacent set of his mouth and carriage of his head, he was expecting Seryozha to say: “O Lord! Pavel Nicholaievitch, you are a liar!” But of course Seryozha said nothing of the sort. He sat in a dream, half listening to his host, half remembering the lost face of Tatiana. He rubbed the bridge of his broad shiny nose wisely. Of course he knew that parents never know anything about their children.
“Saggay Saggayitch,” said Wilfred, “you say nothing. As a friend you will ’llow me to suggest, would it not be better to show a little more vivivacity with this kind gentleman, Mr. Ozz. You don’t talk enough, my dear chap, you don’t make the bezz of yourself. Your future may hang on making bezz of self.”
“When I say unhuman,” went on Pavel, “I don’t mean anything against the child’s temper. She has the sweetest temper, the tenderest heart. … She gets her sweetness of nature from my side, of course. She’s a dear girl and perhaps love will teach her a great deal. I used to call her a fairy when she was little, and now sometimes I’m tempted to call her a fairy still, but I’d say it in a different voice now. It’s been a great pain to me. I counted so on a family of robust sons and daughters to hand on my good old name to. … They’re a man’s immortality, his children and his children’s children. … However, my dear boy, it may very well be that the right husband for Tanya may get the right results with her. One never can tell. Even icebergs melt under some sun or other, and Tanya, as I say, isn’t an iceberg emotionally … she has my blood in her as well as her mother’s, and therefore she has her own brand of passionate feelings, like all her breed. She signed that paper with a very good grace—allowing for the natural shrinking of a young girl—and in a sense she is already your wife, with her own eager consent, mark you, which is further than any of the other lads ever got. That paper was drawn up by a professional lawyer, and declares you man and wife. You couldn’t ask for a better paper than that.” He was silent suddenly, pouring himself out some more wine.
Nobody spoke for several minutes, not even Wilfred. Wilfred’s head was nodding; his eyelids and chin were dropping. The clock pointed to and Seryozha was proud to find that he was not sleepy.
Pavel began speaking again in a voice of rather defiant surprise. “Just now I said ‘In a sense Tanya is your legal wife.’ But of course really there’s no in a sense about it. She is your wife. That document was drawn up by a professional lawyer; we have all signed it in the presence of Varya and Katya as witnesses. What more could we do to make a marriage legal? There is no priest of our Church available—besides, you and I are too modern to feel the need of the Church’s interference in practical matters like this. In Paris—London—New York—a legal paper, duly drawn up and signed, is enough for a legal marriage. Why should we expect more in Mi-san? My boy, you’re a married man. Congratulations!” Doubt came into his strained eyes again. “Really I don’t know what else one could want to make the thing correct and in order—lacking a priest. It’s not as if there was any unwillingness on either side—you both signed of your own free will, at your own suggestion. She gets a good dowry. You’ll find me a generous father-in-law. All we Ostapenkos are generous to a fault. Your father, Sergei Dmitrivitch, will be delighted at such a good match for you—a dowry of two thousand yen is not to be sniffed at, and there’ll be more later—and he gets a lovely daughter-in-law into the bargain.”
“The paper is legal all right,” said Seryozha solemnly, speaking to the shades of his father and mother, and pursing his face into a man-of-the-worldly look. “As legal as possible. Mr. Chew is a famous lawyer in London. He never would write an illegal paper.”
Wilfred, opening his eyes for a moment, found the eyes of both Russians fixed upon him. He was one who always put the best construction on any ambiguity, and that two Russians should look at him implied some pleasing compliment just uttered in their outlandish tongue. He bowed pleasantly in answer to their look. But bowing, which he always did thoroughly and briskly, being always quite sure of his occasion, now started a ball rolling in his head. Something went on bowing by itself inside his brain; the room bowed round him—or rather curtsied, in silly acknowledgment of this something inside his head that went on bowing. Was his outer skull really wagging? he asked himself in some consternation. Could this uncertain ball be the head of Wilfred Chew, Esquire? A slight bump as his forehead hit the table showed him that his head, though unusually independent, was still attached to his body, but, since the forehead was on the table, he might as well let it stay there. “Then they will think I am simply asleep,” he thought, cunningly. “Any gentleman may go to sleep without being thought morally affected.” It was quite outside his plan actually to go to sleep. His pretense of sleep took on an aspect of revenge, almost, in his own mind as he shut his eyes. “Well, if people will talk Russian for six hours without a break, they can’t be surprised if their superiors seem to go to sleep.” He listened upward, as it were, feeling that he was turning his ears like a dog—listened
