“Perhaps you are a little tired, Pavlik,” said Varvara. “Or even a little—Well, you know, Pavlik, you drank a great deal of champagne.”
Pavel groaned again. His sense of guilt about his insistence on the consummation of the marriage had strangely disguised itself, transferred itself to a fear for Seryozha’s safety. His imagination was very strong when dealing with the inhuman and mysterious, although it could never penetrate a fellow mortal’s skin and show him a glimpse of the reasonable and sensitive hearts of his neighbors.
“Why don’t you go to bed?” suggested Varvara. “You are doing no good by sitting up—only tormenting yourself.”
Pavel rose to his feet and left the room so promptly that Varvara looked after him in surprise. She was not accustomed to having her suggestions so instantly followed.
After a moment she rose, too. She looked down for a minute at the sleeping Wilfred. His mouth was wide open; his gold tooth looked ashamed with so much uncovered pink and cavernous mouth round it; as a rule, its glory was enhanced by the discreetness of its glimpsed glitter. “How hospitable we are to our visitors,” thought Varvara with a faint sneer, looking down at Wilfred’s helpless sagging face. Then she went to her bedroom, pausing a moment in the passage to listen to the silence.
Her husband was not in their bedroom. She lay down on the bed in her kimono, and shut her eyes. In the glimmering steel light of early dawn, the dark mark on her cheek looked like a third sunken eye.
She opened her eyes an hour later to find that her husband was still not by her side. As she went back along the passage to look for him, he came in at the front door, looking exhausted and wretched leaning on an earthy spade.
“Why, Pavlik, where have you been? You are all earthy—look at your hands. You look so tired. … What have you been doing?”
“Oh leave me alone—don’t nag at me! … Oh, Varya, I have such a terrible presentiment of evil to that boy. I’m sure she breathes death … the more I think of it, the more sure I am. … We are as good as murderers …”
Varvara sighed. “Oh, Pavlik, how obstinately fanciful you are when you have been drinking. Now think—think of the ordinary everyday world; think of our dear little Tanya learning to knit socks for you, learning to ride a horse, helping me to make the beds and to shell peas. … Demons don’t live in such simple things. Here is Katya—she shall make us a cup of tea each.”
For the first beam of the sun, aiming like a wary archer across the red plain, always woke Katya to her work. The energetic old woman had no alarm clock; she relied on the sharp tip of the first ray to pry her little red eyelids apart.
“A cup of tea,” she repeated after Varvara, opening that kitchen door which had been such a tiptoe secret all night, and stumping briskly into the kitchen.
Varvara stood in the front doorway, watching the sun rise—watching the sun climb surefooted up straight rails of red cloud.
Pavel followed Katya into the kitchen. “Katya, you know our little Tanya was married last night,” said Pavel in an uneasy whisper, pinning the old woman’s attention with his wide sharp eyes.
“Married!” exclaimed Katya shrilly.
“Pssst! Yes, married—by this Chinese guest who is a lawyer and knows the London way of marrying without a priest.”
“There is no such thing as marriage without a priest,” began Katya loudly.
“Devil take you, old woman, I tell you there is!” said Pavel, convulsed for a second with fury by this bluff attack on his edifice. “Tanya is married. She is a wife, legally. She is in that room there with her husband—and with my blessing, I tell you. Do you think I should not be the first to make my only daughter’s honor safe? Don’t be such a fool, old woman, but listen to me. You know Tanya—you’ve known her all her life. You know she’s not like other girls, quite—easy in love, accustomed to kissing and flirting. I want to know if they’re all right—I must know—and I daren’t look in—I daren’t. …”
“Pavel Nicholaievitch, you’ve been drinking. Why should you want to spy on a man and his wife—if man and wife they are? …”
“They are—they are!” cried Pavel frantically. “I swear they are legally man and wife. … It’s only that I have a presentiment. … Katya, be a good woman and just open that door a crack—just peep in. … I must know the worst now. … I daren’t look myself. …”
“Ah, tschah!” said Katya. She waddled up the little matted slope and listened at Tanya’s door. “There’s no sound,” she said.
“No sound!” echoed Pavel, terrified. “Ah, dear Katya, just open the door a crack, very quietly, tell me how they look.”
Alarmed and shocked by his wild manner, Katya cautiously opened the door a very little, and put her fat red face to the crack. When she turned her face it was creased into a sentimental smile. “I must say they are a pretty pair,” she said, as pleased as though she had had a hand in the creation of their beauty. “As pretty as fairies, asleep in each other’s arms, his lips to her cheek …”
“O my God! Safe! Safe!” cried Pavel, and rushed down the passage, calling: “Tea—tea! Varitchka, where’s my tea?” Then he ran like a boy back into the kitchen. “Katya, you might tell Yi to fill up that deep trench he will find in the garden to the east of the poppy bed.”
“I can see it from here,” said Katya. “It looks like a grave.”
“Yes—yes. I thought I might want to bury
