Mrs. Butters, seeing that Anna looked sad, hastened to tell a funny story. “Did I tell you what Betty, my quaint second girlie, said after her last Saturday-night bath, Mrs. Malinin? She said, ‘Mummy, I’d like to say drace now—I’d like to say Thank Dod for a dood hot bath.’ ”
“Having done the stupidity now,” said Anna. “Would it perhaps make it better to do another stupidity to match on the other side?” Then she noticed that she was once more disappointing Mrs. Butters, and added, “Ah—she said that? But she is funny—your little Betti!” She gave a boisterous if belated laugh.
“She is a very sensitive, queer child,” said Mrs. Butters. “She cried when the goat died yesterday. And it wasn’t because she liked the milk, either. She said to me, ‘Mummy, I did love dat doatie.’ ”
“My husband also cries for such things,” said Anna. “He cried when the cat broke its neck. We all cried a little, but my husband most loudly. He is blind, you see, so he must value creatures that he can feel, now that he has lost the seeing of them. When he could see, he did not like creatures. So now we have an orphan kitten, Mrs. Butters, and you an orphan kid.”
“An orphan kid! Haven’t you a quaint way of saying things, Mrs. Malinin! But your English is wonderful, I’m sure. How did you learn such good English?”
“I was for many years a governess in England. I lived in a part of London called Kensington. The little girl I taught was also called Betti; her mother was called Honorable Mrs. Atkinson and wore always pink silk undervests of the most expensive kind. I taught Betti French and German, but I also learned a pretty good deal of English. How cheerfully I remember London! Climbing up the colored stairs on to the roofs of buses, I remember, and sitting on the right-hand comer seat, because in London all carriages drive on the left side, and therefore, sitting so, one may look down on the tops of all carriages going in—out—in—run—stop—in—out, like the ice in our rivers here in April. My little pupil, Betti, had a dog in London and always that dog catched buses before us, and climbed up skippingly to the roof, and sat on the right-hand corner seat. … Even if strangers were already there, that dog sat down on the strangers! Ha-ha-ha! A clever dog, called Paddy. Oh, the Kensington Gardens, Mrs. Butters! Crocuses—such things we never have in this damn country—purple some and white others—all in the green grass. Oh, pretty! … There is a lake in the Kensington Gardens, where Betti and I sailed a boat; sometimes many hours that boat went round foolishly in the middle of the lake, and we wait on the shore, saying, well, give her five more minutes … but sometimes—oh, the wind there! hairs, boats, skirts, dog’s fur, all blowing one way, and sun—cloud—sun—cloud—running across that so rough pond. … And once a duck bit our boat—she was called Die Lustige Witwe.”
“You Russians are such wonderful linguists,” murmured Mrs. Butters. “And I suppose you married then and had a little boy of your own to teach.”
“Yes I marry before Seryozha comes, because I think it is good for a child to have a father—even a father like my old husband. So I marry. We go back to Russia. I have taught Seryozha English as good as I can.” Anna sighed gustily. A few hairpins dropped out as she sighed. “I thought English is the most useful business language in China—and now China is our country, since there is no Russia any more. But he will never be a business man, Seryozha. His father had no business gifts. Also Seryozha was born when I was too old. I was thirty-six. If a woman over thirty bears a child—”
Mrs. Butters was a little puzzled by parts of this sentence. Also she preferred the actual bearing of babies to talking about it.
“But Mr. Malinin must have some business gifts. That little shop flourished well, before his misfortune, didn’t it?”
“It did not,” said Anna, with a bursting laugh. “Nothing that my family does is ever flourishing. Somehow we always bought too much of what nobody wanted and none of what all customers would be asking for. We had much scent last year, and only two Japanese ladies ever bought—each one small bottle at reduced price. They smell of it always—it is never finished. They came in the shop stinking of our scent and asked for German camera films, which we have not. It is true my husband was—how do you say?—compradore? to the Tao-yin for some years, he has buyed for him his foreign goods—woolens, wines, jewels—but he has made very many mistakes, and after that Tao-yin has been dead, the new one wants not my blunderous old man’s help. … Then this new Tao-yin is murdered (do you know people have said it is the two sons of his not-loved concubine have murdered him?); then comes this modern chap who wants no old men anywhere. He buys his foreign goods through our nephew, Andrei Malinin. Our nephew is very trusted by the now Tao-yin. It is Andryusha who has helped my old husband in our trouble by entreating for him. But he cannot entreat our business back. Pitying is kind, yes? but it is not business. Well, it doesn’t matter. My husband has never been good business fellow; now it does not matter, for we have no more business to blunder with.”
“But surely,” said
