“What do you want?” he asked him.
“Nikolai Artemyevitch,” said the man with a certain solemnity, “you are our master?”
“I know that; what next!”
“Nikolai Artemyevitch, graciously do not be angry with me; but I, having been in your honour’s service from a boy, am bound in dutiful devotion to bring you—”
“Well what is it?”
The man shifted uneasily as he stood.
“You condescended to say, your honour,” he began, “that your honour did not know where Elena Nikolaevna was pleased to go. I have information about that.”
“What lies are you telling, idiot?”
“That’s as your honour likes, but I saw our young lady three days ago, as she was pleased to go into a house!”
“Where? what? what house?”
“In a house, near Povarsky. Not far from here. I even asked the doorkeeper who were the people living there.”
Nikolai Artemyevitch stamped with his feet.
“Silence, scoundrel! How dare you? … Elena Nikolaevna, in the goodness of her heart, goes to visit the poor and you … Be off, fool!”
The terrified servant was rushing to the door.
“Stop!” cried Nikolai Artemyevitch. “What did the doorkeeper say to you?”
“Oh no—nothing—he said nothing—He told me—a stu—student—”
“Silence, scoundrel! Listen, you dirty beast; if you ever breathe a word in your dreams even—”
“Mercy on us—”
“Silence! if you blab—if anyone—if I find out—you shall find no hiding-place even underground! Do you hear? You can go!”
The man vanished.
“Good Heavens, merciful powers! what does it mean?” thought Nikolai Artemyevitch when he was left alone. “What did that idiot tell me? Eh? I shall have to find out, though, what house it is, and who lives there. I must go myself. Has it come to this! … Un laquais! Quelle humiliation!”
And repeating aloud: “Un laquais!” Nikolai Artemyevitch shut the dressing-case up in the bureau, and went up to Anna Vassilyevna. He found her in bed with her face tied up. But the sight of her sufferings only irritated him, and he very soon reduced her to tears.
XXX
Meanwhile the storm gathering in the East was breaking. Turkey had declared war on Russia; the time fixed for the evacuation of the Principalities had already expired, the day of the disaster of Sinope was not far off. The last letters received by Insarov summoned him urgently to his country. His health was not yet restored; he coughed, suffered from weakness and slight attacks of fever, but he was scarcely ever at home. His heart was fired, he no longer thought of his illness. He was forever rushing about Moscow, having secret interviews with various persons, writing for whole nights, disappearing for whole days; he had informed his landlord that he was going away shortly, and had presented him already with his scanty furniture. Elena too on her side was getting ready for departure. One wet evening she was sitting in her room, and listening with involuntary depression to the sighing of the wind, while she hemmed handkerchiefs. Her maid came in and told her that her father was in her mother’s room and sent for her there. “Your mamma is crying,” she whispered after the retreating Elena, “and your papa is angry.”
Elena gave a slight shrug and went into Anna Vassilyevna’s room. Nikolai Artemyevitch’s kindhearted spouse was half lying on a reclining chair, sniffing a handkerchief steeped in eau de cologne; he himself was standing at the hearth, every button buttoned up, in a high, hard cravat, with a stiffly starched collar; his deportment had a vague suggestion of some parliamentary orator. With an orator’s wave of the arm he motioned his daughter to a chair, and when she, not understanding his gesture, looked inquiringly at him, he brought out with dignity, without turning his head: “I beg you to be seated.” Nikolai Artemyevitch always used the formal plural in addressing his wife, but only on extraordinary occasions in addressing his daughter.
Elena sat down.
Anna Vassilyevna blew her nose tearfully. Nikolai Artemyevitch thrust his fingers between his coat-buttons.
“I sent for you, Elena Nikolaevna,” he began after a protracted silence, “in order to have an explanation with you, or rather in order to ask you for an explanation. I am displeased with you—or no—that is too little to say: your behaviour is a pain and an outrage to me—to me and to your mother—your mother whom you see here.”
Nikolai Artemyevitch was giving vent only to the few bass notes in his voice. Elena gazed in silence at him, then at Anna Vassilyevna and turned pale.
“There was a time,” Nikolai Artemyevitch resumed, “when daughters did not allow themselves to look down on their parents—when the parental authority forced the disobedient to tremble. That time has passed, unhappily: so at least many persons imagine; but let me tell you, there are still laws which do not permit—do not permit—in fact there are still laws. I beg you to mark that: there are still laws—”
“But, papa,” Elena was beginning.
“I beg you not to interrupt me. Let us turn in thought to the past. I and Anna Vassilyevna have performed our duty. I and Anna Vassilyevna have spared nothing in your education: neither care nor expense. What you have gained from our care—is a different question; but I had the right to expect—I and Anna Vassilyevna had the right to expect that you would at least hold sacred the principles of morality which we have—que nous avons inculqués, which we have instilled into you, our only daughter. We had the right to expect that no new ‘ideas’ could touch that, so to speak, holy shrine. And what do we find?
