friendly fashion,” as one intelligent man speaks to another. Chaikhidzev informed the baron that “he understood perfectly,” that he attached no importance to the paternal vows, but he was in love with Olya and that was why he had been so persistent.… With deep feeling he shook hands with the baron and promised to retire from the scene the next day.
The next morning Olya appeared at the breakfast table looking wan, annihilated, terribly apprehensive, fearful and ashamed. But her face lit up when she saw us in the dining room and heard our voices. The whole group of us stood before the Princess, shouting. We shouted in unison. We had removed our masks, our very small masks, and we loudly insinuated into the mind of the old Princess certain “ideas,” which were the same as those Yegorov had been insinuating into the ears of Olya the previous evening. We spoke of the “personality” of women, and of their right to choose freely their own husbands, and so on, and so on. The Princess listened in gloomy silence, and then she read out a letter which had been sent to her by Lieutenant Yegorov—in fact, the letter had been written by the entire group and abounded in phrases like “being of immature years,” “owing to inexperience,” “by your favor,” et cetera. The Princess heard us to the end, read Yegorov’s letter to the end, and said:
“How dare you young whippersnappers teach an old woman like me! I know exactly what I am doing! Finish your tea, and then get out of here, and turn someone else’s head for a change! You are not the proper people to live with an old woman! You’re all so clever, and I’m only a fool! So good day, my dears! I’ll be grateful to you to the end of my days!”
The Princess threw us out of the house. We all wrote her a bread-and-butter letter, kissed her hand, and that same day we regretfully moved on to Yegorov’s estate. Chaikhidzev left the castle at the same time. At Yegorov’s we embarked on a course of dissipation; we missed Olya, and we consoled Yegorov. In this way two weeks passed. Then, during the third week, our baronial lawyer received a letter from the Princess asking him to come to Green Scythe to draw up some legal documents. The baron left us, and two or three days later we followed, pretending to come and fetch him. We arrived just before dinner. We did not go into the house, but wandered around the garden, gazing up at the windows. The Princess saw us from a window.
“So you’re here?” she shouted at us.
“Yes, we’re here!”
“What brought you here?”
“We’ve come for the baron.”
“The baron hasn’t any time to fool around with gallows birds like you! He’s writing!”
We removed our hats and approached the window.
“How do you do, Princess,” I said.
“Well, what are you gadding about for?” the Princess replied. “Go back to your rooms!”
So we went to our rooms and sat down humbly in our chairs. Our humble airs must have gratified the Princess, who had grown terribly bored without us. She made us stay for lunch. There, at lunch, when one of us dropped a spoon, she castigated him for being a clumsy fool, and she excoriated us all for our lack of table manners. We went for a walk with Olya and stayed the night there. The following night we were still at Green Scythe, and indeed we remained there until September. Peace had been declared.
Yesterday I received a letter from Yegorov. The lieutenant wrote that he had spent the winter “buttering up” the Princess, and he had finally succeeded in taming her anger and resentment. She has promised to let them marry in the summer.
Soon I shall receive two letters—one will be stern and official, from the Princess; the other will be a long one from Olya, full of gaiety and madcap schemes. In May I shall be going back to Green Scythe again.
J
IT WAS twelve o’clock at night when a young man called Mitya Kuldarov, disheveled and blazing with excitement, burst into his parents’ apartment and ran wildly through all the rooms. His mother and father were already in bed. His sister, too, was in bed, finishing the last pages of a novel. His younger brothers, the schoolboys, were fast asleep.
“What happened?” his parents asked, surprised out of their wits. “What on earth is the matter?”
“Oh, don’t ask me! I never thought it would happen! Never expected it! It’s … it’s absolutely beyond belief!”
Mitya exploded with laughter and fell into a chair, because so much joy had weakened his legs.
“It’s beyond belief!” he went on. “You simply couldn’t imagine it! Just look!”
His sister jumped out of bed and, pulling a blanket round her shoulders, went in to see her brother. The schoolboy brothers also woke up.
“What on earth is the matter with you? You look as though you had gone completely out of your mind!”
“It’s because I am so happy, Mama. Today, all over Russia, people know me! Everyone! Until today you were the only ones who knew such a person as Dmitry Kuldarov, collegiate registrar, existed. Now everyone knows! Oh, Mama! Oh, Lord!”
Mitya jumped up and once more ran through all the rooms, and then he fell into a chair.
“Well, tell us what happened! Please get some sense into your head!”
“You—you live like wild animals! You don’t read the newspapers, and popular fame has no meaning for you! Very remarkable things are recorded in newspapers! Whenever anything important happens, everyone knows about it: nothing is left out. I’m so happy. Oh, Lord! You know newspapers only print things about celebrities! Well, they’ve printed something about me!”
“How? Where?”
Papa turned pale. Mama glanced at the icon, and crossed herself. The brothers jumped out of bed and ran to their elder brother as they were, in their attenuated nightshirts.
