deprived me thereby of my position; and secondly, had treated me as a person who was incapable of answering for himself and who was not worth speaking to. Of course, I said, I felt with justice that I had been insulted; however, considering the difference of age, position in society, and so on, and so on (I could scarcely restrain my laughter at this point), I did not want to rush into fresh indiscretion by directly insisting on satisfaction from the Baron, or even proposing a duel to him; nevertheless, I considered myself fully entitied to offer the Baron, and still more the Baroness, my apologies, especially since of late I had really felt iU. overwrought, and, so to say, fanciful, and so on, and so on. However, the Baron had, by his applying to the General, which was a slight to me, and by his insisting that the General should deprive me of my post, put me in such a position that now I could not offer him and the Baroness my apologies, because he and the Baroness and all the world would certainly suppose that I came to apologies because I was frightened and in order to be reinstated in my post. From all this it followed that I found myself now compelled to beg the Baron first of all to apologise to me in the most formal terms; for instance, to say that he had no desire to insult me. And when the Baron said this I should feel that my hands were set free, and with perfect candour and sincerity I should offer him my apologies. In brief, I concluded, I could only beg the Baron to untie my hands.
'Fie! how petty and how far-fetched! And why do you want to apologise? Come, admit, monsieur . . . monsieur . . . that you are doing all this on purpose to vex the General . . . and perhaps you have some special object . . .mon cher mon-
sieur . . . pastdcn, j'ai oublie voire nom, M. Alexis? , . . N'est-ce pas?'
'But excuse me, mon cher marquis, what has it to do with
you?'
'Mais le gdndral . . .'
'But what about the General? He said something last night, that he had to be particularly careful . . . and was so upset. . . but I did not understand it.'
'There is, there certainly is a particular circumstance,' De Grieux caught me up in an insistent voice, in which a note of vexation was more and more marked. 'You know Mile, de Cominges . . .?'
'That is, MUe. Blanche?'
'Why, yes. Mile. Blanche de Cominges . . . et madmm sa mere. You see for yourself, the General ... in short, the General is in love; in fact ... in fact, the marriage may be celebrated here. And fancy, scandal, gossip ...'
'I see no scandal or gossip connected witii the marriage in this.'
'But le baron est si irascible un caractere Prussien, vous savez, enf,n U fera wne qiterelle d'AUemand.'
'With me, then, and not with you, for I no longer belong to the household . . .' (I tried to be as irrational as possible on purpose.) 'But, excuse me, is it settled, then, that Mile. Blanche is to marry the General? What are they waiting for? I mean, why conceal this from us, at any rate, from the members of ttie household?'
'I cannot . . . however, it is not quite . . . besides . . . you know, they are expecting news from Russia; the General has to make arrangements ...'
'A/ a! La babouUrika!'
De Grieux looked at me with hatred.
'In short,' he interrupted, 'I fully rely on your innate courtesy, on your intelligence, on your tact . . . You will certainly do this for the family in which you have been received like one of themselves, in which you have been Uked and respected ...'
'Excuse me, I've been dismissed! You maintain now that that is only in appearance; but you must admit, if you were told: 'I won't send you packing, but, for the look of the thing, kindly take yourself off.'. . . You see, it comes almost to the same thing.'
'Well, if that's how it is, if no request will have any influence
on you,' he began sternly and haughtily, 'allow me to assure you that steps will be taken. There are authorities here; you'll be turned out to-day— qus climbl&! Un blanc-bec comme vous wants to challenge a personage like the Baron! And do you think that you mil not be interfered with? And, let me assure you, nobody is afraid of you here! I have approached you on my own account, because you have been worrying the General. And do you imagine that the Baron will not order his flunkeys to turn you out of the house?'
'But, you see, I'm not going myself,' I answered, with the utmost composure. 'You are mistaken, M. de Grieux; all this will be done much more decorously than you imagine. I am just setting off to Mr. Astley, and I am going to ask him to be my intermediary; in fact, to be my second. The man likes me, and certainly will not refuse. He will go to the Baron, and the Baron will receive him. Even if I am an outchitet and seem to be something subordinate and, well, defenceless, Mr. Astley is a nephew of a lord, of a real lord; everyone knows that— Lord Pibroch—and that lord is here. BeUeve me, the Baron will be courteous to Mr. Astley and will Usten to him. And if he won't listen, Mr. Astley will look upon it as a personal affront (you know how persistent Englishmen are), and wiU send a friend to caJl on the Baron; he has powerful friends. You may reckon, now, upon things not turning out quite as you expect.'
The Frenchman was certainly scared; all this was really very much like the truth, and so it seemed that I really might be able to get up a scandal.
'Come, I beg you,' he said in a voice of actual entreaty, 'do drop the whole business! It seems to please you that it will cause a scandal! It is not satisfaction you want, but a scandal! As I have told you, it is very amusing and even witty —which is perhaps what you are aiming at. But, in short,' he concluded, seeing that I had got up and was taking my hat, 'I've come to give you these few lines from a certain person; read them; I was charged to wait for an answer.'
Saying this, he took out of his pocket a little note, folded and sealed with a wafer, and handed it to me.
It was in Polina's handwriting.
'I fancy that you intend to go on with this affair, but there are special circumstances which I will explain to you perhaps later; please leave off and give way. It is all such silliness! I need you, and you promised yourself to obey me. Remember
the Schlangenberg; I beg you to be obedient, and, if necessary, I command you.—^Your P.
'P.S.—If you are angry with me for what happened yesterday, forgive me.'
Everything seemed to be heaving before my eyes when I read these lines. My lips turned white and I began to tremble. The accursed Frenchman watched me with an exaggerated air of discretion, with his eyes turned away as though to avoid noticing my confusion. He had better have laughed at me outright.
'Very good,' I answered; 'tell Mademoiselle that she may set her mind at rest. Allow me to ask you,' I added sharply, 'why you have been so long giving me this letter. Instead of chattering about all sorts of nonsense, I think you ought to have begun with that ... if jrou came expressly with that object.'
'Oh, I wanted ... all this is so strange that you must excuse my natural impatience. I was in hsiste to learn from you in person what you intended to do. Besides, I don't know what is in that note, and I thought there was no hurry for me to give it you.'
'I understand: the long and the short of it is you were told only to give me the letter in case of the utmost necessity, and if you could settle it by word of mouth you were not to give it me. Is that right? TeU me plainly, M. de Grieux.'
'P&iO-etre,' he said, assuming an air of peculiar reserve, and looking at me with a peculiar glance.
I took off my hat; he took off his hat and went out. It seemed to me that there was an ironical smile on his lips. And, indeed, what else could one expect?
'We'll be quits yet, Frenchy; we'll settle our accounts,' I muttered as I went down the stairs. I could not think clearly; I felt as though I had had a blow on my head. The air revived me a little.
Two minutes later, as soon as ever I was able to reflect clearly, two thoughts stood out vividly before me: the first was that such trivial incidents, that a few mischievous and farfetched threats from a mere boy, had caused such tmiversal consternation! The second thought was: what sort of influence ¦ had this Frenchman over Polina? A mere word from him and' she does anything he wants—^writes a note and even begs me. Of course, their relations have always been a mystery to me from the very beginning, ever since I began to know them;
but of late I have noticed in her a positive aversion and even contempt for him, while he did not even look at her, was absolutely rude to her. I had noticed it. Polina herself had spoken of him to me with aversion; she had dropped some extremely significant admissions ... so he simply had her in his power. She was in some sort of bondage to him.
CHAPTER VIII
