All this flashed upon my sight in three seconds.
My bow and the hat in my hand gradually arrested their attention. The Baron slightly knitted his brows. The Baroness simply sailed straight at me.
'Madame la baroitme,' I articulated distinctly, emphasising each word, 'j'ai I'honnewr d'etre voire esclave.'
Then I bowed, replaced my hat, and walked past the Baron, turning my face towards him with a polite smile.
She had told me to take off my hat, but I had bowed and
behaved like an impudent schoolboy on my own account. Goodness knows what impelled me to I I felt as though I were plunging into space.
'Hdn!' cried, or ' rather croaked, the Baron, turning towards me with angry surprise.
I turned and remained in respectful expectation, still gazing at him with a smile. He was evidently perplexed, and raised his eyebrows as high as they would go. His face grew darker and darker. The Baroness, too, turned towards me, and she, too, stared in wrathful surprise. The passers-by began to look on. Some even stop>ped.
'Hdn!' the Baron croaked again, with redoubled guttural-ness and redoubled anger.
'Ja wohU' I drawled, still looking him straight in the face.
'Sind sie rasend?' he cried, waving his stick and beginning, I think, to be a little nervous. He was perhaps perplexed by my appearance. I wsls very well, even foppishly, dressed, hke a man belonging to the best society.
'Ja wo-o-ahU' I shouted suddenly at the top of my voice, drawling the o like the Berliners, who use the expression ja wohl in every sentence, and drawl the letter o more or less according to the shade of their thought or feeling.
The Baron and Baroness turned away quickly and almost ran away from me in terror. Of the spectators, some were talking, others were gazing at me in amazement. I don't remember very clearly, though.
I turned and walked at my ordinary pace to Polina Alexan-drovna.
But when I was within a hundred paces of her seat, I saw her get up and walk with the children towards the hotel.
I overtook her at the door.
'I have performed . . . the foolery,' I said, when I reached her.
'Well, what of it? Now you can get out of the scrape,' she answered. She walked upstciirs without even glancing at me.
I spent the whole evening walking about the park. I crossed the park and then the wood beyond and walked into another state. In a cottage I had an omelette and some wine; for that idyllic repast they extorted a whole thaler and a half.
It was eleven o'clock before I returned home. I was at once summoned before the General.
Our party occupied two suites in the hotel; they have four
rooms. The first is a bag room—a drawing-room with a piano in it. The next, also a large room, is the General's study. Here he was awaiting me, standing in the middle of the room in a majestic pose. De Grieux sat lolling on the sofa.
'Allow me to ask you, sir, what have you been about?' began the General, addressing me.
'I should be glad if you would go straight to the point. General,' said I. 'You probably mean to refer to my encounter with a German this morning?'
'A German? That German was Baron Burmerhelm, a very important personage I You insulted him and the Baroness.'
'Not in the least.'
'You alarmed them, sir!' cried the General.
'Not a bit of it. When I was in Berlin the sound was for ever in my ears of that ja wohl, continually repeated at every word and disgustingly drawled put by them. When I met them in the avenue that ja wokl suddenly came into my mind, I don't know why, and—well, it had cin irritating effect on me . . . Besides, the Baroness, who has met me three times, has the habit of walking straight at me as though I were a worm who might be trampled underfoot. You must admit that I, too, may have my proper pride. I took off my hat and said poUtely (I assure you I said it politely): 'Madame, j'ca I'hcnneur d'etre voire escktve.' When tiie Baron turned round and ssdd, 'Hem!' I felt an impulse to shout, 'Ja wohl!' I shouted it twice: the first time in an ordinary tone, and the second—I drawled it as much as I could. That was all.'
I must own I was intensely delighted at this extremely school-boyish explanation. I had a strange desire to make tiie story as absurd as possible in the telling.
And as I went on, I got more and more to relish it.
'Are you laughing at me?' cried the General. He turned to the Frenchman and explained to him in French tha t I was positively going out of my way to provoke a scandal! De Grieux laughed contemptuously and shrugged his shoulders.
'Oh, don't imagine that; it was not so at all I' I cried. 'My conduct was wrong, of course, I confess that with the utmcst candour. My behaviour may even be called a stupid and improper schoolboy prank, but—nothing more. And do you know. General, I heartily regret it. But there is one circumstance which, to my mind at least, almost saves me from repentance. Lately, for the last fortnight, indeed, I've not been feeling well: I have felt ill, nervous, irritable, moody, and on
some occasions I lose all control of myself. Really, I've sometimes had an intense impulse to attack the Marquis de Grieux and . . . However, there's no need to say, he might be offended. In short, it's the sign of illness. I don't know whether the Baroness Burmerhelm will take this fact into consideration when I beg her pardon (for I intend to apologise). I imagine she will not consider it, especially as that line of excuse has been somewhat abused in legal dirles of late. Lawyers have taken to arguing in criminal cases that their dients were not responsible at the moment of their crime, and that it was a form of disease. 'He killed him,' they say, 'and has no memory of it.' And only imagine. General, the medical authorities support them— and actually maintain that there are illnesses, temporary abrara-tions in which a man scarcely remembers anything, or has only a half or a quarter of his memory. But the Baron and Baroness are people of the older generation; besides, they are Prussian junkers and landowners, and so are probably unaware of this advance in the wodd of medical jurisprudence, and wiU not accept my explanation. What do you think, General?'
'Enough, sir,' the General pronounced diarply, with surprised indignation; 'enough! I will try once for all to rid m3rself of your mischievous pranks. You are not going to apologise to the Baron and Baroness. Any communication with you, even though it were to consist solely of your request for forgiveness, would be beneath their dignity. The Baron has learnt that you are a member of my household; he has already had an explanation with me at the Casino, and I assure you that he was within an ace of asking me to give him satisfaction. Do you understand what you have exposed me to—^me, sir? I—I was forced to ask the Baron's pardon, and gave him my word that immediately, this very day, you would cease to be a member of my household.'
'Excuse me, excuse me. General—did he insist on that himself, that I should cease to belong to your household, as you were pleased to express it?'
'No, but I considered myself bound to give him that satisfaction, and, of course, the Baron was satisfied. We must part, sir. There is what is owing to you, four friedrichs d'or and three florins, according to the reckoning here. Here is the money, and here is the note of the account; you can verify it. Good-bye. From this time forth we are strangers. I've had ^ nothing but trouble and unpleasantness from you. I will call the keUfiffr and inform him from this day forth that I am not
responsible for your hotel expenses. I have the honour to remain your obedient servant.'
I took the money and the paper upon which the account was written in pencil, bowed to the General, and said to him very seriously—
'General, the matter cannot end like this. I am very sorry that you were put into an unpleasant position with the Baron, but, excuse me, you were to blame for it yourself. Why did you take it upon yourself to be responsible for me to the Baron? What is the meaning of the expression that I am a member of your household? I am simply a teacher in your house, that is all. I am neither your son nor your ward, and you cannot be responsible for my actions. I am a legally responsible person, I am twenty-five, I am a graduate of the university, I am a nobleman, I
