“Listen, Masloboev! I appreciate your brotherly offer, but I can’t make any answer at present, and the reason why is a long story. There are circumstances. But I promise that I’ll tell you everything afterwards, like a brother. I thank you for your offer. I promise that I’ll come to you, and I’ll come often. But this is what I want to tell you. You have been open with me, and so I’ve made up my mind to ask your advice, especially as I believe you’re first-rate in such affairs.”
I told him the whole story of Smith and his granddaughter, beginning with the scene in the restaurant. Strange to say, as I told my tale it seemed to me from his eyes that he knew something about the story. I asked him.
“No, not exactly,” he answered, “though I had heard something about Smith, a story of some old man dying in a restaurant. But I really do know something about Mme. Bubnov. Only two months ago I got some money out of that lady. je prends mon bien ou je le trouve, and that’s the only respect in which I am like Moliere. Though I squeezed a hundred roubles out of her, I vowed at the time I’d wring another five hundred out of her before I’d done. She’s a nasty woman! She’s in an unmentionable line of business. That wouldn’t matter, but sometimes it goes too far. Don’t imagine I’m a Don Quixote, please. The point is that I may make a very good thing of it, and when I met Sizobryuhov half an hour ago I was awfully pleased. Sizobryuhov was evidently brought here, and the fat man brought him, and as I know what the fat man’s special trade is, I conclude ... oh, well, I’ll show him up! I’m very glad I heard from you about that girl; it’s another clue for me. I undertake all sorts of private jobs, you know, and I know some queer people! I investigated a little affair for a prince not long ago, an affair, I tell you, one wouldn’t have expected from that prince. Or would you care to hear another story about a married woman? You come and see me, old man, and I shall have subjects ready for you that people will never believe in if you write about them. . . .”
“And what was the name of that prince?” I asked, with a foreboding of something.
“What do you want to know for? All right, it’s Valkovsky.”
“Pyotr?”
“Yes. Do you know him?
“Yes, but not very well. Well, Masloboev, I shall come to you to inquire about that gentleman more than once again,” I said, getting up. “You’ve interested me greatly.”
“Well, old boy, you can come as often as you like. I can tell you fine tales, though only within certain limits, do you understand? Or else one loses one’s credit and honour, in business, that is, and all the rest of it.”
“All right, as far as honour permits.”
I was really agitated. He noticed it.
“Well, what do you say about the story I told you? Have you thought of something?”
“Your story? Well, wait a couple of minutes. I will pay.”
He went up to the buffet, and there, as though by chance, stood close by the young man in the tunic, who was so unceremoniously called Mitroshka. It seemed to me that Masloboev knew him a good deal better than he had admitted to me. Anyway, it was evident that they were not meeting for the first time.
Mitroshka was a rather original-looking fellow. In his sleeveless tunic and red silk shirt, with his sharp but handsome features, with his young-looking, swarthy face, and his bold, sparkling eyes he made a curious and not unattractive impression. There was an assumption of jauntiness in his gestures, and yet at the moment he was evidently restraining himself, aiming rather at an air of businesslike gravity and sedateness.
“Look here, Vanya,” said Masloboev, when he rejoined me, “look me up this evening at seven o’clock, and I may have something to tell you. By myself, you see, I’m no use; in old days I was, but now I’m only a drunkard and have got out of the way of things. But I’ve still kept my old connexions; I may find out something. I sniff about among all sorts of sharp people; that’s how I get on. In my free time, that is when I’m sober, I do something myself, it’s true, through friends, too . . . mostly in the investigation line.... But that’s neither here nor there. Enough. Here’s my address, in Shestilavotchny Street. But now, my boy, I’m really too far gone. I’ll swallow another — and home. I’ll lie down a bit. If you come I’ll introduce you to Alexandra Semyonovna, and if there’s time we’ll discuss poetry.”
“Well, and that too?”
“All right; that, too, perhaps.”
“Perhaps I will come. I’ll certainly come.”
Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:26:21 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.
The Insulted and the Injured, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Chapter VI
ANNA ANDREYEVNA had long been expecting me. What I had told her the day before, about Natasha’s note, had greatly excited her curiosity; and she had expected me much earlier in the morning, by ten o’clock at the latest. By the time I turned up at two o’clock in the afternoon the poor woman’s agonies of suspense had reached an extreme pitch. She was longing, too, to talk to me of the new hopes aroused in her the day before, and of Nikolay Sergeyitch, who had been ailing since then, who was gloomy, and at the same time seemed specially tender to her. When I made my appearance she received me with an expression of coldness and displeasure in her face, hardly opened her mouth, and showed no sign of interest, almost as though she would ask why I had come, and what possessed me to drop in every day. She was angry at my coming so late. But I was in a hurry, and without further delay I described to her the whole scene at Natasha’s the evening before. As soon as she heard of the elder prince’s visit and his solemn proposal, her assumed indifference vanished instantly. I cannot find words to describe how delighted she was; she seemed quite beside herself, crossed herself, shed tears, bowed down before the ikons, embraced me, and was on the point of running to Nikolay Sergeyitch to tell him of her joy.
Bless me, my dear, why, it’s all the insults and humiliation he’s been through that are making him ill, and as soon as he knows that full reparation will be made to Natasha, he’ll forget it all in a twinkling.”
I had much ado to dissuade her. Though the good lady had lived twenty-five years with her husband she did not understand him. She was desperately anxious, too, to set off with me immediately to Natasha’s. I put it to her not only that Nikolay Sergeyitch would disapprove of her action, but that we might even ruin the whole business by going. With difficulty she was brought to think better of it, but she detained me another half-hour unnecessarily, talking herself the whole time.
“With whom shall I be left here?” she said, “sitting alone within four walls with such joy in my heart?”
At last I persuaded her to let me go, reminding her that Natasha must be sick of waiting for me. She made the sign of the cross several times to bless me on my way, sent a special blessing to Natasha, and almost shed tears when I absolutely refused to come back again that evening, unless anything special had happened at Natasha’s. I did not see Nicholay Sergeyitch on this occasion; he had been awake all night, complained of a headache, a chill, and was now asleep in his study.
Natasha, too, had been expecting me all the morning. When I went in she was, as usual, walking up and down the room, with her hands clasped, meditating. Even now when I think of her I always see her alone in a poor room, dreamy, deserted, waiting with folded hands and downcast eyes, walking aimlessly up and down.
Still walking up and down she asked me in a low voice why I was so late. I gave her a brief account of all my adventures, but she scarcely listened. One could see she was in great anxiety about something.
“Anything fresh?” I asked her.
“Nothing fresh,” she answered. But I guessed at once from her face that there was something fresh, and that she was expecting me on purpose to tell me, and she would tell me, not at once but just as I was going, as she always did.
That was always our habit. I was used to her and I waited. We began, of course, talking of the previous evening. I was particularly struck by the fact that we were quite agreed in our impression of Prince Valkovsky; and she positively disliked him, disliked him much more than she had at the time. And when we analysed the visit, point by point, Natasha suddenly said:
“Listen, Vanya, you know it’s always like that, if one doesn’t like a man at first, it’s almost a sure sign that one will like him afterwards. That’s how it’s always been with me, anyway.”
“Let us hope so, Natasha. And this is my opinion, and it’s a final one. I went over it all, and what I deduced was that though the prince was perhaps Jesuitical, he is giving his consent to your marriage genuinely and in earnest.”
