Страница 2 из 93
seigneur's coffee! If you don't finish with my passport this minute, I'll go to him in person.'
" 'What! When the Cardinal is sitting with him!' cried the abb^, recoiling from me with horror, and, flinging wide his arms, he stood like a cross, with an air of being ready to die rather than let me pass.
"Then I answered him that 'I was a heretic and a barbarian, que je sms hereUque et barbare,' and that I cared nothing for all these Archbishops, Cardinals, Monseigneurs and all of them. In short, I showed I was not going to give way. The abbe looked at me with uneasy ill-humour, then snatched my passport and carried it upstairs. A minute later it had been viseed,. Here, wouldn't you like to see it?" I took out the f)assp)ort and showed the Roman vise.
"Well, I must say . . ." the General began.
"What saved you was sajdng that you were a heretic and barbarian," the Frenchman observed, with a smile. "Cela n'etait pas si bite."
"Why, am I to model myself upon our Russians here? They sit, not daring to open their lips, and almost ready to deny they are Russians. In Paris, anyway in my hotel, they began to treat me much more attentively when I told everyone about my passage-at-arms with the abbe. The fat Polish pcm, the person most emtagonistic to me at table d'hote, sank into the background. The Frenchmen did not even resent it when I told them that I had, two years previously, seen a man at whom, in 1812, a French chasseur had shot simply in order to discharge his gun. The man was at that time a child of ten, and his family had not succeeded in leaving Moscow.
"That's impossible," the Frenchman boiled up; "a French soldier would not fire at a child!"
"Yet it happened," I smswered. "I was told it by a most respectable captain on the retired list, and I saw the scar on his cheek from the bullet myself."
The Frenchman began talking rapidly and at great length. The General began to support him, but I recommended him to read, for instance, passages in the "Notes" of General Perov-sky, who was a prisoner in the hands of the French in 1812. At last Maiya FiUppovna began talking of something else to change the conversation. The General was very much displeased with me, for the Frenchman and I had almost begun shouting at one another. But I fancy my dispute with the Frenchman pleased Mr. Astley very much. Getting up from
the table, he asked me to have a glass of wine with him.
In the evening I duly succeeded in getting a quarter of an hour's talk with Polina Alexandrovna. Our conversation took place when we were all out for a walk. We all went into the park by the Casino. Polina sat down on a seat facing the fountain, and let Nadenka play with some children not far from her. I, too, let Misha run off to the fountain, and we were at last left alone.
We began, of course, at first with business. Polina simply flew into a rage when I gave her only seven hundred guldens. She had reckoned positively on my pawning her diamonds in Paris for two thousand guldens, if not more.
"I must have money, come what may," she said. "I must get it or I am lost."
I began asking her what had happened during my absence.
"Nothing, but the arrival of two pieces of news from Petersburg : first that Gra
"So you are all in suspense here?" I asked.
"Of course, all of us, and all the time; we've been hoping for nothing else for the last six months."
"And are you hoping for it?" I asked.
"Why, I'm no relation. I am only the General's stepdaughter. But I am sure she will remember me in her will."
"I fancy you'll get a great deal," I said emphatically.
"Yes, she was fond of me; but what makes you think so?"
"Tell me," I answered with a question, "our marqtds is initiated into all our secrets, it seems?"
"But why are you interested in that?" asked Polina, looking at me dryly and austerely.
"I should think so; if I'm not mistaken, the General has already succeeded in borrowing from him."
"You guess very correctly."
"Well, would he have lent the money if he had not known about your 'gra
"Yes, you are right. As soon as he knows that I have come into something by the will, he will pay his addresses to me at once. That is what you wanted to know, was it?"
"He will only begin to pay you his addresses? I thought he had been doing that for a long time."
"You know perfectly well that he hasn't I" Polina said, with anger. "Where did you meet the Enghshman?" she added, after a minute's silence.
"I knew you would ask about him directly."
I told her of my previous meetings with Mr. Astley on my journey.
"He is shy and given to falling in love, and, of course, he's fallen in love with you already."
"Yes, he's in love with me," answered Polina.
"And, of course, he's ten times as rich as the Frenchman. Why, is it certain that the Frenchman has anything? Isn't that open to doubt?"
"No, it is not. He has a chiteau of some sort. The General has spoken of that positively. Well, are you satisfied?"
"If I were in your place I should certainly marry the Englishman."
"Why?" asked Polina.
"The Frenchman is better looking, but he is nastierjand the Englishman, besides bdng honest, is ten times as rich," I snapped out.
"Yes, but on the other hand, the Frenchman is a marquis and clever," she answered, in the most composed ma
"But is it true?" I went on, in the same way.
"It certainly is."
Polina greatiy disliked my questions, and I saw that she was trying to make me angry by her tone and the strangeness of her answers. I said as much to her at once.
"Well, it really amuses me to see you in such a rage. You must pay for the very fact of my allowing you to ask such questions and make such suppositions."
"I certainly consider myself entitled to ask you any sort of question," I answered calmly, "just because I am prepared to pay any price you like for it, and I set no value at all on my life now."
Polina laughed.
"You told me last time at the Schlangenberg that you were prepared, at a word from me, to throw yourself head foremost from the rock, and it is a thousand feet high, I believe. Some day I shall utter that word, solely in order to see how you will pay the price, and, trust me, I won't give way. You are hateful to me, just because I've allowed you to take such Uberties, and
even more hateful because you are so necessary to me. But so long as you are necessary to me, I must take care of you.'
She began getting up. She spoke with irritation. Of late she had always ended every conversation with me in anger and irritation, real anger.
"Allow me to ask you, what about Mile. Blanche?" I asked, not liking to let her go without explanation.
"You know all about Mile. Blanche. Nothing more has happened since. MUe. Blanche will, no doubt, be Madame la Generate, that is, if the rumour of Gra
"And is the General hopelessly in love?"