At three o’clock I returned home. Nellie met me with her bright little face.
Chapter VI
AT SEVEN O’CLOCK punctually I was at Masloboev’s. He greeted me with loud exclamations and open arms. He was, of course, half drunk. But what stuck me most was the extraordinary preparation that had been made for my visit. It was evident that I was expected. A pretty brass samovar was boiling on a little round table covered with a handsome and expensive tablecloth. The tea-table glittered with crystal, silver and china. On another table, which was covered with a tablecloth of a different kind, but no less gorgeous, stood plates of excellent sweets, Kiev preserves both dried and liquid, fruit-paste, jelly, French preserves, oranges, apples, and three or four sorts of nuts; in fact, a regular fruit-shop. On a third table, covered with a snow-white cloth, there were savouries of different sorts — caviar, cheese, a pie, sausage, smoked ham, fish and a row of fine glass decanters containing spirits of many sorts, and of the most attractive colours — green, ruby, brown and gold. Finally on a little table on one side — also covered with a white cloth — there were two bottles of champagne. On a table before the sofa there were three bottles containing Sauterne, Lafitte, and Cognac, very expensive brands from Eliseyev’s. Alexandra Semyonovna was sitting at the tea-table, and though her dress and general get-up was simple, they had evidently been the subject of thought and attention, and the result was indeed very successful. She knew what suited her, and evidently took pride in it. She got up to meet me with some ceremony. Her fresh little face beamed with pleasure and satisfaction. Masloboev was wearing gorgeous Chinese slippers, a sumptuous dressing-gown, and dainty clean linen. Fashionable studs and buttons were conspicuous on his shirt everywhere where they could possibly be attached. His hair had been pomaded, and combed with a fashionable side parting.
I was so much taken aback that I stopped short in the middle of the room and gazed open-mouthed, first at Masloboev and then at Alexandra Semyonovna, who was in a state of blissful satisfaction.
“What’s the meaning of this, Masloboev? Have you got a party this evening?” I cried with some uneasiness.
“No, only you!” he answered solemnly.
“But why is this?” I asked (pointing to the savouries). “Why, you’ve food enough for a regiment!”
“And drink enough! You’ve forgotten the chief thing — drink!” added Masloboev.
“And is this only on my account?
“And Alexandra Semyonovna’s. It was her pleasure to get it all up.”
“Well, upon my word. I knew that’s how it would be,” exclaimed Alexandra Semyonovna, flushing, though she looked just as satisfied. “I can’t receive a visitor decently, or I’m in fault at once.”
“Ever since the morning, would you believe it, as soon as she knew you were coming for the evening, she’s been bustling about; she’s been in agonies….”
“And that’s a fib! It’s not since early morning, it’s since last night. When you came in last night you told me the gentleman was coming to spend the whole evening.”
“You misunderstood me.”
“Not a bit of it. That’s what you said. I never tell lies. And why shouldn’t I welcome a guest? We go on and on, and no one ever comes to see us, though we’ve plenty of everything. Let our friends see that we know how to live like other people.”
“And above all see what a good hostess and housekeeper you are,” added Masloboev. “Only fancy, my friend, I’ve come in for something too. She’s crammed me into a linen shirt, stuck in studs — slippers, Chinese dressing-gown — she combed my hair herself and pomaded it with bergamot; she wanted to sprinkle me with scent — creme brulee, but I couldn’t stand that. I rebelled and asserted my conjugal authority.”
“It wasn’t bergamot. It was the best French pomatum out of a painted china pot,” retorted Alexandra Semyonovna, firing up. “You judge, Ivan Petrovitch; he never lets me go to a theatre, or a dance, he only gives me dresses, and what do I want with dresses? I put them on and walk about the room alone. The other day I persuaded him and we were all ready to go to the theatre. As soon as I turned to fasten my brooch he went to the cupboard, took one glass after another until he was tipsy. So we stayed at home. No one, no one, no one ever comes to see us. Only of a morning people of a sort come about business, and I’m sent away. Yet we’ve samovars, and a dinner service and good cups — we’ve everything, all presents. And they bring us things to eat too. We scarcely buy anything but the spirits; and the pomade and the savouries there, the pie, the ham and sweets we bought for you. If anyone could see how we live! I’ve been thinking for a whole year: if a visitor would come, a real visitor, we could show him all this and entertain him. And folks would praise things and we should be pleased. And as for my pomading him, the stupid, he doesn’t deserve it. He’d always go about in dirty clothes. Look what a dress-ing-gown he’s got on. It was a present. But does he deserve a dressing-gown like that? He’d rather be tippling than anything. You’ll see. He’ll ask you to take vodka before tea.”
“Well! That’s sense indeed! Let’s have some of the silver seal and some of the gold, Vanya, and then with souls refreshed we’ll fall upon the other beverages.”
“There, I knew that’s how it would be!
“Don’t be anxious, Sashenka. We’ll drink a cup of tea, too, with brandy in it, to your health.”
“Well, there it is! “ she cried, clasping her hands. “It’s caravan tea, six roubles the pound, a merchant made us a present of it the day before yesterday, and he wants to drink it with brandy. Don’t listen to him, Ivan Petrovitch, I’ll pour you out a cup directly. You’ll see … you’ll see for yourself what it’s like!”
And she busied herself at the samovar,
I realized that they were reckoning on keeping me for the whole evening. Alexandra Semyonovna had been expecting visitors for a whole year, and was now prepared to work it all off on me This did not suit me at all.
“Listen, Masloboev,” I said, sitting down. “I’ve not come to pay you a visit. I’ve come on business; you invited me yourself to tell me something….”
“Well, business is business, but there’s a time for friendly conversation too.”
“No, my friend, don’t reckon upon me. At half-past eight I must say good-bye. I’ve an appointment. It’s a promise.”
“Not likely. Good gracious, what a way to treat me! What a way to treat Alexandra Semyonovna. Just look at her, she’s overwhelmed. What has she been pomading me for: why I’m. covered with bergamot. Just think!”
“You do nothing but make jokes, Masloboev. I swear to Alexandra Semyonovna that. I’ll dine with you next week, or Friday if you like. But now, my boy, I’ve given my word; or rather it’s absolutely necessary for me to be at a certain place, You’d better explain what you meant to tell me.”
“Then can you really only stay till half-past eight?” cried Alexandra Semyonovna in a timid and plaintive voice, almost weeping as she handed me a cup of excellent tea.
“Don’t be uneasy, Sashenka; that’s all nonsense” Masloboev put in. “He’ll stay. That’s nonsense. But I’ll tell you what, Vanya, you’d much better let me know where it is you always go. What is your business? May I know? You keep running off somewhere every day. You don’t work….”
“But why do you want to know? I’ll tell you perhaps afterwards. You’d better explain why you came to see me yesterday when I told you myself I shouldn’t be at home.”
“I remembered afterwards. But I forgot at the time. I really did want to speak to you about something. But before everything I had to comfort Alexandra Semyonovna. ‘Here,’ says she, ‘is a person, a friend, who has turned up. Why not invite him?’ And here she’s been pestering me about you for the last four days. No doubt they’ll let me off forty sins for the bergamot in the next world, but I thought why shouldn’t he spend an evening with us in a friendly way? So I had recourse to strategy: I wrote to you that I had such business that if you didn’t come it would quite upset o
ur apple-cart.”
I begged him not to do like this in the future, but to speak to me directly. But this explanation did not altogether satisfy me.
“Well, but why did you run away from me this morning?” I asked.
“This morning I really had business. I’m not telling the least little fib.”
“Not with the prince?”
“Do you like our tea?” Alexandra Semyonovna asked, in honied accents. For the last five minutes she had been waiting for me to praise the tea, but it never occurred to me.
“It’s splendid, Alexandra Semyonovna, superb. I have never drunk anything like it.”
Alexandra Semyonovna positively glowed with satisfaction and flew to pour me out some more.
“The prince!” cried Masloboev, “the prince! That prince, my boy, is a rogue, a rascal such as …. Well! I can tell you, my boy, though I’m a rogue myself, from a mere sense of decency I shouldn’t care to be in his skin. But enough. Mum’s the word! That’s all I can tell you about him.”
“But I’ve come, among other things, on purpose to ask you about him. But that will do later. Why did you give my Elena sweetmeats and dance for her when I was away yesterday? And what can you have been talking about for an hour and a half!”
“Elena is a little girl of twelve, or perhaps eleven, who is living for the time at Ivan Petrovitch’s,” Masloboev exclaimed, suddenly addressing Alexandra Semyonovna. “Look, Vanya, look,” he went on, pointing at her, “how she flushed up when she heard I had taken sweets to an unknown girl. Didn’t she give a start and turn red as though we’d fired a pistol at her? … I say, her eyes are flashing like coals of fire! It’s no use, Alexandra Semyonovna, it’s no use to try and hide it! She’s jealous. If I hadn’t explained that it was a child of eleven she’d have pulled my hair and the bergamot wouldn’t have saved me!”
“It won’t save you as it is!”
And with these words Alexandra Semyonovna darted at one bound from behind the tea-table, and before Masloboev had time to protect his head she snatched at a tuft of his hair and gave it a good pull.
“So there! So there! Don’t dare to say I’m jealous before a visitor! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”
She was quite crimson, and though she laughed, Masloboev caught it pretty hotly.
“He talks of all sorts of shameful things,” she added seriously turning to me.
“Well, Vanya, you see the sort of life I lead! That’s I must have a drop of vodka,” Masloboev concluded, setting his hair straight and going almost at a trot to the decanter But Alexandra Semyonovna was beforehand with him. She skipped up to the table, poured some out herself, handed it him, and even gave him a friendly pat on the cheek. Masloboev winked at me, triumphantly clicked with his tongue, an solemnly emptied his glass.
“As for the sweets, it’s difficult to say,” he began, sitting down on the sofa beside me. “I bought them at a greengrocer’s shop the other day when I was drunk, I don’t know why. Perhaps it was to support home industries and manufactures, don’t know for sure. I only remember that I was walking along the street drunk, fell in the mud, clutched at my hair and cried at being unfit for anything. I forgot about the sweets, of course so they remained in my pocket till yesterday when I sat down on your sofa and sat on them. The dances, too, were a question of inebriety. Yesterday I was rather drunk, and when I’m drunk, if I’m contented with my lot I sometimes dance. That’s all. Except, perhaps, that that little orphan excited my pity besides, she wouldn’t talk to me, she seemed cross. And so danced to cheer her up and gave her the fruit-drops.”
“And you weren’t bribing her to try and find something out from her? Own up, honestly, didn’t you come then on purpose knowing I shouldn’t be at home, to talk to her tete-a-tete, to get something out of her? You see, I know you spent an hour and a half with her, declared that you had known her dead mother, and that you questioned her about something.” Masloboev screwed up his eyes and laughed roguishly.
“Well, it wouldn’t have been a bad idea,” he said. “Vanya, that was not so. Though, indeed, why shouldn’t I question her if I got a chance; but it wasn’t that. Listen, my friend, though as usual I’m rather drunk now, yet you may be sure that with evil intent Filip will never deceive you, with evil intent, that is.”
“Yes, but without evil intent?
“Well … even without evil intent. But, damn it all, let’s have a drink and then to business. It’s not a matter of much consequence,” he went on after a drink; “that Bubnov woman had no sort of right to keep the girl. I’ve gone into it all. There was no adoption or anything of that sort. The mother owed her money, and so she got hold of the child. Though the Bubnov woman’s a sly hag and a wicked wretch, she’s a silly woman like all women. The dead woman had a good passport and so everything was all right. Elena can live with you, though it would be a very good thing if some benevolent people with a family would take her for good and bring her up. But meanwhile, let her stay with you. That’s all right. I’ll arrange it all for you. The Bubnov woman won’t dare to stir a finger. I’ve found out scarcely anything certain about Elena’s mother. She was a woman of the name of Salzmann.”
“Yes, so Nellie told me.”
“Well, so there the matter ends. Now, Vanya,” he began with a certain solemnity, “I’ve one great favour to ask of you. Mind you grant it. Tell me as fully as you can what it is you’re busy about, where you’re going, and where you spend whole days at a time. Though I have heard something, I want to know about it much more fully.”
Such solemnity surprised me and even made me uneasy.
“But what is it? Why do you want to know? You ask so solemnly.”
“Well, Vanya, without wasting words, I want to do you a service. You see, my dear boy, if I weren’t straight with you I could get it all out of you without being so solemn. But you suspect me of not being straight — just now, those fruit-drops; I understood. But since I’m speaking with such seriousness, you may be sure it’s not my interest but yours I’m thinking of. So don’t have any doubts, but speak out the whole truth.”
“But what sort of service? Listen, Masloboev, why won’t you tell me anything about the prince? That’s what I want. That would be a service to me.”
“About the prince? H’m! Very well, I’ll tell you straight out. I’m going to question you in regard to the prince now.”
“How so?”
“I’ll tell you how. I’ve noticed, my boy, that he seems to be somehow mixed up in your affairs; for instance, he questioned me about you. How he found out that we knew each other is not your business. The only thing that matters is that you should be on your guard against that man. He’s a treacherous Judas, and worse than that too. And so, when I saw that he was mixed up in your affairs I trembled for you. But of course I knew nothing about it; that’s why I asked you to tell me, that I may judge…. And that’s why I asked you to come her to-day. That’s what the important business is. I tell you straight out.”
“You must tell me something, anyway, if only why I need to be afraid of the prince.”
“Very good, so be it. I am sometimes employed, my boy, in certain affairs. But I’m trusted by certain persons just because I’m not a chatterbox. Judge for yourself whether I should talk to you. So you mustn’t mind if I speak somewhat generally, very generally in fact, simply to show what a scoundrel he is. Well, to begin with, you tell your story.”
I decided there was really no need to conceal anything in my affairs from Masloboev. Natasha’s affairs were not a secret; moreover I might expect to get some help for her from Masloboev. Of course I passed over certain points as far as possible in my story. Masloboev listened particularly attentively to all that related to Prince Valkovsky; he stopped me in many places, asked me about several points over again, so that in the end I told him the story rather fully. The telling of it lasted half an hour.
“H’m! That girl’s got a head,” Masloboev commented. “If she hasn’t guessed quite c
orrectly about the prince, it’s a good thing anyway that she recognized from the first the sort of man she had to deal with, and broke off all relations with him. Bravo, Natalya Nikolaevna! I drink to her health.” (He took a drink.) “It’s not only brains, it must have been her heart too, that saved her from being deceived. And her heart didn’t mislead her. Of course her game is lost. The prince will get his way and Alyosha will give her up. I’m only sorry for Ichmenyev — to pay ten thousand to that scoundrel. Why, who took up his case, who acted for him? Managed it himself, I bet! E-ech! just like all these noble, exalted people! They’re no good for anything! That’s not the way to deal with the prince. I’d have found a nice little lawyer for Ichmenyev — ech!”
And he thumped on the table with vexation.
“Well, now about Prince Valkovsky?”
“Ah, you’re still harping on the prince. But what am I to say about him? I’m sorry I’ve offered to, I only wanted, Vanya, to warn you against that swindler, to protect you, so to say, from his influence. No one is safe who comes in contact with him. So keep your eyes open, that’s all. And here you’ve been imagining I had some mysteries of Paris I wanted to reveal to you. One can see you’re a novelist. Well, what am I to tell you about the villain? The villain’s a villain…. Well, for example, I’ll tell you one little story, of course without mentioning places, towns, or persons, that is, without the exactitude of a calendar. You know that when he was very young and had to live on his official salary, he married a very rich merchant’s daughter. Well, he didn’t treat that lady very ceremoniously, and though we’re not discussing her case now, I may mention in passing, friend Vanya, that he has all his life been particularly fond of turning such affairs to profit. Here’s another example of it. He went abroad. There… .”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 120