I also rose, and, laying the skein of wool on the window-sill, went into the drawing-room, and stopped short in amazement. In the centre of the room lay a kitten with outstretched paws; Zinaída was kneeling in front of it, and carefully raising its snout. By the side of the young Princess, taking up nearly the entire wall-space between the windows, was visible a fair-complexioned, curly-haired young man, a hussar, with a rosy face and protruding eyes.
“How ridiculous!”—Zinaída kept repeating:—“and its eyes are not grey, but green, and what big ears it has! Thank you, Viktór Egóritch! you are very kind.”
The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men whom I had seen on the preceding evening, smiled and bowed, clicking his spurs and clanking the links of his sword as he did so.
“You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a striped kitten with large ears … so I have got it, madam. Your word is my law.”—And again he bowed.
The kitten mewed faintly, and began to sniff at the floor.
“He is hungry!”—cried Zinaída.—“Vonifáty! Sónya! bring some milk.”
The chambermaid, in an old yellow gown and with a faded kerchief on her head, entered with a saucer of milk in her hand, and placed it in front of the kitten. The kitten quivered, blinked, and began to lap.
“What a rosy tongue it has,”—remarked Zinaída, bending her head down almost to the floor, and looking sideways at it, under its very nose.
The kitten drank its fill, and began to purr, affectedly contracting and relaxing its paws. Zinaída rose to her feet, and turning to the maid, said indifferently:—“Take it away.”
“Your hand—in return for the kitten,”—said the hussar, displaying his teeth, and bending over the whole of his huge body, tightly confined in a new uniform.
“Both hands,”—replied Zinaída, offering him her hands. While he was kissing them, she gazed at me over his shoulder.
I stood motionless on one spot, and did not know whether to laugh or to say something, or to hold my peace. Suddenly, through the open door of the anteroom, the figure of our footman, Feódor, caught my eye. He was making signs to me. I mechanically went out to him.
“What dost thou want?”—I asked.
“Your mamma has sent for you,”—he said in a whisper.—“She is angry because you do not return with an answer.”
“Why, have I been here long?”
“More than an hour.”
“More than an hour!”—I repeated involuntarily, and returning to the drawing-room, I began to bow and scrape my foot.
“Where are you going?”—the young Princess asked me, with a glance at the hussar.
“I must go home, madam. So I am to say,”—I added, addressing the old woman—“that you will call upon us at two o’clock.”
“Say that, my dear fellow.”
The old Princess hurriedly drew out her snuffbox, and took a pinch so noisily that I fairly jumped.—“Say that,”—she repeated, tearfully blinking and grunting.
I bowed once more, turned and left the room with the same sensation of awkwardness in my back which a very young man experiences when he knows that people are staring after him.
“Look here, M’sieu Voldemar, you must drop in to see us,”—called Zinaída, and again burst out laughing.
“What makes her laugh all the time?” I thought, as I wended my way home accompanied by Feódor, who said nothing to me, but moved along disapprovingly behind me. My mother reproved me, and inquired, with surprise, “What could I have been doing so long at the Princess’s?” I made her no answer, and went off to my own room. I had suddenly grown very melancholy. … I tried not to weep. … I was jealous of the hussar.
V
The Princess, according to her promise, called on my mother, and did not please her. I was not present at their meeting, but at table my mother narrated to my father that that Princess Zasyékin seemed to her a femme très vulgaire; that she had bored her immensely with her requests that she would intervene on her behalf with Prince Sergyéi; that she was always having such law-suits and affairs—de vilaines affaires d’argent—and that she must be a great rogue. But my mother added that she had invited her with her daughter to dine on the following day (on hearing the words “with her daughter,” I dropped my nose into my plate)—because, notwithstanding, she was a neighbour, and with a name. Thereupon my father informed my mother that he now recalled who the lady was: that in his youth he had known the late Prince Zasyékin, a capitally-educated but flighty and captious man; that in society he was called “le Parisien,” because of his long residence in Paris; that he had been very wealthy, but had gambled away all his property—and, no one knew why, though probably it had been for the sake of the money—“although he might have made a better choice,”—added my father, with a cold smile—he had married the daughter of some clerk in a chancellery, and after his marriage had gone into speculation, and ruined himself definitively.
“ ’Tis a wonder she did not try to borrow money,”—remarked my mother.
“She is very likely to do it,”—said my father, calmly.—“Does she speak French?”
“Very badly.”
“M-m-m. However, that makes no difference. I think thou saidst that thou hadst invited her daughter; some one assured me that she is a very charming and well-educated girl.”
“Ah! Then she does not take after her mother.”
“Nor after her father,”—returned my father.—“He was also well educated, but stupid.”
My mother sighed, and became thoughtful. My father relapsed into silence. I felt very awkward during the course of that conversation.
After dinner I betook myself to the garden, but without my gun. I had pledged my word to myself that I would not go near the “Zasyékin garden”; but an irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had no sooner approached the fence than I caught sight of Zinaída. This time she was alone. She was holding a small book in her hands and strolling slowly along the path. She did not notice me. I came near letting her slip past; but suddenly caught myself up and coughed.
She turned round but did not pause, put aside with one hand the broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled quietly, and again riveted her eyes on her book.
I pulled off my cap, and after fidgeting about a while on one spot, I went away with a heavy heart. “Que suis-je pour elle?”—I thought (God knows why) in French.
Familiar footsteps resounded behind me; I glanced round and beheld my father advancing toward me with swift, rapid strides.
“Is that the young Princess?”—he asked me.
“Yes.”
“Dost thou know her?”
“I saw her this morning at the Princess her mother’s.”
My father halted and, wheeling abruptly round on his heels, retraced his steps. As he came on a level with Zinaída he bowed courteously to her. She bowed to him in return, not without some surprise on her face, and lowered her book. I saw that she followed him with her eyes. My father always dressed very elegantly, originally and simply; but his figure had never seemed to me more graceful, never had his grey hat sat more handsomely on his curls, which were barely beginning to grow thin.
I