“Ah, if only we may, brother. …”
“Does Mr. Shumkov live here?” they heard a child’s voice on the stairs.
“Yes, my dear, yes,” said Mavra, showing the visitor in.
“What’s that? What is it? “ cried Vasya, leaping up from the table and rushing to the entry, “ Petinka, you?”
“Good morning, I have the honour to wish you a happy New Year, Vassily Petrovitch,” said a pretty boy of ten years old with curly black hair. “Sister sends you her love, and so does Mamma, and Sister told me to give you a kiss for her.”
Vasya caught the messenger up in the air and printed a long, enthusiastic kiss on his lips, which were very much like Lizanka’s.
“Kiss him, Arkady,” he said handing Petya to him, and without touching the ground the boy was transferred to Arkady Ivanovitch’s powerful and eager arms.
“Will you have some breakfast, dear?”
“Thank-you, very much. We have had it already, we got up early to-day, the others have gone to church. Sister was two hours curling my hair, and pomading it, washing me and mending my trousers, for I tore them yesterday, playing with Sashka in the street, we were snowballing.”
“Well, well, well!”
“So she dressed me up to come and see you, and then pomaded my head and then gave me a regular kissing. She said : ‘Go to Vasya, wish him a happy New Year, and ask whether they are happy, whether they had a good night, and …’ to ask something else, oh yes! whether you had finished the work you spoke of yesterday … when you were there. Oh, I’ve got it all written down,” said the boy, reading from a slip of paper which he took out of his pocket. “ Yes, they were uneasy.”
“It will be finished! It will be! Tell her that it will be. I shall finish it, on my word of honour!”
“And something else… . Oh yes, I forgot. Sister sent a little note and a present, and I was forgetting it ! …”
“My goodness! Oh, you little darling! Where is it? where is it? That’s it, oh! Look, brother, see what she writes. The darling, the precious! You know I saw there yesterday a paper-case for me; it’s not finished, so she says, ‘I am sending you a lock of my hair, and the other will come later.’ Look, brother, look!”
And overwhelmed with rapture he showed Arkady Ivanovitch a curl of luxuriant, jet-black hair; then he kissed it fervently and put it in his breast pocket, nearest his heart.
“Vasya, I shall get you a locket for that curl,” Arkady Ivanovitch said resolutely at last.
“And we are going to have hot veal, and tomorrow brains. Mamma wants to make cakes … but we are not going to have millet porridge,” said the boy, after a moment’s thought, to wind up his budget of interesting items.
“Oh! what a pretty boy,” cried Arkady Ivanovitch. “Vasya, you are the happiest of mortals.”
The boy finished his tea, took from Vasya a note, a thousand kisses, and went out happy and frolicsome as before.
“Well, brother,” began Arkady Ivanovitch, highly delighted, you see how splendid it all is; you see. Everything is going well, don’t be downcast, don’t be uneasy. Go ahead! Get it done, Vasya, get it done. I’ll be home at two o’clock. I’ll go round to them, and then to Yulian Mastakovitch.”
“Well, goodbye, brother; goodbye … Oh! if only… . Very good, you go, very good,” said Vasya, “then I really won’t go to Yulian Mastakovitch.”
“Goodbye.”
“Stay, brother, stay, tell them … well, whatever you think fit. Kiss her… and give me a full account of everything afterwards.”
“Come, come of course, I know all about it. This happiness has upset you. The suddenness of it all; you’ve not been yourself since yesterday. You have not got over the excitement of yesterday. Well, it’s settled. Now try and get over it, Vasya. Goodbye, goodbye!”
At last the friends parted. All the morning Arkady Ivanovitch was preoccupied, and could think of nothing but Vasya. He knew his weak, highly nervous character. “Yes, this happiness has upset him, I was right there,” he said to himself. “Upon my word, he has made me quite depressed, too, that man will make a tragedy of anything! What a feverish creature! Oh, I must save him! I must save him!” said Arkady, not noticing that he himself was exaggerating into something serious a slight trouble, in reality quite trivial. Only at eleven o’clock he reached the porter’s lodge of Yulian Mastakovitch’s house, to add his modest name to the long list of illustrious persons who had written their names on a sheet of blotted and scribbled paper in the porter’s lodge. What was his surprise when he saw just above his own the signature of Vasya Shumkov! It amazed him. “What’s the matter with him?” he thought. Arkady Ivanovitch, who had just been so buoyant with hope, came out feeling upset. There was certainly going to be trouble, but how? And in what form? He reached the Artemyevs with gloomy forebodings; he seemed absentminded from the first, and after talking a little with Lizanka went away with tears in his eyes; he was really anxious about Vasya. He went home running, and on the Neva came full tilt upon Vasya himself. The latter, too, was uneasy.
“Where are you going!” cried Arkady Ivanovitch.
Vasya stopped as though he had been caught in a crime.
“Oh, it’s nothing, brother, I wanted to go for a walk.”
“You could not stand it, and have been to the Artemyevs? Oh, Vasya, Vasya! Why did you go to Yulian Mastakovitch?”
Vasya did not answer, but then with a wave of his hand, he said: “ Arkady, I don’t know what is the matter with me. I… .”
“Come, come, Vasya. I know what it is. Calm yourself. You’ve been excited, and overwrought ever since yesterday. Only think, it’s not much to bear. Everybody’s fond of you, everybody’s ready to do anything for you; your work is getting on all right; you will get it done, you will certainly get it done. I know that you have been imagining something, you have had apprehensions about something. …”
“No, it’s all right, it’s all right… .”
“Do you remember, Vasya, do you remember it was the same with you once before; do you remember, when you got your promotion, in your joy and thankfulness you were so zealous that you spoilt all your work for a week? It is just the same with you now.”
“Yes, yes, Arkady; but now it is different, it is not that at all.”
“How is it different? And very likely the work is not urgent at all, while you are killing yourself… .”
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. I am all right, it’s nothing. Well, come along!”
“Why, are you going home, and not to them?”
“Yes, brother, how could I have the face to turn up there? … I have changed my mind. It was only that I could not stay on alone without you; now you are coming back with me — I’ll sit down to write again. Let us go!”
They walked along and for some time were silent. Vasya was in haste.
“Why don’t you ask me about them?” said Arkady Ivanovitch.
“Oh, yes! Well, Arkasha, what about them?”
“Vasya, you are not like yourself.”
“Oh, I am all right, I am all right. Tell me everything, Arkasha,” said Vasya, in an imploring voice, as though to avoid further explanations. Arkady Ivanovitch sighed. He felt utterly at a loss, looking at Vasya.
His account of their friends roused Vasya. He even grew talkative. They had dinner together. Lizanka’s mother had filled Arkady Ivanovitch’s pockets with little cakes, and eating them the friends grew more cheerful. After dinner Vasya promised to take a nap, so as to sit up all night. He did,