Poor Stepan Trofimovich was sitting alone and had no presentiment of anything. In sad pensiveness he had long been glancing out the window to see if some acquaintance was coming. But no one would come. It was drizzling outside; it was getting cold; the stove needed lighting; he sighed. Suddenly a dreadful apparition appeared before his eyes: Varvara Petrovna was coming to see him in such weather and at such an odd hour! And on foot! He was so struck that he forgot to change his costume and received her just as he was in his usual pink quilted dressing jacket.

"Ma bonne amie! ..." he cried weakly in greeting.

"You're alone, I'm glad: I cannot bear your friends! It's always so smoky here! Lord, what air! You haven't finished your tea yet, and it's past eleven! Disorder is bliss to you. Messiness is a delight! What are these torn papers doing on the floor? Nastasya, Nastasya! What is your Nastasya up to? Open the windows, my dear, open the vents, the doors, everything should be wide open. And we will go to the drawing room; I've come to you on business. And sweep the floor, my dear, at least once in your life!"

"It does get messy, ma'am," Nastasya squeaked in an irritably plaintive little voice.

"Sweep up, then, sweep fifteen times a day! A wretched drawing room you've got" (when they had come to the drawing room). "Shut the door properly; she'll eavesdrop. You must change this wallpaper. Didn't I send you a paperhanger with samples? Why didn't you choose something? Sit down and listen. Sit down, finally, I beg you. Where are you going? Where are you going?"

"I... just a moment," Stepan Trofimovich cried from the other room, "here I am again!"

"Ah, you've changed your costume!" she looked him up and down mockingly. (He had put on his frock coat over the dressing jacket.) "That is certainly more fitting for... our conversation. Sit down, finally, I beg you."

She explained everything to him at once, abruptly and convincingly. Hinted at the eight thousand he so desperately needed. Spoke in detail of the dowry. Stepan Trofimovich sat wide-eyed and trembled. He heard everything, but could not understand it clearly. Wanted to speak, but his voice kept failing. He knew only that everything would be as she was saying, that to object or disagree would be a futile undertaking, and that he was irretrievably a married man.

"Mais, ma bonne amie, a third time, and at my age... and to such a child!" he said at last. "Mais c'est une enfant!”^[xxv]

"A child who, thank God, is twenty years old! Please stop rolling your eyes, you're not on stage. You are very intelligent and learned, but you understand nothing of life, you need a nanny constantly looking after you. I will die, and what will become of you? And she will be a good nanny for you; she's a modest girl, firm, reasonable; besides, I will be here myself, I won't die right away. She's a homebody, an angel of meekness. This happy thought kept occurring to me still in Switzerland. Do you understand, since I myself am telling you she's an angel of meekness!" she suddenly cried out fiercely. "Your place is a mess, she'll make it clean, she'll put everything in order, it will be like a mirror... Ah, but do you still fancy I should bow and scrape before you with such a treasure, enumerating all the benefits, playing the matchmaker? No, you yourself should ... on your knees... Oh, empty, empty, pusillanimous man!"

"But ... I'm old!"

"So what if you're fifty-three! Fifty isn't the end, it's the middle of life. You're a handsome man, and you know it yourself. You also know how she respects you. If I were to die, what would become of her? But with you she will be at ease, and I will be at ease. You have distinction, a name, a loving heart; you receive a pension, which I regard as my duty. You may even save her, save her! In any case, you will do her an honor. You will shape her life, develop her heart, guide her thoughts. So many people perish nowadays because their thoughts are misguided! By then your work will be ready, and all at once you will remind the world of yourself."

"I was just..." he mumbled, flattered now by Varvara Petrovna's clever flattery, "I was just going to sit down and write my Stories from Spanish History ..."

"There, you see, everything is falling into place."

"But... her? Have you told her?"

"Don't worry about her, and there's no need for you to be curious. Of course, you must ask her yourself, beg her to do you the honor, understand? But don't worry, I will be here. Besides, you love her..."

Stepan Trofimovich became dizzy; the walls began spinning around. There was one dreadful idea here which he was unable to cope with.

"Excellente amie!" his voice suddenly trembled, "I ... I could never have imagined that you would decide to give me in marriage ... to some other... woman!"

"You're not a young maiden, Stepan Trofimovich; only young maidens are given in marriage, and you yourself are doing the marrying," Varvara Petrovna hissed venomously.

"Oui, j'ai pris un mot pour un autre. Mais... c'est égal, "^[xxvi] he stared at her with a lost look.

"I see that c'est égal, " she said through her teeth, contemptuously. "Lord! he's fainted! Nastasya, Nastasya! Water!"

But it did not get as far as water. He revived. Varvara Petrovna took her umbrella.

"I see there's no point in talking to you now..."

"Oui, oui, je suis incapable, "^[xxvii]

"But by tomorrow you will have rested and thought it over. Stay home, and if anything happens, let me know, even during the night. Don't write letters, I won't read them. Tomorrow at this time I will come myself, alone, for a final answer, and I hope it will be satisfactory. Try to see that no one is here, and that there's no mess, because just look at this! Nastasya, Nastasya!"

Of course, the next day he accepted; and he could not have done otherwise. There was one special circumstance here...

VIII

Stepan Trofimovich's estate, as we used to call it (about fifty souls by the old way of reckoning,^[44] and adjoining Skvoreshniki), was not his at all, but had belonged to his first wife, and so now to their son, Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky. Stepan Trofimovich was merely the trustee, and thus, once the nestling was fully fledged, acted through a formal warrant as manager of the estate. For the young man it was a profitable deal: he received up to a thousand roubles a year from his father as income from the estate, while under the new regulations it did not yield as much as five hundred (and perhaps even less). God knows how such arrangements were set up. However, the entire thousand was sent by Varvara Petrovna, and Stepan Trofimovich did not contribute a single rouble to it. On the contrary, he pocketed all the income from this bit of land, and, furthermore, ruined it altogether by leasing it to some dealer and, in secret from Varvara Petrovna, selling the timber that was its main valuable asset. He had been selling this timber piecemeal for a long time. Its total worth was about eight thousand at least, yet he got only five for it. But he sometimes lost too much at the club, and was afraid to ask Varvara Petrovna. She ground her teeth when she finally learned of it all. And now the boy suddenly notified him that he was coming himself to sell his property at all costs, and charged his father with promptly arranging for the sale. It was clear that Stepan Trofimovich, being a lofty and disinterested man, felt ashamed before ce cher enfant (whom he had last seen as a student in Petersburg all of nine years earlier). Originally, the entire estate might have been worth some thirteen or fourteen thousand, but now it was unlikely that anyone would give five for it. Stepan Trofimovich undoubtedly had every right, in terms of the formal warrant, to sell the timber, and taking into account the impossible annual income of a thousand roubles, which had been sent punctually for so many years, could make a good defense of himself in any final settlement. But Stepan Trofimovich was noble and had lofty aspirations. A remarkably beautiful thought flashed in his head: to lay out nobly on the table, when Petrusha came, the highest maximum of the price—that is, even fifteen thousand—without the slightest hint at the sums that had been sent previously, and then firmly, very firmly, with tears, to press ce cher fils^[xxviii]to his heart, and so settle all accounts. He began remotely and cautiously unfolding this picture before Varvara Petrovna. He hinted that it would even add some special, noble tinge to their friendly connection ... to their "idea." It would show former fathers and former people generally in such a disinterested and magnanimous light, as compared with the new frivolous and social youth. He said many other things, but Varvara Petrovna kept silent. At last she dryly informed him that she would agree to buy their land and would pay the maximum price for it—that is, six or seven thousand (even four would have been enough). Of the remaining eight thousand that had flown away with the timber, she did not say a word.