The official of the Crown Council muttered something in reply. Then Ivan Markovitch began to speak softly and fluently. The Colonel impatiently shifted his chair, and smothered Ivan Markovitch’s argument with his detestable, metallic voice. At last the door opened, and out of the study came Ivan Markovitch with red spots on his meagre, clean-shaven face. «Come!» he said, taking Sasha by the arm. «Come in and make an open-hearted confession. Without pride, like a good boy … humbly and from the heart.»
Sasha went into the study. The official of the Crown Council continued to sit, but the Colonel, hands in pockets, and with one knee resting on his chair, stood before the table. The room was full of smoke and stiflingly hot. Sasha did not look at either the Colonel or his brother, but suddenly feeling ashamed and hurt, glanced anxiously at Ivan Markovitch and muttered:
«I will pay … I will give….»
«May I ask you on what you relied when you obtained the money on this bill?» rang out the metallic voice.
«I … Khandrikoff promised to lend me the money in time.»
Sasha said nothing more. He went out of the study and again sat on the chair outside the door. He would have gone away at once had he not been stifled with hatred and with a desire to tear the Colonel to pieces or at least to insult him to his face. But at this moment in the dim twilight around the dining-room door appeared a woman’s figure. It was the Colonel’s wife. She beckoned Sasha, and, wringing her hands, said with tears in her voice:
«Alexandre, I know that you do not love me, but … listen for a moment! My poor boy, how can this have happened P It is awful, awful! For Heaven’s sake beg their forgiveness … justify yourself, implore them!»
Sasha looked at her twitching shoulders, and at the big tears which flowed down her cheeks; he heard behind him the dull, nervous voices of his exhausted uncles, and shrugged his shoulders. He had never expected that his aristocratic relatives would raise such a storm over a paltry fifteen hundred roubles. And he could understand neither the tears nor the trembling voices.
An hour later he heard indications that the Colonel was gaining the day. The other uncles were being won over to his determination to leave the matter to the law.
«It is decided!» said the Colonel stiffly. «Basta!» But having decided thus, the three uncles, even the inexorable Colonel, perceptibly lost heart.
«Heavens!» sighed Ivan Markovitch. «My poor sister!»
And he began in a soft voice to announce his conviction that his sister, Sasha’s mother, was invisibly present in the room. He felt in his heart that this unhappy, sainted woman was weeping, anguishing, interceding for her boy. For the sake of her repose in the other world it would have been better to spare Sasha. Sasha heard someone whimpering. It was Ivan Markovitch. He wept and muttered something inaudible through the door. The Colonel rose and walked from corner to corner. The discussion began anew….
The clock in the drawing-room struck two. The council was over at last. The Colonel, to avoid meeting a man who had caused him so much shame, left the room through the antechamber. Ivan Markovitch came into the corridor. He was plainly agitated, but rubbed his hands cheerfully. His tear-stained eyes glanced happily around him, and his mouth was twisted into a smile.
«It is all right, my boy!» he said to Sasha. «Heaven be praised! You may go home, child, and sleep quietly. We have decided to pay the money, but only on the condition that you repent sincerely, and agree to come with me to the country to-morrow, and set to work.»
A minute afterwards, Ivan Markovitch and Sasha, having put on their overcoats and hats, went downstairs together. Uncle Ivan muttered something edifying. But Sasha didn’t listen; he felt only that something heavy and painful had fallen from his shoulders. He was forgiven—he was free! Joy like a breeze burst into his breast and wrapped his heart with refreshing coolness. He wished to breathe, to move, to live. And looking at the street lamps and at the black sky he remembered that to-day at «The Bear,» Von Burst would celebrate his name-day. A new joy seized his soul.
«I will go!» he decided.
But suddenly he remembered that he had not a kopeck, and that his friends already despised him for his penuriousness. He must get money at all cost. «Uncle, lend me a hundred roubles!» he said to Ivan Markovitch.
Ivan Markovitch looked at him in amazement, and staggered back against a lamp-post.
«Lend me a hundred roubles!» cried Sasha, impatiently shifting from foot to foot, and beginning to lose his temper. «Uncle, I beg of you … lend me a hundred roubles!»
His face trembled with excitement, and he nearly rushed at his uncle.
«You won’t give them?» he cried, seeing that his uncle was too dumfounded to understand. «Listen, if you refuse to lend them, I’ll inform on myself to-morrow. I’ll refuse to let you pay the money. I’ll forge another to-morrow!»
Thunderstruck, terror-stricken, Ivan Markovitch muttered something incoherent, took from his pocket a hundred-rouble note, and handed it silently to Sasha. And Sasha took it and hurriedly walked away. And sitting in a droschky, Sasha grew cool again, and felt his heart expand with renewed joy. The claims of youth of which kind-hearted uncle Ivan had spoken at the council-table had inspired and taken possession of him again. He painted in imagination the coming feast, and in his mind, among visions of bottles, women, and boon companions, twinkled a little thought:
«Now I begin to see that I was in the wrong.»
