And would you believe it, good friends, two days later she’d torn up the dress, torn it into rags, and that’s how she goes about, that’s how she goes about! And what do you think, she tore it on purpose — I wouldn’t tell a lie, I saw it myself; as much as to say she would go in rags, she wouldn’t wear muslin! Well, I paid, her out! I did give her a drubbing! Then I called in the doctor afterwards and had to pay him, too. If I throttled you, you vermin, I should be quit with not touching milk for a week; that would be penance enough for strangling you. I made her scrub the floor for a punishment; and what do you think, she scrubbed and scrubbed, the jade! It vexed me to see her scrubbing. Well, thought I, she’ll run away from me now. And I’d scarcely thought it when I looked round and off she’d gone, yesterday. You heard how I beat her for it yesterday, good friends. I made my arms ache. I took away her shoes and stockings — she won’t go off barefoot, thought I; yet she gave me the slip today, too! Where have you been? Speak! Who have you been complaining of me to, you nettle-seed? Who have you been telling tales to? Speak, you gipsy, you foreign mask! Speak!
And in her frenzy, she rushed at the little girl, who stood petrified with horror, clutched her by the hair, and flung her on the ground. The cup with the cucumbers in it was dashed aside and broken. This only increased the drunken fury’s rage. She beat her victim about the face and the head; but Elena remained obstinately mute; not a sound, not a cry, not a complaint escaped her, even under the blows.
I rushed into the yard, almost beside myself with indignation, and went straight to the drunken woman.
“What are you about? How dare you treat a poor orphan like that?” I cried, seizing the fury by her arm.
“What’s this? Why, who are you?” she screamed, leaving Elena, and putting her arms akimbo. “What do you want in my house?”
“To tell you you’re a heartless woman.” I cried. “How dare you bully a poor child like that? She’s not yours. I’ve just heard that she’s only adopted, a poor orphan.”
“Lord Jesus!” cried the fury. “But who are you, poking your nose in! Did you come with her, eh? I’ll go straight to the police-captain! Andrey Timofeyitch himself treats me like a lady. Why, is it to see you she goes, eh? Who is it? He’s come to make an upset in another person’s house. Police!”
And she flew at me, brandishing her fists. But at that instant we heard a piercing, inhuman shriek. I looked. Elena, who had been standing as though unconscious, uttering a strange, unnatural scream, fell with a thud on the ground, writhing in awful convulsions. Her face was working. She was in an epileptic fit. The dishevelled female and the woman from the basement ran, lifted her up, and hurriedly carried her up the steps.
“She may choke for me, the damned slut the woman shrieked after her. “That’s the third fit this month! . . . Get off, you pickpocket” and she rushed at me again. “Why are you standing there, porter? What do you get your wages for?”
“Get along, get along! Do you want a smack on the head?” the porter boomed out lazily, apparently only as a matter of form. “Two’s company and three’s none. Make your bow and take your hook!”
There was no help for it. I went out at the gate, feeling that my interference had been useless. But I was boiling with indignation. I stood on, the pavement facing the gateway, and looked through the gate. As soon as I had gone out the woman rushed up the steps, and the porter having done his duty vanished. Soon after, the woman who had helped to carry up Elena hurried down the steps on the way to the basement. Seeing me she stood still and looked at me with curiosity. Her quiet, good-natured face encouraged me. I went back into the yard and straight up to her.
“Allow me to ask,” I said, “who is that girl and what is that horrible woman doing with her? Please don’t imagine that I ask simply from curiosity. I’ve met the girl, and owing to special circumstances I am much interested in her.”
“If you’re interested in her you’d better take her home or find some place for her than let her come to ruin here,” said the woman with apparent reluctance, making a movement to get away from me.
“But if you don’t tell me, what can I do? I tell you I know nothing about her. I suppose that’s Mme. Bubnov herself, the woman of the house?”
“Yes”
“Then how did the girl fall into her hands? Did her mother die here?” “Oh, I can’t say. It’s not our business.”
And again she would have moved away.
“But please do me a kindness. I tell you it’s very interesting to me. Perhaps I may be able to do something. Who is the girl? What was her mother? Do you know?”
“She looked like a foreigner of some sort; she lived down below with us; but she was ill; she died of consumption.”
“Then she must have been very poor if she shared a room in the basement?”
“Ough! she was poor! My heart was always aching for her. We simply live from hand to mouth, yet she owed us six roubles in the five months she lived with us. We buried her, too. My husband made the coffin.”
“How was it then that woman said she’d buried her?” “As though she’d buried her!”
“And what was her surname?”
“I can’t pronounce it, sir. It’s difficult. It must have been German.” “Smith?”
“No, not quite that. Well, Anna Trifonovna took charge of the orphan, to bring her up, she says. But it’s not the right thing at all.”
“I suppose she took her for some object?”
“She’s a woman who’s up to no good,” answered the woman, seeming to ponder and hesitate whether to speak or not. “What is it to us? We’re outsiders.”
“You’d better keep a check on your tongue,” I heard a man’s voice say behind us.
It was a middle-aged man in a dressing-gown, with a full-coat over the dressing-gown, who looked like an artisan, the woman’s husband.
“She’s no call to be talking to you, sir; it’s not our business,” he said, looking askance at me. “And you go in. Good-bye, sir; we’re coffin-makers. If you ever need anything in our way we shall be pleased . . . but apart from that we’ve nothing to say.
I went out, musing, and greatly excited. I could do nothing, but I felt that it was hard for me to leave it like this. Some words dropped by the coffin-maker’s wife revolted me particularly. There was something wrong here; I felt that.
I was walking away, looking down and meditating, when suddenly a sharp voice called me by my surname. I looked up. Before me stood a man who had been drinking and was almost staggering, dressed fairly neatly, though he had a shabby overcoat and a greasy cap. His face was very familiar. I looked more closely at it. He winked at me and smiled ironically.
“Don’t you know me?”
CHAPTER V
AH, why it’s you, Masloboev!” I cried, suddenly recognizing him as an old schoolfellow who had been at my provincial gymnasium. “Well, this is a meeting! ”
“Yes, a meeting indeed! We’ve not met for six years. Or rather, we have met, but your excellency hasn’t deigned to look at me. To be sure, you’re a general, a literary one that is, eh! . . . ”
He smiled ironically as he said it.
“Come, Masloboev,, old boy, you’re talking nonsense!” I interrupted. “Generals look very different from me even if they are literary ones, and besides, let me tell you, I certainly do remember having met you twice in the street. But you obviously. avoided me. And why should I go up to a man if I see he’s trying to avoid me? And do you know what I believe? If you weren’t drunk you wouldn’t have called to me even now. That’s true, isn’t it? Well, how are you? I’m very, very glad to have met you, my boy.”
“Really? And I’m not compromising you by my . . . ‘unconventional’ appearance? But there’s no need to ask that. It’s not a great matter; I always remember what a jolly chap you were, old Vanya. Do you remember you took a thrashing for me? You held your tongue and didn’t give me away, and, instead of being grateful, I jeered at you for a week afterwards. You’re a blessed innocent! Glad to see you, my dear soul!” (We kissed each other.) “How many years I’ve been pining in solitude
