Fifty-Two Stories

“I’m packing. Forgive me, Nikolai Sergeich, but I can no longer remain in your house. I have been deeply insulted by this search!”

“I understand…Only you needn’t do this…Why? So you’ve been searched…What is it to you? There’s no harm done.”

Mashenka said nothing and went on packing. Nikolai Sergeich plucked at his moustache, as if thinking up what else to say, and went on in an ingratiating voice:

“I understand, of course, but you must be charitable. You know my wife is nervous, hysterical; you mustn’t judge her severely…”

Mashenka said nothing.

“If you’re so insulted,” Nikolai Sergeich went on, “very well then, I’m ready to apologize to you. I apologize.”

Mashenka made no reply, and only bent lower over her suitcase. This haggard, irresolute man meant precisely nothing in the house. He played the pathetic role of a sponger and a hanger-on even for the servants; and his apology also meant nothing.

“Hm…So you’re silent? It’s not enough for you? In that case I apologize for my wife. In my wife’s name…She behaved tactlessly, I acknowledge it as a gentleman…”

Nikolai Sergeich paced up and down, sighed, and went on.

“So you also want me to have pangs here, in my heart…You want me to suffer remorse…”

“I know you’re not to blame, Nikolai Sergeich,” said Mashenka, looking him straight in the face with her big, tearful eyes. “Why should you suffer?”

“Of course…But anyhow…don’t leave…I beg you.”

Mashenka shook her head negatively. Nikolai Sergeich stopped by the window and started drumming on the glass.

“For me such misunderstandings are sheer torture,” he said. “Should I go on my knees before you, or what? Your pride has been insulted, and here you are weeping, preparing to leave, but I also have my pride, and you don’t spare it. Or do you want me to tell you something I wouldn’t say even at confession? Do you want me to? Listen, do you want me to confess something I wouldn’t confess to even on my deathbed?”

Mashenka said nothing.

“I took my wife’s brooch!” Nikolai Sergeich said quickly. “Are you pleased now? Satisfied? Yes, I…took it…Only, of course, I’m counting on your discretion…For God’s sake, not a word to anyone, not half a hint!”

Mashenka, astonished and frightened, went on packing; she grabbed her things, crumpled them, and stuffed them haphazardly into the suitcase and basket. Now, after Nikolai Sergeich’s candid confession, she could not stay even another minute, and she no longer understood how she could have lived in this house before.

“Nothing surprising…,” Nikolai Sergeich went on after a brief silence. “An ordinary story. I need money, and she…doesn’t give me any. This house and everything in it was acquired by my father, Marya Andreevna! It’s all mine, and the brooch belonged to my mother, and…it’s all mine! And she took it, she made it all hers…I can’t take her to court, you must agree…I ask you earnestly, forgive and…and stay. Tout comprendre, tout pardonner.³ Will you stay?”

“No!” Mashenka said resolutely, starting to tremble. “Leave me, I beg you.”

“Well, God help you.” Nikolai Sergeich sighed, sitting down on a little stool by the suitcase. “I confess I like people who are still capable of being insulted, disdainful, and all that. I could spend an eternity gazing at your indignant face…Well, so you won’t stay? I understand…That’s how it ought to be…Yes, of course…Good for you, but for me it’s—who-o-a! Not a step outside this cellar. I could go to one of our country estates, but there are all my wife’s crooks sitting everywhere…managers, agronomists, devil take them. They mortgage, remortgage…No fishing, no stepping on the grass, no breaking branches.”

“Nikolai Sergeich!” Fedosya Vassilyevna’s voice came from the drawing room. “Agnia, call the master!”

“So you won’t stay?” asked Nikolai Sergeich, quickly getting up and going to the door. “Why not stay, by God. I’d come and see you some evenings…We’d talk. Eh? Stay! You’ll leave and there won’t be a single human face left in the whole house. It’s terrible!”

Nikolai Sergeich’s pale, haggard face pleaded, but Mashenka shook her head negatively, and he waved his hand and left.

Half an hour later she was already on the road.

1886

THE WITCH