CHAPTER I

Yudushka's agony commenced when the resources of loquaciousness, in which he had so freely indulged, began to give out. A void had formed around him. Some had died, others had deserted him. Even Anninka preferred the miserable future of a nomadic actress to the flesh-pots of Golovliovo. Yevpraksia alone remained. But Yevpraksia's conversational gifts were limited, and, more than that, Yevpraksia was now a changed person. It was the difference that had occurred in her which convinced Yudushka that his halcyon days were gone forever.

Till then Yevpraksia had been so helpless that Porfiry Vladimirych could tyrannize over her without the slightest risk, and her mental development was so backward and her character so flabby that she had not even felt the oppression. During Yudushka's harangues she would look into his eyes apathetically, and think of something else. But now suddenly she grasped something important, and the first consequence of awakened understanding was repugnance, sudden and half-conscious, but vicious and insuperable.

Anninka's stay had evidently not been without results for Yevpraksia. The casual conversations with the young actress had quite upset her. Previously she would never have dreamed of wondering why Porfiry Vladimirych, as soon as he met a man, instantly started to weave around him an oppressive net of words, sinister in their emptiness. Now she perceived it was not talking that Yudushka did, but tyrannizing, and it would be well worth the while to pull him up short and make him feel the time had come for him, too, to go easy. So, from now on, she listened to his endless flow of words and soon realized that the one purpose of Yudushka's talk was to worry, annoy, nag.

"The mistress herself said she didn't know why he talked so much," Yevpraksia reasoned. "No, it's his meanness working in him. He knows who is unprotected and at his mercy. And so he turns and twists them anyway he wants to."

But that was only secondary. The main effect of Anninka's visit was that it stirred up the instincts of youth in Yevpraksia, which had hitherto smouldered in her undeveloped mind and now suddenly flared up in a blaze. Many things became clear to her--for instance, why Anninka had refused to remain at Golovliovo and why she had said flatly, "It's horrible here!" She had acted that way because she was young and wanted to enjoy life. Yevpraksia, too, was young, indeed she was! It only seemed that her youth was crushed under a load of fat, in reality it manifested itself quite boldly. It called and lured her; its flame now died down, now flared up. She had thought Yudushka would do for her, but now she perceived her mistake. "The old, rotten stump, how he got round me!" ran through her mind. "Wouldn't it be fine now to live with a real lover, young and handsome? He would hug me and kiss me and whisper caressing words in my ear. The old scarecrow, how did he ever tempt me? The Pogorelka lady must have a lover, I'm sure. That's why she gathered up her skirts and sailed away so rapidly. And I must sit here, in a jail, chained to that old man."

Of course, some time passed before Yevpraksia mutinied openly; but once on the road of revolt she did not halt. A storm was brewing within her, and her hatred grew each minute. Yudushka, for his part, remained in ignorance of her state of mind. Yevpraksia began with general complaints, such as "he has spoiled my life." Then came comparisons. "In Mazulina," she reflected, "Pelageyushka lives with her master as a housekeeper. She never does a stroke of work, and wears silk dresses. She sits in a cosy little room doing bead embroidery. How I hate you now, you old fright; How I hate you, I hate you!" she wound up with a cry.

In addition to this, the main cause of irritation, there was another one, one that was valuable because it could serve as a good occasion for the declaration of war against Yudushka. It was her confinement and the disappearance of her son Volodya.

At the time of the child's removal Yevpraksia had been rather indifferent. Porfiry Vladimirych had curtly announced that the baby had been entrusted to reliable people, and he presented her with a new shawl by way of solace. Then life resumed its course, and Yevpraksia plunged into the mire of household affairs with greater industry than before, as if to atone for her unsuccessful motherhood. But whether the mother feeling continued to smoulder in her, or whether it was merely a whim, at any rate, the memory of Volodka came back to her, and at the precise moment when Yevpraksia felt the breath of freedom and it began to dawn upon her that there existed another life different from that at Golovliovo. The occasion was too good not to be taken advantage of.

"To think of what the scoundrel has done!" she reflected, trying consciously to work herself into a rage. "He has robbed me of my own child. Just as one drowns a pup in the pond."

Little by little the thought filled her mind completely. She came to believe that she had always longed for her child passionately. Her hatred of Porfiry Vladimirych fed on this new and rapidly growing obsession.

"At least, I should have had something to amuse me now. Volodya, Volodyushka! My dear little son! Where are you now? He must have shipped you to some wretched peasant woman. God curse them, the damned gentry. They bring children in the world and then throw them like pups into a ditch, and no one takes them to account. It would have been better for me to cut my throat than to allow that shameless old brute to outrage me."

Her hatred was now ripe. She felt a desire to vex and pester him and spoil life for him. War began, the most unbearable of wars, squabbles and provocations, and petty pricking. It was the only form of warfare that could have subdued Porfiry Vladimirych.