CHAPTER II

One morning when Porfiry Vladimirych was sitting at tea, he was unpleasantly surprised. He was discharging masses of verbal pus, while Yevpraksia, with a saucer of tea in her hand and a piece of sugar between her teeth, was listening in silence, snorting from time to time. Warm, fresh-baked bread had been served, and he had just begun to develop a theory of his own to the effect that there are two kinds of bread, visible bread which we eat and thereby sustain our bodies, and the invisible, spiritual bread of which we partake for the good of our soul. Suddenly Yevpraksia broke in upon his discourse most unceremoniously.

"People say Palageyushka lives so well at Mazulino," she began, turning her entire body round to the window and swinging her crossed feet with impudent nonchalance.

Yudushka was somewhat startled by the unexpected remark, but attributed no peculiar importance to it.

"In case we don't eat visible bread for a long time," he went on, "we feel bodily hunger; and if we don't partake of the spiritual bread for some length of time----"

"I say, Palageyushka certainly lives well at Mazulino," Yevpraksia interrupted again.

Porfiry Vladimirych, somewhat startled, looked at her in amazement, but refrained from scolding, evidently smelling a rat.

"If Palageyushka has a fine life, let her," he replied meekly.

"Her master," Yevpraksia kept on provokingly, "makes it nice and easy for her, he does not compel her to work, and dresses her in silk."

Yudushka's amazement grew. Yevpraksia's words were so preposterous that he was taken completely by surprise.

"A different dress every day, one to-day, one to-morrow, and another for holidays. She drives to church in a four-horse carriage. She goes first, and the master follows. When the priest sees her carriage, he has the bells rung. Then she sits in her own room. If her master wishes to spend some time with her, she receives him in her room. And her maid entertains her, or she does bead embroidery."

"Well, what of it?" asked Porfiry Vladimirych, at last coming to his senses.

"I was just telling what a pleasant life Palageyushka leads."

"And you, is your life worse? My, my, aren't you insatiable!"

Had Yevpraksia left his remark unanswered, Porfiry Vladimirych would have belched forth a torrent of empty words to drown her foolish hints. He would have resumed his twaddle. But apparently Yevpraksia had no intention of holding her tongue.

"I can't say that," she snapped back. "My life is not a sad one. Thank goodness I don't wear tick. Last year you bought me two calico dresses and paid five rubles for each. How generous!"

"And how about the woolen dress? And for whom was a shawl bought lately? My, my!"

Instead of answering, Yevpraksia placed her elbows on the table and flashed on Yudushka a side glance brimming over with such deep contempt that, unaccustomed to such looks, he was overcome with something like dread.

"Do you know how the Lord punishes ingratitude?" he mumbled feebly, hoping the reference to God would bring the woman to her senses. But his remark did not placate the mutineer. She cut him short at once.

"Don't talk me blind!" she exclaimed, "and don't drag in God. I'm not a baby. Enough! I've had enough of your tyranny."

Porfiry Vladimirych grew silent. His glass of tea stood untouched. His face grew pale, his lips trembled, as if trying vainly to curl up into a grin.

"These are Anninka's tricks," he said finally, though without a clear perception of what he was saying. "It's she, the snake, who has incited you."

"What tricks do you mean?"

"I mean the way you are talking to me. She, she taught you. No one else!" he foamed in a rage. "Give her silk dresses! The impudence! Do you know, you shameless creature, who in your position wears silk dresses?"

"Tell me and I will know."

"The most--the most dissolute ones. They are the only ones who wear silk dresses."

But Yevpraksia was not impressed. On the contrary, she answered him back with saucy arguments.

"I don't know why you call them dissolute. Everybody knows it's the masters that insist upon it. If a master seduces one of us, well, she lives with him. You and I are not so saintly either, we are doing the same as the Mazulina master and his queen."

"Oh, you! Fie, fie, for shame!"

Yudushka stared at his rebellious companion in utter consternation. A flow of empty words came tripping to his tongue, but for the first time in his life he felt a vague suspicion that there are occasions when even talk is useless.

"Well, my friend, I see there's no use talking to you to-day," he said, rising from the table.

"Neither to-day, nor to-morrow--never! No more of your tyranny! I've listened to you enough; now it's time for you to listen to me."

Porfiry Vladimirych made a movement as if to throw himself at her with clenched fists, but she protruded her chest with such determination that he lost heart. He turned his face to the ikon, lifted up his hands prayerfully, mumbled a prayer, and trudged slowly away into his room.

The whole day he felt uneasy. He had no definite fears for the future, but the feeling that something had broken in upon his well-ordered life and had passed unpunished greatly upset him. He did not go to dinner, pleading ill health, and in a meek, feeble voice asked that his food be brought into his room. In the evening after tea, which passed in silence for the first time in his life, he rose, as was his habit, to say his prayers. In vain did his lips seek to whisper the customary words. His agitated mind refused to follow the prayer. A persistent enervating anxiety pervaded his being, and he involuntarily strained his ear to catch the dying echoes of the day, which were lingering in the various corners of the vast manor-house. Finally, when even the yawning of the people could be heard no more, and the house was plunged in the profoundest quiet, he could not hold out any longer. Stealing noiselessly along the corridor, he went to Yevpraksia's room and put his ear to the door to listen. She was alone, and Yudushka heard her yawning and saying, "Lord! Savior! Holy Virgin," as she scratched her back.

Porfiry Vladimirych tried the knob, but the door was locked.

"Yevpraksia, darling, are you there?" he called.

"Yes, but not for you!" she snapped, so rudely that he immediately retreated to his room.

The next morning there was another conversation. Yevpraksia intentionally selected morning tea for launching her attacks on Porfiry Vladimirych. She felt instinctively that a spoiled morning would fill the entire day with anxiety and pain.

"I'd like to see how some people live," she began in a rather enigmatic manner.

Yudushka changed countenance. "It's beginning," flashed through his mind; but he held his tongue and waited for what would come next.

"It's fine to live with a handsome young friend, upon my word. You walk about in the rooms and look at each other. Not a cross word exchanged. 'My darling' and 'my heart'--that's your whole conversation. Lovely and noble!"

The subject was peculiarly hateful to Porfiry Vladimirych. Although of necessity he tolerated adultery within strict limits, he nevertheless considered lovemaking a diabolical temptation. This time, however, he restrained himself, all the more so because he wanted his tea. The tea-pot had been boiling on the samovar for quite some time, but Yevpraksia seemed to have forgotten about filling the glasses.

"Of course, many of us women are foolish," she went on, impudently swinging in her chair and drumming on the table with her fingers. "Some are so silly that they are ready to do anything for a calico dress; others give themselves away for nothing at all. 'Cider,' you said, 'drink as much as you please,' A fine thing to seduce a woman with!"

"Is it from interest alone that----" Yudushka risked a timid remark, watching the tea-pot from which steam had begun to escape.

"Who says from interest alone? Is it I who am a selfish woman?" cried Yevpraksia heatedly, suddenly shifting the conversation. "Do you mean to reproach me for the bread I eat?"

"I don't reproach you. I only said that not from interest alone do people----"

"'I said'! Talk, but talk sensibly. The idea! I serve from interest! Kindly permit me to ask you what particular advantage I have derived except cider and gherkins?"

"Well, cider and gherkins are not the only things----" ventured Yudushka, unable to restrain himself.

"What else have I gotten? Let me hear, let me hear!"

"Who sends four sacks of flour to your parents every month?"

"Four sacks. What else?"

"Groats, hemp-seed oil and other things----"

"So you are begrudging my poor parents the wretched groats and oil you send them? Oh, you!"

"I am not begrudging them. It's you----"

"Now you are accusing me. I can't eat a crust of bread without being reproached for it, and it's I who am blamed for everything."

Yevpraksia could hold out no longer and burst into tears. Meanwhile the tea kept on boiling, so that Porfiry Vladimirych became seriously alarmed. So he suppressed his growing temper, seated himself beside Yevpraksia and patted her on her back.

"Well, well. All right. Pour the tea. What is all this crying for?"

Yevpraksia emitted a few more sobs, pouted and looked into space with her dull eyes. "You have just been speaking of young fellows," he went on, trying to lend his voice as caressing a ring as possible. "Well--after all, I'm not so old, am I?"

"The idea! Leave me alone."

"Come, come. I--do you know--when I served in St. Petersburg, our director wanted to give me his daughter in marriage?"

"Must have been an old maid--or a cripple."

"No, she was quite a presentable young lady. And how she sang, how she sang!"

"Maybe she sang well, but you accompanied her badly," she retorted.

"No, I----"

Porfiry Vladimirych was completely put out. He was ready to act against his conscience and show that he, too, was skilled in the art of love-making. So he began to rock his body rather clumsily and went so far as to make an attempt to embrace Yevpraksia round her waist. But she drew back firmly from his outstretched arms and cried out angrily:

"Do me a favor and leave me, you goblin! Else I'll scald you with this boiling water. And I don't want your tea. I don't want anything. The idea--to reproach me for the piece of bread I eat. I'll go away from here! By Jesus, I will!"

She banged the door and ran out, leaving Porfiry Vladimirych alone in the dining-room.

Yudushka was completely puzzled. He began to pour the tea himself, but his hands trembled so violently that he had to call a servant to his assistance.

"No, this is impossible. I must think up something, arrange matters," he whispered, pacing up and down the dining-room in excitement.

But he turned out to be quite unable "to think up something" or "to arrange matters." His mind was so accustomed to leaping unrestrainedly from one fantastic subject to another, that the simplest problem of workaday reality threw him off his balance. No sooner did he make an effort to concentrate than a swarm of futile trifles attacked him from all sides and shut actuality out from his consideration. A strange stupor, a kind of mental and moral anæmia possessed his being. He was constantly lured away from the hard realities of life to the pleasant softness of phantoms, which he could shift and rearrange at will and without any hindrance whatever.

He spent the entire day in solitude, for Yevpraksia did not make her appearance at dinner or at evening tea. She stayed at the priest's the entire time and returned late in the evening. Yudushka's distress was extreme. He could not apply himself to any task, he even lost his wonted interest in trifles. One irrepressible thought tormented him: "I must somehow arrange matters, I must." He could not engage in idle calculations, nor even say prayers. He felt that a strange ailment was about to attack him. Many a time he halted before the window in the hope of concentrating his wavering mind on something, or distracting his attention, but all in vain.

It was early spring. The trees stood naked and the new grass had not yet appeared. Black fields, spotted here and there with white cakes of snow, stretched far away. The road was black and boggy and glittered with puddles. Yudushka saw it all as through a mist. There was no one round the rain-soaked servants' buildings, though all the doors were ajar. Nor could he reach anyone in the manor-house, although he constantly heard sounds as of doors banging in the distance. "How fine it would be," he mused, "to turn invisible and overhear what the knaves are saying about me. Do the rascals appreciate my favors or do they return abuse for my kindness? You stuff their bellies from morning till night, and still they squeal for more. Only the other day we opened a barrel of pickled cucumbers, and----" But no sooner did his thoughts embark upon the exploration of some fantastic subject, no sooner did he began to calculate how many pickles the barrel held and how many pickles one man could consume, than the piercing thought of Yevpraksia brought him back to harsh reality and upset all his calculations.

"She went away without so much as saying a word to me," he reflected, while his eyes scanned the distance, endeavoring to sight the priest's house, in which Yevpraksia was in all probability chatting away at that moment.

Dinner was served. Yudushka sat at table alone slowly sipping thin soup (_she_ knew he hated thin soup and had had it cooked watery on purpose). "I imagine the Father must be distressed by Yevpraksia's unbidden visit," he reflected. "She's a hearty eater and an extra dish, perhaps a roast, will have to be served for the guest." His imagination began to run away with him once more, and his mind began to ponder over questions like these: How many spoonfuls of cabbage-soup will Yevpraksia swallow? How many spoonfuls of gruel? What would the Father say to his wife about Yevpraksia's visit? How do they abuse her when alone? All this, the food and the conversation, hovered before his eyes with corporeal vividness.

"I fancy they all guzzle the soup from the same dish. The idea! A fine place she found to hunt for knick-knacks. Outside it's wet and slushy--just the kind of weather that breeds disease. Soon she will return, her skirt all dripping with mud, the disgusting creature. Yes, I must, I must do something!" All his musings inevitably ended with this phrase.

After dinner, he lay down for his nap, as usual, but tossed from side to side, unable to fall asleep. Yevpraksia came back after dark and stole into her nook so quietly that he did not observe her entrance. He had ordered the servants to let him know when she returned, but none of them said a word, as if they had agreed among themselves. He made another attempt to penetrate into her room, but again found the door locked.

Next morning Yevpraksia made her appearance at tea, but now her words were even more alarming and threatening.

"Dear me, where is my little Volodya?" she began, speaking in a studiously tearful tone.

Porfiry Vladimirych shuddered.

"If I could have the tiniest glimpse of him, if I could see how the darling suffers away from his mother! But maybe he is dead already."

Yudushka's lips whispered a prayer.

"It isn't the same as at other people's here. When Palageyushka gave birth to a daughter, they dressed the baby in batiste and silks and made a pink little bed for her. The nurse received more sarafans and frontlets than I ever had. And here--oh, you!"

Yevpraksia abruptly turned her head toward the window and sighed noisily.

"It is true what they say, that all the gentry are an abomination," she went on. "They make children and then throw them in the swamp, like puppies. What does it matter to them? They owe no account to anybody. Is there no God in Heaven? Even a wolf would not act like that."

Porfiry Vladimirych felt like a man sitting on pins and needles. He restrained himself for a long time, but finally could stand it no longer and said through clenched teeth:

"This is the third day that I've been listening to your talk."

"Well, why should _you_ do all the talking? Other people have a right to say a word, too. Yes, sir! You've had a child. What have you done with it? I bet you let him rot in the hands of a wretched peasant woman in a dirty hut. I suppose the baby is lying somewhere in filth, sucking at a bottle turned sour, with no one to take care of it, and feed and clothe it."

She shed tears and dried her eyes with the end of her neckerchief.

"The Pogorelka lady was right; she said it's horrible here with you. It _is_ horrible. No pleasures, no joy, nothing but mean, underhand ways. Prisoners in jail are better off. At least, if I had a baby now, there would be something to amuse me. But you have taken it away from me."

Porfiry Vladimirych sat shaking his head in torture. From time to time he groaned.

"Oh, how painful!" he finally said.

"Painful? Well, you have made the bed, lie on it. Upon my word, I shall go to Moscow and have a look at my dear little Volodya. Volodya, Volodya! Da-a-ar-ling! Master, shall I take a trip to Moscow?"

"It's no use," answered Porfiry Vladimirych in a hollow voice.

"Then I'll go without asking your permission, and no one can stop me. Because I am--a mother!"

"What sort of mother are you? You are a strumpet--that's what you are," Yudushka finally burst out. "Tell me plainly what you want of me."

Yevpraksia, apparently, was not prepared for this question. She stared at Yudushka and kept silence, as if wondering what she really wanted of him.

"So you call me a strumpet already?" she exclaimed, bursting into tears.

"Yes, a strumpet, a strumpet, a strumpet! Fie, fie, fie!"

Utterly enraged, Porfiry Vladimirych leapt to his feet and ran out of the room.

That was the last flicker of energy. Then he began rapidly to collapse, while Yevpraksia kept up her campaign. She had enormous power at her disposal, the stubbornness of stupidity, sometimes truly appalling because always trained upon the same point with the sole object of annoying, teasing, plaguing. Little by little the confines of the dining-room became too narrow for her. She invaded the study and attacked Yudushka within the precincts of that sanctuary, into which she would not even have thought of entering formerly when her master was "busy." She would come in, seat herself at the window, stare into space, scratch her shoulder blades on the post of the window, and begin to storm at him. She was especially fond of harping on the threat of leaving Golovliovo. As a matter of fact, she had never seriously thought of carrying out her threat, and she would have been astonished had anyone suggested to her that she return to her parental roof. But she suspected that Porfiry Vladimirych feared her desertion more than anything else, and she spared neither time nor energy in taking advantage of this. She approached the subject cautiously and in a roundabout way. She would sit a while, scratch her ear, and then remark, as if in a reminiscent frame of mind:

"To-day, I suppose, they are baking pancakes at father's."

At this prefatory remark Yudushka would grow green with rage. He was just getting ready to plunge into a complicated computation of how much he would get for his milk if all the cows of the neighborhood perished and none but his own, with God's help, remained unharmed and doubled their yield of milk.

"Why are they baking pancakes there?" he asked, trying to force a smile. "Goodness, to-day is Memorial Day! Isn't it stupid of me to have forgotten about it? And there's nothing in the house with which to honor the memory of my late mother. What a sin!"

"I should like to eat father's pancakes."

"Why not? Give orders to have them baked. Get hold of cook Marya or Ulita. Ulita cooks delicious pancakes."

"Maybe she has pleased you in some other way, too," remarked Yevpraksia acidly.

"No, but, oh, she's a witch at cooking pancakes, Ulita is. She cooks them light, soft--a sheer delight!"

Porfiry Vladimirych was evidently trying to mollify Yevpraksia, but to no avail.

"What I want is not yours, but father's pancakes," she answered, playing the spoiled darling.

"Well, that's not difficult. Get hold of the coachman, have him put a pair of horses to the carriage, and drive over to father's."

"No, sir, that won't do. If I've fallen in the trap, that's my own fault. Who has any use for one like me? You yourself called me a strumpet the other day. It's no use!"

"My, my! Isn't it a sin in you to accuse me falsely? Do you know how God punishes false accusations?"

"You did call me strumpet! You did! You did it in the presence of this ikon. How I hate your Golovliovo! I shall run away from here. I shall, by God!"

In the course of this spirited dialogue Yevpraksia behaved in a rather unconstrained manner. She swung about on the chair, picked her nose, and scratched her back. She was obviously playing comedy.

"Porfiry Vladimirych, I should like to tell you something," she went on mischievously. "I want to go home."

"Do you wish to pay a visit to your parents?"

"No, I mean to stay there altogether."

"What's the matter? Has anybody offended you?"

"No, but--I'm not going to stay here forever. Besides, it's too dull here--it's frightful. The house is like a deserted place. The servants poke themselves away in the kitchens and their own quarters, and I sit in the house all alone. Some of these days I shall be murdered. At night, when I go to bed, strange whispers come from every corner."

Days went by, but Yevpraksia never thought of carrying out her threat; which did not lessen its effect on Porfiry Vladimirych. It dawned upon him that in spite of his labors, so-called, he was utterly helpless, that if there were not someone to take care of his household affairs, he would have no dinner, no clean linen, no decent clothing. Hitherto he had not been aware of the fact that his surroundings had been artificially created. His day had passed in a manner established once and for all. Everything in the house centered around his person and existed for him; everything was done in its proper time, everything was in its proper place; in short, there reigned such mechanical precision everywhere that he gave no thought to it. Owing to this clock-work orderliness he could indulge in idle talk and thought without running against the sharp corners of reality. Of course, this artificial paradise held together only by a hair; but Yudushka, always centered in himself, did not know it. His life seemed to him to be built on a rock-bottom foundation, unchangeable, eternal. And suddenly the edifice was about to collapse because of Yevpraksia's foolish whim. Yudushka was completely taken aback. "What if she really leaves?" he reflected panic-stricken. And he began to frame all sorts of preposterous plans to keep her from going. He even decided on concessions to Yevpraksia's rebellious youth which would never before have entered his mind.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh!" he thought, and spat out in disgust when the possibility of having anything to do with the coachman Arkhip or the clerk Ignat presented itself to him in all its offensive nakedness.

Soon, however, he became convinced that his fears were groundless. Thereupon his existence entered a new and quite unexpected phase. Yevpraksia did not leave him, she even abated her attacks, but, to compensate, deserted him altogether. May set in, the weather was fair, and Yevpraksia scarcely ever put in appearance. She ran in for a moment and the next moment had disappeared. In the morning Yudushka did not find his clothing in its usual place, and he had to engage in lengthy negotiations with the servants before he got clean linen. His tea and meals were served either too early or too late, and he was waited upon by the tipsy lackey Prokhor, who came in a stained coat emanating a peculiarly disgusting odor of fish and vodka.

Nevertheless, Porfiry Vladimirych was glad that Yevpraksia left him in peace. He even reconciled himself to the disorder as long as he knew that there was someone to bear the responsibility for it. What frightened him was not so much the disorder as the thought that it might be necessary for him to interfere personally in the details of everyday life. He pictured with horror the minute he would have to administer, give orders and supervise. In anticipation of that awful moment, he endeavored to stifle the voice of protest that at times rose in him, tried to shut his eyes to the confusion reigning in the house, and keep in the background and hold his tongue.

In the meantime open debauchery made its nest in the manor-house. With the coming of fair weather a new life pervaded the estate, hitherto quiet and gloomy. In the evening all the servants, both young and old, went out in the village streets. The young people sang, played the accordion, laughed merrily, screamed and played tag.

The clerk Ignat appeared in a flaming red shirt and an astonishingly narrow jacket, that never closed over his chest, thrown out like a pouter-pigeon's, while the coachman Arkhip took possession of the silk shirt and plush sleeveless jacket worn on holidays, obviously vying with Ignat in the conquest of Yevpraksia's heart. The maiden herself ran from one to the other, bestowing her favors now on the clerk, now on the coachman. Porfiry Vladimirych dared not look out of the window for fear of witnessing a love scene; but he could not help hearing what was going on outside. At times he caught the resounding blow that Arkhip bestowed playfully upon Yevpraksia's back while playing tag. At other times he would catch fragments of conversation such as this:

"Yevpraksia Nikitishna! Yevpraksia Nikitishna! Madam!" the drunken Prokhor would call from the steps of the mansion.

"What do you want?"

"The key of the tea-chest, please. The master is asking for tea."

"Let him wait, the scarecrow!"