CHAPTER III

Arina Petrovna remained at Golovliovo. This gave rise, of course, to a domestic comedy. Yudushka shed tears and succeeded in inducing his mother dear to manage his household without accountability to him, to receive the income and to use it at her discretion. "And, dearest, whatever portion of the income you give me," he added, "I shall be satisfied with it." Pavel, on the other hand, thanked his mother coldly ("as if he wanted to bite me," were her words), immediately retired from service ("just so, without his mother's blessing, like a madman, he escaped to freedom") and settled down at Dubrovino.

From that time on, Arina Petrovna's judgment became somewhat dimmed. The image of Porfishka the Bloodsucker, whom she had once sized up so shrewdly, now went, as it were, behind a fog. She seemed no longer to understand anything except that, despite the division of the estate and the emancipation of the peasants, she still lived at Golovliovo and still owed no account to anyone. Here, at her side, lived another son, but what a difference! While Porfisha had entrusted both himself and his household into his mother's care, Pavel not only never consulted her about anything, but even spoke to her through his teeth.

And as her mind became more clouded, her heart warmed more to her gentle son. Porfiry Vladimirych asked nothing of her. She herself anticipated his desires. Little by little she became dissatisfied with the shape of the Golovliovo property. At such and such a place, a stranger's land jutted into it--it would be well to buy up that piece of land. In such and such a place it would be fine to have a separate farm, but there was too little meadow. And here, right next to it, was a meadow for sale, ah, a fine bit of meadow. Arina Petrovna's enthusiasm was that of a mother and a woman of affairs who wants her affectionate son to view her capabilities in all their glory. But Porfiry Vladimirych withdrew into his shell, impervious to all her suggestions. In vain did Arina Petrovna tempt him with bargains. To all her propositions for acquiring a piece of woodland or meadowland, he invariably answered: "Dear mother, I am perfectly satisfied with what you granted me in your kindness."

These answers only spurred Arina Petrovna on. Carried away by her household zeal, and also by indignation against the "scoundrel Pavlusha," who lived beside her but refused to have anything to do with her, Arina Petrovna lost sight of her actual relationship to the estate. Her former fever for acquiring possessed her with renewed strength, though now it was no longer aggrandizement for her own sake but for the sake of her beloved son. The Golovliovo estate grew, rounded out, and flourished.

And at the very moment when Arina Petrovna's capital had dwindled to a point at which it was almost impossible for her to live on the interest, Yudushka sent her a most respectful letter along with an enormous package of blank forms, which were to guide her in the future in the making out of the annual balance sheet. Beside the principal items of the household expenses were listed raspberries, gooseberries, mushrooms, etc. There was a special account for every item, on the following plan:

Number of raspberry bushes, year 18--, - - - - - - - - pounds " " bushes planted this year - - - - - - - - - - " Quantity of berries picked - - - - - - - - - - - - - - " Out of this total you, mother dear, used for yourself - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - " Preserves used, or to be used, in the household of His Excellency Porfiry Vladimirych Golovliov - - - - " Given to boy in reward for good behavior - - - - - - - " Sold to the common people for a tidbit - - - - - - - - " Decayed because of absence of buyers and for other reasons - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - " ------ NOTE.--In case the crop in the year in which the account is taken is less than that of the previous year, the reasons therefor, like drought, rain, hail, and so forth, should be indicated.

Arina Petrovna fairly groaned. First of all, she was shocked at Yudushka's avarice. She had never heard of berries forming an item in the account of an estate, and he seemed to emphasize that item most. Secondly, she fully realized that the blanks were a constitution limiting her power hitherto autocratic.

After a long controversial correspondence between them, Arina Petrovna, humiliated and indignant, moved to Dubrovino, and Porfiry Vladimirych subsequently retired from office and settled at Golovliovo.

From that time on the old woman spent many wretched days in enforced idleness. Pavel Vladimirych was particularly offensive in his treatment of his mother. He received her in what he thought was quite a decent manner, that is, he promised to provide food and drink for both her and his orphan nieces, on two conditions, however, first, they were not to enter the entresol which he occupied; secondly, they were not to interfere in the management of the household. The second condition was particularly galling to Arina Petrovna. The management of the house was in the hands of the housekeeper Ulita, a viperous woman who had been found in secret communication with Yudushka and Kirushka, the late master's butler, a man who knew nothing about farming and whom Pavel Vladimirych almost feared. Both of them stole relentlessly. How often did Arina Petrovna's heart ache when she saw the house being ransacked; how she did long to warn her son and open his eyes to the theft of tea, sugar, butter! Loads of things were wasted, and Ulita, not in the least shamed by the presence of the old mistress, repeatedly hid whole handfuls of sugar in her pocket right before her eyes. Arina Petrovna saw it all, but was forced to remain a silent witness to the plunder. No sooner would she open her mouth to make some remark, than Pavel Vladimirych would instantly check her, saying:

"Mother, there should be only one person to manage a house. I'm not alone in that opinion, everybody says so. I know my orders are foolish. Never mind, let them be foolish. Your orders are wise. Let them be wise. Wise you are, very wise, still Yudushka left you without house or home, to shift for yourself."

The last straw was the awful discovery that Pavel Vladimirych drank. The craving had come from the loneliness of life in the country and had crept upon him stealthily, until finally it possessed him completely, and he was a doomed man. When his mother first came to live in the house, he seemed to have some scruples about drinking. He would come down from the entresol and talk to his mother quite often. She noticed that his speech was strangely incoherent but for a long time attributed it to his stupidity. She did not enjoy his visits. The chats with him oppressed her extremely. In fact he always seemed to be grumbling foolishly. Either there had been a drought for many weeks, or an overwhelming downpour of rain, or tree beetles had overrun the garden and ruined the trees, or moles had made their appearance and dug up the whole field. All this afforded an endless source for grumbling. He would come down from the entresol, seat himself opposite his mother and begin:

"There are clouds all around. Is Golovliovo far from here? The Bloodsucker had a shower yesterday and we don't get a single drop. The clouds wander about, all around here. If there were only a drop of rain for us!"

Or else he would say:

"Have you ever seen such a flood? The rye has just begun to flower and it comes pouring down. Half of the hay is rotten already, and the rain still spouts and spurts. Is Golovliovo far from here? The Bloodsucker has long since gathered in his crops, and here we're stuck. We'll have to feed our cattle on rotten hay this winter."

Arina Petrovna listened in silence to his stupid complaints, but at times her patience gave way and she said:

"Well, keep on sitting there with your arms folded."

Instantly Pavel Vladimirych would flare up.

"What would you advise me to do? Transfer the rain to Golovliovo?"

"I'm not talking about the rain, but in general."

"No 'in general,' please. Why don't you tell me straight out what you think I should do? Shall I change the climate? There's Golovliovo. When Golovliovo needs rain, it rains. When Golovliovo doesn't need rain, then it doesn't rain. And everything grows there, while here, the very opposite. Well, we'll see what you'll have to say when there isn't anything to eat."

"Then such will be the Lord's will."

"All right, then such will be the Lord's will. But you say 'in general' as if that were an explanation."

Sometimes Pavel even found his property a burden.

"Why in the world did I get the Dubrovino estate?" he would complain. "What good is it?"

"What's the matter with Dubrovino? The soil is good, there's plenty of everything. What's got into your head of a sudden?"

"This, that nowadays there's no use having any estate. Money, that's the thing. You take your money, put it in your pocket and off you go. But real estate----"

"What sort of an age have we come to when there's no use owning real estate?"

"Yes, this is a peculiar age. You don't read the newspapers, but I do. Nowadays the lawyers are everywhere--you can imagine the rest. If a lawyer finds out that you have real estate, then he begins to circle around you."

"Well, how is he going to get at you when you have the proper deeds to the property?"

"Deeds or no deeds, they'll get you. Porfiry the Bloodsucker may hire a lawyer and serve me with summons after summons."

"What are you talking about! We're not living in a lawless country."

"That's just why they serve summonses on you. If the country were lawless, they would take it away without a summons. There's my friend Gorlopiatov, for instance. His uncle died and he, fool that he was, up and accepted the inheritance. The inheritance proved worthless, but the debts figured up to the thousands, the bills of exchange were all false. Now they've been suing him for three years on end. First, they took his uncle's estate. Then they even sold his own property at auction. That's what real estate is."

"Can there possibly be a law like that?"

"If there were no such law, they couldn't have sold it. There's a law for everything. A man without a conscience finds a law to back him in everything. But there are no laws for a man with a conscience. Try and look for them in the books."

Arina Petrovna always let Pavel have his way in these controversies. Many a time she could hardly refrain from shouting, "Out of my sight, you scoundrel." But she would think it over and keep silent. Sometimes she would only murmur to herself:

"Goodness, whom do these monsters take after? One is a bloodsucker, the other is a lunatic. What did I hoard and save for? For what did I deny myself sleep and food? For whom did I do all that?"

The more completely drink took possession of Pavel Vladimirych, the more fantastic and annoying his conversations became. Finally Arina Petrovna noticed there was something wrong. A whole flask of vodka would be put away in the dining-room cupboard in the morning, and by dinner time there wouldn't be a drop left. Or she would be sitting in the parlor and would hear a mysterious creaking in the dining-room near the cupboard. She would call out, "Who's there?" and would hear footsteps quickly but carefully withdrawing toward the entresol.

"Goodness, can it be that he drinks?" she once asked Ulita.

"I shouldn't deny it," answered the latter, with a vicious grin.

When Pavel Vladimirych saw that his mother had discovered the truth, he lost all restraint. One morning Arina Petrovna found the cupboard had disappeared from the dining-room, and when she asked where it had gone to, Ulita told her she had been ordered to carry it to the entresol, because it would be more comfortable for the master to drink there.

In the entresol, the decanters of vodka followed one after the other with amazing rapidity. Shut up alone by himself, Pavel Vladimirych began to hate human society. He created a peculiar fantastic reality for himself, spinning out a long-winded nonsensical romance, in which the main heroes were himself and the Bloodsucker. He was not fully conscious of how, deeply rooted his hatred for Porfiry was. It gnawed at his bones and entrails every minute of his life. The loathed image of his brother stood lifelike before his eyes, and Yudushka's lachrymose, hypocritical twaddle rang in his ears. In his talk there lurked a cold, almost abstract hatred of every living thing that did not conform to the traditional code laid down by hypocrisy. Pavel Vladimirych drank and recalled memories, all the insults and humiliations he had had to suffer because of Yudushka's claims to supremacy in the house; the division of the estate in particular; how he had calculated every kopek and compared every scrap of land. Oh, how he detested him! Entire dramas were enacted in his imagination, heated by alcohol. In these dramas he avenged every offense that he had sustained, and not Yudushka but he himself was always the aggressor. He saw himself the winner of two hundred thousand, and informed Yudushka of his good luck in a long scene, making his brother's face writhe with envy. At other times he imagined his grandfather had died and left a million to him, while nothing at all to Porfiry. He also discovered a means of becoming invisible and when unseen he played wicked tricks on Porfiry to make him groan in agony. His genius for inventing tricks was inexhaustible, and for a long time his idiotic laughter would ring through the entresol, much to the delight of Ulita, who would hurry to inform Porfiry Vladimirych of his brother's doings.

He detested Yudushka and at the same time had a superstitious fear of him. He imagined his eyes discharged a venom of magic effect, that his voice crept, snake-like, into the soul and paralyzed the will. He absolutely refused to meet him, and when the Bloodsucker occasionally visited Dubrovino to kiss the hand of his mother dear, Pavel Vladimirych would lock himself into the entresol and remain imprisoned there until he left.

So the days passed until Pavel Vladimirych found himself face to face with a deadly malady.