CHAPTER IV

The doctor stayed at the house overnight merely for the sake of form, and departed for the city early the next day. On taking leave he said frankly that the patient had no more than two days to live, and it was already too late to talk about any "arrangements" since Pavel Vladimirych could not even sign his name properly.

"He'll sign the document wrong and then you will have a lawsuit on your hands," he added. "Of course, Yudushka respects his mother very highly, but, at that, he'll commence proceedings to prove fraud, and should 'mother dear' be sent to distant regions, the only thing he'll do is to have a mass said for the welfare of the travellers."

All morning Arina Petrovna walked about as if in a dream. She tried to say her prayers. Perhaps God would suggest something, but prayers would not enter her head. Even her tongue refused to obey. There was utter confusion in her mind. Fragments of prayers mingled with incoherent thoughts and vague impressions.

Finally she sat down and sobbed. The tears flowed from her dull eyes over her aged shrivelled cheeks, lingered in the hollows of her wrinkles, and dribbled down on the greasy collar of her old calico waist. Her tears spoke of bitterness, despair, and feeble, but stubborn resistance. Her age, her senile ailments, and the hopelessness of the situation, all seemed to point to death as the only way out. At the same time memories of the past intervened, memories of a life of power, prosperity and unrestrained freedom, and these reminiscences plunged their sting into her soul, dragging her down to earth. "To die!" passed through her mind, but the thought was instantly supplanted by a dogged desire to live. She recalled neither Yudushka nor her dying son. It was as if both had ceased to exist for her. She thought of no one, was indignant at no one, accused no one, even forgot whether she had any capital or no and whether it was sufficient to provide for her old age. A deadly anguish seized her entire being. Her tears had come from a deep source. Drop by drop they had been accumulating since the moment when she left Golovliovo and settled at Dubrovino. She was quite prepared for everything that awaited her. She had expected and foreseen everything, but somehow it had never come to her with such vividness that her fears would be realized. And now this very end had arrived, an end full of anguish and hopeless lonesomeness. All her life long she had been busy building up, she had worn herself to the bone for something, and now she felt as if she had wasted her life on a phantom. All her life the word "family" had never left her lips. In the name of "family" she had punished some and rewarded others. In the name of "family" she had subjected herself to privations, torments, she had crippled her whole life; and suddenly she discovered that "family" was exactly what she did not have.

"Good Lord! Can it possibly be the same everywhere?" was the thought that kept revolving in her mind.

She sat with her head resting on her hand and her face soaked with tears turned to the rising sun, as if to bid it, "Look!" She neither groaned nor cursed. She simply sobbed as if choked by her tears. At the same time the thought seared her soul, "There is no one! No one! No one!"

But now her eyes were drained of tears. She washed her face and wandered without purpose into the dining-room. Here she was assailed by the girls with new complaints which seemed at this time particularly importunate.

"What is going to come of it, grandma? Is it possible that we shall be left just so, without anything?" grumbled Anninka.

"How silly uncle is," Lubinka chimed in.

About midday, Arina Petrovna decided to go to her dying son. Stepping softly she climbed the stairs and groped in the dark till she found the door leading into the rooms. The entresol was buried in deepest gloom. The windows were darkened by green shades, through which the light could scarcely filter. A sickening mixture of odors pervaded the room, which had not been ventilated for a long while. There was the smell of berries, plaster, oil from the image-lamp, and those peculiar odors which bespeak the presence of sickness and death. There were only two rooms. In the first one sat Ulita, cleaning berries. The flies swarmed about the heap of gooseberries and impudently attacked her nose and lips, and she would keep driving them off in exasperation. Through the half-closed door of the adjoining room came the sound of incessant coughing which every now and then ended in painful expectoration. Arina Petrovna stopped in an uncertain pose, searching the gloom and waiting for the course of action that Ulita would take in view of her arrival. But Ulita never moved an eyelash, entirely confident that every attempt to influence the sick man would be fruitless. Her lips merely twitched in resentment, and Arina Petrovna heard the word "hag" pronounced under her breath.

"You had better go down, my dear," said Arina Petrovna, turning to Ulita.

"Where did you get that idea from?" snapped the latter.

"I have to talk to Pavel Vladimirych. Go down."

"Excuse me, madam, how can I leave the master? What if something should happen? There's no one to serve him and attend to him."

"What's the matter?" a hollow voice called from the bedroom.

"Order Ulita to go downstairs, my friend. I have matters to talk over with you."

This time Arina Petrovna pressed her point so persistently that she was victorious. She crossed herself and entered the room. The patient's bed stood near the inner wall far from the window. He lay on his back, covered with a white blanket, smoking a cigarette, though almost half unconscious. Notwithstanding the smoke, the flies pestered him with peculiar persistence, so that he had continually to pass his hand over his face. His arms were so weak, so bare of muscle, that they showed the bones, of almost equal thickness from wrist to shoulder, in clear outline. His head nestled despondently in the pillow. His whole body and face burned in a dry fever. His large round eyes were sunken and gazed aimlessly about, as if looking for something. The lines of his nose had grown longer and sharper. His mouth was half open. He had stopped coughing, but he breathed with such difficulty that it seemed as if all his vital energy were concentrated in his chest.

"Well, how do you feel to-day?" asked Arina Petrovna, sinking into the armchair at his feet.

"So--so--to-morrow--that is, to-day--when was the doctor here?"

"He was here to-day."

"Well, then, to-morrow----"

The patient fumbled as if struggling to recall a word.

"You'll be able to get up?" prompted Arina Petrovna. "God grant it, my friend, God grant it."

They both remained silent for a moment. Arina Petrovna found it very difficult to open a conversation when she was face to face with Pavel Vladimirych.

"Yudushka--is he alive?" finally asked the sick man himself.

"Nothing is the matter with him. He lives and prospers."

"I bet he is thinking, 'Now brother Pavel is going to die--and with God's help the estate will come to me.'"

"We'll all die, some day--and after every one of us, the estates will go to the lawful heirs."

"Only not to the Bloodsucker! I'll throw it to the dogs, but he shan't have it."

The situation was turning out excellently. Pavel Vladimirych himself was leading the conversation. Arina Petrovna did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity.

"You ought to consider that, my friend," she said, as if by the way, not looking at her son and examining the color of her hands as if they were the main object of her interest.

"What do you mean by 'that'?"

"Well, I mean, if you don't wish that the estate should go to your brother."

The patient was silent. Only his eyes widened unnaturally and his face flushed more and more.

"And also, my friend, you ought to take into consideration the fact that you have orphaned nieces--and what sort of capital have they? Then there is your mother," continued Arina Petrovna.

"You've managed to give everything away to Yudushka!"

"Whatever may have happened, I know that I myself am to blame. But it wasn't such a crime after all. I thought 'he is my son.' At any rate, it isn't kind of you to remember that against your mother."

Silence followed.

"Well, why don't you say something?"

"And how soon do you expect to bury me?"

"Oh, don't talk like that. All Christians----Everybody doesn't die right away, still in general----"

"There you go--'in general!' Always your 'in general!' You think I don't see."

"See what, my boy?"

"I see you take me for a fool. Well, if I am a fool, let me remain a fool. Why do you come to a fool? Don't come, don't worry about me."

"I'm not worrying. But in general there is a term set to everybody's life."

"Then wait for my term."

Arina Petrovna lowered her head and meditated. She saw clearly that her case was almost a failure, but she was so tortured that nothing could convince her of the fruitlessness of further attempts to influence her son.

"I don't know why you hate me," she declared finally.

"Not at all--on the contrary I--not at all. In fact I--why, the idea--you brought us all up--so impartially."

He spoke in jerks and gasps. A broken yet triumphant laugh made its way into his voice. His eyes sparkled. His shoulders and legs quivered.

"Perhaps I have really sinned against you, then for Christ's sake forgive me."

Arina Petrovna rose and bowed till her hand touched the floor. Pavel Vladimirych shut his eyes without replying.

"Suppose we let the question of the estate alone. You couldn't make any arrangement in your present condition. Porfiry is the lawful heir. Well, let the real estate go to him. But what about your personal property and capital?" Arina Petrovna ventured to state her point directly.

Pavel Vladimirych shuddered, but remained silent. It is very possible that at the word "capital" he gave no thought whatsoever to his mother's insinuations, but simply mused: "September is here already. I have to collect the interest."

"If you think I desire your death, you're very much mistaken, my child. If you would only live I should not need to complain in my old age. What have I to grumble about? I have food and shelter here, and should I want a little additional pleasure, I can get it. I merely wish to call your attention to the fact that there is a custom among Christians, according to which, in expectation of the life to come, we----"

Arina Petrovna paused, searching for a suitable word.

"We provide for the future of those related to us," she concluded, looking out of the window.

Pavel Vladimirych lay motionless, coughing softly. He did not betray by a single movement whether or not he was listening. Apparently his mother was boring him.

"The capital may go from hand to hand during life," said Arina Petrovna, as though passing a trivial remark and resuming the inspection of her hands.

The patient shuddered slightly, but Arina Petrovna did not notice it and continued:

"The law, my friend, expressly permits the free transfer of capital. Money is something one acquires. Yesterday you had it. To-day it is gone. And nobody can call you to account for it. You can give it to whomever you choose."

Pavel Vladimirych suddenly laughed viciously.

"You probably remember the story about Polochkin," he hissed. "He gave his capital to his wife 'from hand to hand' and she ran off with her lover."

"You may rest assured, my child, I have no lover."

"Then you'll run off without a lover--with the money."

"How well you understand my motives!"

"I don't understand you at all. You gave me the reputation of a fool. Well, I _am_ a fool. Let me be a fool. What wonderful tricks they have invented--to pass my money from hand to hand! And where do I come in? I suppose you'll order me to go to a monastery for my salvation, and from there watch how you manage my money?"

He shot these words out in a volley, in a voice full of hatred and indignation. Then he broke down completely and burst into a fit of coughing that lasted a full quarter of an hour. It was amazing to see how much strength that wretched human skeleton contained. Finally he caught his breath and closed his eyes.

Arina Petrovna looked about in bewilderment. Until that moment she could not believe it, somehow, but now she was fully convinced that every attempt to persuade the dying man would only serve to hasten the day of Yudushka's triumph. Yudushka kept dancing before her eyes. She saw him walking behind the hearse, giving his brother the last Judas kiss and squeezing out two foul tears. Then she had a picture of the coffin being lowered into the grave and Yudushka exclaiming, "Farewell, brother!" his lips twitching and his eyes rolling upward. She heard his attempt to add a note of grief to his voice, and afterwards say, turning to Ulita: "The kutya,[A] the kutya, don't forget to take the kutya into the house. And be sure to put on a clean table cloth. We must honor brother's memory in the house, too." Next she saw him presiding over the funeral feast, chatting incessantly with the reverend father about the virtues of the deceased. She heard him say, "Ah, brother, brother, you didn't wish to live with us," as he rose from the table, stretching out his hand, palm upward, to receive the father's blessing. And lastly she saw Yudushka walking about the house with the air of a master, taking the inventory of all the effects and in doubtful cases casting suspicious glances at mother.

All these inevitable scenes of the future floated before Arina Petrovna's mental vision. In her ears rang Yudushka's shrill, unctuous voice as he said: "Do you remember, mother dear, the little golden shirt studs that brother had? They were so pretty. He used to wear them on holidays. I simply can't imagine where those studs could have gone to."

[Footnote A: A gruel made of rice or wheat or barley, boiled with raisins and mead. It is eaten after the mass for the dead and, in the South, on Christmas Eve.--_Translator's Note._]