Page:Chernyshevsky.whatistobedone.djvu/104

84 "Then, don't he try to convert folks into the papistry?"

"I don't think so, Marya Alekséyevna; if he had been a Catholic bishop, then, of course, he would have tried to make converts; but a king would not spend his time that way. As a wise ruler and politician he'd simply teach virtue."

"What else?"

Marya Alekséyevna could not help seeing that Mikhaïl Ivanuitch, with all his narrow mind, argued the case very skilfully; but for all that she cleared up the matter with perfect satisfaction. Two or three days later she suddenly said to Lopukhóf, while playing with him rather than with Mikhaïl Ivanuitch:—

"Tell me, Dmitri Sergéitch; I want to ask you something. The father of the last French king, the very man in whose shoes the present Napoleon is reigning, did he make folks git converted into the religion of the Pope?"

"No, he did not, Marya Alekséyevna."

"Is the Pope's religion good, Dmitri Sergéitch?"

"No, it is not, Marya Alekséyevna. I play seven of diamonds."

"I just asked out of curiosity, Dmitri Sergéitch, being as I'm an ignorant woman, and it is interesting to know. You are taking a good many tricks, Dmitri Sergéitch."

"It can't be helped, Marya Alekséyevna. We are taught at the medical school to play cards well. A doctor must know how to take tricks."

Lopukhóf is puzzled to this day to know why Marya Alekséyevna wanted to know whether Philippe Egalité ordered folks to be baptized in the religion of the Pope.

Well, how, after all this, could it be wondered at that Marya Alekséyevna stopped wearying herself by perpetual supervision? He keeps his eyes where they should be, his face has shown no amorous susceptibilities; he gives her theological books to read; that ought to be enough. But no, Marya Alekséyevna was not satisfied; but she even managed to put him to a test, as though she had studied the logic which I have learned by heart, and which says, "the observations of phenomena must be made by means of experiments, carried on in a skilful plan, if one would have the most thorough penetration into the secrets of such relations"; and she so managed to bring about this trial, as though she had read Sakson's grammar, which tells how Hamlet was tempted by Ophelia in the grove.