Page:Chernyshevsky.whatistobedone.djvu/55

Rh so get him into my power." Julie wrote, "Monsieur Storeshnikof, you are now in all probability in great embarrassment; if you wish to get out of it, come to my house at seven o'clock. M. le Tellier."

"Now, good by."

Julie offered her hand, but Viérotchka threw herself on her neck, kissed her, wept, and kissed her again, and Julie was still less able to bear it; she shed tears still more abundantly than Viérotchka; the feeling that she was doing a noble deed gave her such happiness and pride that it was very touching; she went into ecstasies, she kept on speaking, always with tears and kisses, and finally she ended with an exclamation:—

"My friend! my dear child! may God spare you from knowing what I am feeling now, when, for the first time in many years, pure lips touch mine. Die, but don't give a kiss without love!"

plan was not so murderous as Marya Alekséyevna supposed; she in her own style put it in a too brutal form, but the spirit of the thing she interpreted aright. Storeshnikof's idea was to bring the two ladies a little later in the evening to the restaurant where the supper was going to be; of course, they would be hungry and cold, and it would be necessary for them to get warm, and have a cup of tea. He would have a little opium put into Marya Alekséyevna's teacup or wineglass; Viérotchka would be frightened to see her mother lose consciousness; he would take Viérotchka into the room where the supper was going on, and then his bet would be won; what the final result would be, he would leave to chance. Maybe Viérotchka in her perplexity would not understand the matter, and would agree to remain in the strange company, but even if she remained but a little while, it would not make any difference; it would be excused because she had only just entered upon that adventurous course of life, and naturally felt a bit of awkwardness at first. Then afterwards he would buy Marya Alekséyevna off with a little money, after which he would have nothing more to do with her.

But now what was he to do? He cursed his boastfulness before his friends, his faint-heartedness when met by Viérotchka's unexpected and abrupt resistance; he wished that