Page:Chernyshevsky - What's to be done? A romance.djvu/38

28 Maria Alexevna, pale with rage and fists lifted in the air, rushed into the parlor, crying:

"What have you done, wench? Wait for me!"

Vérotchka had hurried into her room. Thither the mother ran like a hurricane; but the door was locked. Beside herself, she tried to break down the door, and struck it heavy blows.

"If you break down the door," cried the young girl, "I will break the window and call for help; in any case, I warn you that you shall not take me alive."

The calm and decided tone with which these words were uttered did not fail to make an impression on the mother, who contented herself with shouting and made no more attacks on the door.

As soon as she could make herself heard, Vérotchka said to her:

"I used to detest you, but since last night I have pitied you. You have suffered, and that has made you wicked. If you wish it, we will talk together pleasantly, as we have never talked together before."

These words did not go straight to the heart of Maria Alexevna, but her tired nerves demanded rest: she asked herself if, after all, it were not better to enter into negotiations. She will no longer obey, and yet she must be married to that fool of a Michka. And then, one cannot tell exactly what has happened; they shook hands. no, one cannot tell. She was still hesitating between stratagem and ferocity, when a ring of the bell interrupted her reflections; it was, Serge and Julie.

"Serge, does her mother speak French?" had been Julie's first word on waking.

"I know nothing about it. What! have you still that idea?"

"Still. But I do not believe she speaks French: you shall be my interpreter."

Had Véra's mother been Cardinal Mezzofanti, Serge would have consented to go to her with Julie. To follow Julie everywhere, as the confidant always follows the heroines of Corneille, had become his destiny, and we must add that he did not complain of it.

But Julie had waked late and had stopped at four or five stores on the way, so that Storechnikoff had time to explain himself and Maria Alexevna to rage and calm down again before their arrival.

"What horrible stairs! I never saw anything like them in Paris. And, by the way, what shall be our excuse for calling?"

"No matter what; the mother is a usurer; we will pawn your brooch. No, I