Page:Chernyshevsky - What's to be done? A romance.djvu/52

42 daughter [Anna Petrovna handed the steward a small watch such as ladies carry]; I paid three hundred roubles for it [she paid one hundred and twenty]. You see, I know how to reward, and I shall always remember you, always! Do not forget that I am indulgent toward the foibles of the young."

When the steward had gone, Anna Petrovna again called Tatiana.

"Ask Mikhaïl Ivanytch to come and talk with me. But no, I will go myself instead." She feared that the ambassadress would tell her son's servant, and the servant her son, what had happened. She wished to have the pleasure of crushing her son's spirit with this unexpected news. She found Mikhaïl Ivanytch lying down and twirling his moustache, not without some inward satisfaction.

"What brings her here? I have no preventive of fainting fits," thought he, on seeing his mother enter. But he saw in her countenance an expression of disdainful triumph.

She took a seat and said:

"Sit up, Mikhaïl Ivanytch, and we will talk."

She looked at him a long time, with a smile upon her lips. At last she said slowly:

"I am very happy, Mikhaïl Ivanytch: guess at what."

"I do not know what to think. Mamma; your look is so strange."

"You will see that it is not strange at all; look closely and you will divine, perhaps."

A prolonged silence followed this fresh thrust of sarcasm. The son lost himself in conjectures; the mother delighted in her triumph.

"You cannot guess; I will tell you. It is very simple and very natural; if you had had a particle of elevated feeling, you would have guessed. Your mistress,"—in the previous conversation Anna Petrovna had manœuvred; now it was no longer necessary, the enemy being disarmed,—"your mistress,—do not reply, Mikhaïl Ivanytch, you have loudly asserted on all sides yourself that she is your mistress,—your mistress, this creature of base extraction, base education, base conduct, this even contemptible creature"

"Mamma, my ear cannot tolerate such expressions applied to a young girl who is to be my wife."

"I would not have used them if I had had any idea that she could be your wife. I did so with the view of explaining to you that that will not occur and of telling you at the same time why it will not occur. Let me finish, then. Afterwards you can reproach me, if you like, for the expressions which I have used, supposing that you still believe them out of place. But meantime let me finish. I wish to say to you that your mistress, this creature without name or education, devoid of sentiment, has herself comprehended the utter impropriety of your designs. Is not that enough to cover you with shame?"