Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/21

 Peter Ivánovich sighed more deeply and more sadly still, and Praskóvya Fédorovna pressed his hand gratefully. Upon entering her drawing-room, which was papered with pink cretonne and was illuminated by a dim lamp, they sat down at the table,—she on a divan, and Peter Ivánovich on a pouffe with crushed springs and unevenly yielding seat. Praskóvya Fédorovna was on the point of cautioning him and asking him to take another seat, but found this cautioning incompatible with her present condition, and so changed her mind.

Seating himself on this pouffe, Peter Ivánovich recalled how Iván Ilích had appointed this room and had consulted him in regard to this very pink cretonne with its green leaves. As the widow, on her way to seat herself, passed by the table (the drawing-room was altogether too full of trifles and of furniture), the black lace of her black mantilla caught on the carving of the table. Peter Ivánovich raised himself in order to disentangle it, and the liberated pouffe began to agitate under him and to push him. The widow began to free her lace herself, and Peter Ivánovich sat down again, choking the riotous pouffe. But the widow did not free the lace entirely, and Peter Ivánovich raised himself again, and again the pouffe became agitated and even clicked. When all this was ended, she took out her clean cambric handkerchief and began to weep. But Peter Ivánovich was cooled off by the episode with the lace and by the struggle with the pouffe, and sat scowling. This awkward situation was interrupted by Sokolov, Iván Ilích's butler, who came to report that the lot in the cemetery which Praskóvya Fédorovna had chosen would cost two hundred roubles. She stopped weeping and, looking at Peter Ivánovich with the glance of a victim, said in French that it was very hard for her. Peter Ivánovich made a silent sign, which expressed unquestionable assurance that that could not be otherwise.