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He was still sulky with Augustina Christianovna; and when he heard what the plan was, he flatly declared that he would not go; that to go trotting from Kuntsovo to Moscow and from Moscow to Tsaritsino, and then from Tsaritsino again to Moscow, from Moscow again to Kuntsovo, was a piece of folly; and, 'in fact, he added, 'let them first prove to my satisfaction, that one can be merrier on one spot of the globe than another spot, and I will go. This, of course, no one could prove to his satisfaction, and Anna Vassilyevna was ready to throw up the partie du plaisir for lack of a solid escort; but she recollected Uvar Ivanovitch, and in her distress she sent to his room for him, saying: 'a drowning man catches at straws. They waked him up; he came down, listened in silence to Anna Vassilyevna's proposition, and, to the general astonishment, with a flourish of his fingers, he consented to go.
'You're eloquent as Pythagoras, remarked Shubin; 'but do you know what I would advise you? 'What? 'When Augustina Christianovna comes back you take my meaning? 'Yes, yes; well, what? 'When you see her again you follow the line of my thought? 'Yes, yes, to be sure. 'Try beating her; see what that would do. Nikolai Artemyevitch turned away exasperated.
Nikolai Artemyevitch used to hint at this fact in justification of his intimacy with Augustina Christianovna. She had never reproached him to his face, but she complained of him secretly to every one in the house in turn, even to her daughter. Anna Vassilyevna did not care for going out, she liked visitors to come and sit with her and talk to her; she collapsed at once when she was left alone.
Anna Vassilyevna had never left her country villa so early, but this year with the first autumn chills her face swelled; Nikolai Artemyevitch for his part, having finished his cure, began to want his wife; besides, Augustina Christianovna had gone away on a visit to her cousin in Revel; a family of foreigners, known as 'living statues, des poses plastiques, had come to Moscow, and the description of them in the Moscow Gazette had aroused Anna Vassilyevna's liveliest curiosity.
Nikolai Artemyevitch insisted on her not admitting her daughter to her presence; he seemed to be enjoying the opportunity of showing himself in the fullest sense the master of the house, with all the authority of the head of the family; he made an incessant uproar in the household, storming at the servants, and constantly saying: 'I will show you who I am, I will let you know you wait a little! While he was in the house, Anna Vassilyevna did not see Elena, and had to be content with Zoya, who waited on her very devotedly, but kept thinking to herself: 'Diesen Insarof vorziehen und wem? But directly Nikolai Artemyevitch went out and that happened pretty often, Augustina Christianovna had come back in sober earnest Elena went to her mother, and a long time her mother gazed at her in silence and in tears.
'Nikolai Artemyevitch! he shouted at the top of his voice, 'Augustina Christianovna is here and is asking for you! Nikolai Artemyevitch turned round infuriated, threatening Shubin with his fist; he stood still a minute and rapidly went out of the room. Elena fell at her mother's feet and embraced her knees. Uvar Ivanovitch was lying on his bed.
What became of the other characters of our story? Anna Vassilyevna is still living; she has aged very much since the blow that has fallen on her; is less complaining, but far more wretched. Nikolai Artemyevitch, too, has grown older and greyer, and has parted from Augustina Christianovna.... He has taken now to abusing everything foreign.
They gaze at one another so stupidly.... It's positively disgusting to see them. Man's a strange animal. A man with such a home; but no, he must have his Augustina Christianovna! I don't know anything more repulsive than her face, just like a duck's! The other day I modelled a caricature of her in the style of Dantan. It wasn't half bad. I will show it you.
But Nikolai Artemyevitch never suspected that Augustina Christianovna, in letters to her cousin, Theodolina Peterzelius, called him Mein Pinselchen. Nikolai Artemyevitch's wife, Anna Vassilyevna, was a thin, little woman with delicate features, and a tendency to be emotional and melancholy. At school, she had devoted herself to music and reading novels; afterwards she abandoned all that.
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