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Updated: June 25, 2025
The fact that she at length succeeded, must be put down to her lasting credit; it having been a deed directly opposed to the traits of her rather cold nature. Upon the evening after the funeral Madame Dravikine, intensely wearied by the long walk to and from the cemetery, was lying on her couch, eyes closed, her head aching slightly.
There was one thing, one brief but delightful incident, indirectly brought about by Madame Dravikine, which Ivan had to cherish during the long months that ensued. During the whole of this winter of her cousin's introduction to the great world, Mademoiselle Nathalie Alexeiovna had remained shut away from any possible encounter, in the Catherine Institute.
And it was she, of course my aunt is a very strong person, Vladimir who arranged my charming reception. Dravikine himself was quite civil to me. I could have stood his refusal of my offer. And he looked uncomfortable, too, afterwards, when his wife came down and began to talk. It took her nearly an hour, I believe, to explain the immensity of my presumption.
Caroline, with a half-protective air, was between her sister and her brother-in-law. Michael, his face as colorless as that of the statue, his eyes alight with the fire in his brain, stared straight before him, into some bitter world of his own. About them was the unbearable silence which Madame Dravikine, who alone was unaccustomed to it, finally broke in desperation: "Come, Sophie! Come to bed.
The Countess Dravikine, it seemed, was highly pleased at her nephew's return to what she considered the only proper society for a member of her family.
Less than forty-eight hours after the first news had reached her in Petersburg, Caroline Dravikine entered the Gregoriev house in Moscow. Piotr, his face alight with relief, showed her into the room where brother and brother-in-law sat together.
With apparently exactly the same quiet voice and manner, she could warm the soul of a Royal Duchess with the delightfulest flattery; while, in the intervals between phrases, she would shrivel an undesirable caller into a state of quivering apology for the presumption of invading the house of so lofty a personage as Madame Dravikine.
His sense of calamity had grown till it was a presentiment. Yet his heart rose as, after a long five minutes, there came the sounds of fumbling key and grating lock; and then the door swung open before him, and he stood facing not the trimly liveried butler, but the gaunt and stooping figure of Ekaterina, the old serf, garbed in a soiled working-dress. "Madame Dravikine does she receive to-day?"
Count Dravikine, his eyes narrowing with anger, approached the furious child, lifted her, now kicking frantically, in two powerful arms, carried her straight to his wife's boudoir, and flung her before her mother.
For a month, at every hour of the day, he watched the door of the Dravikine residence; but failed, by any strategy, to catch a single glimpse of his pretty cousin. Nay one exception there was! Upon a reception-day he did find her in her mother's drawing-room, seated before a samovar, prepared to answer "oui" or "non" to any remark addressed to her.
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