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As I was leaving, I pressed his hand significantly, and informed him that I wanted to have a little talk with him ... that was all.... 'Good-bye! I said to Varia. 'Till we meet! said she. I will not keep you long in suspense, gentlemen; I am afraid of exhausting your patience....We never met again. I never went back to Ivan Semyonitch's.
Up spoke young Calvaster, his pasty face alight with a sort of malicious glee. "I passed Quartilla's travelling carriage at Varia last night. Quartilla was alive and well. I passed Brinnarius this morning at dawn, this side of Tibur. He was alive then and puffing." "How did you get here ahead of him?" Brinnaria interjected.
He made haste to explain his view of the matter, and pointed out that the old man's approaching death was probably brought on by horror at the thought of his action; and that it was not everyone who was capable of such a feeling. Colia's eyes flashed as he listened. "Gania and Varia and Ptitsin are a worthless lot!
Have you a portmanteau?" "No; a bundle your brother has just gone to the hall for it." "There's nothing there except this," said Colia, returning at this moment. "Where did you put it?" "Oh! but that's all I have," said the prince, taking it. "Ah! I thought perhaps Ferdishenko had taken it." "Don't talk nonsense," said Varia, severely. She seemed put out, and was only just polite with the prince.
In the course of that day I assured myself again that I was the most blissful of mortals. I drove out of the town to Ivan Semyonitch's. He received me very gleefully; he had been meaning to go and see a neighbour, but I myself stopped him. I was afraid to be left alone with Varia. The evening was cheerful, but not reassuring.
I know why you have given up going to see Varia. 'Why? 'Taniusha has forbidden you to. In uttering these words, I fancied I was dealing a most cutting blow at Andrei. Taniusha was a very 'easy-going' young lady, black-haired, dark, five-and-twenty, free in her manners, and devilishly clever, a Shtchitov in petticoats.
I recalled my conversation with Ivan Semyonitch about marriage in general ... and unconsciously I murmured to myself, 'So he was putting it on, the old humbug! It is true that I continually repeated, 'but then Varia is mine! mine! ... Yet that 'but' alas, that but! and then, too, the words, 'Varia is mine! aroused in me not a deep, overwhelming rapture, but a sort of paltry, egoistic triumph.... If Varia had refused me point-blank, I should have been burning with furious passion; but having received her consent, I was like a man who has just said to a guest, 'Make yourself at home, and sees the guest actually beginning to settle into his room, as if he were at home.
On the other hand, the prince, although he had told Lebedeff, as we know, that nothing had happened, and that he had nothing to impart, the prince may have been in error. Something strange seemed to have happened, without anything definite having actually happened. Varia had guessed that with her true feminine instinct.
The general was brought round to some extent, but the doctors declared that he could not be said to be out of danger. Varia and Nina Alexandrovna never left the sick man's bedside; Gania was excited and distressed, but would not go upstairs, and seemed afraid to look at the patient. He wrung his hands when the prince spoke to him, and said that "such a misfortune at such a moment" was terrible.
I stayed another two hours with him, but Varia did not appear.
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