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I do feel rather uneasy about it, but perhaps she will forgive me. I may tell you, Boris Pavlovich, that I love both the girls, as if they were my own daughters. I held them on my knee as babies, and with Tatiana Markovna gave them their first lessons. I tell you in confidence that I have also arranged a wedding present for Vera Vassilievna which I hope she will like when the time comes."
"I do," whispered Tatiana Markovna tearfully, "but the decision does not lie with me." He passed his hands across his eyes and through his thick hair, then seized her hands. "Forgive me, I forgot the important point. It is not mountain, forest or sea, but an insurmountable obstacle that confronts me Vera Vassilievna is not willing. She looks forward to a happier future than I can offer her.
"Vera Vassilievna," he said, "you are suffering horribly. I do not understand," he went on, looking at her with sympathy and admiration, "what you mean by saying that he has justification, and that you bring no accusation against him. If that's the case, why did you wish to speak to me and call me here into the avenue?" "Because I wanted you to know the whole truth."
"Shall we give him Marfinka, Marfa Egorovna?" "He hasn't deserved it, Tatiana Markovna. And it is really too early. Perhaps in two years' time...." He flew to his mother and shut her mouth with a kiss. Then he received from Tatiana Markovna the sign of the cross, and a kiss on the forehead. "Where is Marfa Vassilievna?" he shouted joyfully.
"What is the meaning of this, Tatiana Markovna," stammered Vikentev in amazement. "Marfa Vassilievna is unendurable." He looked at both of them, walked into the middle of the room, assumed a sugary smile, bowed slightly, put his hat under his arm, and struggling in vain to drag his gloves on his moist hands began: "Mille pardons, mademoiselle, de vous avoir derangee. Sacrebleu, ca n'entre pas.
That man," he could not bring Mark's name over his lips, "leaves the town to-morrow or the day after, and all will be forgotten. As for me, since it is decided that Vera Vassilievna is not to be my wife, it does not matter whether I die or live." Tatiana Markovna, pale and trembling, interrupted him. "She will be your wife," she said, "when she has learnt to forget.
Vera came that night to supper with a gloomy face. She eagerly drank a glass of milk, but offered no remark to anyone. "Why are you so unhappy, Veroshka?" asked her aunt. "Don't you feel well." "I was afraid to ask," interposed Tiet Nikonich politely. "I could not help noticing, Vera Vassilievna, that you have been altered for some time; you seem to have grown thinner and paler.
I might add that I had offered her my hand and had met with a refusal, by which you, Tatiana Markovna, who gave me your approval, were aggrieved; that Vera Vassilievna felt bitterly the breach of our friendship. One might even speak of a distant hope ... of a promise...." "People will not be kept quiet by that, for a promise cannot always remain a promise."
"Marfa Vassilievna," he whispered, "something so good, so wonderful is happening to me, something I have never felt before. It is as if everything in me was astir. At this moment," he went on as she remained silent, "I should like to fling myself on horseback, and ride, ride, till I had no breathe left, or fling myself into the Volga and swim to the opposite bank. Do you feel anything like that?"
You sent for me to let me know of the gossip there is going about, in the view that it must be painful, didn't you? Do not let it disturb either yourself or Vera Vassilievna, but take her away, so that no word of it penetrates to her ears. In the meantime I will spread in the town the account we have discussed.
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