A beautiful spring day was drawing to a close. High aloft in the clear
sky floated small rosy clouds, which seemed never to drift past, but
to be slowly absorbed into the blue depths beyond.
At an open window, in a handsome mansion situated in one of the
outlying streets of O., the chief town of the government of that
name--it was in the year 1842--there were sitting two ladies, the one
about fifty years old, the other an old woman of seventy.
The name of the first was Maria Dmitrievna Kalitine. Her husband, who
had formerly occupied the post of Provincial Procurator, and who was
well known in his day as a good man of business--a man of bilious
temperament, confident, resolute, and enterprising--had been dead
ten years. He had received a good education, and had studied at the
university, but as the family from which he sprang was a poor one, he
had early recognized the necessity of making a career for himself and
of gaining money.
Maria Dmitrievna married him for love. He was good-looking, he had
plenty of sense, and, when he liked, he could be very agreeable. Maria
Dmitrievna, whose maiden name was Pestof, lost her parents while she
was still a child. She spent several years in an Institute at Moscow,
and then went to live with her brother and one of her aunts at
Pokrovskoe, a family estate situated fifteen versts from O. Soon
afterwards her brother was called away on duty to St. Petersburgh, and,
until a sudden death put an end to his career, he kept his aunt and
sister with only just enough for them to live upon. Maria Dmitrievna
inherited Pokrovskoe, but she did not long reside there. In the second
year of her marriage with Kalitine, who had succeeded at the end of
a few days in gaining her affections, Pokrovskoe was exchanged for
another estate--one of much greater intrinsic value, but unattractive
in appearance, and not provided with a mansion. At the same time
Kalitine purchased a house in the town of O., and there he and his
wife permanently established themselves. A large garden was attached
to it, extending in one direction to the fields outside the town, "so
that," Kalitine, who was by no means an admirer of rural tranquillity,
used to say, "there is no reason why we should go dragging ourselves
off into the country." Maria Dmitrievna often secretly regretted her
beautiful Pokrovskoe, with its joyous brook, its sweeping meadows, and
its verdant woods, but she never opposed her husband in any thing,
having the highest respect for his judgment and his knowledge of the
world. And when he died, after fifteen years of married life, leaving
behind him a son and two daughters, Maria Dmitrievna had grown
so accustomed to her house and to a town life, that she had no
inclination to change her residence.
In her youth Maria Dmitrievna had enjoyed the reputation of being a
pretty blonde, and even in her fiftieth year her features were not
unattractive, though they had lost somewhat of their fineness and
delicacy. She was naturally sensitive and impressionable, rather than
actually good-hearted, and even in her years of maturity she continued
to behave in the manner peculiar to "Institute girls;" she denied
herself no indulgence, she was easily put out of temper, and she would
even burst into tears if her habits were interfered with. On the other
hand, she was gracious and affable when all her wishes were fulfilled,
and when nobody opposed her in any thing. Her house was the
pleasantest in the town; and she had a handsome income, the greater
part of which was derived from her late husband's earnings, and the
rest from her own property. Her two daughters lived with her; her son
was being educated in one of the best of the crown establishments at
St. Petersburgh.
The old lady who was sitting at the window with Maria Dmitrievna was
her father's sister, the aunt with whom she had formerly spent so many
lonely years at Pokrovskoe. Her name was Marfa Timofeevna Pestof.
She was looked upon as an original, being a woman of an independent
character, who bluntly told the truth to every one, and who, although
her means were very small, behaved in society just as she would have
done had she been rolling in wealth. She never could abide the late
Kalitine, and as soon as her niece married him she retired to her own
modest little property, where she spent ten whole years in a peasant's
smoky hut. Maria Dmitrievna was rather afraid of her. Small in
stature, with black hair, a sharp nose, and eyes which even in old age
were still keen, Marfa Timofeevna walked briskly, held herself
bolt upright, and spoke quickly but distinctly, and with a loud,
high-pitched voice. She always wore a white cap, and a white
_kofta_[A] always formed part of her dress.
[Footnote A: A sort of jacket.]
"What is the matter?" she suddenly asked. "What are you sighing
about?"
"Nothing," replied Maria Dmitrievna. "What lovely clouds!"
"You are sorry for them, I suppose?"
Maria Dmitrievna made no reply.
"Why doesn't Gedeonovsky come?" continued Marfa Timofeevna, rapidly
plying her knitting needles. (She was making a long worsted scarf.)
"He would have sighed with you. Perhaps he would have uttered some
platitude or other."
"How unkindly you always speak of him! Sergius Petrovich is--a most
respectable man."
"Respectable!" echoed the old lady reproachfully.
"And then," continued Maria Dmitrievna, "how devoted he was to my dear
husband! Why, he can never think of him without emotion."
"He might well be that, considering that your husband pulled him out
of the mud by the ears," growled Marfa Timofeevna, the needles moving
quicker than ever under her fingers. "He looks so humble," she began
anew after a time. "His head is quite grey, and yet he never opens his
mouth but to lie or to slander. And, forsooth, he is a councillor of
state! Ah, well, to be sure, he is a priest's son."[A]
[Footnote A: _Popovich_, or son of a pope; a not over respectful
designation in Russia.]
"Who is there who is faultless, aunt? It is true that he has this
weakness. Sergius Petrovich has not had a good education, I admit--he
cannot speak French--but I beg leave to say that I think him
exceedingly agreeable."
"Oh, yes, he fawns on you like a dog. As to his not speaking French,
that's no great fault. I am not very strong in the French 'dialect'
myself. It would be better if he spoke no language at all; he wouldn't
tell lies then. But of course, here he is, in the very nick of time,"
continued Marfa Timofeevna, looking down the street. "Here comes
your agreeable man, striding along. How spindle-shanked he is, to be
sure--just like a stork!"
Maria Dmitrievna arranged her curls. Marfa Timofeevna looked at her
with a quiet smile.
"Isn't that a grey hair I see, my dear? You should scold Pelagia.
Where can her eyes be?"
"That's just like you, aunt," muttered Maria Dmitrievna, in a tone of
vexation, and thrumming with her fingers on the arm of her chair.
"Sergius Petrovich Gedeonovsky!" shrilly announced a rosy-cheeked
little Cossack,[A] who suddenly appeared at the door.
[Footnote A: A page attired in a sort of Cossack dress.]