Princess Sophia Vasilievna had finished her meal of choice and
nourishing dishes, which she always took alone, that no one might see
her performing that unpoetical function. A cup of coffee stood on a
small table near her couch, and she was smoking a cigarette. Princess
Sophia Vasilievna was a lean and tall brunette, with long teeth and
large black eyes, who desired to pass for a young woman.
People were making unpleasant remarks about her relations with the
doctor. Formerly Nekhludoff had paid no attention to them. But to-day,
the sight of the doctor, with his oily, sleek head, which was parted
in the middle, sitting near her couch, was repulsive to him.
Beside the Princess sat Kolosoff, stirring the coffee. A glass of
liquor was on the table.
Missy entered, together with Nekhludoff, but she did not remain in the
room.
"When mamma gets tired of you and drives you away, come to my room,"
she said, turning to Nekhludoff, as if nothing had happened, and,
smiling cheerfully, she walked out of the room, her steps deadened by
the heavy carpet.
"Well, how do you do, my friend? Sit down and tell us the news," said
Sophia Vasilievna, with an artful, feigned, resembling a perfectly
natural, smile, which displayed her beautiful, long, skillfully made,
almost natural-looking teeth. "I am told that you returned from the
court in very gloomy spirits. It must be very painful to people with a
heart," she said in French.
"Yes, that is true," said Nekhludoff. "One often feels his--feels that
he has no right to judge others."
"Comme c'est vrai!" she exclaimed, as if struck by the truth of the
remark, and, as usual, artfully flattering her friend.
"And what about your picture? It interests me very much," she added.
"Were it not for my indisposition, I should have visited you long
ago."
"I have given up painting entirely," he answered dryly. Her unjust
flattery was as apparent to him to-day as was her age, which she
attempted to conceal. Try as he would, he could not force himself to
be pleasant.
"It is too bad! You know, Riepin himself told me that Nekhludoff
possesses undoubted talent," she said, turning to Kolosoff.
"What a shameless liar!" Nekhludoff thought, frowning.
Seeing that Nekhludoff was in ill humor, and could not be drawn into
pleasant and clear conversation, Sophia Vasilievna turned to Kolosoff
for his opinion of the new drama, with an air as if Kolosoff's opinion
would dispel all doubt and every word of his was destined to become
immortalized. Kolosoff condemned the drama and took occasion to state
his views on art. The correctness of his views seemed to impress her;
she attempted to defend the author of the drama, but immediately
yielded, or found a middle ground. Nekhludoff looked and listened and
yet saw and heard but little.
Listening now to Sophia Vasilievna, now to Kolosoff, Nekhludoff saw,
first, that neither of them cared either for the drama or for each
other, and that they were talking merely to satisfy a physiological
craving to exercise, after dinner, the muscles of the tongue and
throat. Secondly, he saw that Kolosoff, who had drunk brandy, wine and
liquors, was somewhat tipsy--not as drunk as a drinking peasant, but
like a man to whom wine-drinking has become a habit. He did not reel,
nor did he talk nonsense, but was in an abnormal, excited and
contented condition. Thirdly, Nekhludoff saw that Princess Sophia
Vasilievna, during the conversation, now and again anxiously glanced
at the window, through which a slanting ray of the sun was creeping
toward her, threatening to throw too much light on her aged face.
"How true it is," she said of some remark of Kolosoff, and pressed a
button on the wall near the couch.
At this moment the doctor rose with as little ceremony as one of the
family, and walked out of the room. Sophia Vasilievna followed him
with her eyes.
"Please, Phillip, let down that curtain," she said to the
fine-looking servant who responded to the bell, her eyes pointing to
the window.
"Say what you will, but there is something mystical about him, and
without mysticism there is no poetry," she said, with one black eye
angrily following the movements of the servant who was lowering the
curtain.
"Mysticism without poetry is superstition, and poetry without
mysticism is prose," she continued, smiling sadly, still keeping her
eye on the servant, who was smoothing down the curtain.
"Not that curtain, Phillip--the one at the large window," she said in
a sad voice, evidently pitying herself for the efforts she was
compelled to make to say these words, and to calm herself, with her
ring-bedecked hand, she lifted to her lips the fragrant, smoking
cigarette.
The broad-chested, muscular Phillip bowed slightly, as if excusing
himself, and submissively and silently stepped over to the next
window, and, carefully looking at the Princess, so arranged the
curtain that no stray ray should fall on her. It was again
unsatisfactory, and again the exhausted Princess was obliged to
interrupt her conversation about mysticism and correct the
unintelligent Phillip, who was pitilessly tormenting her. For a moment
Phillip's eyes flashed fire.
"'The devil knows what you want,' he is probably saying to himself,"
Nekhludoff thought, as he watched this play. But the handsome, strong
Phillip concealed his impatience, and calmly carried out the
instructions of the enervated, weak, artificial Princess Sophia
Vasilievna.
"Of course there is considerable truth in Darwin's theory," said the
returning Kolosoff, stretching himself on a low arm-chair and looking
through sleepy eyes at the Princess, "but he goes too far."
"And do you believe in heredity?" she asked Nekhludoff, oppressed by
his silence.
"In heredity?" repeated Nekhludoff. "No, I do not," he said, being
entirely absorbed at the moment by those strange forms which, for some
reason, appeared to his imagination. Alongside of the strong, handsome
Phillip, whom he looked upon as a model, he imagined Kolosoff, naked,
his abdomen like a water-melon, bald-headed, and his arms hanging
like two cords. He also dimly imagined what the silk-covered shoulders
of Sophia Vasilievna would appear like in reality, but the picture was
too terrible, and he drove it from his mind.
Sophia Vasilievna scanned him from head to foot.
"Missy is waiting for you," she said. "Go to her room; she wished to
play for you a new composition by Schuman. It is very interesting."
"It isn't true. Why should she lie so!" Nekhludoff thought, rising and
pressing her transparent, bony, ring-bedecked hand.
In the drawing-room he met Katherine Alexeievna, returning to her
mother's apartments. As usual, she greeted him in French.
"I see that the duties of juryman act depressingly upon you," she
said.
"Yes, pardon me. I am in low spirits to-day, and I have no right to
bore people," answered Nekhludoff.
"Why are you in low spirits?"
"Permit me not to speak of it," he said, looking for his hat as they
entered the Princess' cabinet.
"And do you remember telling us that one ought to tell the truth? And
what cruel truths you used to tell us! Why don't you tell us now? Do
you remember, Missy?" the Princess turned to Missy, who had just
entered.
"Because that was in play," answered Nekhludoff gravely. "In play it
is permissible, but in reality we are so bad, that is, I am so bad,
that I, at least, cannot tell the truth."
"Don't correct yourself, but rather say that we are so bad," said
Katherine Alexeievna, playing with the words, and pretending not to
see Nekhludoff's gravity.
"There is nothing worse than to confess being in low spirits," said
Missy. "I never confess it to myself, and that is why I am always
cheerful. Well, come to my room. We shall try to drive away your
mauvais humeur."
Nekhludoff experienced the feeling which a horse must feel when
brushed down before the bridle is put on and it is led to be harnessed
to the wagon. But to-day he was not at all disposed to draw. He
excused himself and began to take leave. Missy kept his hand longer
than usual.
"Remember that what is important to you is important to your friends,"
she said. "Will you come to-morrow?"
"I don't think I will," said Nekhludoff. And feeling ashamed, without
knowing himself whether for her or for himself, he blushed and hastily
departed.
"What does it mean? Comme cela m'intrigue," said Katherine Alexeievna,
when Nekhludoff had left. "I must find it out. Some affaire d'amour
propre; il est très susceptible notre cher Mitia."
"Plutôt une affaire d'amour sale," Missy was going to say. Her face
was now wan and pale. But she did not give expression to that passage,
and only said: "We all have our bright days and gloomy days."
"Is it possible that he, too, should deceive me?" she thought. "After
all that has happened, it would be very wrong of him."
If Missy had had to explain what she meant by the words, "After all
that has happened," she could have told nothing definite, and yet she
undoubtedly knew that not only had he given her cause to hope, but he
had almost made his promise--not in so many words, but by his glances,
his smiles, his innuendos, his silence. She considered him her own,
and to lose him would be very painful to her.