“There, I won’t, I won’t,” Maria Nikolaevna hastened to say. “You don’t
like it, forgive me, I won’t do it, don’t be angry!” Polozov came in
from the next room with a newspaper in his hand. “What do you want? Or
is dinner ready?”
“Dinner’ll be ready directly, but just see what I’ve read in the
_Northern Bee_ … Prince Gromoboy is dead.”
Maria Nikolaevna raised her head.
“Ah! I wish him the joys of Paradise! He used,” she turned to Sanin,
“to fill all my rooms with camellias every February on my birthday. But
it wasn’t worth spending the winter in Petersburg for that. He must
have been over seventy, I should say?” she said to her husband.
“Yes, he was. They describe his funeral in the paper. All the court
were present. And here’s a poem too, of Prince Kovrizhkin’s on the
occasion.”
“That’s nice!”
“Shall I read them? The prince calls him the good man of wise counsel.”
“No, don’t. The good man of wise counsel? He was simply the goodman of
Tatiana Yurevna. Come to dinner. Life is for the living. Dimitri
Pavlovitch, your arm.”
The dinner was, as on the day before, superb, and the meal was a very
lively one. Maria Nikolaevna knew how to tell a story … a rare gift in
a woman, and especially in a Russian one! She did not restrict herself
in her expressions; her countrywomen received particularly severe
treatment at her hands. Sanin was more than once set laughing by some
bold and well-directed word. Above all, Maria Nikolaevna had no
patience with hypocrisy, cant, and humbug. She discovered it almost
everywhere. She, as it were, plumed herself on and boasted of the
humble surroundings in which she had begun life. She told rather queer
anecdotes of her relations in the days of her childhood, spoke of
herself as quite as much of a clodhopper as Natalya Kirilovna
Narishkin. It became apparent to Sanin that she had been through a
great deal more in her time than the majority of women of her age.
Polozov ate meditatively, drank attentively, and only occasionally cast
first on his wife, then on Sanin, his lightish, dim-looking, but, in
reality, very keen eyes.
“What a clever darling you are!” cried Maria Nikolaevna, turning to
him; “how well you carried out all my commissions in Frankfort! I could
give you a kiss on your forehead for it, but you’re not very keen after
kisses.”
“I’m not,” responded Polozov, and he cut a pine-apple with a silver
knife.
Maria Nikolaevna looked at him and drummed with her fingers on the
table. “So our bet’s on, isn’t it?” she said significantly.
“Yes, it’s on.”
“All right. You’ll lose it.”
Polozov stuck out his chin. “Well, this time you mustn’t be too
sanguine, Maria Nikolaevna, maybe you will lose.”
“What is the bet? May I know?” asked Sanin.
“No … not now,” answered Maria Nikolaevna, and she laughed.
It struck seven. The waiter announced that the carriage was ready.
Polozov saw his wife out, and at once waddled back to his easy-chair.
“Mind now! Don’t forget the letter to the overseer,” Maria Nikolaevna
shouted to him from the hall.
“I’ll write, don’t worry yourself. I’m a business-like person.”