The whole evening and the following day I spent in a sort of dejected
apathy. I remember I tried to work and took up Keidanov, but the boldly
printed lines and pages of the famous text-book passed before my eyes
in vain. I read ten times over the words: “Julius Caesar was
distinguished by warlike courage.” I did not understand anything and
threw the book aside. Before dinner-time I pomaded myself once more,
and once more put on my tail-coat and necktie.
“What’s that for?” my mother demanded. “You’re not a student yet, and
God knows whether you’ll get through the examination. And you’ve not
long had a new jacket! You can’t throw it away!”
“There will be visitors,” I murmured almost in despair.
“What nonsense! fine visitors indeed!”
I had to submit. I changed my tail-coat for my jacket, but I did not
take off the necktie. The princess and her daughter made their
appearance half an hour before dinner-time; the old lady had put on, in
addition to the green dress with which I was already acquainted, a
yellow shawl, and an old-fashioned cap adorned with flame-coloured
ribbons. She began talking at once about her money difficulties,
sighing, complaining of her poverty, and imploring assistance, but she
made herself at home; she took snuff as noisily, and fidgeted and
lolled about in her chair as freely as ever. It never seemed to have
struck her that she was a princess. Zinaïda on the other hand was
rigid, almost haughty in her demeanour, every inch a princess. There
was a cold immobility and dignity in her face. I should not have
recognised it; I should not have known her smiles, her glances, though
I thought her exquisite in this new aspect too. She wore a light barége
dress with pale blue flowers on it; her hair fell in long curls down
her cheek in the English fashion; this style went well with the cold
expression of her face. My father sat beside her during dinner, and
entertained his neighbour with the finished and serene courtesy
peculiar to him. He glanced at her from time to time, and she glanced
at him, but so strangely, almost with hostility. Their conversation was
carried on in French; I was surprised, I remember, at the purity of
Zinaïda’s accent. The princess, while we were at table, as before made
no ceremony; she ate a great deal, and praised the dishes. My mother
was obviously bored by her, and answered her with a sort of weary
indifference; my father faintly frowned now and then. My mother did not
like Zinaïda either. “A conceited minx,” she said next day. “And fancy,
what she has to be conceited about, _avec sa mine de grisette_!”
“It’s clear you have never seen any grisettes,” my father observed to
her.
“Thank God, I haven’t!”
“Thank God, to be sure … only how can you form an opinion of them,
then?”
To me Zinaïda had paid no attention whatever. Soon after dinner the
princess got up to go.
“I shall rely on your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr
Vassilitch,” she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father.
“I’ve no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am, an
excellency, and a poor honour it is with nothing to eat!”
My father made her a respectful bow and escorted her to the door of the
hall. I was standing there in my short jacket, staring at the floor,
like a man under sentence of death. Zinaïda’s treatment of me had
crushed me utterly. What was my astonishment, when, as she passed me,
she whispered quickly with her former kind expression in her eyes:
“Come to see us at eight, do you hear, be sure….” I simply threw up my
hands, but already she was gone, flinging a white scarf over her head.