Ekaterina Ivanovna Pilnikova, Sasha's aunt and guardian, received
simultaneously two letters about Sasha--one from the Head-Master and
the other from Kokovkina. These letters greatly alarmed her. She put
all her affairs aside and drove at once from her village through the
muddy autumn roads to our town. Sasha, who loved his aunt, met her with
great joy. His aunt came with the intention of rating him soundly. But
he threw himself on her neck with such gladness and kissed her hands so
affectionately that she could not at first speak severely to him.
"Dear Auntie, how good of you to come!" said Sasha, and looked happily
at her full, rosy face with its kind dimples on the cheeks and its
grave, hazel eyes.
"You'd better postpone your pleasure, I must scold you first," said his
aunt in an irresolute voice.
"I don't mind that," said Sasha indifferently, "scold me, if you have
anything to scold me for, but still I'm terribly glad to see you!"
"Terribly?" she repeated in a displeased voice. "I've been hearing
terrible things about you."
Sasha lifted his eyebrows and looked at his aunt with innocent,
uncomprehending eyes.
"There's one master, Peredonov, here," he complained, "who has
invented the tale that I'm a girl. He's been annoying me, and then the
Head-Master scolded me because I had got to know the Routilov girls. As
if I went there to steal things! And what business is it of theirs?"
"He's quite the same child that he was before," thought his aunt in
perplexity, "or has he become spoilt and corrupted so that he can
deceive one even with his face?"
She shut herself in with Kokovkina and talked to her for a long time.
She came out looking quite grave. Then she went to the Head-Master. She
returned quite upset. She showered reproaches on Sasha. Sasha cried but
firmly assured her that it was all an invention, that he did not permit
himself any liberties with the Routilov girls. His aunt did not believe
him. She scolded him, wept and threatened to give him a good whipping
at once--that is to-day, as soon as she had seen these girls. Sasha
kept crying and assuring her that nothing wrong had happened, and that
it was all very exaggerated.
His aunt, angry and bloated with tears, went to the Routilovs.
As she waited in the Routilovs' drawing-room, Ekaterina Ivanovna felt
very agitated. She wanted to throw herself on the sisters at once with
the severest reproaches which she had prepared beforehand. But their
peaceful, pretty drawing-room aroused peaceful thoughts in her against
her will, and softened her vexation. The unfinished embroidery left
lying about, the keepsakes, the engravings on the walls, the carefully
trained plants at the windows, the absence of dust and the home-like
appearance of the room were not at all what one would expect in an
unrespectable house; there was everything that is valued by housewives
the world over--surely with such surroundings the young owners of such
a drawing-room could not have corrupted her innocent young Sasha. All
the conjectures she had made about Sasha seemed to her ridiculously
absurd. On the other hand, Sasha's explanations about his doings at the
Routilovs seemed reasonable; they read, chatted, joked, laughed and
played--they wanted to get up an amateur play, but Olga Vassilyevna
would not allow him to take part.
The three sisters felt apprehensive. They did not yet know whether
Sasha's masquerading had remained a secret. But there were three of
them and they all felt solicitous for one another. This gave them
courage. All three of them gathered in Liudmilla's room and deliberated
in whispers.
"We must go down to her," said Valeria. "It's rude to keep her waiting."
"Let her cool off a little," replied Darya indifferently, "or she'll go
for us."
The sisters scented themselves with clematis. They came in tranquil,
cheerful, attractive, pretty as always; they filled the drawing-room
with their charming chatter and gaiety. Ekaterina Ivanovna was
immediately fascinated by them.
"So these are the corrupters!" she thought, with vexation at the school
pedagogues. But then she thought that perhaps they were assuming this
modesty. She decided not to yield to their fascination.
"You must forgive me, young ladies, but I have something serious
to discuss with you," she said, trying to make her voice dry and
business-like.
The sisters made her sit down and kept up a gay chatter.
"Which of you----" Ekaterina Ivanovna began irresolutely.
Liudmilla, as if she were a graceful hostess trying to get a visitor
out of a difficulty, said cheerfully:
"It was I who spent most of the time with your nephew. We have similar
views and tastes in many things."
"Your nephew is a very charming boy," said Darya, as if she were
confident that her praise would please the visitor.
"Really most charming, and so entertaining," said Liudmilla.
Ekaterina Ivanovna felt more and more awkward. She suddenly realised
that she had no reasonable cause for complaint and this made her
angry--Liudmilla's last words gave her an opportunity to express her
vexation--she said angrily:
"He may be an entertainment to you but to him----"
But Darya interrupted her and said in a sympathetic voice:
"Oh, I can see that those silly Peredonovian tales have reached you.
Of course, you know that he's quite mad? The Head-Master does not even
allow him to go to the _gymnasia_ now. They're only waiting for an
alienist to examine him and then he will be dismissed from the school."
"But, allow me," Ekaterina Ivanovna interrupted her with increasing
irritation. "I am not interested in this schoolmaster but in my nephew.
I have heard that you--pardon me--are corrupting him."
And having thrown out this decisive word in her anger with the sisters,
Ekaterina Ivanovna at once saw that she had gone too far. The sisters
exchanged glances of such well-simulated perplexity and indignation
that cleverer people than Ekaterina Ivanovna would have been taken
in--they flushed and exclaimed altogether:
"That's pleasant!"
"How terrible!"
"That's something new!"
"Madam," said Darya coldly, "you are not over choice in your
expressions. Before you make use of such words you should find out
whether they are fitting!"
"Of course, one can understand that," said Liudmilla, with the look
of a charming girl forgiving an injury, "he's not a stranger to you.
Naturally, you can't help being disturbed by this stupid gossip. Even
strangers like ourselves were sorry for him and had to be kind to him.
But everything in our town is made a crime at once. You have no idea
what terrible, terrible people live here!"
"Terrible people," repeated Valeria quietly, in a clear, fragile voice
and shivered from head to foot as if she had come in contact with
something unclean.
"You ask him yourself," said Darya. "Just look at him; he's still a
mere child. Perhaps you have got used to his naïveté, but one can see
better from the outside that he's quite an unspoiled boy."
The sisters lied with such assurance and tranquillity that it was
impossible not to believe them. Why not? Lies have often more
verisimilitude than the truth. Nearly always. As for truth of course it
has no verisimilitude.
"Of course it is true that he was often here," said Darya, "but we
shan't let him cross our threshold again, if you object."
"And I shall go and see Khripatch to-day," said Liudmilla. "How did he
get hold of that notion? Surely he doesn't believe such a stupid tale?"
"No, I don't think he believes it himself," admitted Ekaterina
Ivanovna. "But he says that various unpleasant rumours are going about."
"There! You see!" exclaimed Liudmilla happily. "Of course he doesn't
believe it himself. What's the reason of all this fuss then?"
Liudmilla's cheerful voice deceived Ekaterina Ivanovna. She thought:
"I wonder what exactly has happened? The Head-Master does say that he
doesn't believe it."
The sisters for a long time supported each other in persuading
Ekaterina Ivanovna of the complete innocence of their relations with
Sasha. To set her mind more completely at rest they were on the point
of telling her in detail precisely what they did with Sasha; but they
stopped short because they were all such innocent, simple things that
it was difficult to remember them. And Ekaterina Ivanovna at last came
to believe that her Sasha and the charming Routilovs were the innocent
victims of stupid slander.
As she bade them good-bye she kissed them kindly and said:
"You're charming, simple girls. I thought at first that you
were--forgive the rude word--wantons."
The sisters laughed gaily. Liudmilla said:
"No, we're just happy girls with sharp little tongues and that's why
we're not liked by some of the local geese."
When she returned from the Routilovs Sasha's aunt said nothing to him.
He met her, feeling rather frightened and embarrassed and he looked
at her cautiously and attentively. After a long deliberation with
Kokovkina the aunt decided:
"I must see the Head-Master again."
* * * * *
That same day Liudmilla went to see Khripatch. She sat for some time in
the drawing-room with the Head-Master's wife and then announced that
she had come to see Nikolai Vassilyevitch on business.
An animated conversation took place in Khripatch's study--not because
they had much to say to one another but because they liked to chatter.
And they talked rapidly to each other, Khripatch with his dry,
crackling volubility, Liudmilla with her gentle, resonant prattle.
With the irresistible persuasiveness of falsehood, she poured out to
Khripatch her half-false story of her relations with Sasha Pilnikov.
Her chief motives were, of course, her sympathy with the boy who was
suffering from this coarse suspicion, her desire to take the place of
Sasha's absent family. And finally he was such a charming, unspoiled
boy. Liudmilla even cried a little and her swift tears rolled down
her cheeks to her half-smiling lips, giving her an extraordinary
attractiveness.
"I have grown to love him like a brother," she said. "He is a fine,
lovable boy. He appreciated affection and he kissed my hands."
"That was very good of you," said Khripatch somewhat flustered, "and
does honour to your kind feelings. But you have needlessly taken to
heart the simple fact that I considered it my duty to inform the boy's
relatives of the rumours that reached me."
Liudmilla prattled on, without listening to him, and her voice passed
into a tone of gentle rebuke.
"Tell me what was wrong in our taking an interest in the boy? Why
should he suffer from that coarse, mad Peredonov? When shall we be rid
of him? Can't you see yourself that Pilnikov is quite a child, really a
mere child?"
She clasped her small, pretty hands together, rattled her gold
bracelets, laughed softly, took her handkerchief out to dry her tears
and wafted a delicate perfume towards Khripatch. And Khripatch suddenly
wanted to tell her that she was "lovely as a heavenly angel," and that
this unfortunate episode "was not worth a single instant of her dear
sorrow." But he refrained.
And Liudmilla chattered on and on and dissolved into smoke the
chimerical structure of the Peredonovian lie. Think of comparing the
charming Liudmillotchka with the crude, dirty, insane Peredonov!
Whether Liudmilla was telling the whole truth or romancing was all the
same to Khripatch; but he felt that if he did not believe Liudmilla
and should argue with her and take steps to punish Pilnikov it might
lead to an inquiry and disgrace the whole School District. All the more
since this business was bound up with Peredonov who would be found to
be insane. And Khripatch smiled, saying to Liudmilla:
"I'm very sorry that this should upset you so much. I didn't for a
moment permit myself any disagreeable suspicions of your acquaintance
with Pilnikov. I esteem most highly those good and kindly motives
which have inspired your actions, and not for a single instant have I
considered the rumours that passed in the town and those that reached
me as anything but unreasonable slanders which gave me deep concern.
I was obliged to inform Madame Pilnikov, especially since even more
distorted rumours might have reached her, but I had no intention of
distressing you and had no idea that Madame Pilnikov would come and
complain to you."
"We've had a satisfactory explanation with Madame Pilnikov," said
Liudmilla. "But don't punish Sasha on our account. If our house is so
dangerous for schoolboys we won't let him come again."
"You're very good to him," said Khripatch irresolutely. "We can have
nothing against his visiting his acquaintances in his leisure hours,
if his aunt permits it. We are very far from wishing to turn students'
lodgings into places of confinement. In any case, until the Peredonov
affair is decided, it would be better for Pilnikov to remain at home."
* * * * *
The accepted explanation given by the Routilov girls and by Sasha
received confirmation from a terrible event which happened in the
Peredonovs' house. This finally convinced the townspeople that all
the rumours about Sasha and the Routilov girls were the ravings of a
madman.