“You are looking round, Kirylo Sidorovitch. I have been shamefully
robbed, positively ruined.”
A rattling laugh, which seemed beyond her control, interrupted her for a
moment.
“A slavish nature would find consolation in the fact that the principal
robber was an exalted and almost a sacrosanct person--a Grand Duke, in
fact. Do you understand, Mr. Razumov? A Grand Duke--No! You have no idea
what thieves those people are! Downright thieves!”
Her bosom heaved, but her left arm remained rigidly extended along the
back of the couch.
“You will only upset yourself,” breathed out a deep voice, which, to
Razumov’s startled glance, seemed to proceed from under the steady
spectacles of Peter Ivanovitch, rather than from his lips, which had
hardly moved.
“What of hat? I say thieves! _Voleurs! Voleurs!_”
Razumov was quite confounded by this unexpected clamour, which had in
it something of wailing and croaking, and more than a suspicion of
hysteria.
“_Voleurs! Voleurs! Vol_....”
“No power on earth can rob you of your genius,” shouted Peter Ivanovitch
in an overpowering bass, but without stirring, without a gesture of any
kind. A profound silence fell.
Razumov remained outwardly impassive. “What is the meaning of this
performance?” he was asking himself. But with a preliminary sound
of bumping outside some door behind him, the lady companion, in a
threadbare black skirt and frayed blouse, came in rapidly, walking on
her heels, and carrying in both hands a big Russian samovar, obviously
too heavy for her. Razumov made an instinctive movement to help, which
startled her so much that she nearly dropped her hissing burden. She
managed, however, to land it on the table, and looked so frightened that
Razumov hastened to sit down. She produced then, from an adjacent room,
four glass tumblers, a teapot, and a sugar-basin, on a black iron tray.