forced to blush and turn away.
In short, it was a terrible trial to me to have anything to do with him.
XVIII. THE MAIDSERVANTS' ROOM
I BEGAN to feel more and more lonely, until my chief solace lay in
solitary reflection and observation. Of the favourite subject of
my reflections I shall speak in the next chapter. The scene where I
indulged in them was, for preference, the maidservants' room, where
a plot suitable for a novel was in progress--a plot which touched and
engrossed me to the highest degree. The heroine of the romance was, of
course, Masha. She was in love with Basil, who had known her before she
had become a servant in our house, and who had promised to marry her
some day. Unfortunately, fate, which had separated them five years ago,
and afterwards reunited them in Grandmamma's abode, next proceeded to
interpose an obstacle between them in the shape of Masha's uncle, our
man Nicola, who would not hear of his niece marrying that "uneducated
and unbearable fellow," as he called Basil. One effect of the obstacle
had been to make the otherwise slightly cool and indifferent Basil fall
as passionately in love with Masha as it is possible for a man to be
who is only a servant and a tailor, wears a red shirt, and has his hair
pomaded. Although his methods of expressing his affection were odd (for
instance, whenever he met Masha he always endeavoured to inflict upon
her some bodily pain, either by pinching her, giving her a slap with his
open hand, or squeezing her so hard that she could scarcely breathe),
that affection was sincere enough, and he proved it by the fact that,
from the moment when Nicola refused him his niece's hand, his grief led
him to drinking, and to frequenting taverns, until he proved so
unruly that more than once he had to be sent to undergo a humiliating
chastisement at the police-station.
Nevertheless, these faults of his and their consequences only served to
elevate him in Masha's eyes, and to increase her love for him. Whenever
he was in the hands of the police, she would sit crying the whole day,
and complain to Gasha of her hard fate (Gasha played an active part
in the affairs of these unfortunate lovers). Then, regardless of her
uncle's anger and blows, she would stealthily make her way to the
police-station, there to visit and console her swain.
Excuse me, reader, for introducing you to such company. Nevertheless, if
the cords of love and compassion have not wholly snapped in your soul,
you will find, even in that maidservants' room, something which may
cause them to vibrate again.
So, whether you please to follow me or not, I will return to the alcove
on the staircase whence I was able to observe all that passed in that
room. From my post I could see the stove-couch, with, upon it, an iron,
an old cap-stand with its peg bent crooked, a wash-tub, and a basin.
There, too, was the window, with, in fine disorder before it, a piece
of black wax, some fragments of silk, a half-eaten cucumber, a box of
sweets, and so on. There, too, was the large table at which SHE used
to sit in the pink cotton dress which I admired so much and the
blue handkerchief which always caught my attention so. She would be
sewing-though interrupting her work at intervals to scratch her head
a little, to bite the end of her thread, or to snuff the candle--and I
would think to myself: "Why was she not born a lady--she with her blue
eyes, beautiful fair hair, and magnificent bust? How splendid she would
look if she were sitting in a drawing-room and dressed in a cap with
pink ribbons and a silk gown--not one like Mimi's, but one like the gown
which I saw the other day on the Tverski Boulevard!" Yes, she would work
at the embroidery-frame, and I would sit and look at her in the mirror,
and be ready to do whatsoever she wanted--to help her on with her mantle
or to hand her food. As for Basil's drunken face and horrid figure in
the scanty coat with the red shirt showing beneath it, well, in his
every gesture, in his every movement of his back, I seemed always to see
signs of the humiliating chastisements which he had undergone.
"Ah, Basil! AGAIN?" cried Masha on one occasion as she stuck her needle
into the pincushion, but without looking up at the person who was
entering.
"What is the good of a man like HIM?" was Basil's first remark.
"Yes. If only he would say something DECISIVE! But I am powerless in the
matter--I am all at odds and ends, and through his fault, too."
"Will you have some tea?" put in Madesha (another servant).
"No, thank you.--But why does he hate me so, that old thief of an uncle
of yours? Why? Is it because of the clothes I wear, or of my height,
or of my walk, or what? Well, damn and confound him!" finished Basil,
snapping his fingers.
"We must be patient," said Masha, threading her needle.
"You are so--"
"It is my nerves that won't stand it, that's all."
At this moment the door of Grandmamma's room banged, and Gasha's angry
voice could be heard as she came up the stairs.
"There!" she muttered with a gesture of her hands. "Try to please people
when even they themselves do not know what they want, and it is a cursed
life--sheer hard labour, and nothing else! If only a certain thing would
happen!--though God forgive me for thinking it!"
"Good evening, Agatha Michaelovna," said Basil, rising to greet her.
"You here?" she answered brusquely as she stared at him, "That is not
very much to your credit. What do you come here for? Is the maids' room
a proper place for men?"
"I wanted to see how you were," said Basil soothingly.
"I shall soon be breathing my last--THAT'S how I am!" cried Gasha, still
greatly incensed.
Basil laughed.
"Oh, there's nothing to laugh at when I say that I shall soon be dead.
But that's how it will be, all the same. Just look at the drunkard!
Marry her, would he? The fool! Come, get out of here!" and, with a stamp
of her foot on the floor, Gasha retreated to her own room, and banged
the door behind her until the window rattled again. For a while she
could be heard scolding at everything, flinging dresses and other things
about, and pulling the ears of her favourite cat. Then the door opened
again, and puss, mewing pitifully, was flung forth by the tail.
"I had better come another time for tea," said Basil in a whisper--"at
some better time for our meeting."
"No, no!" put in Madesha. "I'll go and fetch the urn at once."
"I mean to put an end to things soon," went on Basil, seating himself
beside Masha as soon as ever Madesha had left the room. "I had much
better go straight to the Countess, and say 'so-and-so' or I will throw
up my situation and go off into the world. Oh dear, oh dear!"
"And am I to remain here?"
"Ah, there's the difficulty--that's what I feel so badly about, You have
been my sweetheart so long, you see. Ah, dear me!"
"Why don't you bring me your shirts to wash, Basil?" asked Masha after a
pause, during which she had been inspecting his wrist-bands.
At this moment Grandmamma's bell rang, and Gasha issued from her room
again.
"What do you want with her, you impudent fellow?" she cried as she