"Because, dear brother, if it's by steamer-boat, of course, His Excellency will have a closer way across the lake; that's right enough; except the way things are now, the steamer-boat may not even go."
"It will, it will, it'll go for another week," Anisim was the most excited of all.
"Maybe so! but it doesn't come on schedule, because it's late in the year, and sometimes they wait three days in Ustyevo."
"It'll come tomorrow, tomorrow at two o'clock it'll come on schedule. You'll get to Spasov still before evening, sir, right on schedule," Anisim was turning himself inside out.
"Mais qu 'est-ce qu 'il a, cet homme, "[clxxxv] Stepan Trofimovich trembled, fearfully awaiting his fate.
The coachmen, too, stepped up and began bargaining; they were asking three roubles to Ustyevo. Others shouted that he wouldn't be doing badly, that it was the right price, just the same price they charged all summer for going from here to Ustyevo.
"But... it's also nice here... And I don't want to," Stepan Trofimovich started mumbling.
"Right, sir, it's just as you say, right now it's really nice in Spasov, and you'll make Fyodor Matveevich so glad."
"Mon Dieu, mes amis, all this is so unexpected for me."
At last Sofya Matveevna came back. But she sat on the bench quite crushed and sad.
"I'm not to be in Spasov!" she said to the mistress.
"What, you're going to Spasov, too?" Stepan Trofimovich roused himself.
It turned out that a certain landowner, Nadezhda Yegorovna Svetlitsyn, had told her the day before to wait for her in Khatovo and promised to take her to Spasov, and here she had not come.
"What am I to do now?" Sofya Matveevna kept repeating.
"Mais, ma chère et nouvelle amie,[clxxxvi] I, too, can take you, as well as any landowner, to this, what is it called, this village I've hired a coach to, and tomorrow—well, tomorrow we'll go to Spasov together."
"But, are you also going to Spasov?"
"Mais que faire, et je suis enchanté![clxxxvii] I shall be extremely glad to take you there; they want to, I've already hired... Which of you did I hire?" Stepan Trofimovich suddenly wanted terribly much to go to Spasov.
A quarter of an hour later they were already getting into the covered britzka: he very animated and thoroughly pleased; she with her bag and a grateful smile beside him. Anisim helped them in.
"Have a good trip, sir," he was bustling with all his might around the britzka, "it was such gladness you caused us!" "Good-bye, good-bye, my friend, good-bye." "When you see Fyodor Matveevich, sir..." "Yes, my friend, yes ... Fyodor Petrovich ... and now good-bye."
II
You see, my friend—you will allow me to call you my friend, n'est-ce pas?"[clxxxviii] Stepan Trofimovich began hastily, as soon as the britzka started. "You see, I... J'aime le peuple, c'est indispensable, mais il me semble que je ne l'avais jamais vu de près. Stasie... cela va sans dire qu 'elle est aussi du peuple... mais le vrai peuple,[clxxxix] that is, the real ones, the ones on the high road, it seems to me, care only about where I'm actually going... But let's drop our grudges. It's as if I were straying a little, but that, it seems, is from haste."
"It seems you're unwell, sir," Sofya Matveevna was studying him keenly but respectfully.
"No, no, I just need to wrap myself up, and generally the wind is somehow fresh, even very fresh, but we'll forget that. I mainly wished to say something else. Chère et incomparable amie,[cxc] it seems to me that I am almost happy, and the one to blame for it is—you. Happiness is unprofitable for me, because I immediately set about forgiving all my enemies ..."
"But that is very good, sir."
"Not always, chère innocente. L'Evangile... Voyez-vous, désormais nous le prêcherons ensemble,[cxci] and I'll willingly sell your handsome books. Yes, I feel there's perhaps an idea there, quelque chose de très nouveau dans ce genre.[cxcii] The people are religious, c'est admis,[cxciii] but they still don't know the Gospel. I will expound it to them ... In expounding it orally, it is possible to correct the mistakes of this remarkable book, which I, of course, am prepared to treat with great respect. I'll also be useful on the high road. I've always been useful, I've always said so to them and to cette chère ingrate[cxciv]... Oh, let's forgive, forgive, let's first of all forgive all and always... Let's hope that we, too, will be forgiven. Yes, because we are guilty one and all before each other. All are guilty! ..."
"That, I think, you said very well, if you please, sir."
"Yes, yes ... I feel that I am speaking very well. I will speak very well to them, but, but what was the main thing I wished to say? I keep getting confused and don't remember... Will you allow me not to part from you? I feel that your eyes and... I'm even surprised at your manners: you're simplehearted, and you say 'sir,' and you put the cup upside down on the saucer... with that ugly little sugar lump; but there's something lovely in you, and I can see by your features... Oh, don't blush, and don't be afraid of me as a man. Chère et incomparable, pour moi une femme c'est tout.[cxcv] I cannot live without a woman near, but simply near... I'm terribly, terribly confused ... I simply cannot remember what I wished to say. Oh, blessed is he to whom God always sends a woman, and... and I even think I'm in some sort of ecstasy. And on the high road, too, there is a lofty thought! there—that is what I wished to say—about the thought, now I've remembered it, and I kept missing it before. But why did they take us farther on? It was nice there, too, and here—cela devient trop froid. A propos, j'ai en tout quarante roubles et voilà cet argent,[cxcvi] take it, take it, I don't know how, I'll lose it, they'll take it from me, and ... It seems to me I want to sleep; something is spinning in my head. Just spinning, spinning, spinning. Oh, how kind you are, what's that you're covering me with?"
"You must be in a real fever, sir, and I've covered you with my blanket, only about the money, sir, I'd..."
"Oh, for God's sake, n 'en parlons plus, parce que cela me fait mal,[cxcvii] oh, how kind you are!"
He somehow quickly interrupted his speaking and fell asleep extremely soon, in a feverish, shivering sleep. The country road they drove on for those ten miles was not a smooth one, and the carriage jolted cruelly. Stepan Trofimovich woke up frequently, raised himself quickly from the small pillow Sofya Matveevna had slipped under his head, seized her hand, and asked: "Are you here?"—as if he feared she might leave him. He also insisted that he had seen some gaping jaws with teeth in a dream and had found it very repulsive. Sofya Matveevna was greatly worried for him.