"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]
"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.
The coachman drove them straight up to a big cottage with four windows and wings of rooms in the yard. The awakened Stepan Trofimovich hurriedly walked in and went straight to the second room, the best and most spacious in the house. His sleepy face acquired a most bustling expression. He explained at once to the mistress, a tall and sturdy woman of about forty with very black hair and all but a moustache, that he required the whole room for himself "and that the door be shut and no one be let in, parce que nous avons à parler." [cxcviii]
" Oui, j'ai beaucoup à vous dire, chère amie, [cxcix]I'll pay you, I'll pay you!" he waved the mistress away.
Though he was hurrying, he moved his tongue somehow stiffly. The mistress listened with displeasure, but in token of agreement kept her silence, in which, however, one could sense a certain menace. He noticed none of this and hurriedly (he was in a terrible hurry) requested that she go and serve dinner at once as soon as possible, "without the least delay."
Here the woman with the moustache could bear it no longer.
"This isn't an inn, mister, we don't serve dinners for travelers. Some boiled crayfish or a samovar, we have nothing else. There won't be fresh fish till tomorrow."
But Stepan Trofimovich began waving his arms, repeating with wrathful impatience: "I'll pay, only be quick, be quick." They settled on fish soup and roast chicken; the landlady declared that there was not a chicken to be found in the whole village; however, she agreed to go and look, but with an air as though she were doing an extraordinary favor.
As soon as she left, Stepan Trofimovich instantly sat down on the sofa and sat Sofya Matveevna down next to him. There were both armchairs and a sofa in the room, but of dreadful appearance. Generally, the whole room, rather spacious (with a partition behind which stood a bed), with its yellow, old, torn wallpaper, with dreadful mythological lithographs on the walls, with a long row of icons and bronze triptychs [202]in the front corner, with its strange assortment of furniture, presented an unsightly mixture of the urban and the aboriginally peasant. But he did not even glance at it all, did not even look out the window at the vast lake which began about seventy feet from the cottage.
"At last we're by ourselves, and we won't let anyone in! I want to tell you everything, everything, from the very beginning."
Sofya Matveevna stopped him, even with strong uneasiness:
"Is it known to you, Stepan Trofimovich..."
"Comment, vous savez déjà mon nom?"[cc]
"I heard it today from Anisim Ivanovich, when you were talking with him. But this, for my part, I will be so bold as to tell you..."
And in a quick whisper, glancing back at the closed door to be sure no one was eavesdropping, she told him that here, in this village, there is trouble, sir. That all the local peasants, though fishermen, in fact make a business of charging summer visitors whatever price they like. The village is not on a main route, but is out of the way, and the only reason to come here is that the steamer stops here, but when the steamer does not come, as always happens the moment the weather turns bad, there will be a crowd of people waiting for several days, and then all the houses in the village will be occupied, and that is just what the owners wait for; because they triple the price for everything, and the proprietor here is proud and haughty, because he is very rich for these parts—his net alone is worth a thousand roubles.
Stepan Trofimovich looked into Sofya Matveevna's extremely animated face all but with reproach, and several times made a gesture to stop her. But she held her own and finished: according to what she said, she had already come there in the summer with one "very noble lady, sir," from town, and had also stayed overnight waiting for the steamer to come, even two whole days, sir, and had suffered such grief that it was terrible to remember. "Now you, Stepan Trofimovich, were pleased to ask for this room for yourself alone, sir... It's just to warn you, sir... There, in the other room, there are already guests, an elderly man, a young man, and also some lady with children, and by tomorrow before two o'clock there'll be a houseful, because if there hasn't been a steamer for two days, it will surely come tomorrow. So for a separate room, and for having just asked for dinner, sir, and for making it bad for the other guests, they'll demand so much from you that it's even unheard-of in the capitals, sir..."
But he was suffering, truly suffering:
"Assez, mon enfant,I pray you; nous avons notre argent, et après— et après le bon Dieu.And I'm even surprised that you, with the loftiness of your notions... Assez, assez, vous me tourmentez," [cci]he said hysterically, "our whole future is ahead of us, and you... you make me fear for the future ..."
He immediately began telling the whole story, hurrying so much that at first it was even hard to understand. It took a long time. The fish soup was served, the chicken was served, the samovar, finally, was served, and he went on talking... What came out was somewhat strange and morbid, but he was indeed ill. This was a sudden straining of his mental powers, which, of course—and Sofya Matveevna foresaw it with anguish throughout his story—could not but lead immediately afterwards to a great loss of strength in his already unsettled organism. He started almost from childhood, when "with fresh breast he ran over the fields"; only an hour later did he reach his two marriages and Berlin life. I would not dream of laughing, however. There was something truly lofty for him here and, to use the newest language, almost a struggle for existence. He saw before him her whom he had already pre-elected for his future path, and he was hastening to initiate her, so to speak. His genius must no longer remain a secret to her... Perhaps he was greatly exaggerating with regard to Sofya Matveevna, but he had already elected her. He could not be without a woman. He himself saw clearly from her face that she hardly understood him at all, even in the most capital things.