“Thank you for the friendly advice,” Ibrahim interrupted him coldly, “but you know the proverb: Don’t go rocking another man’s babies…”
“Watch out, Ibrahim,” Korsakov replied, laughing, “or you may actually get to demonstrate that proverb afterwards, in the literal sense.”
But the conversation in the other room was growing heated.
“You’ll be the death of her,” the old woman was saying. “She won’t bear the sight of him.”
“But judge for yourself,” the obstinate brother objected. “It’s already two weeks that he’s been coming as a suitor, and he’s yet to see the bride-to-be. He’ll finally start thinking that her illness is an empty device, and that we’re just seeking to delay things so as to get rid of him somehow. And what will the tsar say? He’s already sent three times to ask after Natalya’s health. Like it or not, I have no intention of quarreling with him.”
“Lord God,” said Tatyana Afanasyevna, “what will become of the poor girl? At least let me prepare her for such a visit.” Gavrila Afanasyevich agreed and went back to the drawing room.
“Thank God,” he said to Ibrahim, “the danger is past. Natalya is much better. If I weren’t ashamed to leave our dear guest, Ivan Evgrafovich, alone here, I’d take you upstairs to have a look at your bride.”
Korsakov congratulated Gavrila Afanasyevich, asked him not to worry, assured him that he had to leave, and ran to the front hall, not allowing the host to see him off.
Meanwhile Tatyana Afanasyevna hastened to prepare the sick girl for the appearance of the dreaded guest. Going into the room, she sat down, breathless, by the bed, took Natasha’s hand, but, before she had time to utter a word, the door opened. Natasha asked who was there. The old woman froze and went dumb. Gavrila Afanasyevich drew the curtain aside, looked coldly at the sick girl, and asked how she was. The sick girl wanted to smile at him, but could not. Her father’s stern gaze stunned her, and she was seized with anxiety. At that moment it seemed that someone was standing at the head of her bed. She raised her head with effort and suddenly recognized the tsar’s Moor. Here she remembered everything, all the horror of the future arose before her. But her exhausted nature suffered no noticeable shock. Natasha lowered her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes…Her heart was pounding painfully. Tatyana Afanasyevna made a sign to her brother that the sick girl wanted to sleep, and they all quietly left the bedroom, except for the maid, who sat down again at the spinning wheel.
The unhappy beauty opened her eyes and, seeing no one at her bedside now, beckoned to the maid and sent her for the dwarf. But just then the round little old woman came rolling up to her bed like a ball. Lastochka*9 (that was the dwarf’s name) had followed Gavrila Afanasyevich and Ibrahim upstairs as fast as her stubby legs would carry her and hidden behind the door, faithful to the curiosity natural to the fair sex. Seeing her, Natasha sent the maid away, and the dwarf seated herself by the bed on a little bench.
Never had so small a body contained in itself so much mental activity. She meddled in everything, knew everything, busied herself with everything. With her clever and insinuating mind, she had managed to earn the love of her masters and the hatred of the rest of the household, which she ruled despotically. Gavrila Afanasyevich heeded her denunciations, complaints, and petty demands; Tatyana Afanasyevna constantly asked her opinion and followed her advice; and Natasha had a boundless affection for her and confided to her all her thoughts and all the stirrings of her sixteen-year-old heart.
“You know, Lastochka,” she said, “my father is giving me away to the Moor.”
The dwarf sighed deeply, and her wrinkled face became more wrinkled still.
“Is there no hope?” Natasha went on. “Will my father not take pity on me?”
The dwarf shook her little bonnet.
“Won’t my grandfather or my aunt intercede for me?”
“No, my young miss. During your illness, the Moor managed to enchant everybody. The master’s lost his mind over him, the prince raves only about him, and Tatyana Afanasyevna says: ‘Too bad he’s a Moor, otherwise we couldn’t dream of a better suitor.’ ”
“My God, my God!” poor Natasha moaned.
“Don’t grieve, my beauty,” said the dwarf, kissing her weak hand. “Even if you do marry the Moor, you’ll still have your freedom. Nowadays it’s not the same as in olden times; husbands don’t lock their wives up; they say the Moor’s rich; your house will be a full cup, your life will flow like a song…”
“Poor Valerian,” said Natasha, but so softly that the dwarf could only guess at but not hear the words.
“That’s just it,” she said, lowering her voice mysteriously. “If you thought less about the strelets’s orphan, you wouldn’t have raved about him in your fever, and your father wouldn’t be angry.”
“What?” said Natasha, frightened. “I raved about Valerian, my father heard it, my father’s angry!”
“That’s just the trouble,” said the dwarf. “Now, if you ask him not to marry you to the Moor, he’ll think it’s because of Valerian. Nothing to be done: submit to the parental will, and what will be will be.”
Natasha did not utter a word of objection. The thought that her heart’s secret was known to her father had a strong effect on her imagination. One hope remained for her: to die before the hateful marriage took place. This thought comforted her. With a weak and sorrowful heart she submitted to her fate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
To the right of the front hall in Gavrila Afanasyevich’s house there was a small room with one little window. In it stood a simple bed covered with a flannelette blanket, and before the bed a small deal table on which a tallow candle burned and a musical score lay open. On the wall hung an old blue uniform and an equally old three-cornered hat; over it a cheap woodcut portraying Charles XII on horseback was fastened to the wall with three nails. The sounds of a flute could be heard in this humble abode. The captive dancing master, its solitary inhabitant, in a nightcap and a nankeen dressing gown, charmed away the boredom of the winter evening by playing old Swedish marches, which reminded him of the merry days of his youth. Having devoted a whole two hours to this exercise, the Swede took the flute apart, put it into the case, and began to undress.
Just then the latch of his door was raised, and a tall, handsome young man in a uniform came into the room.
The astonished Swede stood up before the unexpected guest.
“Don’t you recognize me, Gustav Adamych?” said the young visitor in a moved voice. “Don’t you remember the little boy to whom you taught the Swedish field manual, with whom you almost set fire to this very room, shooting from a toy cannon?”
Gustav Adamych peered at him intently…
“A-a-ah!” he cried at last, embracing him. “Greetinks! Zo it’s really you! Zit down, my goot scapegrace, let’s talk…”
*1 Lucky time, bearing the mark of license, / When light-footed madness skips about, / Swinging its little bell, all over France, / When no mortal deigns to be devout, / When they do all except for penitence. —Voltaire, La Pucelle d’Orléans, Canto XIII.