"Enough," I said, getting up. "It is clear as daylight to me now that Miss Polina knows all about Mile. Blanche, but that she cannot part from her Frenchman, and so she brings herself to going about with Mile. Blanche. Believe me, no other influence would compel her to go about with Mile. Blanche and to beg me in her letter not to interfere with the Baron! Damn it all, there's no understanding it!"
"You forget, in the first place, that this Mile, de Cominges is the General's fiatmcde, and in the second place that Miss Polina is the General's stepdaughter, that she has a little brother and sister, the General's own children, who are utterly ijeglected by that insane man and have, I believe, been robbed by him."
"Yes, yes, that is so! To leave the children would mean abandoning them altogether; to remain means protecting tiieir
interests and, perhaps, saving some fragments of thdr property. Yes, yes, all that is true. But still, still! ... Ah now I understand why they are all so concerned about Granny!"
"About whom?" asked Mr. Astley.
"That old witch in Moscow who won't die, and about whom they are expecting a telegram that she is djring."
"Yes, of course, all interest is concentrated on her. Everything depends on what she leaves them I If he comes in for a fortune the General wiU marry. Miss Polina wiU be set free, and De Grieux . . ."
"Well, and De Grieux?"
"And De Grieux will be paid; that is all he is waiting for here."
"Is that all, do you think that is all he's waiting for?"
"I know nothing more." Mr. Astley was obstinately silent.
"But I do, I do!" I repeated fiercely. "He's waiting for the inheritance too, because Polina wiU get a dowry, and as soon as she gets the money will throw herself on his neck. All women are like that 1 Even the proudest of them turn into the meanest slaves! Polina is only capable of loving passionately: nothing else. That's my opinion of her! Look at her, particularly when she is sitting alone, thinking; it's something predfestined, doomed, fated! She is capable of all the horrors of life, and passion . . . she . . . she . . . but who is that calling me?" I exclaimed suddenly. "Who is shouting? I heard someone shout in Russian: Alexey Ivanovitch! A woman's voice. Listen, listen!"
At this moment we were approaching the hotd. We had left the caf6 long ago, almost without noticing it.
"I did hear a wgman calling, but I don't know who was being called; it is Russian. Now I see where the shouts come from," said Mr. Astley. "It is that woman sitting in a big armchair who has just he&x carried up the steps by so many flunkeys. They are carrying trunks after her, so the train must have just come in."
"But why is she calling me? She is shouting again; look, she is waving to us."
"I see she is waving," said Mr. Astley.
"Alexey Ivanovitch! Alexey Ivanovitch! Mercy on us, what a dolt he is!" came desperate shouts from the hotel steps.
We almost ran to the entrance. I ran up the steps and . . . my hands dropped at my sides with amazement and my feet seemed rooted to the ground.
CHAPTER IX
AT the top of the broad steps at the hotel entrance, surrounded by footmen and maids and the many obsequious servants of the hotel, in the presence of the ober-keU^r himself, eager to receive the exalted visitor, who had arrived with her own servants and with so many trunks and boxes, and had been carried up the steps in an invalid chcdr, was seated— Granny.' Yes, it was she herself, the terrible old Moscow lady and wealthy landowner, Antonida Vassilyevna Tarasyevitchev, the Granny about whom telegrams had been sent and received, who had been dying and was not dead, and who had suddenly dropped upon us in person, like snow on our heads. Though she was seventy-five and had for the last five years lost lie use of her legs and had to be carried about everywhere in a chair, yet she had arrived and was, as always, alert, captious, self-satisfied, sitting upright in her chair, shouting in a loud, peremptory voice and scolding everyone. In fact, she was exactly the same as she had been on the only two occasions that I had the honour of seeing her during the time I had been tutor in the General's family. Natundly I stood rooted to the spot with amazement. As she was being carried up the steps, die had detected me a hundred paces away, with her lynxlike eyes, had recognised me and called me by my name, which she had made a note of, once for all, as she always did. And this was the woman they had expected to be in her coffin, buried, and leaving them her property. That was the thought that flashed into my mind. "Why, she will outlive all of us and everyone in the hotel 1 But, my goodness! what will our friends do now, what wiU the General do? She will turn the whole hotel upside down!"
"Well, my good man, why are you standing with your eyes starting out of your head?" Granny went on shouting to me. "Can't you welcome me? Can't you say 'How do you do'? Or have you grown proud and won't? Or, perhaps, you don't recognise me? Potapitch, do you hear?" She turned to her butler, an old man with grey hair and a pdnk bald patch on his head, wearing a dress-coat and white tie. "Do you hear? he doesn't recognise me. They had buried me! They sent telegram upon telegram to ask whether I was dead or not! You see, I know all about it! Here, you see, I am quite alive."
"Upon my word, Antonida Vassilyevna, why should I wish you hami?" J answered gaily, recovering myself. "I was only surprised . . . And how could I help being surprised at such cin unexpected ..."
"What is there to surprise you? I just got into the train and came. The train was comfortable and not jolting. Have you been for a walk?"
"Yes, I've been a walk to the Casino."
"It's pleasant here," said Granny, looking about her. "It's warm and the trees are magnificent. I like that! Are the family at home? TTie General?"
"Oh, yes, at this time they are sure to be all at home."
"So they have fixed hours here, and everything in style? They set the tone. I am told they keep their carriage, les seignewrs mssesl They sp>end all their money and then they go abroad. And is Praskovya with them?"
"Yes, Polina Alexandrovna, too."
"And the Frenchy? Oh, well, I shall see them all for myself. Alexey Ivanovitch, show me the way straight to him. Are you comiortable here ?''
"Fairly so, Antonida Vassilyevna."
"Potapitch, tell that dolt, the kelln&r, to give me a nice convenient set of rooms, not too high up, and take my things there at once. Why are they all so eager to carry me? Why do they put themselves forward? Ech, the slavish creatures! Who is this with you?" she asked, addressing me again.
"This is Mr. Astley," I answered.
"What Mr. Astley?"
"A traveller, a good friend of mine; an acquaintance of the General's, too."
"An EngUshman. To be sure, he stares at me and keeps his mouth shut. I like Englishmen, though. Well, carry me upstairs, straight to their rooms. Where are they?"
They carried Granny up; I walked up the broad staircase in front. Our procession was very striking. Everyone we met stopped and stared. Our hotel is considered the best, the most expensive, and the most aristocratic in the place. Magnificent ladies and dignified Englishmen were always to be met on the staircase and in the corridors. Many people were making inquiries below of the ober-kelhter, who was greatly impressed. He answered, of course, that this was a distinguished foreign lady, ime ruisse, une comtesse, grande dame, and that she was taking the very apartments that had been occupied the week
before by la grande duchesse de N. Granny's commanding and authoritative appearance as she was carried up in the chair was chiefly responsible for the sensation she caused. Whenever she met anyone fresh she scrutinised him inquisitively and questioned me about him in a loud voice. Granny was powerfully built, and though she did not get up from her chair, it could be seen that she was very tall. Her back was as straight as a board and she did not lean back in her chair. Her big grey head with its large, bold features was held erect; she had a positively haughty and defiant expression; and it was evident that her air and gestures were perfectly natural. In spite of her seventy-five years there was still a certain vigour in her face: and even her teeth were almost perfect. She was wearing a black silk dress and a white cap.