"She interests me very much," Mr. Astley, who was going up beside me, whispered to me.
"She knows about the telegrams," I thought. "She knows about De Grieux, too, but I fancy she does not know much about Mile. Blanche as yet." I communicated this thought to Mr. Astley.
Sinful man that I was, after the first surprise was over, I was immensely deUghted at the thunderbolt that we were launching at the General. I was elated; and I walked in front feeling very gay.
Our apvartments were on the third iloor. Without announcing her arrival or even knocking at the door, I simply flung it wide open and Granny was carried in, in triumph. All of them were, as by design, assembled in the General's study. It was twelve o'clock and, I believe, some excursion was being planned for the whole party. Some were to drive, others were to ride on horseback, some acquaintances had been asked to join the party. Besides the General and Polina, with the children and their nurse, there were sitting in the study De Grieux, Mile. Blanche, again wearing her riding-habit, her mother, the little Prince, and a learned German traveller whom I had not seen before.
Granny's chair was set down in the middle of the room, three paces from the General. My goodness! I shall never forget the sensation! As we went in the General was describing something, while De Grieux was correcting him. I must observe that Mile. Blanche and De Grieux had for the last few days been particularly attentive to the little Prince, cl la barbe dtt pauvre general, and the tone of the party was extremely gay
and genially intimate, though, perhaps, it was artificial. Seeing Granny, the General was struck dumb. His mouth dropped open and he broke off in the middle of a word. He gcized at her open-eyed, as though spellbound by the eye of a basilisk. Granny looked at him in silence, too, immovably, but what a triumphant, challenging and ironical look it was! They gazed at each other for ten full seconds in the midst of profound silence on the part of all around them. For the first moment De Grieux was petrified, but immediately afterwards a look of extreme uneasiness flitted over his face. Mile. Blanche raised her eyebrows, opened her mouth and gazed wildly at Granny. The Prince and the learned German stared at the whole scene in great astonishment. Polina's eyes expressed the utmost wonder and perplexity, and she suddenly turned white as a handkerchief; a minute later the blood rushed rapidly into her face, flushing her cheeks. Yes, this was a cateistrophe for all of them! I kept turning my eyes from Granny to all surrounding her and back again. Mr. Astley stood on one side, calm and polite as usual.
"Well, here I am! Instead of a telegram!" Grarmy broke the silence by going off into a peal of laughter. "Well, you didn't expect me?"
"Antonida Vassilyevna . . . Auntie . . . But how on earth ..." muttered the unhappy General.
If Granny had remained silent for a few seconds longer, he would, perhaps, have had a stroke.
"How on earth what? I got into the train and came. What's the railway for? You all thought that I had been laid out, and had left you a fortune? You see, I know how you sent telegrams from here. What a lot of money you must have wasted on them! They cost a good bit from here. I simply threw my legs over my shoulders and came off here. Is this the Frenchman? M. de Grieux, I fancy?"
"Otd, Madame," De Grieux responded; "et croyez, je suis si enchtmte . . . voire sante . . . c'est im mirtzcle . . . vous voir id . . . une swprise charmante. ..."
"Charmatnte, I daresay; I know you, you mummer. I haven't this much faith in you," and she pointed her little finger at him. "Who is this?" she asked, indicating Mile. Blanche. The striking-looking Frenchwoman, in a riding-habit with a whip in her hand, evidently impressed her. "Someone living here?'
"This is Mile. Blanche de Cominges, and this is her mamma.
Madame de Cominges; they are staying in this hotel," 1 explained.
"Is the daughter married?" Granny questioned me without :eremony.
"Mile, de Cominges is an unmarried lady," I answered, purposely speaking in a low voice and as respectfully as possible.
"Lively?"
"I do not understand the question."
"You are not dull with her? Does she understand Russian? De Grieux picked it up in Moscow. He had a smattering of it."
I explained that Mile, de Cominges had never been in Russia.
"Bcmjowr," said Granny, turning abruptly to Mile. Blanche.
"Bonjcmr, tnadame." Mile. Blanche made an elegant and ceremonious ciu^ey, hastening, under the cover of modesty and poUteness, to express by her whole face and figure her extreme astonishment at such a strange question and manner of address.
"Oh, she casts down her eyes, she is giving herself airs and graces; you can see the sort she is at once; an actress of some kind. I'm stopping here below in the hotel," she said, turning suddenly to the General. "I shaU be your neighbour. Are you glad or sorry?"
"Oh, Auntie! do believe in my sincere feelings ... of pleasure," the General responded. He had by now recovered himself to some extent, and as, upon occasion, he could speak appropriately and with dignity, and even with some pretension to efEectiveness, he began displaying his gifts now. "We have been so alarmed and upset by the news of yom: illness. . . . We received such despairing telegrams, and all at once ..."
"Come, you are lying, 5rou are lying," Granny interrupted at once.
"But how could you",—^the General, too, made haste to interrupt, raising his voice and trying not to notice the word "lying"—"how could you bring yourself to undertake such a journey? You must admit that at your age and in your state of health ... at any rate it is all so unexpected that our surprise is very natural. But I am so pleased . . . and we all" (he began s milin g with an ingratiating and delighted air) "will try our utmost tiiat you shall spend your season here as agreeably as possible ..."
"Come, that's enough; that's idle chatter; you are talking nonsense, as usual. I can dispose of my time for myself.
Though I've nothing against you, I don't bear a grudge. You ask how I could come? What is there surprising about it? It was the simplest thing. And why are you so surprised? How are you, Praskovya? What do you do here?"
"How do you do. Granny?" said PoUna, going up to her. "Have you been long on the journey?"
"Well, she's asked a sensible question—^the others could say nothing but oh and ah! Why, you see, I lay in bed and lay in bed and was doctored and doctored, so I sent the doctors away and called in the sexton from St. Nicolas. He had cured a peasant woman of the same disease by means of hayseed. And he did me good, too. On the third day I was in a perspiration aU day and I got up. Then my Germans gathered round again, put on their spectacles and began to argue. 'If you were to go abroad now,' said they, 'and take a course of the waters, all your sjmiptoms would disappear.' And why shouldn't I? I thought. The fools of Zazhigins began sighing and mocuiing: 'Where are you off to?' they said. Well, so here I am! It took me a day to get ready, and the following week, on a Friday, I took a maid, and Potapitch, and the footman, Fyodor, but I sent Fyodor back from Berlin, because I saw he was not wanted, and I could have come quite alone. I took a special compartment and there are porters at aU the stations, and for twenty kopecks they will carry you wherever you Uke. I say, what rooms he has taken 1" she said in conclusion, looking about her. "How do you get the money, my good man? Why, everything you've got is mortgaged. What a lot of money you must owe to tibis Frenchman alone! I know all about it; you see, I know all about it!"