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!"
"Oh, Auntie. . . ." said the General, all confusion. "I am surprised. Auntie ... I imagine that I am free to act . . . Besides, my expenses are not beyond my means, and we are here ..."
"They are not? You say so! Then you must have robbed your children of their last farthing—you, their trustee!"
"After that, after such words," began the General, indignant, "I really don't know . . ."
"To be sure, you don't! I'll be bound you are always at roulette here? Have you whistled it all away?"
The General was so overwhehned that he almost spluttered in the rush of his feelings.
"Roulette! I? In my position ... I? Think what you are saying, Auntie; you must still be unwell ..."
"Come, you are lying, you are lying. I'll be bound they can't tear you away; it's all lies! I'll have a look to-day what this roulette is like. You, Praskovya, tell me where to go and what to see, and Alexey Ivanovitch here will show me, and you, Potapitch, make a note of all the places to go to. What is there to see here?" she said, addressing Polina again.
"Close by are the ruins of the castle; then there is the Schlangenberg.''
"What is it, the Schlangenberg? A wood or what?"
"No, not a wood, it's a mountain; there is a peak there ..."
"What do you mean by a peak?"
"The very highest point on the mountain. It is an enclosed place—^the view from it is unique."
"What about carrying my chair up the mountain? They wouldn't be able to drag it up, would they?"
"Oh, we can find porters," I answered.
At liiis moment, Fedosya, the' nurse, came up to greet Granny and brought the General's children with her.
"Come, there's no need for kissing! I cannot bear kissing children, they always have dirty noses. Well, how do you get on here, Fedosya?"
"It's very, very nice here, Antonida Vassilyevna," answered Fedosya. "How have you been, ma'am? We've been so worried about you."
"I know, you are a good soul. Do you always have visitors?"—she turned to Polina again. "Who is that wretched Uttle rascal in spectacles?"
"Prince Nilsky," Polina whispered.
"Ah, a Russian. And I thought he wouldn't understand! Perhaps he didn't hear. I have seen Mr. Astley already. Here he is again," said Granny, catching sight of him. "How do you do?"—she turned to him suddenly.
Mr. Astley bowed to her in silence.
"Have you no good news to tell me? Say something! Translate that to him, Polina."
Polina translated it.
"Yes. That with great pleasure and delight I am looking at you, and very glad that you are in good health," Mr. Astley answered seriously, but with perfect readiness. It was translated to Granny and it was evident she was pleased.
"How well Englishmen always answer," she observed. "That's why I always like Englishmen. There's no comparison between them and Frenchmen! Come and see me," she said,
addressing Mr. Astley again. "I'll try not to worry you too much. Translate that to him, and tell him that I am here below—^here below—do you hear? Below, below," she repeated to Mr. Astley, pointing downwards.
Mr. Astley was extremely pleased at the invitation.
Granny looked Polina up and down attentively and with a satisfied air.
"I was fond of you, Praskovya," she said suddenly. "You're a fine wench, the best of the lot, and as for will—^my goodness! Well, I have will too; turn round. That's not a false chignon, is it?"
"No, Granny, it's my own."
"To be sure. I don't care for the silly fashion of the day. You look very nice. I should fall in love with you if I were a young gentleman. Why don't you get married? But it is time for me to go. And I want to go out, for I've had nothing but the train and the trailS . . . Well, are you still cross?" she added, turning to the General.
"Upon my word, Auntie, what nonsense!" cried the General, delighted. "I understand at your age ..."
"Cette vieille est tombee en eipfance," De Grieux whispered to me.
"I want to see everj^hing here. Will you let me have Mexey Ivanovitch?" Granny went on to the General.
"Oh, as much as you like, but I will m5rself . . . and Polina, M. de Grieux ... we shall all think it a pleasure to accompany you."
"Mais, madam-e, cela sera un ptaisir" . . . De Grieux addressed her with a bewitching smile.
"A pMsir, to be sure; you are absurd, my good sir. I am not going to give you any money, though," she added suddenly. "But now to my rooms; I must have a look at them, and then we'll go the round of everything. Come, lift me up." Granny was lifted up again and we all flocked downstairs behind her chair. The General walked as though stunned by a blow on the head. De Grieux was considering something. Mile. Blanche seemed about to remain, but for some reason she made up her mind to come with the rest. The Prince followed her at once, and no one was left in the General's study but Madame de Cominges and the German.
CHAPTER X
AT watering-places and, I believe, in Europe generally, hotel-keepers and ober-kellners, in assigning rooms to their visitors, are guided not so much by the demands and desires of the latter as by their own personal opinion of them, and, one must add, they are rarely mistaken. But for some reason I cannot explain, they had assigned Granny such a splendid suite that they had quite overshot the mark. It consisted of four splendidly furnished rooms with a bathroom, quarters for the servants and a special room for the maid, and so on. Some gramde duchesse really had been staying in those rooms the week before, a fact of which the new occupant was informed at once, in order to enhance the value of the apartments. Granny was carried, or rather wheeled, through all the rooms, and she looked at them attentively and severely. The ober-kellner, an elderly man with a bald head, followed her respectfully at this first survey.
I don't know what they aU took Granny to be, but apparently for a very important and, above all, wealthy lady. They put down in the book at once: "Madame la gen^rale princesse de Tofosyevitchev," though Granny had never been a princess. Her servants, her special compartment in the train, the mass of useless bags, portmanteaux, and even chests that had come with Granny probably laid the foimdation of her prestige; while her invalid-chair, her abrupt tone and voice, her eccentric questions, which were made with the most unconstrained air that would tolerate no contradiction—^in short. Granny's whole figure, erect, brisk, imperious—^increased the awe in which she was held by all. As she looked at the rooms. Granny sometimes told them to stop her chair, pointed to some object in the furniture and addressed unexpected questions to the ober-heHmer, who still smiled respectfuUy, though he was beginning to feel nervous. Granny put her questions in French, which she spoke, however, rather badly, so that I usually translated. The ober-kellner's answers for the most part did not please her and seemed unsatisfactory. And, indeed, she kept asking about all sorts of things quite irrelevant. Suddenly, for instance, stopping before a picture, a rather feeble copy of some weD-known picture of a mythological subject, she would ask: