“ ‘What! Just when the cardinal is sitting with him!’ the abbé cried, recoiling from me in horror, rushed to the door, and spread his arms crosswise, showing that he would sooner die than let me pass.
“Then I answered him that I was a heretic and a barbarian, ‘que je suis hérétique et barbare,’ and that to me all these archbishops, cardinals, monseigneurs, etc., etc.—were all the same. In short, I showed him that I would not leave off. The abbé gave me a look of boundless spite, then snatched my passport and took it upstairs. A minute later it had a visa in it. Here, sirs, would you care to have a look?” I took out the passport and showed the Roman visa.
“Really, though,” the general began…
“What saved you was calling yourself a barbarian and a heretic,” the little Frenchman observed, grinning. “Cela n’était pas si bête.”[4]
“What, should I look to our Russians? They sit here, don’t dare peep, and are ready, perhaps, to renounce the fact that they’re Russians. At any rate in my hotel in Paris they began to treat me with much greater attention when I told everybody about my fight with the abbé. The fat Polish pan,[5] the man most hostile to me at the table d’hôte, faded into the background. The Frenchmen even put up with it when I told them that about two years ago I saw a man whom a French chasseur had shot in the year twelve{4} —simply so as to fire off his gun. The man was a ten-year-old child then, and his family hadn’t managed to leave Moscow.”
“That cannot be,” the little Frenchman seethed, “a French soldier would not shoot a child!”
“Yet so it was,” I replied. “It was told to me by a respectable retired captain, and I myself saw the scar from the bullet on his cheek.”
The Frenchman began talking much and quickly. The general tried to support him, but I recommended that he read, for instance, bits from the Notes of General Perovsky,{5} who was taken prisoner by the French in the year twelve. Finally, Marya Filippovna started talking about something, so as to disrupt the discussion. The general was very displeased with me, because the Frenchman and I had almost begun to shout. But it seemed that Mr. Astley liked my argument with the Frenchman very much; getting up from the table, he suggested that he and I drink a glass of wine. In the evening, I duly managed to have a fifteen-minute talk with Polina Alexandrovna. Our talk took place during a stroll. Everybody went to the park near the vauxhall. Polina sat down on a bench opposite the fountain and sent Nadenka to play not far away with some children. I also let Misha play by the fountain, and we were finally alone.
At first we began, naturally, with business. Polina simply became angry when I gave her only seven hundred guldens in all. She was sure I’d bring her from Paris, in pawn for her diamonds, at least two thousand guldens or even more.
“I need money at all costs,” she said, “and I must get it; otherwise I’m simply lost.”
I started asking about what had happened in my absence.
“Nothing, except that we received two pieces of news from Petersburg, first, that grandmother was very unwell, and, two days later, that it seemed she had died. This was news from Timofei Petrovich,” Polina added, “and he’s a precise man. We’re waiting for the final, definitive news.”
“So everyone here is in expectation?” I asked.
“Of course: everyone and everything; for the whole six months that’s the only thing they’ve hoped for.”
“And you’re hoping, too?” I asked.
“Why, I’m not related to her at all, I’m only the general’s stepdaughter. But I know for certain that she’ll remember me in her will.”
“It seems to me you’ll get a lot,” I said affirmatively.
“Yes, she loved me; but why does it seem so to you?”
“Tell me,” I answered with a question, “our marquis, it seems, is also initiated into all the family secrets?”
“And why are you interested in that?” asked Polina, giving me a stern and dry look.
“Why not? If I’m not mistaken, the general has already managed to borrow money from him.”
“You’ve guessed quite correctly.”
“Well, would he lend him money if he didn’t know about grandma? Did you notice, at dinner: three times or so, speaking about grandmother, he called her ‘grandma’—‘la baboulinka.’ Such close and friendly relations!”
“Yes, you’re right. As soon as he learns that I’m also getting something in the will, he’ll immediately propose to me. Is that what you wanted to find out?”
“Only then? I thought he proposed a long time ago.”
“You know perfectly well he hasn’t!” Polina said testily. “Where did you meet this Englishman?” she asked after a moment’s silence.
“I just knew you’d ask about him right away.”
I told her about my previous meetings with Mr. Astley during my trip. “He’s shy and amorous and, of course, already in love with you?”
“Yes, he’s in love with me,” Polina replied.
“And he’s certainly ten times richer than the Frenchman. What, does the Frenchman really have anything? Isn’t that open to doubt?”
“No, it’s not. He has some sort of château. The general told me that yesterday. Well, so, is that enough for you?”
“In your place, I’d certainly marry the Englishman.”
“Why?” asked Polina.
“The Frenchman’s handsomer, but he’s meaner; and the Englishman, on top of being honest, is also ten times richer,” I snapped.
“Yes, but then the Frenchman is a marquis and more intelligent,” she replied with the greatest possible equanimity.
“Is that true?” I went on in the same way.
“Perfectly.”
Polina terribly disliked my questions, and I saw that she wanted to make me angry with her tone and the wildness of her answer. I told her so at once.
“Why, it does indeed amuse me to see you in a fury. You ought to pay for the fact alone that I allow you to put such questions and make such surmises.”
“I do indeed consider it my right to put all sorts of questions to you,” I replied calmly, “precisely because I’m prepared to pay for them however you like, and my own life I now count for nothing.”
Polina burst out laughing:
“Last time, on the Schlangenberg, you told me you were ready at my first word to throw yourself down headfirst, and I believe it’s a thousand-foot drop. One day I’ll speak that word, solely to see how you’re going to pay, and you may be sure I’ll stand firm. You are hateful to me—precisely because I’ve allowed you so much, and more hateful still, because I need you so much. But for the time being I do need you—I must take good care of you.”
She went to get up. She had spoken with irritation. Lately she has always finished a conversation with me with spite and irritation, with real spite.
“Allow me to ask you, what is this Mlle Blanche?” I asked, not wanting to let her go without an explanation.
“You know yourself what Mlle Blanche is. Nothing more has been added. Mlle Blanche will probably become Madame la Générale—naturally, if the rumor of grandmother’s death is confirmed, because Mlle Blanche, and her mother, and her second cousin, the marquis, all know very well that we are ruined.”
“And the general is definitively in love?”
“That’s not the point now. Listen and remember: take these seven hundred florins and go gambling, win me as much as you can at roulette; I need money now at all costs.”