I had a sound, dreamless sleep. Suddenly I felt as though a ten-ton weight had descended upon my feet. I let out a cry and woke up. It was already daylight; the sun was streaming in at the window. And there on my bed, or rather on my feet, sat Mr Bakhcheyev.
There was no doubt about it: it was he. Having somehow extricated my feet, I sat up and stared at the man in the dumb bewilderment of one not yet fully awake.
‘Look at him staring!’ the fat man exclaimed. ‘What are you gaping at? Get up, young man, get up! I’ve been trying to wake you for the last half hour, rub your eyes now!’
‘What’s happened? What time is it?’
‘It’s early still, my friend, but our Aphrodite has given us the slip before dawn! Get up, we’re going after them!’
‘Aphrodite?’
‘Our very own, bless her! She’s up and away! Gone before sunrise! I only dropped in for a minute to wake you up and I’ve wasted two hours already! Come on, young man, your Uncle’s waiting too.’ And he added with a malicious tremor in his voice: ‘A fine way to see in the festive day!’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ I said impatiently, although to tell the truth, I was beginning to get a shrewd idea. ‘You don’t mean Tatyana Ivanovna, do you?’
‘And who else? The very same! Didn’t I say it, didn’t I warn you – nobody would listen! So there, that’s her way of marking the festive occasion! Lovesick, dotty woman with Cupid on the brain! Bah! And he’s a good one too – that streaky-bearded pipsqueak!’
‘Surely not Mizinchikov?’
‘Bah! Why don’t you rub your eyes and sober up, young fellow, for this great day at least! You must have had one too many at supper last night, if you’re still feeling it! Mizinchikov? It’s Obnoskin, not Mizinchikov. Ivan Ivanych Mizinchikov is an honourable man and he’s coming with us to chase them.’
‘Well, I never!’ I exclaimed, sitting up in bed with a start. ‘Obnoskin – are you sure?’
‘You’re impossible!’ the fat man replied, jumping to his feet. ‘I came to pass a piece of news to a man of education and I’m taken for a liar! Well, young man, up you get, if you want to come with us, on with those trousers of yours – this is not time for tongue-wagging: I’ve wasted too much precious time on you already!’
And he left the room in high dudgeon.
Utterly amazed, I jumped out of bed, dressed hurriedly and ran downstairs. I wanted to find Uncle. It seemed everybody in the house was still asleep and quite unaware of what had occurred. I quietly mounted the steps of the main porch and in the hall ran into Nastenka. She had evidently dressed in a hurry, slinging a morning peignoir or some kind of dressing-gown over her shoulders. Her hair was dishevelled – it was obvious she had just got out of bed and was probably waiting to meet someone in the hall.
‘Tell me, is it really true Tatyana Ivanovna has eloped with Obnoskin?’ she asked quickly in a cracking voice, pale and frightened.
‘So they say. I’m looking for Uncle; we want to go after them.’
‘Oh! Do, do bring her back quickly! It’ll be the end of her if you don’t.’
‘But where’s Uncle?’
‘He’s probably at the stables – they’re getting the carriage ready. I was waiting for him here. Listen, tell him I’ve made up my mind to leave today; that’s final. Father has come to fetch me. I’m going immediately if I can. This is the end! There’s no more hope!’
She looked distraught with grief as she spoke and suddenly burst into tears. I feared she was on the verge of hysterics.
‘Now, now!’ I implored. ‘It’s all for the best – you’ll see … Nastasya Yevgrafovna, what’s the matter?’
‘I … I don’t know … what it is,’ she said, gasping for breath and squeezing my hands feverishly. ‘Tell him …’
At this moment we heard a noise coming from the next door on the right.
She let go of my hand and, without finishing her sentence, rushed upstairs.
I found the company, that is Uncle, Bakhcheyev and Mizinchikov, assembled in full strength in the back yard by the stables. Fresh horses were being harnessed to Bakhcheyev’s calash. Everything stood ready for departure; they were waiting only for me.
‘Here he is!’ Uncle exclaimed as soon as I appeared. ‘Heard what’s happened, my boy?’ he added with a strange expression on his face.
Fear, panic and a kind of expectation were evident in his looks, voice and movements. He was conscious that a turning-point in his life had been reached.
I was immediately apprised of the circumstances in detail. Mr Bakhcheyev, having spent a most uncomfortable night, had left home in the early hours to attend morning service at the monastery which was situated about five versts from his village. As he drew up at the turning leading off the highway, he suddenly saw a tarantas rushing by at full speed. In it crouched Obnoskin and a seemingly terrified Tatyana Ivanovna, her face red and puffed with crying. She cried out and stretched her hands towards Bakhcheyev as if imploring his protection, or so it appeared from his narrative. ‘And that bearded little scoundrel,’ he continued, ‘struck with mortal terror, tried to hide his face; but not so fast, my fellow!’ Mr Bakhcheyev immediately turned round and raced back to Stepanchikovo, where he woke up Uncle, Mizinchikov, and last of all me too. It was decided to organize immediate pursuit.
‘Obnoskin, Obnoskin …’ Uncle said, looking hard at me as if there was something else that he wanted to communicate to me at the same time, ‘who would have thought it!’
‘Any dirty trick was to be expected from that despicable creature!’ Mizinchikov spat vehemently, and immediately turned his head to avoid looking me in the eyes.
‘Well, are we going or not? Unless you want to hang about till nightfall spinning fairy tales?’ Mr Bakhcheyev interrupted, taking his seat in the calash.
‘We’re going, we’re going!’ Uncle cried.
‘Everything’s for the best, Uncle,’ I whispered to him. ‘You see, it has all turned out just right in the end.’
‘Enough, say no more, my boy … Oh dear me! Now they’ll kick her out from sheer spite because their plans have been ruined, do you see? How dreadful it’s all going to be!’
‘Now look here, Yegor Ilyich, do you want to stay behind and jabber away or shall we get a move on?’ Mr Bakhcheyev exclaimed for the second time. ‘Perhaps we ought to call the whole thing off and bring out the food – what do you think? You don’t feel like a glass of vodka, do you?’
These words were spoken with such biting sarcasm that it was quite impossible not to oblige Mr Bakhcheyev immediately. We all hastily took our seats and the horses galloped off at speed.
For a while we sat in silence. From time to time Uncle would cast meaningful glances at me, although he did not want to start up a conversation with me in front of the others. He was often lost in deep thought, but would then come to with a start and look about him in alarm. Mizinchikov appeared calm as he sat smoking a cigar with the dignified air of a wronged man. Bakhcheyev, on the other hand, fretted for us all. He grumbled under his breath, he eyed us all with undisguised indignation, he flushed red, he wheezed, he constantly spat on the road, and was quite unable to settle himself.
‘Stepan Alekseyevich, are you sure they’ve gone to Mishino?’ Uncle asked suddenly. ‘It’s twenty versts from here,’ he added to put me in the picture, ‘a tiny village with hardly more than thirty souls in it; a former district clerk recently acquired it from the previous owners. The fellow’s incorrigibly litigious! Or so they say, maybe he’s nothing of the sort. Stepan Alekseyevich is sure that’s where Obnoskin has gone, and the clerk is helping him.’
‘Where else could he have gone?’ Bakhcheyev exclaimed with a start. ‘Of course he’s gone to Mishino. Only he may have put a good few versts between himself and Mishino by now! We wasted three solid hours in idle chatter in the yard!’
‘Don’t worry,’ Mizinchikov remarked. ‘We’ll catch them.’
‘Yes, we’ll catch them! You’ll be lucky. You expect him to be sitting there waiting for you? Now he’s laid his hands on the jewels, you’ll not see him for dust!’
‘Calm down, Stepan Alekseyevich, calm down, they won’t get away,’ Uncle said. ‘They’ve not had time to do anything yet – you’ll see who’s right!’
‘Not had time to do anything?’ sneered Mr Bakhcheyev. ‘Who knows what she’s not had time to do, all meek and mild though she is! “She’s so meek and mild,” ’ he added in a shrill voice as though mocking somebody, ‘ “she’s so meek and mild. She’s suffered.” She’s taken to her heels, the poor thing! And here we are chasing her up and down the highways at the crack of dawn with our tongues dangling in the wind! A man can’t even be left in peace to say his prayers on a holy day any more! Bah!’
‘Look here, she’s of age,’ I remarked. ‘She’s nobody’s ward. No one can make her come back against her will. So what are we to do?’
‘True enough,’ Uncle replied, ‘but she’ll want to come back – I assure you. It’s only now she’s … The moment she sees us, she’ll want to come back – I guarantee. So we mustn’t leave her in the lurch, at the mercy of fate – it’s our duty …’
‘Nobody’s ward!’ cried Bakhcheyev, immediately launching into an attack against me. ‘She’s a fool, my friend, a certifiable idiot – never mind a ward. I didn’t want to say anything to you about her yesterday, but I happened to walk into her room by mistake the other day and there she was with her arms akimbo doing an écossaise in front of the looking-glass! And you should have seen her get-up: something out of this world! I just spat and left her to it. I could have told you there and then it was going to end up like this!’
‘You’re too hard on her,’ I remarked a little uncertainly. ‘We all know Tatyana Ivanovna … is not in good health … or rather, she has got a certain mania … It seems to me Obnoskin is to blame, not her.’
‘Not in good health, you say! Well now, what are we to do with him!’ the fat man responded immediately, turning crimson with anger. ‘The man has sworn to drive me out of my wits! He’s been at it since yesterday! She’s a crackpot, I repeat to you, my friend, a complete crackpot – not in good health indeed! She’s had Cupid on the brain since childhood! Now she’s at the end of her tether for Cupid. And as for that streaky-beard, don’t even mention him! He’s not sparing the horses now with all that money in his pocket! What a laugh he’ll be having!’
‘Do you really think he’ll just abandon her?’
‘What else? He’s not going to lug a treasure like her with him everywhere he goes! She’s of no use to him! After he’s fleeced her she’ll find herself sitting on the roadside under a bush smelling daisies!’
‘Come, come, Stepan, don’t get carried away! It won’t be as bad as that!’ Uncle exclaimed. ‘Why are you taking it to heart so much? I’m surprised you should worry so, Stepan!’
‘Am I human or not? It makes me angry – angry on principle. Perhaps you think I’ve a soft spot for her? … The whole world be damned! Why did I have to come along now? Why didn’t I just carry on where I was going – minding my own business? Yes, minding my own business!’
Thus Mr Bakhcheyev fretted; but I was no longer listening to him – all I could think of was Tatyana Ivanovna, whom we were presently pursuing. Here is a short account of her which I subsequently compiled from highly reliable sources and which forms an essential commentary on her adventures. Brought up a poor and neglected orphan in a family that had no love for her, poor as a young girl, poor as a spinster, and then poor as a woman of a certain age, Tatyana Ivanovna, in all her poverty-stricken years, had been made to drain a full cup of sorrow, loneliness, humiliation and censure, and to suffer the gall of eating other people’s bread. Cheerful by nature, impressionable and frivolous to a degree, she somehow managed at first to put up with her bitter lot and could even bring herself to laugh in her own charmingly carefree way; but with the years, the ravages of fate began to tell on her. Little by little Tatyana Ivanovna grew sallow and thin, turned irritable and morbid, and fell into the most impenetrable and boundless reverie, frequently interrupted by hysterical tears and convulsive sobbing. The fewer of life’s blessings that were left to her, the more she entertained and comforted herself in her fanciful imagination. The more irrevocably her last substantive hopes waned and finally perished altogether, the more her extravagant and insubstantial dreams took hold of her. Unimaginable wealth, unfading beauty, elegant suitors, rich, renowned, of princely and distinguished stock, chaste and spotless of heart, expiring at her feet with infinite love, and, finally, the one – the one, the paragon of beauty, the seat of all the virtues, passionate and loving; an artist, a poet, a general’s son in turn or all at once – all this made up not only the substance of her dreams, but even of her waking hours. Her mind was already beginning to exhibit symptoms of deterioration as a result of indulging in this uninterrupted succession of opiate fantasies, when suddenly fate decided to play her a final trick. In the last stages of her degradation, demoralized by hopeless, totally oppressive circumstances while serving as a paid companion to a senile, toothless, and the world’s most ill-tempered mistress, blamed for everything, begrudged every meal, every cast-off scrap of clothing, insulted with impunity by everyone, protected by no one, exhausted by her miserable existence and yet revelling in her febrile and delirious fantasies, Tatyana Ivanovna was suddenly informed of the demise of a distant relative, whose remaining next of kin had long since passed away (a circumstance which in her frivolity she had never bothered to enquire about), a man unusual in every respect, who had led a sequestered life somewhere at the back of beyond – lonely, grim, unobtrusive, amassing wealth unobtrusively through usury and the practice of phrenology. At a stroke, enormous riches, a full hundred thousand rubles in silver, fell as if by magic at her feet as the last remaining legal heiress of the deceased relative. This quirk of providence was the final blow. For how could this already clouded understanding not now believe with full confidence in dreams, when they were actually beginning to come true? Thus the poor thing parted for ever with her last vestiges of common sense. Transported with delight, she totally immersed herself in her world of impossible fantasies and enchanting visions. Away with all counsel and restraint, away with all the barriers of reality, with its crystal-clear, inexorable laws of two-times-two. Thirty-five years of age and thoughts of stunning beauty, the sad chill of autumn and the luxury of love’s infinite bliss, these thrived together in complete harmony in her inner being. On one occasion in her life her hopes had already materialized: why indeed should they not continue to do so? Why indeed should he not appear too? Tatyana Ivanovna did not reason, she simply believed. But in anticipation of him, her idol, suitors and admirers of every rank and position, military and civilian, army and cavalry, magnates and plain poets, those who had been to Paris and those who had only been to Moscow, moustachioed and clean-shaven, Spanish and non-Spanish (but mainly Spanish), began to haunt her day and night in such a staggering multitude as to give all onlookers cause for very serious concern – it was but a step to the lunatic asylum. Dazzling, beguiling visions crowded her imagination in an endless, intoxicating succession. Each moment of her everyday life was filled with fantasies: a mere glance, and somebody was hopelessly in love; a passer-by, and he was bound to be a Spaniard; a funeral, and somebody had surely expired of love for her. And sure enough, all this was beginning to be substantiated in her eyes by the appearance of the likes of Obnoskin, Mizinchikov and dozens of others, all with the same intentions. Suddenly people began to indulge, pamper and flatter her. Poor Tatyana Ivanovna refused to suspect that this was simply because of her money. She was perfectly convinced that, as a result of the will of some mysterious agency, all men had suddenly improved their moral natures, turned good-humoured, sweet-tempered, kind-hearted and virtuous. He had not yet appeared in person; but, although there was not a shadow of doubt that he would eventually come, her present mode of life was so entertaining, so alluring, so full of pleasant surprises and delights, that she could well afford to wait a little longer. Tatyana Ivanovna ate sweets, read novels, and gathered the blossoms of delight. The novels inflamed her imagination even more, and she usually abandoned them on the second page. She could not sustain the strain of reading further – the first few lines would be enough to carry her into dreams, the merest suggestion of love, sometimes simply the description of a place or of a room or somebody’s dress. She indulged herself in an endless supply of new fashions, lace, hats, hair decorations, ribbons, dress patterns, designs, guipure, sweets, flowers and lap-dogs. Three girls in the women’s quarters spent days on end stitching, while the lady herself from morn till dusk, and even in the dead of night, tried on her finery and corsets and gyrated in front of full-length mirrors. It must be owned that, on acquiring her inheritance, her appearance had somehow improved and she even seemed to grow younger. To this day I have no idea how she was related to the late General Krakhotkin. I was always convinced that the kinship was a lie perpetrated by the General’s Lady in order to gain a hold over Tatyana Ivanovna and, come what may, ensure that Uncle married her money. Mr Bakhcheyev was quite right in maintaining that Cupid had turned her head completely; and Uncle’s suggestion, when her elopement with Obnoskin was discovered, to bring her back by force if necessary, was the most sensible yet. The poor thing was incapable of surviving without protection and would surely come to grief if she were to fall into bad hands.
It was after nine o’clock when we arrived in Mishino. The village was small and poor and lay in a kind of hollow about three versts off the main road. Six or seven smoke-blackened huts, leaning crazily and barely covered with grimy thatching, greeted all arrivals with sullen enmity. For a quarter of a verst around not a green bush nor patch of garden was to be seen. A solitary willow drooped sleepily over a greenish puddle which passed for a pond. Such a new home was hardly likely to put Tatyana Ivanovna in a cheerful mood.
The master’s abode was a newly erected long, narrow, hastily thatched log hut with six windows in a row. The former clerk turned landowner was just beginning to set himself up in the running of his estate. The courtyard had not yet been fenced off, although work had been started at one end of the house on a wattle fence to which shrivelled walnut leaves still clung. Close by stood Obnoskin’s tarantas. Our arrival came like a bolt out of the blue for the runaways. Cries and the sound of weeping issued from an open window.
In the hallway we encountered a barefooted boy who turned on his heels and darted away from us like a shot. In the very first room we entered we saw Tatyana Ivanovna seated on a long chintz-upholstered divan, her eyes stained with tears. On seeing us she cried out and buried her face in her hands. Next to her stood Obnoskin, pitifully frightened, and so embarrassed that he rushed forward to shake our hands as if overjoyed at our arrival. A corner of a woman’s dress was visible through the crack of a slightly open door; someone was standing on the other side eavesdropping and spying on us through a peephole. There was no sign of the owners of the house, but they were probably just hiding.
‘There she is, our bird of passage! Won’t help to hide your face now!’ Mr Bakhcheyev exclaimed, waddling into the room after us.
‘Contain yourself, Stepan Alekseyevich! This is most unbecoming. The only person who has the right to speak is Yegor Ilyich, the rest of us have no say here,’ Mizinchikov remarked brusquely.
Uncle measured Bakhcheyev with a stern glance and, pretending not to notice Obnoskin, who had rushed forward to shake his hand, approached Tatyana Ivanovna as she sat, still hiding her face, and addressed her in soft tones full of sincere and courteous concern.
‘Tatyana Ivanovna, we all love and respect you so much that we decided to come ourselves to inquire about your intentions. Would you be so good as to come back with us to Stepanchikovo? It’s Ilyusha’s name-day. Mother is impatiently awaiting you and I’m sure Sashenka and Nastenka have not stopped crying for you all morning …’
Tatyana Ivanovna meekly raised her head, looked at him through her fingers and, weeping bitterly, flung her arms around his neck.
‘Oh do, do take me away from here this minute!’ she said, sobbing, ‘as quickly as possible!’
‘Look at her turning tail after all that!’ Bakhcheyev hissed, nudging me in the ribs.
‘So the game is up,’ Uncle said curtly to Obnoskin, hardly looking at him. ‘Tatyana Ivanovna, your hand. We’re going!’
There was a rustling noise behind the door as it creaked and opened a little wider.
‘Now suppose we look at it from another angle,’ Obnoskin remarked, anxiously eyeing the widening gap in the doorway, ‘then you must admit, Yegor Ilyich … your behaviour in my house … and you wouldn’t even acknowledge my greeting, Yegor Ilyich …’
‘Your behaviour in my house, sir, was contemptible!’ Uncle replied, looking sternly at Obnoskin, ‘and this is not your house anyway. You heard: Tatyana Ivanovna does not wish to stay here a minute longer. What more do you want? Don’t say a word – you hear me, not another word, please! I want to avoid all unnecessary explanations – which would be to your advantage too.’
But at this point Obnoskin broke down completely, uttering the most unexpected nonsense.
‘Don’t despise me, Yegor Ilyich,’ he began in a half-whisper, on the brink of tears of shame and still casting anxious glances at the door, evidently afraid that he might be overheard, ‘it wasn’t my idea at all, it was Mother’s. I wasn’t doing it for any personal gain, Yegor Ilyich; it just happened that way. Of course, I did expect some gain, Yegor Ilyich … but my intentions were honourable, Yegor Ilyich; I would have used the capital for the good of mankind … I would have helped the poor. I also wanted to contribute towards the modern educational movement, I was even hoping to establish a university scholarship … that’s how I was planning to use my wealth, Yegor Ilyich; there’s nothing more to it than that, Yegor Ilyich …’
We all suddenly felt highly embarrassed. Even Mizinchikov blushed and averted his face; as for Uncle, his confusion became so intense that he was completely lost for words.
‘Now, come, come!’ he said at last. ‘Calm down, Pavel Semyonych. Can’t be helped! It could happen to anyone … Look here, come and have dinner with us, my friend … I’m really glad, glad …’
But Mr Bakhcheyev reacted otherwise.
‘Endow a scholarship!’ he spluttered in rage, ‘a likely story! You’d sell your grandmother given half a chance, I bet! … Get yourself a decent pair of trousers before you talk of scholarships, you miserable little rag-and-tatter man! Fancy yourself a lover, do you! Where is she now, I wonder, your mother, hiding, is she? I’ll be damned if she’s not sitting there behind those curtains or she’s crept under the bed in holy terror!’
‘Stepan, Stepan!’ Uncle yelled.
Obnoskin blushed deeply and was about to protest; but before he had time to open his mouth, the door flew open and the enraged Anfisa Petrovna, red in the face and eyes flashing, burst into the room.
‘What’s all this?’ she exploded. ‘What’s going on? Yegor Ilyich, how dare you intrude into this peaceful house with your band of ruffians, and terrorize ladies, and order everybody about! … This is intolerable! I’ve not yet taken leave of my senses, thank God, Yegor Ilyich! And you, you dim-wit!’ she continued to rail, turning on her son. ‘Why don’t you stop snivelling and stand up for yourself! Your mother is being insulted in her own house and all you can do is gape and gawk! Call yourself a proper young man after this! You’re just a chicken-hearted cissy!’
Gone were yesterday’s airs and graces and even the lorgnette had been dispensed with. Anfisa Petrovna now appeared in her true colours. She was a veritable fury, a fury unmasked.
The moment Uncle saw her, he grabbed Tatyana Ivanovna under her arm and made for the door; but Anfisa Petrovna immediately barred the way.
‘No, you shan’t get away that easily, Yegor Ilyich!’ she ranted on. ‘What right have you to take Tatyana Ivanovna away by force? It makes you mad to know she’s escaped the vicious snares you’ve been setting for her with the help of your Mamma and that idiotic Foma Fomich of yours! You’d love to be married to her yourself, out of sheer greed! We in this house haven’t sunk that low, thank you very much! Tatyana Ivanovna realized you were all plotting to ruin her and she put all her trust in Pavlusha. She herself begged him, yes she did, to rescue her from your snares; she was forced to flee your house in the dead of night – yes, that’s what you drove her to! Isn’t that correct, Tatyana Ivanovna? Of course it is, so how dare you and your cronies disturb the peace of noble gentlefolk in their own house and use force to abduct a virtuous lady, in spite of her tears and screams? I shan’t allow it! I shan’t allow it! I’m not mad! … Tatyana Ivanovna will stay here because that’s what she wants! Come along, Tatyana Ivanovna, they’re not worth listening to: they’re your enemies, not your friends! Don’t be afraid, come along! I’ll see them out immediately!’
‘No, no!’ Tatyana Ivanovna cried, overcome with fear. ‘I don’t want to, I don’t want to! Him – a husband! I don’t want to marry your son! I don’t want him for my husband!’
‘You “don’t want to”!’ Anfisa Petrovna shrieked, choking with anger. ‘You “don’t want to”? You agreed to come and now you don’t want to! Pray tell me then, what right had you to deceive us? Pray tell me, how dare you make promises, foist yourself upon him, run away with him in the dead of night, embarrass us and put us to all sorts of expense? My son may have lost a splendid match because of you! He may have lost tens of thousands in dowry because of you! … No, you’ll pay for this, you’ll have to pay up now! We’ve evidence against you: you ran away at night …’
But we did not stop to listen to the end of this tirade. With Uncle in the middle, we all moved in a tight phalanx straight at Anfisa Petrovna and out onto the porch. The calash was drawn up immediately.
‘Only blackguards and scoundrels would do such a thing!’ yelled Anfisa Petrovna from the porch, completely beside herself. ‘I’ll sue you! You’ll pay for this! … You’re going to a house of ill repute, Tatyana Ivanovna! You can’t possibly marry Yegor Ilyich; he keeps a mistress under your very nose, yes, the governess! …’
Uncle shuddered and went pale. He bit his lip and hurriedly helped Tatyana Ivanovna to her seat. I approached from the other side of the calash and was waiting for my turn to get in when Obnoskin suddenly appeared alongside, clutching at my hand.
‘At least permit me to seek your friendship!’ he said and squeezed my hand hard with a look of desperation on his face.
‘What do you mean, friendship?’ I said, one foot already resting on the treadboard of the calash.
‘Just so. I recognized a most educated man in you yesterday. Don’t judge me too hard … My mother led me on. I’ve nothing to do with all this. I’m more inclined towards literature – I assure you; all this is Mother’s doing …’
‘I believe you, I believe you,’ I said. ‘Goodbye!’
We took our seats and the horses moved off sharply, Anfisa Petrovna still ranting and raving after us. Strange faces suddenly appeared at all the windows and stared at us with wild curiosity.
There were now five of us in the calash; but later Mizinchikov climbed onto the box, vacating his seat for Mr Bakhcheyev, who found himself sitting directly opposite Tatyana Ivanovna. Tatyana Ivanovna was very pleased that we had taken her away but she still continued to cry. Uncle tried to comfort her as best he could. He himself was sad and pensive; Anfisa Petrovna’s vitriolic remarks regarding Nastenka had clearly cut him to the quick. But our return journey would have passed quite peacefully had it not been for Mr Bakhcheyev.
Having taken his seat opposite Tatyana Ivanovna, he seemed to lose control of himself; he fretted and fumed, he fidgeted about, he flushed crimson and rolled his eyes ominously; in particular, when Uncle attempted to comfort Tatyana Ivanovna, the fat man would lose all restraint and begin to growl like an incensed bulldog. At last Tatyana Ivanovna became aware of the extraordinary state of mind of her fellow-passenger and she began to scrutinize him closely; with a glance and a smile at us she suddenly picked up her parasol and daintily tapped Mr Bakhcheyev on the shoulder.
‘Madman!’ she said with exquisite playfulness, and immediately hid her face behind her fan.
This prank was the last straw.
‘Wha-a-t?’ the fat man yelled. ‘What was that, madam? So you’re going to pick on me too now, are you?’
‘Madman! madman!’ Tatyana Ivanovna repeated and suddenly burst out laughing and clapped her hands with glee.
‘Stop!’ Bakhcheyev called out to the coachman. ‘Stop!’
We stopped. Bakhcheyev opened the door and hurriedly began to clamber out of the calash.
‘What’s come over you, Stepan Alekseyevich? Where are you off to?’ Uncle exclaimed in astonishment.
‘I’ve had enough!’ the fat man replied, quivering with indignation. ‘To hell with everything! I’m too old, madam, to play at lovey-dovey. I’d much rather die a slow death on the roadside! Goodbye, madame, comment vous portez-vous!’
And he stalked off. The calash crawled behind him.
‘Stepan Alekseyevich!’ Uncle called out, finally losing his patience. ‘Stop fooling around, that’s enough, get in! We’ve got to get home!’
‘Get away from me!’ Stepan Alekseyevich retorted, breathless from walking, for which his stoutness had rendered him totally unfit.
‘Drive on, as fast as you can!’ Mizinchikov called out to the coachman.
‘What’s this, hey, stop!’ Uncle exclaimed, but the calash had already shot full speed ahead. Mizinchikov was not mistaken: the desired effect followed immediately.
‘Stop! Stop!’ a voice full of desperation resounded in our rear. ‘Stop, you bandit! Wait, you cut-throat, you!…’
At last the fat man was allowed to catch up with us, exhausted and completely out of breath, his face dripping with perspiration; he had loosened his necktie and taken off his cap. Sullenly and without uttering a word, he got back into the calash. This time I offered him my seat so that at least he would not be obliged to sit opposite Tatyana Ivanovna, who for the remainder of the journey continued to roll with laughter and clap her hands heartily, quite unable to keep a straight face every time she looked at Stepan Alekseyevich. The latter, for his part, said not a word and all the way to the house kept stolidly staring at the rear wheel as it performed its revolutions.
It was midday when we pulled into Stepanchikovo. I went straight to my room and Gavrila immediately brought me tea. I anxiously began to ply the old man with questions, but he was closely followed by Uncle who at once sent him out of the room.