"But since you are so angry with Marfa Va.s.silievna and my son, who does indeed deserve to be punished?"

The wrinkles in Tatiana Markovna's face faded, and her eyes gleamed with joy. She threw her shawl and cap on the divan.

"I can't keep it up any longer!" she exclaimed. "Take off your hat and mantilla. We are only teasing one another, Marfa Egorovna. I shall have a grandson, you a daughter. Kiss me, dear! I wanted to keep up the old customs, but there are cases which they don't fit. We knew what must be the upshot of this. If we hadn't wished it we should not have allowed them to go and listen to the nightingales."

"How you frightened me!" cried Marfa Egorovna.

"He had to be frightened. I will read him a lesson."

Mother and aunt had gone a long way into the future, and when they were about as far as the christening of the third child, Marfa Egorovna noticed in the garden among the bushes a head which was now hidden, then again cautiously raised to reconnoitre. She recognised her son, and pointed him out to Tatiana Markovna. They called him, but when he at last decided to enter, he hung about in the ante-room, as if he were making himself presentable.

"You are welcome, Nikolai Andreevich," said Tatiana Markovna pointedly, while his mother looked at him ironically.

"Good morning, Tatiana Markovna," he stammered at last, and kissed the old lady's hand. "I have bought tickets for the charity concert, for you and Mama, for Vera Va.s.silievna and Marfa Va.s.silievna and for Boris Pavlovich. It's a splendid concert ... the first singer in Moscow...."

"Why do we need to go to concerts?" interrupted Tatiana Markovna, looking at him sideways. "The nightingales sing so finely here. In the evening we go into the garden, and can hear them for nothing."

Marfa Egorovna bit her lip, but Vikentev stood transfixed.

"Sit down, Nikolai Andreevich," continued the old lady seriously and reproachfully, "and listen to what I have to say. What does your conscience tell you? How have you rewarded my confidence?"

"Don't make fun of me ... it's unkind."

"I am not joking. It wasn't right of you, my friend, to speak to Marfinka, and not to me. Supposing I had not consented?"

"If you had not consented I would have...."

"What?"

"Oh, I would have gone away from here, joined the Hussars, have contracted debts, and gone to wrack and ruin."

"Now he threatens! You should not be so bent on your own way, young man."

"Give me Marfa Va.s.silievna, and I will be more tranquil than water, humbler than the gra.s.s."

"Shall we give him Marfinka, Marfa Egorovna?"

"He hasn't deserved it, Tatiana Markovna. And it is really too early.

Perhaps in two years' time...."

He flew to his mother and shut her mouth with a kiss. Then he received from Tatiana Markovna the sign of the cross, and a kiss on the forehead.

"Where is Marfa Va.s.silievna?" he shouted joyfully.

"You must have patience," admonished his grandmother, "we will fetch her."

Tatiana Markovna and Marfa Egorovna found Marfinka hidden in the corner behind the curtains of her bed, close by the ikons. She covered her blushing face in her hands.

Vera received the news from her aunt with quiet pleasure, saying that she had expected it for a long time.

"G.o.d grant that you may follow her example," said Tatiana Markovna.

"If you love me as I love you, Grandmother, you will bestow all your care and thought on Marfinka. Take no thought for me."

"My heart aches for you, Veroshka."

"I know, and that grieves me. Grandmother," she said with a despairing note, "it is killing me to think that your heart aches on my account."

"What do you say, Veroshka? open your heart to me. Perhaps I can comprehend, and if you have grief, help to a.s.suage it."

"If trouble overtakes me, Grandmother, and I cannot conquer it myself, I will come to you and to none other, G.o.d only excepted. But do not make me suffer any more, or allow yourself to suffer."

"Will it not be too late when trouble has once overtaken you?" whispered her aunt. Then she added aloud, "I know that you are not like Marfinka, and I will not disturb you."

A long sigh escaped her as she left the room with quick steps and bent head. Vera's distress was the only cloud on her horizon, and she prayed earnestly that it might pa.s.s and not gather into a black storm cloud.

Vera sought to calm her own agitation by walking up and down the garden, but only succeeded gradually. As soon as she caught sight of Marfinka and Vikentev in the arbour, she hurried to them, looked affectionately into her sister's face, kissed her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, and embraced her warmly.

"You must be happy," she said with tears in her eyes.

"How lovely you are Veroshka, and how good! We are not a bit like sisters. There is n.o.body in the neighbourhood fit to marry you, is there, Nikolai Andreevich?"

Vera pressed her hand in silence.

"Nikolai Andreevich, do you know what she is?"

"An angel," answered Vikentev as promptly as a soldier answers his officer.

"An angel," mimicked Vera laughing, and pointing to a b.u.t.terfly hovering over a flower. "There is an angel. But if you even touch him the colour of his wings will be spoiled, and he will perhaps even lose a wing. You must spoil her, love and caress her, and G.o.d forbid that you ever wound her. If you ever do," she threatened, smiling, "you will have to reckon with me."

Within a week of this happy occasion the house was restored to its ordinary routine. Marfa Egorovna drove back to Kolchino, but Vikentev became a daily visitor, and almost a member of the family. He and Marfinka no longer jumped and ran like children, though they occasionally had a lively dispute, half in jest, half in earnest. They sang and read together, and the pure, fresh poetry of youth, plain for all to read, welled up in their frank, unspoiled hearts.

The wedding being fixed for the autumn, preparations for Marfinka's house-furnishing and trousseau were being gradually pushed forward. From the cupboards of the house were brought old lace, silver and gold plate, gla.s.s, linen, furs, pearls, diamonds and all sorts of treasures, to be divided by Tatiana Markovna with Jew-like exactness into two equal shares, with the aid of jewellers, workers in gold, and others.

"That is yours, Vera, and there is Marfinka's share. You are not to receive a pearl or on ounce more than the other. See for yourselves."

Vera pushed pearls and diamonds into a heap with a declaration that she needed very little. This only angered Tatiana Markovna, who began the work of division all over again. Raisky sent to his former guardian for the diamonds and silver that had been his mother's portion, and bestowed these also on the sisters, but his aunt hid the treasure in the depths of her coffers.

"You will want them yourself." she said, "on the day when you take it into your head to marry."

The estate with all that belonged to it he had made over in the names of the sisters, a gift for which each of them thanked him after her fashion.

Tatiana Markovna wrinkled her forehead, and looked askance at him, but she could not long maintain this att.i.tude, and ended by embracing him.

In various rooms, in Tatiana Markovna's sitting room, in the servants'

room, and even in the reception room, tables were covered with linen.

The marriage bed, with its lace pillow-cases and cover was being prepared, and every morning there came dressmakers and seamstresses.

Only Raisky and Vera remained untouched by the universal gay activity.

Even when Raisky sought distraction in riding or visiting, there was in fact no one else in the world for him but Vera. He avoided too frequent visits to Koslov on account of Juliana Andreevna.

He did not visit Paulina Karpovna, but she came the oftener, and bored him and Tatiana Markovna by her pose, retiring or audacious, as the case might be. Tatiana Markovna especially was annoyed by her unasked for criticisms of the wedding preparations, and by her views on marriage generally. Marriage, she declared, was the grave of love, elect souls were bound to meet in spite of all obstacles, even outside the marriage bond, and so forth. While she expounded these doctrines she cast languishing eyes on Raisky.