PART III
4. CHAPTER IV
(continued)
"We did well to come away," Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in.
"He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and
has a breath of air . . . it is fearfully close in his room. . . . But
where is one to get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel
like shut-up rooms. Good heavens! what a town! . . . stay . . . this
side . . . they will crush you--carrying something. Why, it is a piano
they have got, I declare . . . how they push! . . . I am very much
afraid of that young woman, too."
"What young woman, mother?
"Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now."
"Why?"
"I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but
as soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the
chief cause of the trouble. . . ."
"Nothing of the sort!" cried Dounia, in vexation. "What nonsense, with
your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the evening
before, and he did not know her when she came in."
"Well, you will see. . . . She worries me; but you will see, you will
see! I was so frightened. She was gazing at me with those eyes. I
could scarcely sit still in my chair when he began introducing her, do
you remember? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes like
that about her, and he introduces her to us--to you! So he must think
a great deal of her."
"People will write anything. We were talked about and written about,
too. Have you forgotten? I am sure that she is a good girl, and that
it is all nonsense."
"God grant it may be!"
"And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slanderer," Dounia snapped
out, suddenly.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed; the conversation was not resumed.
*****
|