"How is it that you have come back earlier than you said?" asked Sergius. "Can I speak to you now?"
"How is it that I have the happiness to receive such a guest? I have missed one of my lessons. That can wait... I had always been planning to go to see you. I wrote to you, and now this good fortune has come."
"Pashenka, please listen to what I am going to tell you as to a confession made to G.o.d at my last hour. Pashenka, I am not a holy man, I am not even as good as a simple ordinary man; I am a loathsome, vile, and proud sinner who has gone astray, and who, if not worse than everyone else, is at least worse than most very bad people."
Pashenka looked at him at first with staring eyes. But she believed what he said, and when she had quite grasped it she touched his hand, smiling pityingly, and said:
"Perhaps you exaggerate, Stiva?"
"No, Pashenka. I am an adulterer, a murderer, a blasphemer, and a deceiver."
"My G.o.d! How is that?" exclaimed Praskovya Mikhaylovna.
"But I must go on living. And I, who thought I knew everything, who taught others how to live--I know nothing and ask you to teach me."
"What are you saying, Stiva? You are laughing at me. Why do you always make fun of me?"
"Well, if you think I am jesting you must have it as you please. But tell me all the same how you live, and how you have lived your life."
"I? I have lived a very nasty, horrible life, and now G.o.d is punishing me as I deserve. I live so wretchedly, so wretchedly..."
"How was it with your marriage? How did you live with your husband?"
"It was all bad. I married because I fell in love in the nastiest way.
Papa did not approve. But I would not listen to anything and just got married. Then instead of helping my husband I tormented him by my jealousy, which I could not restrain."
"I heard that he drank..."
"Yes, but I did not give him any peace. I always reproached him, though you know it is a disease! He could not refrain from it. I now remember how I tried to prevent his having it, and the frightful scenes we had!"
And she looked at Kasatsky with beautiful eyes, suffering from the remembrance.
Kasatsky remembered how he had been told that Pashenka"s husband used to beat her, and now, looking at her thin withered neck with prominent veins behind her ears, and her scanty coil of hair, half grey half auburn, he seemed to see just how it had occurred.
"Then I was left with two children and no means at all."
"But you had an estate!"
"Oh, we sold that while Vasya was still alive, and the money was all spent. We had to live, and like all our young ladies I did not know how to earn anything. I was particularly useless and helpless. So we spent all we had. I taught the children and improved my own education a little. And then Mitya fell ill when he was already in the fourth form, and G.o.d took him. Masha fell in love with Vanya, my son-in-law.
And--well, he is well-meaning but unfortunate. He is ill."
"Mamma!"--her daughter"s voice interrupted her--"Take Mitya! I can"t be in two places at once."
Praskovya Mikhaylovna shuddered, but rose and went out of the room, stepping quickly in her patched shoes. She soon came back with a boy of two in her arms, who threw himself backwards and grabbed at her shawl with his little hands.
"Where was I? Oh yes, he had a good appointment here, and his chief was a kind man too. But Vanya could not go on, and had to give up his position."
"What is the matter with him?"
"Neurasthenia--it is a dreadful complaint. We consulted a doctor, who told us he ought to go away, but we had no means.... I always hope it will pa.s.s of itself. He has no particular pain, but..."
"Lukerya!" cried an angry and feeble voice. "She is always sent away when I want her. Mamma..."
"I"m coming!" Praskovya Mikhaylovna again interrupted herself. "He has not had his dinner yet. He can"t eat with us."
She went out and arranged something, and came back wiping her thin dark hands.
"So that is how I live. I always complain and am always dissatisfied, but thank G.o.d the grandchildren are all nice and healthy, and we can still live. But why talk about me?"
"But what do you live on?"
"Well, I earn a little. How I used to dislike music, but how useful it is to me now!" Her small hand lay on the chest of drawers beside which she was sitting, and she drummed an exercise with her thin fingers.
"How much do you get for a lesson?"
"Sometimes a ruble, sometimes fifty kopeks, or sometimes thirty. They are all so kind to me."
"And do your pupils get on well?" asked Kasatsky with a slight smile.
Praskovya Mikhaylovna did not at first believe that he was asking seriously, and looked inquiringly into his eyes.
"Some of them do. One of them is a splendid girl--the butcher"s daughter--such a good kind girl! If I were a clever woman I ought, of course, with the connexions Papa had, to be able to get an appointment for my son-in-law. But as it is I have not been able to do anything, and have brought them all to this--as you see."
"Yes, yes," said Kasatsky, lowering his head. "And how is it, Pashenka--do you take part in Church life?"
"Oh, don"t speak of it. I am so bad that way, and have neglected it so!
I keep the fasts with the children and sometimes go to church, and then again sometimes I don"t go for months. I only send the children."
"But why don"t you go yourself?"
"To tell the truth" (she blushed) "I am ashamed, for my daughter"s sake and the children"s, to go there in tattered clothes, and I haven"t anything else. Besides, I am just lazy."
"And do you pray at home?"
"I do. But what sort of prayer is it? Only mechanical. I know it should not be like that, but I lack real religious feeling. The only thing is that I know how bad I am..."
"Yes, yes, that"s right!" said Kasatsky, as if approvingly.
"I"m coming! I"m coming!" she replied to a call from her son-in-law, and tidying her scanty plait she left the room.
But this time it was long before she returned. When she came back, Kasatsky was sitting in the same position, his elbows resting on his knees and his head bowed. But his wallet was strapped on his back.
When she came in, carrying a small tin lamp without a shade, he raised his fine weary eyes and sighed very deeply.
"I did not tell them who you are," she began timidly. "I only said that you are a pilgrim, a n.o.bleman, and that I used to know you. Come into the dining-room for tea."
"No..."
"Well then, I"ll bring some to you here."