I
Three months have passed since Viérotchka was rescued from the cellar. The Lopukhófs’ affairs have prospered. He has had a fair number of pupils; he obtained work of a certain publisher, to translate a textbook on geography. Viéra Pavlovna also found two pupils, not of the highest grade, but still not to be despised. Together they have an income of eighty rubles a month. But such an income scarcely allows anyone to live luxuriously, but they ran no risk of running into poverty. Their means have gradually increased, and they have calculated that in four months or even sooner they can set up their own establishment. And this was afterwards realized.
The system of their lives was arranged, of course not absolutely in accordance with Viérotchka’s half-jesting, half-serious plan proposed on the day of their fantastic engagement, but nevertheless it was very much like it. The old man and woman at whose house they lived, gossiped together about the strange way in which the young couple lived—as though they were not young people at all, not even like husband and wife; like nobody else in the world.
“Well, now, Petrovna, it seems to me just as queer as it does to you. You could not tell for the life of you whether she wan’t his sister and he her brother!”
“You think that’s a good comparison, do you? Between brother and sister there ain’t any ceremony at all. But look at them! He gits up, puts on his clo’es, and sits down and waits till the samovar is brought. Then he makes tea and calls her, and she too comes out all dressed. What kind of a brother and sister’s that? You had better say this: being as there’s poor folks who through their poverty have to live two families in one apartment; and you might compare them to such!”
“And how is it, Petrovna, that a husband can’t go into his wife’s room? When she ain’t dressed, she don’t let him in. What does that look like?”
“You ought to see how they part at night. She says: ‘Proshchaï mílenki, good night.’ Then they separate, each to sit in their own rooms. They read books, and he sometimes writes. Just you listen and I’ll tell you what happened once. She went to bed and was reading a book. Then I heard through the partition (it happened I was wide awake that night); I hear her a gittin’ up. And what do you think? I was list’nin’. She was a-standin’ before her lookin’ glass a-combin’ of her hair. Well [nu], she seemed to be gittin’ ready to go out to see some comp’ny. I was list’nin’. Out she went. Then [nu] I, too, goes out into the entry, gits up in a chair, and peeks through the transom into his room. I was list’nin’ as she went to the door. ‘Can I come in, mílenki?’ And he says, ‘In a minute, Viérotchka.’ He too was in bed. He put on his pants and his coat. Now [nu], thinks I, he’ll be tyin’ up his cravat. But he don’t put on his cravat; he fixes hisself a little, and says, ‘Now you can come in, Viérotchka.’ Says she, ‘I don’t understand something in this book; please explain it to me.’ He tells her. ‘Well [nu], mílenki, forgive me for botherin’ of you.’ And says he, ‘Oh, it’s nothin’, Viérotchka; I was only lyin’ down, you haven’t disturbed me.’ And so [nu] she went out.”
“And so she went out?”
“And so she went out.”
“And wan’t there nothin’ more?”
“No, nothin’ more. But it ain’t so queer’t she went out so, as ’twas ’cause she went and dressed herself when she went to see him. He says, ‘Just wait.’ Then he dressed hisself, and then he says, ‘Come in.’ You better tell me this: what kind of actions is them?”
“It must be this way, Petrovna; it’s a kind of sect, I reckon, ’cause you know there’s a good many kind of sects.”
“It looks like it. See here! I guess your idee is right.”
Here is another conversation:—
“Daniluitch, I axed her about them actions of theirn. Says I, ‘Don’t git mad at my question; but what’s your religious views.’ ‘Of course,’ says she, ‘it’s the Russian.’ ‘And your old man [supruzhnik].’ ‘His is Russian too,’ she said. Says I, ‘Don’t you belong to any sec’?’ Says she, ‘No, I don’t belong to any. What makes you think so?’ ‘Because,’ says I, ‘because, lady, I don’t know whether to call you Miss or Mrs. Do you live with your old man?’ She laughed. ‘Why, yes,’ says she, ‘o’ course I do.’ ”
“She laughed, did she?”
“Yes, she did. ‘O’ course I live with him,’ says she. ‘Then,’ says I, ‘what makes you act as you do? You never see him without his clo’es on, as though you wan’t his wife.’ And, says she, ‘It’s because I don’t want him to see me in dishabilly.’ Oh no, they don’ belong to any sec’s at all. ‘Then,’ says I, ‘what makes you do so?’ ‘So as to keep love in the house and git rid of quarrels,’ says she.”
“Well now, Petrovna, that looks as though she spoke the truth. Of course, she allus wants to look decent!”
“And then she goes on and says, says she, ‘If I don’t want other folks to see me in dishabilly, then why should my husband, whom I love more, see me before I have washed my face. It wouldn’t do to show myself before him in any such way.’ ”
“Well, so does that look as though she spoke the truth, Petrovna. What makes men fall in love with other men’s wives? It’s because they see then nicely dressed, while they see their own wives—how did you call it? oh, yes, in dishabilly. It’s said so in Holy Writ, in Solomon’s Proverbs, and he was the wisest of the Tsars!”