XIII
“Is the mistress asleep or not?” suddenly asked a deep peasant voice close to Aksyúta.
She opened her eyes, which she had kept shut, and saw a figure that appeared taller than the serfs’ house. She screeched, and flew back so fast that her skirts floated behind her. With one bound she was in the porch, with another in the maids’ room—where she threw herself, wildly yelling, on her bed.
Dounyásha, her aunt, and the other maid were paralyzed with fear, and before they had time to recover they heard heavy, slow, and uncertain steps in the passage and by their door.
Dounyásha rushed to her mistress, spilling the melted wax. The second maid hid among the petticoats that hung on the wall; the aunt, a more determined character, was going to keep the door to the passage closed, but it opened, and a peasant came into the room.
It was Doútlof, with his boat-like shoes. Paying no heed to the maids’ fears, he looked round for an icon, and, not seeing the tiny saint’s picture in the left-hand corner of the room, he crossed himself in front of a cupboard in which teacups were kept, laid his cap on the windowsill, and, thrusting his arm so deep into the bosom of his coat that it looked as if he were going to scratch under his other arm, he pulled out a letter with five brown seals, stamped with an anchor.
Dounyásha’s aunt held her hands to her heart, and with difficulty brought out the words:
“Well, you have given me a fright! I can’t bring out a wo … ord! I quite thought my last moment had come!”
“Is that the way to behave?” said the second maid, appearing from under the petticoats.
“The mistress herself is upset,” said Dounyásha, coming out of her mistress’s door. “What do you mean, shoving yourself in through the maids’ entrance, without leave? … Just like a peasant!”
Doútlof, without apologizing, again said that he wanted to see the lady.
“She is not well,” said Dounyásha.
At this moment Aksyúta burst into such improperly loud laughter that she was obliged to hide her face in the pillow on the bed, whence, in spite of Dounyásha’s and the aunt’s threats, for a long time she could not lift it without going off again, as if something were bursting inside her pink print bosom and rosy cheeks. To her it seemed so funny that everybody should have taken fright, that she again hid her head in the pillows, and, as if in convulsions, scraped the floor with her shoe, and jerked her whole body.
Doútlof stopped and looked at her attentively, as if to ascertain what was happening to her, but turned away again without having made out what it was all about, and continued:
“You see, it’s just this—it’s a most important matter,” he said. “You just go and say that a peasant has found a letter with money.”
“What money?”
Dounyásha, before going to give the information, read the address and questioned Doútlof about when and how he had found this money which Polikéy ought to have brought back from town. Having heard all the particulars, and pushed the little errand-girl—who was still convulsed with laughter—out into the hall, Dounyásha went to her mistress; but, to Doútlof’s surprise, the mistress would not see him, and did not say anything intelligible to Dounyásha.
“I know nothing, and don’t wish to know anything!” the lady had said. “What peasant? What money? … I can’t and won’t see anyone! He must leave me in peace.”
“What am I to do?” said Doútlof, turning the envelope over; “it’s not a small sum. What is written on it?” he asked Dounyásha, who again read the address to him.
Doútlof seemed in doubt. He was still hoping that perhaps the money was not the mistress’s, and that the address had not been read out correctly to him. But Dounyásha confirmed it, and he put the envelope back into his bosom with a sigh, and was about to go.
“I suppose I shall have to hand it over to the police,” he said.
“Wait a bit! I’ll try again,” said Dounyásha, stopping him, after having attentively followed the disappearance of the envelope into the bosom of the peasant’s coat. “Let me have the letter.”
Doútlof took it out again, but did not at once put it into Dounyásha’s outstretched hand.
“Say that Doútlof found it—Semyón. …”
“Well, let’s have it!”
“I was thinking it was just nothing—only a letter; but a soldier read out to me that there was money inside. …”
“Well, then, let’s have it.”
“I dared not even go home first to …” Doútlof continued, still not parting with the precious envelope. “Inform the lady of it.”
Dounyásha took it from him and went again to her mistress.
“O my God! Dounyásha, don’t speak to me of that money!” said the lady in a reproachful tone. “Only to remember that little infant. …”
“The peasant does not know to whom you desire it to be given, madam,” Dounyásha again said.
The lady opened the envelope, shuddering at the sight of the money, and became thoughtful.
“Dreadful money! How much evil it causes!” she said.
“It is Doútlof, madam. Will you give orders for him to go, or will you please come out and see him—and is it all there—the money?” asked Dounyásha.
“I don’t want this money. It is horrible money! … What it has done! … Tell him he may take it if he likes,” said the lady suddenly, groping for Dounyásha’s hand. “Yes, yes, yes!” she repeated to the astonished Dounyásha; “let him take it altogether, and do what he likes with it.”
“Fifteen hundred roubles,” remarked Dounyásha, smiling as if at a child.
“Let him take it all!” the lady repeated impatiently. “Why, don’t you understand me? It is unlucky money. … Never talk to me about it! Let the peasant who found it take it. Go! … Well, go along!”
Dounyásha went out into the maids’ room.
“All there?” asked Doútlof.
“Why, you’d better count it yourself,” said Dounyásha, handing him the envelope. “The orders are to give it to you.”
Doútlof put his cap under his arm, and, stooping down, began to count.
“Have you got a counting-frame?”
Doútlof had an idea that the lady was stupid and could not count, and that that was why she ordered him to do it.
“You can count it at home—it’s yours … the money!” Dounyásha said crossly. “ ‘I don’t want to see it,’ she says; ‘give it to him who brought it.’ ”
Doútlof, without unbending, stared at Dounyásha.
Dounyásha’s aunt clasped her hands together.
“O holy Mother! What happiness the Lord has sent him! O holy Mother!”
The second maid did not believe it.
“You don’t mean it, Avdótya Nikoláyevna; you’re joking!”
“Joking, indeed! She’s ordered me to give it to the peasant. … Come, take your money and go!” said Dounyásha, without hiding her vexation. “Sorrow to one, joy to another!”
“It’s not a joke … fifteen hundred roubles!” said the aunt.
“It’s even more,” stated Dounyásha. “Well! You’ll have to offer a ten-kopeck candle to Saint Nicholas,” she added, with a sneer. “What! Can’t you come to your senses? If at least it had come to a poor man! … He has got plenty of his own.”
Doútlof at last grasped that it was not a joke, and began gathering together the notes he had spread out to count, and putting them back into the envelope. But his hands trembled, and he kept glancing at the maids to convince himself that it was not a joke.
“See! He can’t come to his senses, he’s so glad,” said Dounyásha, implying that she despised both the peasant and the money. “Come, I’ll put it in for you.”
She was going to take it, but Doútlof would not let her. He crumpled the notes together, pushed them in farther, and took his cap.
“Glad?”
“I hardly know what to say! It’s just …”
He did not finish, but waved his hand, smiled, and went out, almost crying.
The mistress rang.
“Well, have you given it?”
“I have.”
“Well, was he very glad?”
“He was just like a madman.”
“Ah! call him. I want to ask him how he found it. Call him in here; I can’t come out.”
Dounyásha ran out and found the peasant in the passage. He was still bareheaded, and had drawn out his purse, and was stooping untying its strings, while he held the money between his teeth. Perhaps he imagined that as long as the money was not in his purse it was not his. When Dounyásha called him he grew frightened.
“What is it, Avdótya … Avdótya Nikoláyevna? Does she wish to take it back? Couldn’t you say a word for me? … Now, really, and I’d bring you some nice honey.”
“Indeed! Much you ever brought!”
The door opened again, and the peasant was brought in to the lady. He did not feel very cheerful. “Oh dear, she’ll want it back!” he thought on his way through the rooms, for some reason lifting his feet as if he were walking through tall grass, and trying not to stamp with his bark shoes. He could make nothing of his surroundings. Passing by a mirror, he saw some kind of flowers and a peasant with bark shoes, lifting his legs high, a painted gentleman with an eyeglass, some kind of green tub, and something white. … There, now! The something white began to speak. It was the lady. He did not understand anything, but only stared. He did not know where he was, and saw everything as in a mist.
“Is that you, Doútlof?”
“Yes, lady. … Just as it was, so I left it … never touched …” he said. “I was not glad … as before God! How I’ve tired out my horse! …”
“Well, it’s your luck!” she remarked contemptuously, though with a kindly smile. “Take it—take it for yourself.”
He only stared.
“I am glad you got it. God grant that it may be of use. … Well, are you glad?”
“How could I help being glad? I’m so glad, lady—so glad! I will always pray for you! … So glad, that … Thank Heaven that our mistress is alive! That’s all I’ve done.”
“How did you find it?”
“Well, I mean, we are always able to do our best for our lady, quite honourably, and not anyhow. …”
“He is getting quite muddled, madam,” said Dounyásha.
“I had been taking my nephew, the recruit, and as I was coming back along the road I found it. Polikéy must have dropped it.”
“Well, then, go—go, friend! I am glad!”
“So glad, lady …” said the peasant. Then he remembered that he had not thanked her properly, and did not know how to behave. The lady and Dounyásha smiled, and then he again began stepping as if he were walking in very high grass, and could hardly refrain from running, so fearful was he that he might be stopped and the money taken from him.