Uncle's dream; And The Permanent Husband Part 11

Maria Alexandrovna's voice was tender to a sickly extent. Her face showed the pain she was suffering. The amazed Mosgliakoff sat down beside her in the arm-chair.

"You hid somewhere, and listened, I suppose?" she began, looking reproachfully into his face.

"Yes I did, of course I did; and a good thing too! What a fool I should have looked if I hadn't! At all events now I know what you have been plotting against me!" replied the injured man, rudely; encouraging and supporting himself by his own fury.

"And you-and you-with your principles, and with your bringing up, could condescend to such an action-Oh, oh!"

Mosgliakoff jumped up.

"Maria Alexandrovna, this is a little too much!" he cried. "Consider what _you_ condescend to do, with _your_ principles, and _then_ judge of other people."

"One more question," she continued, without replying to his outburst: "who recommended you to be an eavesdropper; who told you anything; who is the spy here? That's what I wish to know!"

"Oh, excuse me; that I shall _not_ tell you!"

"Very well; I know already. I said, Paul, that I was in some degree to blame before you. But if you look into the matter you will find that if I am to blame it is solely in consequence of my anxiety to do you a good turn!"

"_What?_ a good turn-_me_? No, no, madam! I a.s.sure you I am not to be caught again! I'm not quite such a fool!"

He moved so violently in his arm-chair that it shook again.

"Now, do be cool, if you can, my good friend. Listen to me attentively, and you will find that what I say is only the bare truth. In the first place I was anxious to inform you of all that has just taken place, in which case you would have learned everything, down to the smallest detail, without being obliged to descend to eavesdropping! If I did not tell you all before, it was simply because the whole matter was in an embryo condition in my mind. It was then quite possible that what _has_ happened would never happen. You see, I am quite open with you.

"In the second place, do not blame my daughter. She loves you to distraction; and it was only by the exercise of my utmost influence that I persuaded her to drop you, and accept the prince's offer."

"I have just had the pleasure of receiving convincing proof of her 'love to distraction!' " remarked Mosgliakoff, ironically and bitterly.

"Very well. But how did you speak to _her_? As a lover should speak?

Again, ought _any_ man of respectable position and tone to speak like that? You insulted and wounded her!"

"Never mind about my 'tone' now! All I can say is that this morning, when I went away with the prince, in spite of both of you having been as sweet as honey to me before, you reviled me behind my back like a pickpocket!

_I_ know all about it, you see!"

"Yes, from the same dirty source, I suppose?" said Maria Alexandrovna, smiling disdainfully. "Yes, Paul, I _did_ revile you: I pitched into you considerably, and I admit it frankly. But it was simply that I was _bound_ to blacken you before her. Why? Because, as I have said, I required her to consent to leave you, and this consent was so difficult to tear from her!

Short-sighted man that you are! If she had not loved you, why should I have required so to blacken your character? Why should I have been obliged to take this extreme step? Oh! you don't know all! I was forced to use my fullest maternal authority in order to erase you from her heart; and with all my influence and skill I only succeeded in erasing your dear image superficially and partially! If you saw and heard all just now, it cannot have escaped you that Zina did not once, by either word or gesture, encourage or confirm my words to the prince? Throughout the whole scene she said not one word. She sang, but like an automaton! Her whole soul was in anguish, and at last, out of pity for her, I took the prince away. I am sure, she cried, when I left her alone! When you entered the room you must have observed tears in her eyes?"

Mosgliakoff certainly did recall the fact that when he rushed into the room Zina was crying.

"But you-_you_-why were _you_ so against me, Maria Alexandrovna?" he cried. "Why did you revile me and malign me, as you admit you did?"

"Ah, now that's quite a different question. Now, if you had only asked me reasonably at the beginning, you should have had your answer long ago!

Yes, you are right. It was I, and I alone, who did it all. Do not think of Zina in the matter. Now, _why_ did I do it? I reply, in the first place, for Zina's sake. The prince is rich, influential, has great connections, and in marrying him Zina will make a brilliant match. Very well; then if the prince dies-as perhaps he will die soon, for we are all mortal,-Zina is still young, a widow, a princess, and probably very rich. Then she can marry whom she pleases; she may make another brilliant match if she likes.

But of course she will marry the man she loves, and loved before, the man whose heart she wounded by accepting the prince. Remorse alone would be enough to make her marry the man whom she had loved and so deeply injured!"

"Hem!" said Paul, gazing at his boots thoughtfully.

"In the second place," continued Maria, "and I will put this shortly, because, though you read a great deal of your beloved Shakespeare, and extract his finest thoughts and ideals, yet you are very young, and cannot, perhaps, apply what you read. You may not understand my feelings in this matter: listen, however. _I_ am giving my Zina to this prince partly for the prince's own sake, because I wish to save him by this marriage. We are old friends; he is the dearest and best of men, he is a knightly, chivalrous gentleman, and he lives helpless and miserable in the claws of that devil of a woman at Donchanovo! Heaven knows that I persuaded Zina into this marriage by putting it to her that she would be performing a great and n.o.ble action. I represented her as being the stay and the comfort and the darling and the idol of a poor old man, who probably would not live another year at the most! I showed her that thus his last days should be made happy with love and light and friends.h.i.+p, instead of wretched with fear and the society of a detestable woman. Oh!

do not blame Zina. She is guiltless. I am not-I admit it; for if there have been calculations it is I who have made them! But I calculated for her, Paul; for her, not myself! I have outlived my time; I have thought but for my child, and what mother could blame me for this?" Tears sparkled in the fond mother's eyes. Mosgliakoff listened in amazement to all this eloquence, winking his eyes in bewilderment.

"Yes, yes, of course! You talk well, Maria Alexandrovna, but you forget-you gave me your word, you encouraged me, you gave me my hopes; and where am I now? I have to stand aside and look a fool!"

"But, my dear Paul, you don't surely suppose that I have not thought of you too! Don't you see the huge, immeasurable gain to yourself in all this? A gain so vast that I was bound in your interest to act as I did!"

"Gain for me! How so?" asked Paul, in the most abject state of confusion and bewilderment.

"Gracious Heavens! do you mean to say you are really so simple and so short-sighted as to be unable to see _that_?" cried Maria Alexandrovna, raising her eyes to the ceiling in a pious manner. "Oh! youth, youth!

That's what comes of steeping one's soul in Shakespeare! You ask me, my dear friend Paul, where is the gain to you in all this. Allow me to make a little digression. Zina loves you-that is an undoubted fact. But I have observed that at the same time, and in spite of her evident love, she is not quite sure of your good feeling and devotion to her; and for this reason she is sometimes cold and self-restrained in your presence. Have you never observed this yourself, Paul?"

"Certainly; I did this very day; but go on, what do you deduce from that fact?"

"There, you see! you have observed it yourself; then of course I am right.

She is not quite sure of the _lasting_ quality of your feeling for her! I am a mother, and I may be permitted to read the heart of my child. Now, then, supposing that instead of rus.h.i.+ng into the room and reproaching, vilifying, even _swearing_ at and insulting this sweet, pure, beautiful, proud being, instead of hurling contempt and vituperation at her head-supposing that instead of all this you had received the bad news with composure, with tears of grief, maybe; perhaps even with despair-but at the same time with n.o.ble composure of soul--"

"H'm!"

"No, no-don't interrupt me! I wish to show you the picture as it is. Very well, supposing, then, that you had come to her and said, 'Zina, I love you better than my life, but family considerations must separate us; I understand these considerations-they are devised for your greater happiness, and I dare not oppose them. Zina, I forgive you; be happy, if you can!'-think what effect such n.o.ble words would have wrought upon her heart!"

"Yes-yes, that's all very true, I quite understand that much! but if I _had_ said all this, I should have had to go all the same, without satisfaction!"

"No, no, no! don't interrupt me! I wish to show you the _whole_ picture in all its detail, in order to impress you fully and satisfactorily. Very well, then, imagine now that you meet her in society some time afterwards: you meet perhaps at a ball-in the brilliant light of a ball-room, under the soothing strains of music, and in the midst of worldly women and of all that is gay and beautiful. You alone are sad-thoughtful-pale,-you lean against some pillar (where you are visible, however!) and watch her. She is dancing. You hear the strains of Strauss, and the wit and merriment around you, but you are sad and wretched.

"What, think you, will Zina make of it? With what sort of eyes will she gaze on you as you stand there? 'And I could doubt this man!' she will think, 'this man who sacrificed all, all, for my sake-even to the mortal wounding of his heart!' Of course the old love will awake in her bosom and will swell with irresistible power!"

Maria Alexandrovna stopped to take breath. Paul moved violently from side to side of his chair.

"Zina now goes abroad for the benefit of the prince's health-to Italy-to Spain," she continued, "where the myrtle and the lemon tree grow, where the sky is so blue, the beautiful Guadalquiver flows! to the land of love, where none can live without loving; where roses and kisses-so to speak-breathe in the very air around. You follow her-you sacrifice your business, friends, everything, and follow her. And so your love grows and increases with irresistible might. Of course that love is irreproachable-innocent-you will languish for one another-you will meet frequently; of course others will malign and vilify you both, and call your love by baser names-but your love is innocent, as I have purposely said; I am her mother-it is not for me to teach you evil, but good. At all events the prince is not in the condition to keep a very sharp look-out upon you; but if he did, as if there would be the slightest ground for base suspicion? Well, the prince dies at last, and then, who will marry Zina, if not yourself? You are so distant a relative of the prince's that there could be no obstacle to the match; you marry her-she is young still, and rich. You are a grandee in an instant! you, too, are rich now! I will take care that the prince's will is made as it should be; and lastly, Zina, now convinced of your loyalty and faithfulness, will look on you hereafter as her hero, as her paragon of virtue and self-sacrifice! Oh!

you must be blind,-_blind_, not to observe and calculate your own profit when it lies but a couple of strides from you, grinning at you, as it were, and saying, 'Here, I am yours, take me! Oh, Paul, Paul!' "

"Maria Alexandrovna!" cried Mosgliakoff, in great agitation and excitement, "I see it all! I have been rude, and a fool, and a scoundrel too!" He jumped up from his chair and tore his hair.

"Yes, and unbusinesslike, that's the chief thing-unbusinesslike, and blindly so!" added Maria Alexandrovna.

"I'm an a.s.s! Maria Alexandrovna," he cried in despair. "All is lost now, and I loved her to madness!"

"Maybe all is not lost yet!" said this successful orator softly, and as though thinking out some idea.

"Oh! if only it could be so! help me-teach me. Oh! save me, save me!"

Mosgliakoff burst into tears.

"My dear boy," said Maria Alexandrovna, sympathetically, and holding out her hand, "you acted impulsively, from the depth and heat of your pa.s.sion-in fact, out of your great love for her; you were in despair, you had forgotten yourself; she must understand all that!"

"Oh! I love her madly! I am ready to sacrifice everything for her!" cried Mosgliakoff.

"Listen! I will justify you before her."

"Oh, Maria Alexandrovna!"

"Yes, I will. I take it upon myself! You come with me, and you shall tell her exactly what I said!"