Anton Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Diary & Letters (Collected Edition). Anton Chekhov
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been stolen, I tell you. The mistress has been rummaging in everything with her own hands. She even searched Mihailo, the porter, herself. It’s a perfect disgrace! Nikolay Sergeitch simply looks on and cackles like a hen. But you’ve no need to tremble like that, miss. They found nothing here. You’ve nothing to be afraid of if you didn’t take the brooch.”
“But, Liza, it’s vile… it’s insulting,” said Mashenka, breathless with indignation. “It’s so mean, so low! What right had she to suspect me and to rummage in my things?”
“You are living with strangers, miss,” sighed Liza. “Though you are a young lady, still you are… as it were… a servant…. It’s not like living with your papa and mamma.”
Mashenka threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly. Never in her life had she been subjected to such an outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted…. She, well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was suspected of theft; she had been searched like a street-walker! She could not imagine a greater insult. And to this feeling of resentment was added an oppressive dread of what would come next. All sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind. If they could suspect her of theft, then they might arrest her, strip her naked, and search her, then lead her through the street with an escort of soldiers, cast her into a cold, dark cell with mice and woodlice, exactly like the dungeon in which Princess Tarakanov was imprisoned. Who would stand up for her? Her parents lived far away in the provinces; they had not the money to come to her. In the capital she was as solitary as in a desert, without friends or kindred. They could do what they liked with her.
“I will go to all the courts and all the lawyers,” Mashenka thought, trembling. “I will explain to them, I will take an oath…. They will believe that I could not be a thief!”
Mashenka remembered that under the sheets in her basket she had some sweetmeats, which, following the habits of her schooldays, she had put in her pocket at dinner and carried off to her room. She felt hot all over, and was ashamed at the thought that her little secret was known to the lady of the house; and all this terror, shame, resentment, brought on an attack of palpitation of the heart, which set up a throbbing in her temples, in her heart, and deep down in her stomach.
“Dinner is ready,” the servant summoned Mashenka.
“Shall I go, or not?”
Mashenka brushed her hair, wiped her face with a wet towel, and went into the dining-room. There they had already begun dinner. At one end of the table sat Fedosya Vassilyevna with a stupid, solemn, serious face; at the other end Nikolay Sergeitch. At the sides there were the visitors and the children. The dishes were handed by two footmen in swallowtails and white gloves. Every one knew that there was an upset in the house, that Madame Kushkin was in trouble, and every one was silent. Nothing was heard but the sound of munching and the rattle of spoons on the plates.
The lady of the house, herself, was the first to speak.
“What is the third course?” she asked the footman in a weary, injured voice.
“Esturgeon à la russe,” answered the footman.
“I ordered that, Fenya,” Nikolay Sergeitch hastened to observe. “I wanted some fish. If you don’t like it, ma chère, don’t let them serve it. I just ordered it… .”
Fedosya Vassilyevna did not like dishes that she had not ordered herself, and now her eyes filled with tears.
Come, don’t let us agitate ourselves,” Mamikov, her household doctor, observed in a honeyed voice, just touching her arm, with a smile as honeyed. “We are nervous enough as it is. Let us forget the brooch! Health is worth more than two thousand roubles!”
“It’s not the two thousand I regret,” answered the lady, and a big tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s the fact itself that revolts me! I cannot put up with thieves in my house. I don’t regret it — I regret nothing; but to steal from me is such ingratitude! That’s how they repay me for my kindness… .”
They all looked into their plates, but Mashenka fancied after the lady’s words that every one was looking at her. A lump rose in her throat; she began crying and put her handkerchief to her lips.
“Pardon,” she muttered. “I can’t help it. My head aches. I’ll go away.”
And she got up from the table, scraping her chair awkwardly, and went out quickly, still more overcome with confusion.
“It’s beyond everything!” said Nikolay Sergeitch, frowning. “What need was there to search her room? How out of place it was!”
“I don’t say she took the brooch,” said Fedosya Vassilyevna, “but can you answer for her? To tell the truth, I haven’t much confidence in these learned paupers.”
“It really was unsuitable, Fenya…. Excuse me, Fenya, but you’ve no kind of legal right to make a search.”
“I know nothing about your laws. All I know is that I’ve lost my brooch. And I will find the brooch!” She brought her fork down on the plate with a clatter, and her eyes flashed angrily. “And you eat your dinner, and don’t interfere in what doesn’t concern you!”
Nikolay Sergeitch dropped his eyes mildly and sighed. Meanwhile Mashenka, reaching her room, flung herself on her bed. She felt now neither alarm nor shame, but she felt an intense longing to go and slap the cheeks of this hard, arrogant, dull-witted, prosperous woman.
Lying on her bed she breathed into her pillow and dreamed of how nice it would be to go and buy the most expensive brooch and fling it into the face of this bullying woman. If only it were God’s will that Fedosya Vassilyevna should come to ruin and wander about begging, and should taste all the horrors of poverty and dependence, and that Mashenka, whom she had insulted, might give her alms! Oh, if only she could come in for a big fortune, could buy a carriage, and could drive noisily past the windows so as to be envied by that woman!
But all these were only dreams, in reality there was only one thing left to do — to get away as quickly as possible, not to stay another hour in this place. It was true it was terrible to lose her place, to go back to her parents, who had nothing; but what could she do? Mashenka could not bear the sight of the lady of the house nor of her little room; she felt stifled and wretched here. She was so disgusted with Fedosya Vassilyevna, who was so obsessed by her illnesses and her supposed aristocratic rank, that everything in the world seemed to have become coarse and unattractive because this woman was living in it. Mashenka jumped up from the bed and began packing.
“May I come in?” asked Nikolay Sergeitch at the door; he had come up noiselessly to the door, and spoke in a soft, subdued voice. “May I?”
“Come in.”
He came in and stood still near the door. His eyes looked dim and his red little nose was shiny. After dinner he used to drink beer, and the fact was perceptible in his walk, in his feeble, flabby hands.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the basket.
“I am packing. Forgive me, Nikolay Sergeitch, but I cannot remain in your house. I feel deeply insulted by this search!”
“I understand…. Only you are wrong to go. Why should you? They’ve searched your things, but you… what does it matter to you? You will be none the worse for it.”
Mashenka was silent and went on packing. Nikolay Sergeitch pinched his moustache, as though wondering what he should say next, and went on in an ingratiating voice:
“I understand, of course, but you must make allowances. You know my wife is nervous, headstrong; you mustn’t judge her too harshly.”
Mashenka did not speak.
“If you are so offended,” Nikolay Sergeitch went on, “well, if you like, I’m ready to apologise. I ask your pardon.”
Mashenka made no answer, but only bent lower over her box. This exhausted, irresolute man was of absolutely no significance in the household. He stood