Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (73 page)

“What is the use of beating about the bush, when the whole thing lies in a couple of words?” said Zina, with some show of annoyance.

“Beating about the bush, Zina? Is that the way to speak to your mother? But what am I? You have long ceased to trust to your poor mother! You have long looked upon me as your enemy, and not as your mother at all!”

“Oh, come mother! you and I are beyond quarrelling about an expression! Surely we understand one another by now? It is about time we did, anyhow!”

“But you offend me, my child! you will not believe that I am ready to devote
all, all
I can give, in order to establish your destiny on a safe and happy footing!”

Zina looked angrily and sarcastically at her mother.

“Would not you like to marry me to this old prince, now, in order to establish my destiny on a safe and happy footing?”

“I have not said a word about it; but, as you mention the fact, I will say that if you
were
to marry the prince it would be a very happy thing for you, and—”

“Oh! Well, I consider the idea utter nonsense!” cried the girl passionately. “Nonsense, humbug! and what’s more, I think you have a good deal too much poetical inspiration, mamma; you are a woman poet in the fullest sense of the term, and they call you by that name here! You are always full of projects; and the impracticability and absurdity of your ideas does not in the least discourage you. I felt, when the prince was sitting here, that you had that notion in your head. When Mosgliakoff was talking nonsense there about marrying the old man to somebody I read all your thoughts in your face. I am ready to bet any money that you are thinking of it now, and that you have come to me now about this very question! However, as your perpetual projects on my behalf are beginning to weary me to death, I must beg you not to say one word about it, not
one word
, mamma; do you hear me?
not one word
; and I beg you will remember what I say!” She was panting with rage.

“You are a child, Zina; a poor sorrow-worn, sick child!” said Maria Alexandrovna in tearful accents. “You speak to your poor mother disrespectfully; you wound me deeply, my dear; there is not another mother in the world who would have borne what I have to bear from you every day! But you are suffering, you are sick, you are sorrowful, and I am your mother, and, first of all, I am a Christian woman! I must bear it all, and forgive it. But one word, Zina: if I had really thought of the union you suggest, why would you consider it so impracticable and absurd? In my opinion, Mosgliakoff has never said a wiser thing than he did to-day, when he declared that marriage was what alone could save the prince, — not, of course, marriage with that slovenly slut, Nastasia; there he certainly
did
make a fool of himself!”

“Now look here, mamma; do you ask me this out of pure curiosity, or with design? Tell me the truth.”

“All I ask is, why does it appear to you to be so absurd?”

“Good heavens, mother, you’ll drive me wild! What a fate!” cried Zina, stamping her foot with impatience. “I’ll tell you why, if you can’t see for yourself. Not to mention all the other evident absurdities of the plan, to take advantage of the weakened wits of a poor old man, and deceive him and marry him — an old cripple, in order to get hold of his money, — and then every day and every hour to wish for his death, is, in my opinion, not only nonsense, but so mean,
so
mean, mamma, that I — I can’t congratulate you on your brilliant idea; that’s all I can say!”

There was silence for one minute.

“Zina, do you remember all that happened two years ago?” asked Maria Alexandrovna of a sudden.

Zina trembled.

“Mamma!” she said, severely, “you promised me solemnly never to mention that again.”

“And I ask you now, as solemnly, my dear child, to allow me to break that promise, just once! I have never broken it before. Zina! the time has come for a full and clear understanding between us! These two years of silence have been terrible. We cannot go on like this. I am ready to pray you, on my knees, to let me speak. Listen, Zina, your own mother who bore you beseeches you, on her knees! And I promise you faithfully, Zina, and solemnly, on the word of an unhappy but adoring mother, that never, under any circumstances, not even to save my life, will I ever mention the subject again. This shall be the last time, but it is absolutely necessary!”

Maria Alexandrovna counted upon the effect of her words, and with reason:

“Speak, then!” said Zina, growing whiter every moment.

“Thank you, Zina! —— Two years ago there came to the house, to teach your little brother Mitya, since dead, a tutor — —”

“Why do you begin so solemnly, mamma? Why all this eloquence, all these quite unnecessary details, which are painful to me, and only too well known to both of us?” cried Zina with a sort of irritated disgust.

“Because, my dear child, I, your mother, felt in some degree bound to justify myself before you; and also because I wish to present this whole question to you from an entirely new point of view, and not from that mistaken position which you are accustomed to take up with regard to it; and because, lastly, I think you will thus better understand the conclusion at which I shall arrive upon the whole question. Do not think, dear child, that I wish to trifle with your heart! No, Zina, you will find in me a real mother; and perhaps, with tears streaming from your eyes, you will ask and beseech at my feet — at the feet of the ‘
mean woman
,’ as you have just called me, — yes, and pray for that reconciliation which you have rejected so long! That’s why I wish to recall all, Zina,
all
that has happened, from the very beginning; and without this I shall not speak at all!”

“Speak, then!” repeated Zina, cursing the necessity for her mother’s eloquence from the very bottom of her heart.

“I continue then, Zina! —— This tutor, a master of the parish school, almost a boy, makes upon you what is, to me, a totally inexplicable impression. I built too much upon my confidence in your good sense, or your noble pride, and principally upon the fact of his insignificance — (I must speak out!) — to allow myself to harbour the slightest suspicion of you! And then you suddenly come to me, one fine day, and state that you intend to marry the man! Zina, it was putting a knife to my heart! I gave a shriek and lost consciousness.

“But of course you remember all this. Of course I thought it my duty to use all my power over you, which power you called tyranny. Think for yourself — a boy, the son of a deacon, receiving a salary of twelve roubles a month — a writer of weak verses which are printed, out of pity, in the ‘library of short readings.’ A man, a boy, who could talk of nothing but that accursed Shakespeare, — this boy to be the husband of Zenaida Moskaloff! Forgive me, Zina, but the very thought of it all makes me
wild
!

“I rejected him, of course. But no power would stop
you
; your father only blinked his eyes, as usual, and could not even understand what I was telling him about. You continue your relations with this boy, even giving him rendezvous, and, worst of all, you allow yourself to correspond with him!

“Rumours now begin to flit about town: I am assailed with hints; they blow their trumpets of joy and triumph; and suddenly all my fears and anticipations are verified! You and he quarrel over something or other; he shows himself to be a boy (I can’t call him a man!), who is utterly unworthy of you, and threatens to show your letters all over the town! On hearing this threat, you, beside yourself with irritation, boxed his ears. Yes, Zina, I am aware of even that fact! I know all, all! But to continue — the wretched boy shows one of your letters the very same day to that ne’er-do-well Zanshin, and within an hour Natalie Dimitrievna holds it in her hands — my deadly enemy! The same evening the miserable fellow attempts to put an end to himself, in remorse. In a word, there is a fearful scandal stirred up. That slut, Nastasia, comes panting to me with the dreadful news; she tells me that Natalie Dimitrievna has had your letter for a whole hour. In a couple of hours the whole town will learn of your foolishness! I bore it all. I did not fall down in a swoon; but oh, the blows, the blows you dealt to my heart, Zina! That shameless scum of the earth, Nastasia, says she will get the letter back for two hundred roubles! I myself run over, in thin shoes, too, through the snow to the Jew Baumstein, and pledge my diamond clasps — a keepsake of my dear mother’s! In a couple of hours the letter is in my hands! Nastasia had stolen it; she had broken open a desk, and your honour was safe!

“But what a dreadful day you had sentenced me to live! I noticed some grey hairs among my raven locks for the first time, next morning! Zina, you have judged this boy’s action yourself now! You can admit now, and perhaps smile a bitter smile over the admission, that it was beyond the limits of good sense to wish to entrust your fate to this youth.

“But since that fatal time you are wretched, my child, you are miserable! You cannot forget him, or rather not him — for he was never worthy of you, — but you cannot forget the phantom of your past joy! This wretched young fellow is now on the point of death — consumption, they say; and you, angel of goodness that you are! you do not wish to marry while he is alive, because you fear to harass him in his last days; because to this day he is miserable with jealousy, though I am convinced that he never loved you in the best and highest sense of the word! I know well that, hearing of Mosgliakoff’s proposal to you, he has been in a flutter of jealousy, and has spied upon you and your actions ever since; and you — you have been merciful to him, my child. And oh! God knows how I have watered my pillow with tears for you!”

“Oh, mother, do drop all this sort of thing!” cried Zina, with inexpressible agony in her tone. “Surely we needn’t hear all about your pillow!” she added, sharply. “Can’t we get on without all this declamation and pirouetting?”

“You do not believe me, Zina! Oh! do not look so unfriendly at me, my child! My eyes have not been dry these two years. I have hidden my tears from you; but I am changed, Zina mine, much changed and in many ways! I have long known of your feelings, Zina, but I admit I have only lately realized the depth of your mental anguish. Can you blame me, my child, if I looked upon this attachment of yours as romanticism — called into being by that accursed Shakespeare, who shoves his nose in everywhere where he isn’t wanted?

“What mother would blame me for my fears of that kind, for my measures, for the severity of my judgment? But now, understanding as I do, and realizing your two years’ sufferings, I can estimate the depth of your real feelings. Believe me, I understand you far better than you understand yourself! I am convinced that you love not him — not this unnatural boy, — but your lost happiness, your broken hopes, your cracked idol!

“I have loved too — perhaps more deeply than yourself; I, too, have suffered, I, too, have lost my exalted ideals and seen them levelled with the earth; and therefore who can blame me now — and, above all, can
you
blame me now, — if I consider a marriage with the prince to be the one saving, the one
essential
move left to you in your present position”?

Zina listened to this long declamation with surprise. She knew well that her mother never adopted this tone without good reason. However this last and unexpected conclusion fairly amazed her.

“You don’t mean to say you seriously entertain the idea of marrying me to this prince?” she cried bewildered, and gazing at her mother almost with alarm; “that this is no mere idea, no project, no flighty inspiration, but your deliberate intention? I
have
guessed right, then? And pray,
how
is this marriage going to save me? and
why
is it essential to me in my present position? And — and what has all this to do with what you have been talking about? —— I cannot understand you, mother, — not a bit!”

“And
I
can’t understand, angel mine, how you
cannot
see the connection of it all!” cried Maria Alexandrovna, in her turn. “In the first place, you would pass into new society, into a new world. You would leave for ever this loathsome little town, so full of sad memories for you; where you meet neither friends nor kindness; where they have bullied and maligned you; where all these — these
magpies
hate you because you are good looking! You could go abroad this very spring, to Italy, Switzerland, Spain! — to Spain, Zina, where the Alhambra is, and where the Guadalquiver flows — no wretched little stream like this of ours!”

“But, one moment, mother; you talk as though I were married already, or at least as if the prince had made me an offer!”

“Oh, no — oh dear, no! don’t bother yourself about that, my angel! I know what I’m talking about! Let me proceed. I’ve said my ‘firstly;’ now, then, for my ‘secondly!’ I understand, dear child, with what loathing you would give your hand to that Mosgliakoff! — —”

“I know, without your telling me so, that I shall never be
his
wife!” cried Zina, angrily, and with flashing eyes.

“If only you knew, my angel, how I understand and enter into your loathing for him! It is dreadful to vow before the altar that you will love a man whom you
cannot
love — how dreadful to belong to one whom you cannot esteem! And he insists on your
love
— he only marries you for love. I can see it by the way he looks at you! Why deceive ourselves? I have suffered from the same thing for twenty-five years; your father ruined me — he, so to speak, sucked up my youth! You have seen my tears many a time! — —”

“Father’s away in the country, don’t touch
him
, please!” said Zina.

“I know you always take his part! Oh, Zina, my very heart trembled within me when I thought to arrange your marriage with Mosgliakoff for financial reasons! I trembled for the consequences. But with the prince it is different, you need not deceive him; you cannot be expected to give him your
love
, not your
love
— oh, no! and he is not in a state to ask it of you!”