“Well, here I am! Instead of a telegram!” grandmother burst out at last, breaking the silence. “What, you didn’t expect me?”
“Antonida Vassilyevna…auntie…but how on earth…” the unfortunate general murmured. If grandmother hadn’t begun speaking for a few seconds more, he might have had a stroke.
“What do you mean, how? I got on the train and came. What’s the railroad for? And you all thought I’d stretched out my bones and left you an inheritance? I know how you sent telegrams from here. Paid a lot of money for them, I suppose. It’s not cheap from here. But I shouldered my old bones and came here. Is this that Frenchman? M. des Grieux, I believe?”
“Oui, madame,” des Grieux picked up, “et croyez, je suis si enchanté…vôtre santé…c’est un miracle…vous voir ici, une surprise charmante…” *25
“Hm, charmante. I know you, you mountebank, only I don’t believe you even that much!” and she showed her little finger. “Who’s this?” she turned, pointing to Mlle Blanche. The showy Frenchwoman in the riding habit, with a crop in her hand, apparently impressed her. “Are you a local, or what?”
“This is Mlle Blanche de Cominges, and this is her mother, Mme de Cominges; they’re staying at this hotel,” I reported.
“Is the daughter married?” grandmother inquired without ceremony.
“Mlle de Cominges is unmarried,” I replied as respectfully as I could, purposely lowering my voice.
“A merry girl?”
I didn’t understand the question at first.
“She’s not boring to be with? Does she understand Russian? This des Grieux picked up a smattering of it with us in Moscow.”
I explained to her that Mlle de Cominges had never been to Russia.
“Bonjour! ” said grandmother, suddenly and abruptly addressing Mlle Blanche.
“Bonjour, madame,” Mlle Blanche curtsied decorously and gracefully, hastening, under the cover of extraordinary modesty and politeness, to display with the whole expression of her face and figure her extreme astonishment at such a strange question and manner of address.
“Ah, she’s lowered her eyes, she’s mincing and prancing; you can tell the bird at once; some sort of actress. I’m staying downstairs in this hotel,” she suddenly turned to the general, “I shall be your neighbor; are you glad or not?”
“Oh, auntie! Believe in the sincere feeling…of my pleasure,” the general picked up. He had already recovered somewhat, and since he was capable on occasion of speaking aptly, imposingly, and with a claim to a certain effect, he began expatiating now as well. “We were so alarmed and struck by the news of your ill health…We received such hopeless telegrams, and suddenly…”
“Lies, lies!” grandmother interrupted at once.
“But how is it,” the general also hastened to interrupt and raised his voice, trying to ignore this “lies,” “how is it, though, that you ventured upon such a journey? You must agree that at your age and with your health…at any rate it’s all so unexpected that our astonishment is comprehensible. But I’m so glad…and we all”(he started smiling sweetly and rapturously) “will try as hard as we can to make your season here pass most pleasantly…”
“Well, enough empty chatter; laying it on thick as usual; I can get along by myself. However, I have nothing against you; I don’t bear any grudges. How, you ask? What’s so surprising? In the simplest way. Why are they all so surprised? Hello, Praskovya. What are you doing here?”
“Hello, grandmother,” said Polina, going up to her. “Was it a long trip?”
“Well, this one has asked the smartest question, none of this oh and ah! You see, I lay and lay, got treated and treated, then I chased the doctors away and summoned the sacristan from St. Nicholas’s. He had cured one woman of the same illness with hay dust. Well, and he helped me; on the third day I sweated all over and got up. Then all my Germans gathered again, put on their spectacles, and began to opinionate: ‘If you were to go abroad now to a spa and take a cure,’ they said, ‘your gripes would go away completely.’ And why not? I thought. The Fool-Blazers start their oh-ing: ‘You can’t go so far!’ they say. Well, so there! In one day I got ready and on Friday last week I took my maid, and Potapych, and the footman Fyodor, only in Berlin I chased this Fyodor home, because I saw there was simply no need for him, I could get here all by myself…I’m riding in a separate compartment, and there are porters at all the stations, they’ll carry me wherever I like for twenty kopecks. Look, what quarters you occupy!” she concluded, glancing around. “With what money are you paying for it, dearie? Everything you’ve got is mortgaged. You owe quite a lump to this little Frenchman alone! I know everything, everything!”
“Auntie…” the general began, all embarrassed, “I’m astonished, auntie…it seems that, even without anyone’s control, I can…what’s more, my expenses do not exceed my means, and here we…”
“Don’t exceed your means? Come now! You must have robbed the children of their last penny—a fine guardian!”
“After this, after such words…” the general began indignantly, “I really don’t know…”
“He doesn’t know! I’ll bet you never leave the roulette tables here! Have you blown it all?”
The general was so astounded that he almost spluttered from the rush of his agitated feelings.
“Roulette! I? With my importance…I? You forget yourself, auntie, you must still be unwell…”
“Lies, lies; I’ll bet they can’t drag you away; it’s all lies! I’m going to have a look at what this roulette is right today. You, Praskovya, tell me what there is to be seen here, and Alexei Ivanovich will show me, and you, Potapych, write down all the places to go. What’s there to see here?” she suddenly turned to Polina again.
“There are the ruins of a castle nearby, then there’s the Schlangenberg.”
“What is this Schlangenberg? A woods, or what?”
“No, not a woods, it’s a mountain; there’s a point…”
“What sort of point?”
“The highest part of the mountain, an enclosed place. The view from there is magnificent.”
“That means dragging the armchair up the mountain. Can it be done, or not?”
“Oh, it should be possible to find porters,” I replied.
At that moment, Fedosya, the nanny, came up to greet grandmother, bringing the general’s children.
“Well, there’s no need for smooching! I don’t like to kiss children, they’re all snotty! How are you getting on here, Fedosya?”
“It’s vur-ry, vur-ry nice here, Antonida Vassilyevna, ma’am,” Fedosya replied. “And how have you been, ma’am? We’ve been grieving over you so.”
“I know, you’re a simple soul. What have you got here, all guests, or something?” she turned to Polina again. “This runty one in the spectacles?”
“That’s Prince Nilsky, grandmother,” Polina whispered to her.
“A Russian? And I thought he wouldn’t understand! Maybe he didn’t hear! I’ve already seen Mr. Astley. Here he is again,” grandmother caught sight of him again. “Hello!” she suddenly addressed him.
Mr. Astley silently bowed to her.
“Well, do you have something nice to say to me? Say something! Translate for him, Polina.”
Polina translated.
“That I am looking at you with great pleasure and rejoicing that you are in good health,” Mr. Astley replied gravely, but with great readiness. It was translated for grandmother, and she obviously liked it.
“Englishmen always answer well,” she observed. “For some reason I’ve always liked Englishmen, no comparison with these little Frenchmen! Call on me,” she turned to Mr. Astley again. “I’ll try not to bother you too much. Translate it for him and tell him that I’m downstairs here, downstairs here—you hear, downstairs, downstairs,” she repeated to Mr. Astley, pointing down with her finger.
Mr. Astley was extremely pleased with the invitation.
Grandmother looked Polina over from head to foot
with an attentive and satisfied gaze.
“I could love you, Praskovya,” she said suddenly, “you’re a nice girl, better than all of them, but what a little character you’ve got—oof! Well, yes, I have my character, too; turn around; that’s not a hairpiece, is it?”
“No, grandmother, it’s my own.”
“Hm, I don’t like this stupid modern fashion. You’re a very pretty girl. I’d fall in love with you if I were a young man. How is it you don’t get married? However, it’s time I was off. I want to go outside, it’s been nothing but the train, the train…Well, what’s with you, still angry?” she turned to the general.
“Come now, auntie, for pity’s sake!” the happy general roused himself. “I understand, at your age…”
“Cette vieille est tombée en enfance,” *26 des Grieux whispered to me.
“I want to have a look at everything here. Will you lend me Alexei Ivanovich?” grandmother continued to the general.
“Oh, for as long as you like, but I myself…and Polina, and M. des Grieux…we’ll all consider it a pleasure to accompany you…”
“Mais, madame, cela sera un plaisir,” †27 des Grieux popped up with a charming smile.
“Hm, plaisir. I find you ridiculous, dearie. By the way, I won’t give you any money,” she suddenly added to the general. “Well, now to my suite: I must look the rooms over, and then we’ll set out for all those places. Well, lift me up.”
Grandmother was lifted up again, and the whole crowd of us set out, following the armchair down the stairs. The general walked as if stunned by the blow of a bludgeon on the head. Des Grieux was mulling something over. Mlle Blanche made as if to stay, but then for some reason decided to go with everybody else. The prince at once set out after her, and only the German and Mme la veuve Cominges stayed upstairs in the general’s suite.
CHAPTER X
A T SPAS—AND, IT SEEMS, all over Europe—hotel administrators and managers, when assigning rooms to their guests, are guided not so much by their demands and wishes as by their own personal view of them; and, it must be noted, they are rarely mistaken. But grandmother, God knows why, was given such rich quarters that they even overdid it: four magnificently decorated rooms, with a bathroom, servants’ quarters, a special room for the maid, and so on, and so forth. Indeed, a week earlier some grande duchesse had stayed in these rooms, which fact, of course, was at once announced to the new guests, to raise the price of the suite. Grandmother was carried, or rather rolled, through all the rooms, and she examined them attentively and sternly. The manager, an older man with a bald head, respectfully accompanied her on this first inspection.
I don’t know who they took grandmother for, but it seems they thought her an extremely important and, above all, a very rich personage. They at once entered in the register: “Madame la générale princesse de Tarassévitchev,” though grandmother had never been a princess. Her prestige probably began with her having her own servants, a separate compartment on the train, the endless number of unnecessary valises, suitcases, and even trunks that arrived with her; and the chair, grandmother’s brusque tone and voice, her eccentric questions, asked with a most unabashed air and brooking no objections, in short, grandmother’s whole figure—erect, brusque, imperious—rounded out the universal awe in which she was held. During the inspection, grandmother sometimes ordered them to stop the chair, pointed at some piece of furniture, and addressed unexpected questions to the respectfully smiling manager, who was already beginning to turn coward. Grandmother put her questions in French, which she spoke, however, quite poorly, so that I usually translated. The manager’s answers were for the most part not to her liking and seemed unsatisfactory. Besides, she somehow kept asking not about essentials, but about God knows what. For instance, she suddenly stopped before a painting—a rather weak copy of some famous original on a mythological subject.
“Whose portrait is that?”
The manager declared that it was probably some countess.
“How is it you don’t know? You live here and you don’t know? What’s it doing here? Why is she cross-eyed?”
The manager was unable to give satisfactory answers to all these questions and was even at a loss.
“What a blockhead!” grandmother retorted in Russian.
They carried her further on. The same story was repeated with a Saxony statuette, which grandmother inspected for a long time and then ordered to be removed, no one knew why. She finally badgered the manager about the cost of the bedroom carpets and where they had been made. The manager promised to find out.
“What asses!” grandmother grumbled and turned all her attention to the bed.
“Such a magnificent canopy! Unmake it.”
The bed was unmade.
“Go on, go on, unmake it all. Take away the pillows, the pillowcases, lift up the feather bed.”
Everything was turned upside down. Grandmother inspected it all attentively.
“A good thing they don’t have bedbugs. Take off all the linen! Remake it with my linen and my pillows. Anyhow, it’s all much too magnificent, an old woman like me doesn’t need such a suite: I’ll be bored by myself. Alexei Ivanovich, come and see me often, when you’re done teaching the children.”
“Since yesterday I no longer work for the general,” I replied, “and I’m living in the hotel completely on my own.”
“Why’s that?”
“The other day a distinguished German baron and the baroness, his wife, came here from Berlin. Yesterday on the promenade I addressed him in German without keeping to the Berlin accent.”
“Well, what of it?”
“He considered it insolent and complained to the general, and the general dismissed me the same day.”
“What, did you abuse him, this baron, or something? (Even if you did, it wouldn’t matter!)”
“Oh, no. On the contrary, the baron raised his stick at me.”
“And you, you dribbler, allowed your tutor to be treated that way,” she suddenly turned on the general, “and dismissed him from his post to boot! You’re dunderheads—you’re all dunderheads, I can see.”
“Don’t worry, auntie,” the general replied with a slight tinge of haughty familiarity, “I know how to handle my own affairs. Besides, Alexei Ivanovich did not report it to you quite accurately.”
“And you just let it pass?” she turned to me.
“I wanted to challenge the baron to a duel,” I replied as modestly and calmly as I could, “but the general was against it.”
“Why were you against it?” grandmother turned to the general again. “(And you may go, dearie, come back when you’re called,” she also turned to the manager, “no point in standing there gaping. I can’t stand his Nuremberg mug!)” The man bowed and left, without, of course, understanding grandmother’s compliment.
“Good heavens, auntie, duels really aren’t possible,” the general answered with a smile.
“Why aren’t they? Men are all cocks, so they ought to fight. You’re all dunderheads. I can see, you don’t know how to stand up for your country. Well, lift me up! Potapych, arrange it so that two porters are always ready, hire them and settle it. No need for more than two. They’ll only have to carry me on the stairs, but on the level, on the street, they can roll me—tell them that; and pay them in advance, they’ll be more respectful. You yourself must always be with me, and you, Alexei Ivanovich, show me this baron on the promenade: I’d at least like to see what sort of von baron he is. Well, so where’s this roulette?”
I explained that the roulette tables were in rooms of the vauxhall. Then followed questions: how many are there? do many people play? Does it go on all day? How is it set up? I answered, finally, that it would be best of all to see it with her own eyes, and that it was quite difficult to describe it just like that.
“Well, then carry me straight there! Lead the way, Alexei Ivanovich!”
“Why, auntie, are you not even going to rest after the trip?” the general asked solicitously. He
seemed to be in a bit of a flutter, and they were all somehow perplexed and began exchanging glances. They probably found it slightly ticklish, even shameful, to accompany grandmother straight to the vauxhall, where she, of course, was capable of committing all sorts of eccentricities, but now in public. However, they themselves had all volunteered to accompany her.
“Why should I rest? I’m not tired; I’ve been sitting for five days as it is. And then we’ll go to look at what sort of springs and medicinal waters they’ve got and where they are. And then…what was it you said, Praskovya—a point, was it?”
“A point, grandmother.”
“Well, if it’s point, it’s point. And what else is there here?”
“There are lots of things, grandmother,” Polina hesitated.
“Eh, you don’t know yourself! Marfa, you’ll also come with me,” she said to her maid.
“Why should she go, auntie?” the general suddenly began bustling. “And, finally, it’s forbidden; it’s unlikely Potapych will be allowed in the vauxhall either.”
“Well, nonsense! Just because she’s a servant, I should abandon her! She’s also a human being; we’ve been riding the rails for a week now, she also wants to see things. Who will she go with, if not me? Alone she won’t dare peek outside.”
The Double and The Gambler Page 27
