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... o a large extent, were incomprehensible to me,
considering her general pride and aloofness.
For example,
although she knew that I was madly in love with her, she allowed
me to speak to her of my harry potter prisoner azkaban passion (though she could not well have
showed her contempt for me more than by permitting me,
unhindered and unrebuked, to mention to her my love).
"You see," her attitude expressed, "how little I regard your
feelings, as well as how little I care for what you say to me,
or for what you feel for me." Likewise, though she spoke as
before concerning her affairs, it was never with complete
frankness.
In her contempt for me there were refinements.
Although she knew well that I was aware of a certain
circumstance in her life of something which might one day cause
her trouble, she would speak to me about her affairs (whenever
she had need of me for a given end) as though I were a slave or
a passing acquaintance--yet tell them me only in so far as one
would need to know them if one were going to be made temporary
use harry potter prisoner azkaban of. Had I not known the whole chain of events, or had she
not seen how much I was pained and disturbed by her teasing
insistency, she would never have thought it worthwhile to
soothe me with this frankness--even though, since she not
infrequently used me to execute commissions that were not only
troublesome, but risky, she ought, in my opinion, to have been
frank in ANY case. But, forsooth, it was not worth her while to
trouble about MY feelings--about the fact that I was uneasy, and,
perhaps, thrice as put about by her cares and misfortunes as she
was herself!
For three weeks I had known of her intention to take to
roulette. She had even warned me that she would like me to play
on her behalf, since it was unbecoming for her to play in
person; and, from the tone of her words I had gathered that there
was something on her mind besides a mere desire to win money. As
if money could matter to HER! No, she had some end in view, and
there were circumstances at which I could guess, but which I did
not know for certain. True, the slavery and abasement in which
she held me might have given me (such things often do so) the
power to question her with abrupt directness (seeing that,,
inasmuch as I figured in her eyes as a mere slave and nonentity,
she could not very well have taken offence at any rude
curiosity); but the fact was that, though she let me question
her, she never returned me a single answer, and at times did not
so much as notice me. That is how matters stood.
Next day there was a good deal of talk about a telegram which,
four days ago, had been sent to St. Petersburg, but to which
there had come no answer. The General was visibly disturbed and
moody, for the matter concerned his mother. The Frenchman, too,
was excited, and after dinner the whole party talked long and
seriously together--the Frenchman's tone being extraordinarily
presumptuous and offhand to everybody. It almost reminded one of
the proverb, "Invite a man to your table, and soon he will
place his feet upon it." harry potter prisoner azkaban Even to Polina he was brusque almost to
the point of rudeness. Yet still he seemed glad to join us in
our walks in the Casino, or in our rides and drives about the
town. I had long been aware of certain circumstances which bound
the General to him; I had long been aware that in Russia they
had hatched some scheme together although I did not know whether
the plot had come to anything, or whether it was still only in
the stage of being talked of.
Likewise I was aware, in part, of
a family secret--namely, that, last year, the Frenchman had
bailed the General out of debt, and given him 30,000 roubles
wherewith to pay his Treasury dues on retiring from the service.
And now, of course, the General was in a vice -- although the
chief part in the affair was being played by Mlle. Blanche. Yes,
of this last I had no doubt.
But WHO was this Mlle. Blanche? It was said of her that she was
a Frenchwoman of good birth who, living with her mother,
possessed a colossal fortune.
It was also said that she was some
relation to the Marquis, but only a distant one a cousin, or
cousin-german, or something of the sort.
Likewise I knew that,
up to the time of my journey to Paris, she and the Frenchman had
been more ceremonious towards our party--they had stood on a much
more precise and delicate footing with them; but that now their
acquaintanceship--their friendship, their intimacy--had taken on a
much more off-hand and rough-and-ready air. Perhaps they thought
that our means were too harry potter prisoner azkaban modest for them, and, therefore, unworthy
of politeness or reticence. Also, for the last th ... |
