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... dropping, stared hard at the old lady--his eyes almost starting
out of his head, and his expression as spellbound as though he
had just seen a basilisk.
In return, the Grandmother stared at
him silently and without moving--though with a look of mingled
challenge, triumph, and ridicule in her eyes.
For ten seconds
did the pair remain thus eyeing one another, amid the profound
silence of the company; and even De Griers sat petrified--an
extraordinary look of uneasiness dawning on his face. As satelite receiver for
Mlle. Blanche, she too stared wildly at the Grandmother, with
eyebrows raised and her lips parted-- while the Prince and the
German savant contemplated the tableau in profound amazement.
Only Polina looked anything but perplexed or surprised.
Presently, however, she too turned as white as a sheet, and then
reddened to her temples. Truly the Grandmother's arrival seemed
to be a catastrophe for everybody! For my own part, I stood
looking from the Grandmother to the company, and back again,
while Mr. Astley, as usual, remained in the background, and
gazed calmly and decorously at the scene.
"Well, here I am--and instead of a telegram, too!" the
Grandmother at last ejaculated, to dissipate the silence.
"What? You were not expecting me?"
"Antonida Vassilievna! O my dearest mother! But how on earth
did you, did you--?" The mutterings of the unhappy General died
away.
I verily believe that if the Grandmother had held her tongue a
few seconds longer she would have had a stroke.
"How on earth did I WHAT?" she exclaimed. "Why, I just got
into the train and came here. What else is the railway meant
for? But you thought that I had turned up my toes and left my
property to the lot of you. Oh, I know ALL about the telegrams
which you have been dispatching. They must have cost you a
pretty sum, I should think, for telegrams are not sent from
abroad for nothing. Well, I picked up my heels, and came here.
Who is this Frenchman? Monsieur de Griers, I suppose?"
"Oui, madame," assented De Griers. "Et, croyez, je suis si
enchante! Votre sante--c'est un miracle vous voir ici. Une
surprise satelite receiver charmante!"
"Just so. 'Charmante!' I happen to know you as a mountebank,
and therefore trust you no more than THIS." She indicated her
little finger. "And who is THAT?" she went on, turning towards
Mlle. Blanche. Evidently the Frenchwoman looked so becoming in
her riding-habit, with her whip in her hand, that she had made
an impression upon the old lady. "Who is that woman there?"
"Mlle. de Cominges," I said. "And this is her mother, Madame de
Cominges.
They also are staying in the hotel."
"Is the daughter married?" asked the old lady, without the
least semblance of ceremony.
"No," I replied as satelite receiver respectfully as possible, but under my
breath.
"Is she good company?"
I failed to understand the question.
"I mean, is she or is she not a bore? Can she speak Russian?
When this De Griers was in Moscow he soon learnt to make himself
understood."
I explained to the old lady that Mlle. Blanche had never visited
Russia.
"Bonjour, then," said Madame, with satelite receiver sudden brusquerie.
"Bonjour, madame," replied Mlle. Blanche with an elegant,
ceremonious bow as, under cover of an unwonted modesty, she
endeavoured to express, both in face and figure, her extreme
surprise at such strange behaviour on the part of the
Grandmother.
"How the woman sticks out her eyes at me! How she mows and
minces!" was the Grandmother's comment. Then she turned
suddenly to the General, and continued: "I have taken up my
abode here, so am going to be your next-door neighbour. Are you
glad to hear that, or are you not?"
"My dear mother, believe me when I say that I am. sincerely
delighted," returned the General, who had now, to a certain
extent, recovered his senses; and inasmuch as, when occasion
arose, he could speak with fluency, gravity, and a certain
effect, he set himself to be expansive in his remarks, and went
on: "We have been so dismayed and upset by the news of your
indisposition! We had received such hopeless telegrams about
you! Then suddenly--"
"Fibs, fibs!" interrupted the Grandmother.
"How on earth, too, did you come to decide upon the journey?"
continued the General, with raised voice as he hurried to
overlook the old lady's last remark. "Surely, at your age, and
in your present state of health, the thing is so unexpected that
our surprise is at least intelligible. However, I am glad to see
you (as indeed, are we all"--he said this with a dignified, yet
conciliatory, smile), "and will use my best endeavours to
render your stay here as pleasant as possible."
"Enough! All this is empty chatter. You are talking the usual
nonsense. I shall know quite well how to spend my time. How did
I come to undertake the journey, you ask? Well, is there
anything so very surprising about it? It was done quite simply.
What is every one going into ecstasies about?--How do you do,
Prascovia? What are YOU doing here?"
"And how are YOU, Grandmother?" replied Polina, as she
approached the old lady. "Were you long on the journey?".
"The most sensible question that I have yet been asked! Well,
you shall hear for yourself how it all happened. I lay and lay,
and was doctored and doctored,; until at last I drove the
physicians from me, and called in an apothecary from Nicolai who
had cured an old woman of a malady similar to my own--cured her
merely with a little hayseed. Well, he did me a great deal of
good, for on the third day I broke into a sweat, and was able to
leave my bed. Then my German doctors held another consultation,
put on their spectacles, and told me that if I would go abroad,
and take a course of the waters, the indisposition would finally
pass away. 'Why should it not?' I thought to myself. So I had
got things ready, and on the following day, a Friday, set out for
here. I occupied a special compartment in the train, and where
ever I had to change I found at the station bearers who were
ready to carry me for a few satelite receiver coppers. You have nice quarters
here," she went on as she glanced around the room. " But where
on earth did you satelite receiver get the money for them, my good sir? I thought
that everything of yours had been mortgaged? This Frenchman
alone must be your creditor for a good deal. Oh, I know all
about it, all about it."
"I-I am surprised at you, my dearest mother," said the General
in some confusion. satelite receiver "I-I am greatly surprised. But I do not
need any extraneous control of my finances.
Moreover, my
expenses do not exceed my income, and we--"
"They do not exceed it? Fie! Why, you are robbing your children
of their last kopeck--you, their guardian!"
"After this," said the General, completely taken aback,
"--after what you have just said, I do not know whether--"
"You do not know what? By heavens, are you never going to drop
that roulette of yours? Are you going to whistle all your
property away?"
This made such an impression upon the General that he almost
choked with fury.
"Roulette, indeed? I play roulette? Really, in view of my
position-- Recollect what you are saying, my dearest mother. You
must still be unwell."
"Rubbish, rubbish!" she retorted. "The truth is that you
CANNOT be got away from that roulette. You are simply telling
lies. This very day I mean to go and see for myself what
roulette is like. Prascovia, tell me what there is to be seen
here; and do you, Alexis Ivanovitch, show me everything; and do
you, Potapitch, make me a list of excursions. What IS there to be
seen?" again she inquired of Polina.
"There is a ruined castle, and the Shlangenberg."
"The Shlangenberg? What is it? A forest?"
"No, a mountain on the summit of which there is a place fenced
off. From it you can get a most beautiful view."
"Could a chair be carried up that mountain of yours?"
"Doubtless we could find bearers for the purpose," I interposed.
At this moment Theodosia, the nursemaid, approached the old lady
with the General's children.
"No, I DON'T want to see them," said the Grandmother. "I hate
kissing children, for their noses are always ... |
