She told me the father was a broken-down retired official, who has been sitting in a chair for the last three years with his legs paralysed.
The mamma, she said, was a sensible woman.
There is a son serving in the provinces, but he doesn't help; there is a daughter, who is married, but she doesn't visit them. And they've two little nephews on their hands, as though their own children were not enough, and they've taken from school their youngest daughter, a girl who'll be sixteen in another month, so that then she can be married.
She was for me.
We went there. How funny it was! I present myself--a landowner, a widower, of a well-known name, with connections, with a fortune. What if I am fifty and she is not sixteen?
Who thinks of that?
But it's fascinating, isn't it?
It is fascinating, ha-ha!
You should have seen how I talked to the papa and mamma.
It was worth paying to have seen me at that moment.
She comes in, curtseys, you can fancy, still in a short frock--an unopened bud! Flushing like a sunset--she had been told, no doubt.
I don't know how you feel about female faces, but to my mind these sixteen years, these childish eyes, shyness and tears of bashfulness are better than beauty; and she is a perfect little picture, too.
Fair hair in little curls, like a lamb's, full little rosy lips, tiny feet, a charmer!...
Well, we made friends. I told them I was in a hurry owing to domestic circumstances, and the next day, that is the day before yesterday, we were betrothed.
When I go now I take her on my knee at once and keep her there....
Well, she flushes like a sunset and I kiss her every minute. Her mamma of course impresses on her that this is her husband and that this must be so. It's simply delicious!
The present betrothed condition is perhaps better than marriage.
Here you have what is called _la nature et la verite_, ha-ha!
I've talked to her twice, she is far from a fool. Sometimes she steals a look at me that positively scorches me.
Her face is like Raphael's Madonna.
You know, the Sistine Madonna's face has something fantastic in it, the face of mournful religious ecstasy.
Haven't you noticed it?
Well, she's something in that line. The day after we'd been betrothed, I bought her presents to the value of fifteen hundred roubles--a set of diamonds and another of pearls and a silver dressing-case as large as this, with all sorts of things in it, so that even my Madonna's face glowed.
I sat her on my knee, yesterday, and I suppose rather too unceremoniously--she flushed crimson and the tears started, but she didn't want to show it.
We were left alone, she suddenly flung herself on my neck (for the first time of her own accord), put her little arms round me, kissed me, and vowed that she would be an obedient, faithful, and good wife, would make me happy, would devote all her life, every minute of her life, would sacrifice everything, everything, and that all she asks in return is my _respect_, and that she wants 'nothing, nothing more from me, no presents.'
You'll admit that to hear such a confession, alone, from an angel of sixteen in a muslin frock, with little curls, with a flush of maiden shyness in her cheeks and tears of enthusiasm in her eyes is rather fascinating!
Isn't it fascinating?
It's worth paying for, isn't it?
Well... listen, we'll go to see my betrothed, only not just now!"
"The fact is this monstrous difference in age and development excites your sensuality!
Will you really make such a marriage?"
"Why, of course.
Everyone thinks of himself, and he lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself.
Ha-ha!
But why are you so keen about virtue?
Have mercy on me, my good friend. I am a sinful man.
Ha-ha-ha!"
"But you have provided for the children of Katerina Ivanovna.
Though... though you had your own reasons.... I understand it all now."
"I am always fond of children, very fond of them," laughed Svidrigailov.
"I can tell you one curious instance of it.
The first day I came here I visited various haunts, after seven years I simply rushed at them.
You probably notice that I am not in a hurry to renew acquaintance with my old friends.
I shall do without them as long as I can.
Do you know, when I was with Marfa Petrovna in the country, I was haunted by the thought of these places where anyone who knows his way about can find a great deal.
Yes, upon my soul!
The peasants have vodka, the educated young people, shut out from activity, waste themselves in impossible dreams and visions and are crippled by theories; Jews have sprung up and are amassing money, and all the rest give themselves up to debauchery.
From the first hour the town reeked of its familiar odours.
I chanced to be in a frightful den--I like my dens dirty--it was a dance, so called, and there was a _cancan_ such as I never saw in my day.
Yes, there you have progress.