"Stepan Trofimovitch and I... as soon as I came to Hatovo..." Sofya Matveyevna began almost breathlessly.
"Stay, hold your tongue, wait a bit! Why do you gabble like that?
To begin with, what sort of creature are you?"
Sofya Matveyevna told her after a fashion, giving a very brief account of herself, however, beginning with Sevastopol.
Varvara Petrovna listened in silence, sitting up erect in her chair, looking sternly straight into the speaker's eyes.
"Why are you so frightened?
Why do you look at the ground?
I like people who look me straight in the face and hold their own with me.
Go on."
She told of their meeting, of her books, of how Stepan Trofimovitch had regaled the peasant woman with vodka...
"That's right, that's right, don't leave out the slightest detail," Varvara Petrovna encouraged her.
At last she described how they had set off, and how Stepan Trofimovitch had gone on talking, "really ill by that time," and here had given an account of his life from the very beginning, talking for some hours.
"Tell me about his life."
Sofya Matveyevna suddenly stopped and was completely nonplussed.
"I can't tell you anything about that, madam," she brought out, almost crying; "besides, I could hardly understand a word of it."
"Nonsense! You must have understood something."
"He told a long time about a distinguished lady with black hair." Sofya Matveyevna flushed terribly though she noticed Varvara Petrovna's fair hair and her complete dissimilarity with the "brunette" of the story.
"Black-haired?
What exactly?
Come, speak!"
"How this grand lady was deeply in love with his honour all her life long and for twenty years, but never dared to speak, and was shamefaced before him because she was a very stout lady...."
"The fool!" Varvara Petrovna rapped out thoughtfully but resolutely.
Sofya Matveyevna was in tears by now.
"I don't know how to tell any of it properly, madam, because I was in a great fright over his honour; and I couldn't understand, as he is such an intellectual gentleman."
"It's not for a goose like you to judge of his intellect.
Did he offer you his hand?"
The speaker trembled.
"Did he fall in love with you?
Speak!
Did he offer you his hand?" Varvara Petrovna shouted peremptorily.
"That was pretty much how it was," she murmured tearfully.
"But I took it all to mean nothing, because of his illness," she added firmly, raising her eyes.
"What is your name?"
"Sofya Matveyevna, madam."
"Well, then, let me tell you, Sofya Matveyevna, that he is a wretched and worthless little man.... Good Lord!
Do you look upon me as a wicked woman?"
Sofya Matveyevna gazed open-eyed.
"A wicked woman, a tyrant?
Who has ruined his life?"
"How can that be when you are crying yourself, madam?"
Varvara Petrovna actually had tears in her eyes.
"Well, sit down, sit down, don't be frightened.
Look me straight in the face again. Why are you blushing?
Dasha, come here. Look at her. What do you think of her? Her heart is pure...."
And to the amazement and perhaps still greater alarm of Sofya Matveyevna, she suddenly patted her on the cheek.
"It's only a pity she is a fool.
Too great a fool for her age.
That's all right, my dear, I'll look after you.
I see that it's all nonsense.
Stay near here for the time. A room shall be taken for you and you shall have food and everything else from me... till I ask for you."