"Auntie, surely you're not angry?" she faltered with a sort of flippant playfulness.
"Wh-a-a-t?" Varvara Petrovna started, and drew herself up in her chair.
"I'm not your aunt.
What are you thinking of?"
Marya Timofyevna, not expecting such an angry outburst, began trembling all over in little convulsive shudders, as though she were in a fit, and sank back in her chair.
"I... I... thought that was the proper way," she faltered, gazing open-eyed at Varvara Petrovna. "Liza called you that."
"What Liza?"
"Why, this young lady here," said Marya Timofyevna, pointing with her finger.
"So she's Liza already?"
"You called her that yourself just now," said Marya Timofyevna growing a little bolder.
"And I dreamed of a beauty like that," she added, laughing, as it were accidentally.
Varvara Petrovna reflected, and grew calmer, she even smiled faintly at Marya Timofyevna's last words; the latter, catching her smile, got up from her chair, and limping, went timidly towards her.
"Take it. I forgot to give it back. Don't be angry with my rudeness." She took from her shoulders the black shawl that Varvara Petrovna had wrapped round her.
"Put it on again at once, and you can keep it always.
Go and sit down, drink your coffee, and please don't be afraid of me, my dear, don't worry yourself.
I am beginning to understand you."
"Chere amie..." Stepan Trofimovitch ventured again.
"Ach, Stepan Trofimovitch, it's bewildering enough without you. You might at least spare me.... Please ring that bell there, near you, to the maid's room."
A silence followed.
Her eyes strayed irritably and suspiciously over all our faces.
Agasha, her favourite maid, came in.
"Bring me my check shawl, the one I bought in Geneva.
What's Darya Pavlovna doing?"
"She's not very well, madam."
"Go and ask her to come here.
Say that I want her particularly, even if she's not well."
At that instant there was again, as before, an unusual noise of steps and voices in the next room, and suddenly Praskovya Ivanovna, panting and "distracted," appeared in the doorway.
She was leaning on the arm of Mavriky Nikolaevitch.
"Ach, heavens, I could scarcely drag myself here. Liza, you mad girl, how you treat your mother!" she squeaked, concentrating in that squeak, as weak and irritable people are wont to do, all her accumulated irritability.
"Varvara Petrovna, I've come for my daughter!"
Varvara Petrovna looked at her from under her brows, half rose to meet her, and scarcely concealing her vexation brought out:
"Good morning, Praskovya Ivanovna, please be seated, I knew you would come!"
II
There could be nothing surprising to Praskovya Ivanovna in such a reception.
Varvara Petrovna had from childhood upwards treated her old school friend tyrannically, and under a show of friendship almost contemptuously.
And this was an exceptional occasion too.
During the last few days there had almost been a complete rupture between the two households, as I have mentioned incidentally already.
The reason of this rupture was still a mystery to Varvara Petrovna, which made it all the more offensive; but the chief cause of offence was that Praskovya Ivanovna had succeeded in taking up an extraordinarily supercilious attitude towards Varvara Petrovna.
Varvara Petrovna was wounded of course, and meanwhile some strange rumours had reached her which also irritated her extremely, especially by their vagueness.
Varvara Petrovna was of a direct and proudly frank character, somewhat slap-dash in her methods, indeed, if the expression is permissible.
There was nothing she detested so much as secret and mysterious insinuations, she always preferred war in the open.
Anyway, the two ladies had not met for five days.
The last visit had been paid by Varvara Petrovna, who had come back from "that Drozdov woman" offended and perplexed.
I can say with certainty that Praskovya Ivanovna had come on this occasion with the naive conviction that Varvara Petrovna would, for some reason, be sure to stand in awe of her. This was evident from the very expression of her face.
Evidently too, Varvara Petrovna was always possessed by a demon of haughty pride whenever she had the least ground for suspecting that she was for some reason supposed to be humiliated.
Like many weak people, who for a long time allow themselves to be insulted without resenting it, Praskovya Ivanovna showed an extraordinary violence in her attack at the first favourable opportunity.
It is true that she was not well, and always became more irritable in illness.
I must add finally, that our presence in the drawing-room could hardly be much check to the two ladies who had been friends from childhood, if a quarrel had broken out between them. We were looked upon as friends of the family, and almost as their subjects.
I made that reflection with some alarm at the time.
Stepan Trofimovitch, who had not sat down since the entrance of Varvara Petrovna, sank helplessly into an arm-chair on hearing Praskovya Ivanovna's squeal, and tried to catch my eye with a look of despair.