For Christ's sake, let me go in peace.
The coach is ready, I hear."
The sound of tinkling bells and an approaching vehicle came from the courtyard.
Arina Petrovna was the first to arise from the table. The others followed.
"Now let us sit down for a moment, and then we're off," she said, going towards the parlor.
They sat a while in silence. By that time Yudushka had entirely recovered his presence of mind.
"After all, why shouldn't you live at Dubrovino, mother dear? Just see how nice it is here," he said, looking into his mother's eyes with the caressing expression of a guilty cur.
"No, my friend, that's enough. I don't want to leave you with unpleasant words, but I can't stay here.
What for?
Father, let us pray."
Everybody rose in prayer, then Arina Petrovna kissed everybody good-by, blessed them all, and with a heavy step went toward the door.
Porfiry Vladimirych, at the head of the company of relatives, went with her to the porch. There on seeing the coach, he was struck by a devilish idea.
"Why, the coach belongs to my brother," was the thought that flashed through his mind.
"So we'll see each other, mother dear?" he said, helping his mother in and casting side glances at the coach.
"If it's the Lord's will—and why shouldn't we see each other?"
"Ah, mother, dear mother, that was a good joke, really!
You had better leave the coach—and, with God's help, in your old nest—indeed," urged Yudushka in a wheedling tone.
Arina Petrovna made no answer. She had already seated herself and made the sign of the cross, but the orphans seemed to hesitate.
Yudushka, all the while, kept throwing glance after glance at the coach.
"How about the coach, mother dear? Will you send it back yourself or shall I send for it?" he blurted out, unable to retain himself longer.
Arina Petrovna shook with indignation.
"The coach is—mine!" she cried in a voice so full of pain that everyone felt embarrassed and ashamed.
"It's mine! Mine! My coach!
I—I have testimony—witnesses.
And you—may you——No, I'll wait——We shall see what becomes of you.
Children, are you ready?"
"For mercy's sake, mother dear! I have no grievance against you. Even if the coach belonged to this estate——"
"It is my coach—mine!
It does not belong to Dubrovino, it belongs to me! Don't you dare to say it—do you hear me?"
"Yes, mother dear. Don't forget us, dear heart. Simply, you know, without ceremony.
We will come to you, you will come to us, as becomes good kinsfolk."
"Are you seated, children? Coachman, go on!" cried Arina Petrovna, hardly able to restrain herself.
The coach quivered and rolled off quickly down the road.
Yudushka stood on the porch waving his handkerchief and calling until the coach had entirely disappeared from view:
"As becomes good kinsfolk!
We will come to you, and you to us—as becomes good kinsfolk!"
_____ BOOK III FAMILY ACCOUNTS SETTLED _____ CHAPTER I
It had never occurred to Arina Petrovna that there might come a time when she would become "one mouth too many." Now that moment had stolen upon her just when for the first time in her life her physical and moral strength was undermined.
Such moments always arrive suddenly. Though one may long have been on the verge of breaking down, one may still hold out and stave off the end, till suddenly the last blow strikes from a quarter least expected.
To be aware of its approach and dodge it, is difficult. One has to resign oneself without complaint, for it is the very blow that in an instant shatters one who till recently has been hale and healthy.
When Arina Petrovna took up her abode in Dubrovino, after having broken with Yudushka, she had labored under great difficulties. But then, at least, she had known that Pavel Vladimirych, though looking askance at her intrusion, was still a well-to-do man to whom another morsel meant little.
Now things were very different. She stood at the head of a household that counted every crumb.
And she knew the value of crumbs, having spent all her life in the country in constant intercourse with peasants and having assimilated the peasant's notions of the harm a "superfluous mouth" does to a house in which stores are already scanty.
Nevertheless, in the first days after the removal to Pogorelka, she still maintained her usual attitude, busied herself with putting things in shape in the new place, and exercised her former clarity of judgment in household management.
But the affairs of the estate were troublesome and petty, and demanded her constant personal supervision; and though on first thought she did not see much sense in keeping accurate accounts in a place where farthings are put together to make up kopek pieces and these in turn to make ten-kopek pieces, she was soon forced to admit that she had been wrong in this.
To be sure, there really was no sense in keeping careful accounts; but the point was, she no longer possessed her former industry and strength.
Then, too, it was autumn, the busiest time of reckoning up accounts and taking inventories, and the incessant bad weather imposed inevitable limits to Arina Petrovna's energy.
Ailments of old age came upon her and prevented her from leaving the house. The long dreary fall evenings set in and doomed her to enforced idleness.
The old woman was all upset and exerted herself to the utmost, but succeeded in accomplishing nothing.
Another thing. She could not help noticing that something queer was coming over the orphans.