Her old woman's memory faithfully guarded these remarkably distinct recollections.
In all her drab past—always devoted to hoarding on both a petty and a large scale, the tracking of lust-stricken domestics was the only romantic element that touched a living chord in her.
It was as if in a dull magazine where the reader expects to find treatises on dry fogs and Ovid's grave, he suddenly comes upon "See the troika, gaily dashing," or some such spirited song of gaiety or sadness. The denouement of these simple love affairs of the maids' room was generally drastic and even cruel. The woman was married off into a remote village, by all means to a widower with a large family, the male culprit was degraded to the position of a cattle tender or even pressed into military service. Arina Petrovna's recollection of the closing chapters of such romances had faded (cultured people have a memory indulgent of their own past), but the spying out of the amorous intrigues passed before her eyes in all its vividness.
And no wonder. In those days there was the same absorbing interest in spying of that sort as there is nowadays in the serial "evening story," in which the author, instead of at once crowning the mutual longing of the hero and the heroine, breaks off at the most pathetic place and writes, "to be continued."
"Those girls gave me no end of trouble.
Some would keep up the pretense to the last minute, and would feign and sham in the hope of eluding me.
But no, my dear, you can't fool me. I am an old hand at it myself," she added almost sternly, as if threatening some one.
Finally came the stories of diplomatic pregnancies, so to speak, in which Arina Petrovna had figured not as the chastiser, but as the accomplice and concealer.
For example, her father Piotr Ivanych, when he was an old, tottering man of seventy, had also had a "mistress," who had also been discovered with an "increment"; and for higher considerations it had been necessary to conceal the "increment" from the old man.
As ill luck would have it, Arina Petrovna was then at odds with her brother Piotr Petrovich who, also for some diplomatic reasons, had wanted to spy upon the pregnancy and leave his father in no doubt as to his lady-love's position.
"And what do you think? We carried the whole thing through almost in front of father's nose.
The old dear slept in his bedroom, and the two of us, alongside of him, went on with our work, quietly, in a whisper and on tiptoe.
I myself with my own hands closed up her mouth, so she could not scream, disposed of the linen, and then grabbed hold of her baby—he was a fine, big fellow—and dispatched him to the foundling asylum.
When brother learned about it a week later he only gasped."
There had been another diplomatic pregnancy. Her cousin Varvara Mikhailovna had been involved in the case.
Her husband had left on a campaign against the Turks, and she had not been sufficiently careful.
She came galloping to Golovliovo like one possessed and had shouted "Save me, cousin!"
"Well, though we were on the outs with her at that time, I did not make her feel it. I welcomed her in the most hospitable way, calmed her, reassured her, pretended she had just come to us on a visit, and fixed the matter up so that her husband did not know a thing about it till his dying day."
Thus ran the tales of Arina Petrovna, and seldom has a narrator found more attentive listeners.
Yevpraksia swallowed every word as if the incidents of a wonderful fairy tale were actually passing before her eyes. As to Ulita, she as an erstwhile participant in most of it, only made smacking sounds with the corners of her lips.
Ulita also brightened up and felt more comfortable than she had for a long time.
Hers was a restless life.
Even in childhood she had burned with servile ambitions. Sleeping and waking, she would dream about gaining favor in her master's eyes and getting the whiphand over those in her own station in life.
But her dreams never came true. As soon as she set foot on the rung higher up, she would be tugged back and plunged into the inferno by an unseen, mysterious power.
She possessed in perfection the qualities of an all-round servant of the gentlefolk. She was venomous, evil-tongued and always ready for treachery, but also slavishly ready to go anywhere and do anything that neutralized her viciousness.
In former days, when it was necessary to follow up an event in the maid servants' room, or settle any dubious affair, Arina Petrovna had gladly made use of her services, though she had never appreciated them and had not admitted her to any office of trust.
Ulita would then make loud complaints, and sting with her tongue, but no one paid attention to her grumblings, for she was well known as a malevolent woman, ready to curse herself and others to eternal damnation, but the next moment at a mere wink willing to come running and sit up on her hind legs prepared to do her master's bidding.
And so she had been knocked about, always trying to get somewhere and never getting there, till the abolition of serfdom put an end to her slavish ambitions.
One event in Ulita's youth had kindled in her great hopes.
Porfiry Vladimirych, on one of his visits to Golovliovo, had become intimate with her, and, as tradition had it, had even had a child by her. That had brought down upon him the wrath of Arina Petrovna.
It is uncertain whether the relationship had been kept up on his subsequent visits; at any rate, when Yudushka decided to establish himself permanently at Golovliovo, Ulita's hopes had been shattered grievously.
Immediately after his arrival she came to him with a heap of gossip, in which Arina Petrovna was accused of all sorts of fraud. The master listened very affably to her gossip, but gave Ulita a cold look, evidently failing to remember her former "good services."
Offended and deceived in her hopes, Ulita transferred herself to Dubrovino, where Pavel Vladimirych, because of his hatred for his dear brother Porfiry Vladimirych, received her gladly and even made her his housekeeper.
Here for a long time her condition seemed to improve.
Pavel Vladimirych would sit in the entresol and sip one glass of vodka after another, and she would run busily from storeroom to cellar, clanging a bunch of keys, and rattling her tongue. She had even quarrelled with Arina Petrovna, whom the sly wench nearly drove to her grave.
But Ulita loved treachery too well to be content with the peace and quiet that had come with her "good living."
That was when Pavel Vladimirych had become so addicted to drink that his end could readily be foreseen.
Porfiry Vladimirych was alive to Ulita's priceless value at this juncture, and he snapped his fingers again and summoned her.
He ordered her never for a moment to leave his prey, not to contradict Pavel in anything, not even in his hatred of his brother Porfiry, and by all means to eliminate the interference of Arina Petrovna.
This had been one of those domestic crimes which Yudushka had a gift of perpetrating without previous deliberation, spontaneously, and as a matter of course.
Needless to say, Ulita carried out his orders most faithfully.
Pavel Vladimirych never ceased to hate his brother, and the more he hated him, the more he drank his vodka, and the less capable he became of heeding the remarks and advice of Arina Petrovna as to "making provisions."
Every moment of the dying man, every word uttered were at once reported to Golovliovo, so that Yudushka, equipped with a full knowledge of the facts, could determine the exact moment he should have to leave his ambush and step in as master of the situation that he had created.
And so he had! He had come to Dubrovino at the very moment that he could get the estate for the asking.
Porfiry Vladimirych had rewarded Ulita's services by making her a gift of cloth for a woolen dress, but he never admitted her close to him.
Again Ulita had been plunged from the heights of grandeur into the depths of inferno. It seemed to be her last fall. No one would snap his fingers again and summon her for service.
As a sign of special favor and in consideration of her "nursing dear brother in his last days," she had been allotted a nook in the house where all the deserving old servants, who had remained after the abolition of serfdom, had found shelter.
Here Ulita had become completely cowed, and when Porfiry Vladimirych made his choice of Yevpraksia, she not only had not shown any obstinacy, but had even been first to come to do homage to the master's love and had kissed her shoulder.
And now, when she had given herself up as forgotten and abandoned, she struck luck once more in Yevpraksia's pregnancy.
It was suddenly recalled that somewhere in the servants' room there was a handy person. Somebody snapped her fingers and summoned Ulita.