True, it was not the master who had snapped his fingers. But that he offered no obstacles was in itself sufficient grace.
Ulita celebrated her entry into the Golovliovo manor by taking the samovar from Yevpraksia's hands. Bending sidewise a bit, with the weight of it, she walked smartly into the dining-room, where Porfiry Vladimirych was already seated.
The master said not a word.
He even smiled, she thought, when upon another occasion, as she was bringing in the samovar, she shouted from a distance,
"Step to one side, master, or I'll scald you."
When Ulita answered the summons to the family council she made wry faces at first and refused to be seated.
But when Arina Petrovna shouted at her in a kindly way,
"Sit down,—will you? What's the use of your tricks?
God made us all equal—be seated." Ulita sat down and kept silence a while. Very shortly, however, her tongue unloosened.
She, too, had her reminiscences.
Her memory was stuffed with filth from the days of her serfdom.
Beside the carrying out of delicate commissions like dogging the amorous doings of the maids' room, Ulita had also held the office of leech and apothecary in the Golovliovo manor.
It was she who made all the injections, and applied the cupping-glasses and mustard plasters.
She had given even the old master, Vladimir Mikhailych and Arina Petrovna injections, and the young master, too—every one of them.
She retained the most grateful memories, and now there was a boundless field for all her reminiscences.
A new mysterious life animated the Golovliovo manor.
Arina Petrovna would come over from Pogorelka every now and then to pay her "good son" a visit and supervise preparations that as yet were given no name.
After the evening, the three women would go into Yevpraksia's room, would eat some homemade jam, play fool, and, till late into the night, would revel in reminiscences that would often make the heroine of the occasion blush.
The least incident, the smallest trifle, served as a pretext for endless narrations.
Yevpraksia brought some raspberry jam, and Arina Petrovna began a story that when she was carrying her daughter Sonya she could not stand even the smell of raspberries.
"No sooner did a raspberry come into the house than I began to yell at the top of my voice, 'Out, out with that damned thing!'
After my confinement it was all right again; I liked raspberries again."
Yevpraksia brought some caviar—and Arina Petrovna had an incident to recall in connection with caviar, too.
"A really wonderful thing happened to me in connection with caviar.
It was a month or two after I was married and suddenly I was seized with such a strong desire for caviar that I simply had to have it at any cost.
I would sneak into the cellar and eat as much as I could.
And once I said to my husband, 'Vladimir Mikhailych, why is it that I eat caviar all the time?'
He smiled at me, you know, and said,
'My dear, it is because you are pregnant.'
And surely enough, just nine months afterward I gave birth to Simple Simon."
But Porfiry Vladimirych continued to be noncommittal, never once admitting that he had anything to do with Yevpraksia's condition.
Quite naturally this attitude of his embarrassed the women and dampened their effusions in his presence, so that he came to be completely abandoned. They chased him without ceremony from Yevpraksia's room when he came in the evening to rest up and have a chat.
"Be gone, you fine fellow!" Arina Petrovna said gaily. "You did your part. Now it's none of your business any more, it's the women's business.
It's our turn now."
Yudushka took himself off in all meekness. Though not neglecting to reproach his mother dear for being unkind to him, he rejoiced inwardly that she was taking so much interest in the embarrassing affair, and that he was left alone.
If not for his mother's participation, God knows what he would have had to undergo in order to hush up the nasty affair, the very thought of which made him spit out in disgust.
Now, thanks to the experience of Arina Petrovna and the skill of Ulita, he hoped the "trouble" would pass without gaining publicity, and he himself, perhaps, would learn of the results after all was over.
_____ CHAPTER II
Porfiry Vladimirych's hopes were not realized.
First occurred the catastrophe with Petenka, then Arina Petrovna's death.
And there was no possibility in sight of his extricating himself by means of some ugly machinations.
He could not dismiss Yevpraksia for dissolute conduct, because Arina Petrovna had carried the affair too far and made it too widely known.
Nor was Ulita so very reliable. Dexterous woman though she was, yet if he put his trust in her, he might have to deal with the coroner.
For the first time in his life Yudushka seriously and sincerely regretted his loneliness; for the first time he realized vaguely that the people around him were not mere pawns to be played with.
"Why didn't she wait a while to die?" Yudushka reproached his mother dear. "She should have fixed it all up quietly and with good sense, and then—as she pleased!
If it's time to die—you can't help it. I am sorry for the old woman. But if God wills it so, all our tears, and the doctors, and the cures, and all of us are naught before the power of God.
The old woman lived long enough.
She had her day—was herself a mistress all her life, and left her children a gentry estate.
She lived to old age—well that's enough."
And as usual his idle mind, not used to dwell on a matter presenting practical obstacles, skipped to the easier topic that gave occasion to endless, unhampered verbiage.