And as to the causes for alarm, they multiplied daily. The death of Arina Petrovna had untied Yudushka's hands and introduced into the Golovliovo manor a new element of tale-bearing, which thereafter became the one thing in which Yudushka's soul reveled.
Ulita was aware that Porfiry Vladimirych was afraid and that with his idle, empty, perfidious character fear bordered on hatred.
Besides, she knew very well that he was incapable not only of attachment but even of simple pity, and he kept Yevpraksia only because, thanks to her, his daily life flowed on in an undeviating rut.
Equipped with these simple data, Ulita was in a position to nurse the feeling of hatred that arose in Yudushka whenever he was reminded of the coming "disaster."
Soon Yevpraksia became entangled in a web of gossip.
Ulita every now and then "reported" to the master.
In one instance she complained about the wasteful disposal of house provisions.
"I am afraid, master, your stuff is spent a bit too fast.
I went to the cellar a while ago to get cured beef. I remembered a new tub had been begun not long ago, and—would you believe it? I look into the tub and find only two or three slices at the bottom."
"Is it possible?" said Porfiry Vladimirych, staring at her.
"If I had not seen it myself, I shouldn't have believed it, either.
It's surprising what heaps of stuff are used up!
Butter, barley, pickles—everything.
Other folk feed their servants on gruel and goose-fat, but our servants must have it with butter, and sweet butter at that."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Porfiry Vladimirych, almost frightened.
At another time she entered casually and "reported" about the master's linen.
"Master, I think you ought to stop Yevpraksia, really.
Of course, she is a girl, inexperienced, but still, take the linen for instance. She wasted piles of it on bed sheets and swaddling clothes, and it's all fine linen, you know."
Porfiry Vladimirych merely cast a fiery glance, but the whole of his empty being was thrown into convulsions by her "report."
"Of course, she cares for her infant," continued Ulita, in a mellifluous voice. "She thinks Lord knows what, a prince is going to be born.
And I think that he, I mean the infant, could well sleep on fustian bedding—with such a mother."
At times she simply teased Yudushka.
"Do you know, master, what I was going to ask you?" she began. "What are you going to do about the infant? Are you going to make him your son, or will you, like other folk, put him in the foundling asylum."
At this Porfiry Vladimirych flashed such a fierce glance at her that she was instantly silenced.
And amidst the hatred that was rising from every corner, the moment drew nearer and nearer when the appearance of a tiny, crying, "servant of God" would in one way or another bring order into the moral chaos of the Golovliovo manor, and would increase the number of the "servants of God" that inhabit this universe.
It was seven o'clock in the evening.
Porfiry Vladimirych had had his after-dinner nap and was in his study filling up sheets of paper with columns of figures.
He was busy with the following problem: How much money would he now have had, if his dear mother Arina Petrovna had not appropriated the hundred ruble note his grandfather had given him on the day of his birth, but had placed it in the bank to the credit of the minor Porfiry?
It came out not much—only eight hundred rubles in notes.
"It isn't a lot of money, let's say," Yudushka mused idly, "but still it's good to know that you have it for a rainy day.
Any time you need it—you can just go and get it.
You don't have to bow to anybody, or ask favors—just take your own money, given to you by your grandfather.
Oh, mother dear! How could you have acted so rashly?"
Porfiry Vladimirych had allayed the fears that had only recently paralyzed his capacity for thinking idle nonsense.
The glimmerings of conscience awakened by the difficult position in which Yevpraksia's pregnancy put him, and by the sudden death of Arina Petrovna, little by little faded away.
His idle mind had done its work, and Yudushka had finally succeeded by great effort, it is true, in drowning all thought of the impending "disaster" in his bottomless pit of verbiage.
One could not say he had made up his mind consciously, but rather intuitively. It was instinct in him that made him revert to his favorite formula:
"I don't know anything, I allow nothing, I forbid everything," which he applied in every difficulty. On this occasion, too, it put an end to the inner turbulence that had briefly agitated him.
Now, this matter of the coming birth was of no concern to him, and his face assumed an indifferent, impenetrable look.
He almost ignored Yevpraksia, not even calling her by name. If ever he did inquire about her he would say,
"How about that woman—still sick?"
He proved to be so strong that eyen Ulita, who had been through the school of serfdom and had learned quite a lot about reading people's minds, realized that to battle with a man who had no scruples and who would go to any lengths was quite impossible.
The Golovliovo manor was plunged in darkness. Only Yudushka's study and the side room occupied by Yevpraksia were illuminated by a glimmering light.
Stillness reigned in Yudushka's rooms, broken only by the rattle of the beads on the counting board and the faint squeak of Yudushka's pencil.
Suddenly, in the dead stillness he heard a distant but piercing groan.
Yudushka trembled, his lips quivered, his pencil jerked.
"One hundred and twenty rubles plus twelve rubles and ten kopeks," whispered Porfiry Vladimirych, endeavoring to stifle the unpleasant sensation produced by the groan.
But the groans were now coming with increasing frequency.
Finally they got to be annoying. It became so difficult for him to work that he left the desk.
First he paced back and forth trying not to hear; but little by little curiosity gained the upper hand.