I

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SHATOV WAS NOT PERVERSE but acted on my note, and called at midday on Lizaveta Nikolaevna. We went in almost together; I was also going to make my first call. They were all, that is Liza, her mother, and Mavriky Nikolaevitch, sitting in the big drawing-room, arguing. The mother was asking Liza to play some waltz on the piano, and as soon as Liza began to play the piece asked for, declared it was not the right one. Mavriky Nikolaevitch in the simplicity of his heart took Liza’s part, maintaining that it was the right waltz. The elder lady was so angry that she began to cry. She was ill and walked with difficulty. Her legs were swollen, and for the last few days she had been continually fractious, quarrelling with every one, though she always stood rather in awe of Liza. They were pleased to see us. Liza flushed with pleasure, and saying “merci” to me, on Shatov’s account of course, went to meet him, looking at him with interest.

Shatov stopped awkwardly in the doorway. Thanking him for coming she led him up to her mother.

“This is Mr. Shatov, of whom I have told you, and this is Mr. G——v, a great friend of mine and of Stepan Trofimovitch’s. Mavriky Nikolaevitch made his acquaintance yesterday, too.”

“And which is the professor?”

“There’s no professor at all, maman.”

“But there is. You said yourself that there’d be a professor. It’s this one, probably.” She disdainfully indicated Shatov.

“I didn’t tell you that there’d be a professor. Mr. G——v is in the service, and Mr. Shatov is a former student.”

“A student or professor, they all come from the university just the same. You only want to argue. But the Swiss one had moustaches and a beard.”

“It’s the son of Stepan Trofimovitch that maman always calls the professor,” said Liza, and she took Shatov away to the sofa at the other end of the drawing-room.

“When her legs swell, she’s always like this, you understand she’s ill,” she whispered to Shatov, still with the same marked curiosity, scrutinising him, especially his shock of hair.

“Are you an officer?” the old lady inquired of me. Liza had mercilessly abandoned me to her.

“N-no.—I’m in the service.…”

“Mr. G——v is a great friend of Stepan Trofimovitch’s,” Liza chimed in immediately.

“Are you in Stepan Trofimovitch’s service? Yes, and he’s a professor, too, isn’t he?”

“Ah, maman, you must dream at night of professors,” cried Liza with annoyance.

“I see too many when I’m awake. But you always will contradict your mother. Were you here four years ago when Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was in the neighbourhood?”

I answered that I was.

“And there was some Englishman with you?”

“No, there was not.”

Liza laughed.

“Well, you see there was no Englishman, so it must have been idle gossip. And Varvara Petrovna and Stepan Trofimovitch both tell lies. And they all tell lies.”

“Auntie and Stepan Trofimovitch yesterday thought there was a resemblance between Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch and Prince Harry in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, and in answer to that maman says that there was no Englishman here,” Liza explained to us.

“If Harry wasn’t here, there was no Englishman. It was no one else but Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch at his tricks.”

“I assure you that maman’s doing it on purpose,” Liza thought necessary to explain to Shatov. “She’s really heard of Shakespeare. I read her the first act of Othello myself. But she’s in great pain now. Maman, listen, it’s striking twelve, it’s time you took your medicine.”

“The doctor’s come,” a maid-servant announced at the door.

The old lady got up and began calling her dog: “Zemirka, Zemirka, you come with me at least.”

Zemirka, a horrid little old dog, instead of obeying, crept under the sofa where Liza was sitting.

“Don’t you want to? Then I don’t want you. Good-bye, my good sir, I don’t know your name or your father’s,” she said, addressing me.

“Anton Lavrentyevitch …”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, with me it goes in at one ear and out of the other. Don’t you come with me, Mavriky Nikolaevitch, it was Zemirka I called. Thank God I can still walk without help and to-morrow I shall go for a drive.”

She walked angrily out of the drawing-room.

“Anton Lavrentyevitch, will you talk meanwhile to Mavriky Nikolaevitch; I assure you you’ll both be gainers by getting to know one another better,” said Liza, and she gave a friendly smile to Mavriky Nikolaevitch, who beamed all over as she looked at him. There was no help for it, I remained to talk to Mavriky Nikolaevitch.

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1. Chapter 4. The Cripple
Part 1
Novel «The Possessed or, The Devils» by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

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