Part 64

he said with a frown. Suddenly he burst out laughing, but so good-naturedly that no one was in the least offended, on the contrary, they all began to feel merry too. Only Nejdanov rose suddenly.

“I must go now,” he said; “this is all very nice, but rather like a farce. Don’t be uneasy,” he added, turning to Solomin. “I shall not interfere with your people. I’ll try my tongue on the folk around about and will tell you all about it when I come back, Mariana, if there is anything to tell. Wish me luck!”

“Why not have a cup of tea first?” Tatiana remarked.

“No thanks. If I want any I can go into an eating-house or into a public house.”

Tatiana shook her head.

“Goodbye, goodbye... good luck to you!” Nejdanov added, entering upon his role of small shopkeeper. But before he had reached the door Pavel thrust his head in from the passage under his very nose, and handing him a thin, long staff, cut out all the way down like a screw, he said:

“Take this, Alexai Dmitritch, and lean on it as you walk. And the farther you hold it away from yourself the better it will look.”

Nejdanov took the staff without a word and went out. Tatiana wanted to go out too, but Mariana stopped her.

“Wait a minute, Tatiana Osipovna. I want you.”

“I’ll be back directly with the samovar. Your friend has gone off without tea, he was in such a mighty hurry. But that is no reason why you should not have any. Later on things will be clearer.”

Tatiana went out and Solomin also rose. Mariana was standing with her back to him, but when at last she turned towards him, rather surprised that he had not said a single word, she saw in his face, in his eyes that were fixed on her, an expression she had not seen there before; an expression of inquiry, anxiety, almost of curiosity. She became confused and blushed again. Solomin, too, was ashamed of what she had read in his face and began talking louder than was his wont.

“Well, well, Mariana, and so you have made a beginning.”

“What sort of beginning, Vassily Fedotitch? Do you call this a beginning? Alexai was right. It’s as if we were acting a farce.”

Solomin sat down again.

“But, Mariana... what did you picture the beginning to be like? Not standing behind the barricades waving a flag and shouting, ‘Hurrah for the republic!’ Besides, that is not a woman’s work. Now, today you will begin teaching some Lukeria, something good for her, and a difficult matter it will be, because you won’t understand your Lukeria and she won’t understand you, and on top of it she will imagine that what you are teaching is of no earthly use to her. In two or three weeks you will try your hand on another Lukeria, and meanwhile you will be washing a baby here, teaching another the alphabet, or handing some sick man his medicine. That will be your beginning.”

“But sisters of mercy do that, Vassily Fedotitch! What is the use of all this, then?” Mariana pointed to herself and round about with a vague gesture. “I dreamt of something else.”

“Did you want to sacrifice yourself?”

Mariana’s eyes glistened.

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“And Nejdanov?”

Mariana shrugged her shoulders.

“What of Nejdanov? We shall go together... or I will go alone.”

Solomin looked at her intently.

“Do you know, Mariana... excuse the coarse expression... but, to my mind, combing the scurfy head of a gutter child is a sacrifice; a great sacrifice of which not many people are capable.”

“I would not shirk that, Vassily Fedotitch.”

“I know you would not. You are capable of doing that and will do it, until something else turns up.”

“But for that sort of thing I must learn of Tatiana!”

“You could not do better. You will be washing pots and plucking chickens.... And, who knows, maybe you will save your country in that way!”