CHAPTER VIII.
The next morning Elena and Boris awoke with a delightful feeling of expectation.
It seemed impossible to realize that their father had really come back to them, and that he was dearer and kinder than anything they had imagined!
"If only mamma were here," sighed Elena, "how happy we should be!"
"Perhaps she knows," said Boris soberly. "She always told us papa was a hero, and I'm sure he looks like one."
André Olsheffsky felt his wife's loss deeply. The children were his only comfort, and every moment he could spare from his business affairs he gave to them.
With Elena he discussed their position seriously.
It would be impossible, he said, to prove their claim to Madame Olsheffsky's estate unless the lost box could be recovered, but if that were ever found the papers inside would completely establish their right. "I have sent notices to all the peasants, describing the box, and offering a reward. Who knows, Elena? it may be discovered!"
Time passed on, and though Mr. Olsheffsky made many expeditions into the town of Mourum, and drove all round the country, making enquiries of the peasants, he could hear nothing of the wooden box.
"It's one of the secrets of the lake," said Volodia. "That's my opinion; it's lying snugly at the bottom there; and it's no good looking for it anywhere else."
But Mr. Olsheffsky continued his enquiries.
One day, just as Daria and Var-Vara were about to start for a morning walk—Elena and Boris having gone for a drive with their father—an old man in a rough sheep-skin coat and plaited bark shoes came up to the house door, and taking off his high felt hat respectfully, asked if he could speak to the Barin.[D]
"The master has gone out," said Var-Vara, "but I daresay you can see him in the afternoon. Have you anything particular to ask him?"
"Nothing to ask, but something to show," and the old man blinked his eyes cunningly.
"Not the wooden box!" screamed Daria. "Oh, let's go at once! Come, Var-Vara! What a surprise for papa when he gets back! Is it the wooden box? You might tell me," cried Daria, fixing her blue eyes on the old mujik's face pleadingly.
"It may be, and it mayn't be," replied the old man. "You may come along with me if you like, Daria Andreïevna. I'll show you the way to where I live—near the forest, you know. Of course, I've heard all about the reward," he continued, "and as I was clearing a bit of my yard this morning, what should I find but a heap of something hard—pebbles, and drift, and sticks, and such like. When I came to sorting it out—for I thought, 'Why waste good wood, when you can burn it? the good God doesn't like waste'—I struck against the corner of something hard, and there was a——. Well, what do you think, Daria Andreïevna?"
"A box! A box!" cried Daria, seizing one of the old man's hands, and dancing round him in an ecstasy of delight.
"Not at all, Daria Andreïevna! The legs of an old chair."
Daria's face fell. "I don't see why you come to tell papa you've found an old chair!" she said crossly.
"Stop a bit, Matoushka. There's more to come. Where was I?"
"The chair! You'd just found it," said Daria, pulling at his hand impatiently.
"So I had. A chair! Well, it had no back, and as I pulled it out it felt heavy, very heavy. It wasn't much to look at—a poor chair I should call it—and I thought, 'This isn't much of a find;' but there inside it was something sticking as tight as wax!"
"The box!" cried Daria, "I felt sure of it!" and seizing Var-Vara by one hand, and the mujik by the other, she dragged them down the street, the old peasant remonstrating and grumbling.
"Not so fast, Daria Andreïevna!" said Var-Vara, gasping for breath at the sudden rush. "Let Ivan go first; he knows the way!"
Daria could scarcely control her impatience during the walk.
"Make haste, Var-Vara! we shall never get there," she kept crying; and old Var-Vara, who was stout, and had on a heavy fur pelisse, arrived at the hut in a state of breathless exhaustion.
"Aïe! Aïe! what a child it is! Show her the box now, Ivan, or we shall have no peace."
Ivan went to the corner of his hut, where a large object stood on the top of the whitewashed stove under a red and yellow pocket-handkerchief. He carefully uncovered it, and stepping back a few paces said proudly,
"What do you think of that, now?"
It was the box, safe and unhurt, Madame Olsheffsky's name still on it in scratched white letters.
Daria was wild with joy, and almost alarmed Ivan with her excitement. She danced about the room, threw her arms round his neck, and finally persuaded him to carry the box to Volodia's house, so that it might be there as a delightful surprise to her father on his return.