XIV.
Two or three days after the elder Lensky's departure, Mascha, who is busy dressing for dinner, is told that a large package has been left for her. Immediately suspecting what it is, she summons the maid to bring it to her.
"It is a huge package," the maid sighs while she drags it in and lays it down before the chimney in Mascha's room.
"Where are the scissors, Lis, please?" Mascha dances with excitement while she cuts the string in all directions. Her suspicion has not deceived her: the skin of a remarkable bear, with immense head and mighty paws, comes to view. In his horrible open jaws the monster holds a bouquet of white roses and a note as follows:
"A disarmed enemy, Fräulein Marie Lensky, for friendly remembrance of an adventure in Katerinowskoe, and
"Your humble servant,
"K. Bärenburg."
Beside herself with delight, Mascha immediately hurries into Anna's room, and with sparkling eyes calls out:
"Anna, Anna, please come--see--Count Bärenburg--he has----"
"Well, what about him?" asks Anna, indifferently.
"He has sent me the bear-skin, you know, the skin of the bear which almost strangled Colia. It must have been a splendid bear. It has a head--a head----"
"Ah! that is very nice," replies Anna, without moving. "But I beg you, hurry a little with your dressing, and another time do not run into the hall with floating hair and in your dressing-sack, like a prima donna in the fifth act."
"H-m, she is jealous!" thinks Mascha. And shrugging her shoulders, with a triumphant smile on her fresh lips, she returns to her room, where she first completes her interrupted toilet, then crouches on the floor and sinks herself in contemplation of the bear.
Then Anna comes in to her--Anna, with quite a changed, sweet face. "Vinegar with sugar, we know that," thinks Mascha to herself, without rising from her strange position.
"Ah! that is the skin," says Anna, with condescending interest.
"Yes," says Mascha, slowly rising, with a humorous, quite childish impertinence, which would have forced a laugh from every unprejudiced spectator. "That is the skin, those are the flowers, there is the note."
"And you, indeed, take that for a proof of great admiration?" lisps Anna.
Mascha nods defiantly.
"You are very inexperienced, my little Mascha," says Anna. "You always have such a hostile manner to me that it is unusually hard for me to--h-m! how shall I express myself?--give you the enlightenment which in a certain manner, as your relative, I owe you. You do not know men as I do, dear child."
"Have you had very sad experience in this direction, poor Anna?" sighs Mascha, compassionately.
"I have had no experience, but I have observed," says Anna. "Bärenburg is a man from whom one must guard one's self. He has a new flame every moment, whom he overwhelms with the most poetic attentions until--one day he no longer greets her on the street. I am very sorry to diminish your pleasure, but I must warn you."
"H-m!" says Mascha, in the same tone of humorous impertinence; and copying Anna's glance with photographic exactness, she says: "My dear Anna, would you like very much to marry Count Bärenburg yourself? Seniores, priores--I withdraw."
"One cannot speak to you," says Anna, and rises, blushing with anger. But Maschenka holds her back; her impertinence suddenly truly pains her. How indelicate it was to reproach Anna with her age! As if she could help it! "Anna," says she, cordially, "I did not mean badly; I only wanted to laugh. But tell me, I will not repeat it, do you like Count Bärenburg? I will certainly not stand in your way."
Instead of being touched by this childish sacrifice, Anna stares arrogantly at her cousin from head to foot. "I can, perhaps, put up with your rivalry," says she. "Calm yourself, moutarde après dîner, ma chère! If I had wished to marry Bärenburg, I could have had him this autumn in Spaa. He is as indifferent to me as that"--with a snap of her fingers. "But show me your hands; comme vous avez les ongles canailles. I always tell you you should not practise so much; you already have nails like a professional pianist--c'est très mal porté."
The Jeliagins have paid Mascha a little attention. To-day, at lunch, she found on her plate a box-ticket for the Porte St. Martin. It has long been her most ardent wish to go to the theatre.
"You can invite Sonia and Fräulein von Sankjéwitch. Nikolai will accompany you. It would be better that you dine with Fräulein von Sankjéwitch," proposes her aunt, "if that suits you."
"Oh, it suits, naturally it suits!" cries Mascha, and springs up to embrace her aunt.
"Do not make so much of this trifle," says Madame Jeliagin, a trifle ashamed. "It is not worth the trouble. I rack my brains often enough to think how one can amuse you. But with girls like you, who are too old to play with dolls, too young to go into society, it is hard."
"Am I, then, really too young, auntie? I was seventeen the fifth of last December," says Mascha, looking longingly and coaxingly at Barbara.
Barbara Jeliagin is silent with embarrassment, but Anna speaks. "Your age alone is not the thing. You have no tenue, are not sufficiently lady-like. You must accustom yourself to more repose and self-command before one can think of taking you into society without fearing to be embarrassed by you."
This kind remark Mascha receives silently, but with burning cheeks.
Madame Jeliagin, who has learned quite against her will to love Mascha, perhaps because Mascha's obliging lovability is the only bit of sunshine which has warmed her for years, pats her kindly on the shoulder, and says: "It is not so dreadful. To be old and sedate is no art; that comes of itself."
And Mascha wipes the tears from her eyes, and again is happy over her ticket, inquires what she shall wear in honor of this festive occasion, and is only sorry that one visits the Porte St. Martin in street costume.
The box ticket is for the next evening. All arranges itself splendidly.
Nita and Sonia dine with the brother and sister in the Avenue Murillo. The little dinner is excellent and Colia happy. But after the meal, when they are about to break up, Mascha notices that she has left her opera-glass at home. Great despair! Sonia has none, and Nita's is really not enough for three shortsighted persons. They decide to take the roundabout way through the Avenue Wagram and get the glass.
"I will come immediately; I will not keep you waiting a moment," says Mascha, gayly. But scarcely has she entered the hall when she perceives that something unusual is going on. The vestibule is brilliantly lighted, several ladies' wraps and men's overcoats are there. Mascha's large eyes become gloomy. "And I thought they wished to give me a pleasure," thinks she, angrily. "They only got me out of the way because they were ashamed of me." Then, turning to the servant who appears, she asks ruthlessly, directly:
"Who is dining here?"
"The Ladies Anthropos, Count Bärenburg, Monsieur d'Eblis, Prince Trubetzkoy----"
But Maschenka hears no more. "Bärenburg!" her passionate heart beats loudly. "Moutarde après dîner it may be; but, in any case, Anna seems not to so lowly estimate my insignificant youthfulness as rival, as she acts thus," thinks she to herself. "But we will see, Anna, we will see!" And Maschenka sets her teeth and clenches her tiny fist.