“My life is over and I have not lived,” he was saying. “Your young face reminds me of my lost youth, and I should be happy to sit here looking at you until I died. I should like to take you with me to St. Petersburg.”
“Why?” demanded Theodore in a hoarse voice.
“I should like to put you under a glass case on my desk; I should delight in contemplating you, and showing you to my friends. Do you know, Pelagia, that we don’t have people like you where I live? We have wealth and fame and sometimes beauty, but we have none of this natural life and this wholesome peacefulness——”
My uncle sat down in front of Tatiana and took her hand.
“So you won’t come with me to St. Petersburg?” he laughed. “Then at least let me take this hand away with me, this lovely little hand! You won’t? Very well then, little miser, at least allow me to kiss it!”
I heard a chair crack. Theodore sprang to his feet and strode toward his wife with a heavy, measured tread. His face was ashy grey and quivering. He raised his arm and brought his fist down on the table with all his might, saying in a muffled voice:
“I won’t allow it!”
At the same moment Pobedimski jumped out of his chair, and with a face as pale and angry as the other’s, he also advanced toward Tatiana and banged the table with his fist.
“I—I won’t allow it!” he cried.
“What? What’s the matter,” asked my uncle in astonishment.