“Consequently your affairs have already reached ‘honourable intentions,’ ” I said with astonishment. “Soon!… And on what are they based—these honourable intentions?”
“Do you wish to know?” she asked, and her eyes sparkled. “Those scandalmongers do not lie: I wish to marry him! Don't look so surprised, and don't laugh! You will say that to get married without love is dishonest and so on. It has already been said a thousand times, but … what am I to do? To feel that one is a useless bit of furniture in this world is very hard.… It's hard to live without an object.… When this man, whom you dislike so much, will have made me his wife, I shall have an object in life.… I will improve him, I will teach him to leave off drinking, I will teach him to work.… Look at him! He does not look like a man now, and I will make a man of him.”
“Et cetera, et cetera,” I said. “You will take care of his enormous fortune, you will do acts of charity.… The whole of the district will bless you, and will look upon you as a good angel sent down to comfort the miserable.… You will be the mother and the educator of his children.… Yes, a great work indeed! You are a clever girl, but you reason like a schoolgirl!”
“My idea may be worthless, it may be ludicrous and naïve, but I live by it.… Under its influence I have become well and gay.… Do not disenchant me! Let me disenchant myself, but not now, at some other time … afterwards, in the distant future.… Let us change the subject!”
“Just one more indiscreet question! Do you expect him to propose?”
“Yes.… To judge by the note I received from him to-day, my fate will be decided this evening … to-day.… He writes that he has something very important to say to me.… The happiness of the whole of his life depends upon my answer.”
“Thank you for your frankness,” I said.
The meaning of the note that Nadia had received was quite clear to me. A base proposal awaited the poor girl. I decided to save her from that ordeal.
“We have already arrived at our wood,” the Count said, coming up to our wagonette. “Nadezhda Nikolaevna, would you not wish to make a halt here?”
And without waiting for an answer he clapped his hands and ordered in a loud, shaky voice: