“In any case, he with his means will have father cured,” she whispered.
“How much do you require for your father's cure?” I cried. “Take it from me—a hundred? Two hundred?… A thousand? Olenka, it's not your father's cure that you want!”
The news Olenka had communicated to me had excited me so much, that I had not even noticed that the wagonette had driven past my village, or how it had turned into the Count's yard and stopped at the bailiff's porch. When I saw the children run out, and the smile on Urbenin's face, who also had rushed out to help Olenka down, I jumped out of the wagonette and ran into the Count's house without even taking leave. Here further news awaited me.
XII
“How opportune! How opportune!” the Count cried as he greeted me and scratched my cheek with his long, pointed moustache. “You could not have chosen a happier time! We have only just sat down to luncheon.… Of course, you are acquainted.… You have doubtless often had collisions in your legal department.… Ha, ha!”
With both hands the Count pointed to two men who, seated in soft armchairs, were partaking of cold tongue. In one I had the vexation of recognizing the Justice of the Peace, Kalinin; the other, a little grey-haired man with a large moonlike bald pate, was my good friend, Babaev, a rich landowner who occupied the post of perpetual member of our district council. Having exchanged bows, I looked with astonishment at Kalinin. I knew how much he disliked the Count and what reports he had set in circulation in the district about the man at whose table he was now eating tongue and green peas with such appetite and drinking ten-year-old liqueur. How could a respectable man explain such a visit? The Justice of the Peace caught my glance and evidently understood it.
“I have devoted this day to visits,” he said to me. “I am driving round the whole district.… And, as you see, I have also called upon his Excellency.…”
Il'ya brought a fourth cover. I sat down, drank a glass of vodka, and began to lunch.
“It's wrong, your Excellency, very wrong!” Kalinin said, continuing the conversation my entrance had interrupted. “It's no sin for us little people, but you are an illustrious man, a rich man, a brilliant man.… It's a sin for you to fail.”
“That's quite true; it's a sin,” Babaev acquiesced.