Zina adopted an attentive air, and sat still with folded hands, waiting for light. In her face there was an expression of annoyance as well as irony, which she did her best to hide.
“I wish to ask you first, Zina, what you thought of that Mosgliakoff, to-day?”
“You have known my opinion of him for a long time!” replied Zina, surlily.
“Yes, yes, of course! but I think he is getting just a little too troublesome, with his continual bothering you—”
“Oh, but he says he is in love with me, in which case his importunity is pardonable!”
“Strange! You used not to be so ready to find his offences pardonable; you used to fly out at him if ever I mentioned his name!”
“Strange, too, that you always defended him, and were so very anxious that I should marry him!—and now you are the first to attack him!”
“Yes; I don't deny, Zina, that I did wish, then, to see you married to Mosgliakoff! It was painful to me to witness your continual grief, your sufferings, which I can well realize—whatever you may think to the contrary!—and which deprived me of my rest at night! I determined at last that there was but one great change of life that would ever save you from the sorrows of the past, and that change was matrimony! We are not rich; we cannot afford to go abroad. All the asses in the place prick their long ears, and wonder that you should be unmarried at twenty-three years old; and they must needs invent all sorts of stories to account for the fact! As if I would marry you to one of our wretched little town councillors, or to Ivan Ivanovitch, the family lawyer! There are no husbands for you in this place, Zina! Of course Paul Mosgliakoff is a silly sort of a fellow, but he is better than these people here: he is fairly born, at least, and he has 150 serfs and landed property, all of which is better than living by bribes and corruption, and goodness knows what jobbery besides, as these do! and that is why I allowed my eyes to rest on him. But I give you my solemn word, I never had any real sympathy for him! and if Providence has sent you someone better now, oh, my dear girl, how fortunate that you have not given your word to Mosgliakoff! You didn't tell him anything for certain to-day, did you, Zina?”
“What is the use of beating about the bush, when the whole thing lies in a couple of words?” said Zina, with some show of annoyance.
“Beating about the bush, Zina? Is that the way to speak to your mother? But what am I? You have long ceased to trust to your poor mother! You have long looked upon me as your enemy, and not as your mother at all!”