There was silence for one minute.
“Zina, do you remember all that happened two years ago?” asked Maria Alexandrovna of a sudden.
Zina trembled.
“Mamma!” she said, severely, “you promised me solemnly never to mention that again.”
“And I ask you now, as solemnly, my dear child, to allow me to break that promise, just once! I have never broken it before. Zina! the time has come for a full and clear understanding between us! These two years of silence have been terrible. We cannot go on like this. I am ready to pray you, on my knees, to let me speak. Listen, Zina, your own mother who bore you beseeches you, on her knees! And I promise you faithfully, Zina, and solemnly, on the word of an unhappy but adoring mother, that never, under any circumstances, not even to save my life, will I ever mention the subject again. This shall be the last time, but it is absolutely necessary!”
Maria Alexandrovna counted upon the effect of her words, and with reason:
“Speak, then!” said Zina, growing whiter every moment.
“Thank you, Zina!——Two years ago there came to the house, to teach your little brother Mitya, since dead, a tutor——”
“Why do you begin so solemnly, mamma? Why all this eloquence, all these quite unnecessary details, which are painful to me, and only too well known to both of us?” cried Zina with a sort of irritated disgust.
“Because, my dear child, I, your mother, felt in some degree bound to justify myself before you; and also because I wish to present this whole question to you from an entirely new point of view, and not from that mistaken position which you are accustomed to take up with regard to it; and because, lastly, I think you will thus better understand the conclusion at which I shall arrive upon the whole question. Do not think, dear child, that I wish to trifle with your heart! No, Zina, you will find in me a real mother; and perhaps, with tears streaming from your eyes, you will ask and beseech at my feet—at the feet of the 'mean woman,' as you have just called me,—yes, and pray for that reconciliation which you have rejected so long! That's why I wish to recall all, Zina, all that has happened, from the very beginning; and without this I shall not speak at all!”