“You are right, Cousin,” broke in Marfinka. “Grandmother is kindness itself, but she tries to disguise it.”
“Don’t give your opinion when it is not asked. She contradicts her Grandmother only when you are here, Boris Pavlovich; at other times she is modest enough. And now the ideas she suddenly takes into her head. I? entertain Markushka!”
“You did as you pleased,” continued Raisky. “And then when it entered my head too to do as I pleased, I disturbed your arrangements and made a breach in your despotism. Isn’t that so, Granny? And now kiss me, and we will give one another full liberty.”
“What a strange boy? Do you hear, Tiet Nikonich, what nonsense he talks.”
On that evening Tatiana Markovna and Raisky concluded, if not peace, at least a truce. She was assured that Boris loved and esteemed her; she was, in truth, easily convinced. After supper Raisky unpacked his trunk, and brought down his gifts; for his aunt, a few pounds of excellent tea, of which she was a connoisseur, a coffee machine of a new kind, with a coffee-pot, and a dark brown silk dress; bracelets with monograms for his cousins; and for Tiet Nikonich vest and hose of Samian leather, as his aunt had desired.
Tatiana Markovna, with tears in her eyes, sat down beside him, and putting her hand on his shoulder said, “And you remembered me?”
“Whom else should I remember? You are my nearest and dearest, Grandmother.”
When Tiet Nikonich and Paulina Karpovna took leave, the lady said that she had left orders with no one to fetch her, and that she hoped someone would accompany her, looking towards Raisky as she spoke. Tiet Nikonich expressed himself ready to see her home.
“Egorka could have taken her,” whispered Tatiana Markovna. “Why didn’t she stay at home; she was not invited.”
“Thank you, thank you,” said Paulina Karpovna to Raisky as she passed him.