“I must go home. So I am to say,” I added, addressing the old lady, “that you will come to us about two.”
“Do you say so, my good sir.”
The princess hurriedly pulled out her snuff-box and took snuff so loudly that I positively jumped. “Do you say so,” she repeated, blinking tearfully and sneezing.
I bowed once more, turned, and went out of the room with that sensation of awkwardness in my spine which a very young man feels when he knows he is being looked at from behind.
“Mind you come and see us again, M’sieu Voldemar,” Zinaïda called, and she laughed again.
“Why is it she’s always laughing?” I thought, as I went back home escorted by Fyodor, who said nothing to me, but walked behind me with an air of disapprobation. My mother scolded me and wondered what ever I could have been doing so long at the princess’s. I made her no reply and went off to my own room. I felt suddenly very sad…. I tried hard not to cry…. I was jealous of the hussar.
V
The princess called on my mother as she had promised and made a disagreeable impression on her. I was not present at their interview, but at table my mother told my father that this Prince Zasyekin struck her as a femme très vulgaire, that she had quite worn her out begging her to interest Prince Sergei in their behalf, that she seemed to have no end of lawsuits and affairs on hand—de vilaines affaires d’argent—and must be a very troublesome and litigious person. My mother added, however, that she had asked her and her daughter to dinner the next day (hearing the word “daughter” I buried my nose in my plate), for after all she was a neighbour and a person of title. Upon this my father informed my mother that he remembered now who this lady was; that he had in his youth known the deceased Prince Zasyekin, a very well-bred, but frivolous and absurd person; that he had been nicknamed in society “le Parisien,” from having lived a long while in Paris; that he had been very rich, but had gambled away all his property; and for some unknown reason, probably for money, though indeed he might have chosen better, if so, my father added with a cold smile, he had married the daughter of an agent, and after his marriage had entered upon speculations and ruined himself utterly.
“If only she doesn’t try to borrow money,” observed my mother.
“That’s exceedingly possible,” my father responded tranquilly. “Does she speak French?”