He behaved as if he were leaving Golovliovo not for a few hours, but forever. Having tired everybody out, the men and horses who had been waiting at the porch for an hour and a half, his own throat at last got dry from gabbling, and he decided to start out.
The entire affair in town was concluded while the horses were eating their oats at the inn. Porfiry Vladimirych produced an account book, from which it appeared that when Arina Petrovna died the orphans had twenty thousand rubles or a trifle less in five per cent securities. Then the petition to remove the guardianship was filed, along with the papers testifying to the majority of the orphans, and the order was immediately issued to remove the guardianship and transfer both capital and land to the rightful owners. In the evening of the same day Anninka signed all the papers and inventories that Yudushka had prepared and when all was done, heaved a sigh of relief.
The remaining few days Anninka spent in the greatest agitation. She wanted to leave Golovliovo at once, but her uncle met her attempts with a jest, which, good-natured as it sounded, screened a stupid obstinacy that no human power could overcome.
"You yourself said you were going to stay a week. Then stay," he said. "I don't understand why you are in such a hurry. You don't have to pay rent, you are welcome without pay. You will have tea and dinner and anything your heart may desire."
"But, uncle, I must go," Anninka pleaded.
"You are on pins and needles, but I am not going to give you horses," jested Yudushka. "I just won't give you horses, and you'll have to be my prisoner. When the week is up, I won't say a word. We'll attend mass, and have a bite, and some tea, and a chat, and we'll take a good look at each other, and then—God speed you! But, see here, suppose we visit the grave at Voplino again. It would be best to take leave of your grandmother, you know. Maybe her soul will be of guidance to you."
"I shouldn't mind it," Anninka consented.
"So that's what we'll do. Early in the morning on Wednesday we'll attend mass here, then we'll have a bite before you go, and then my team will take you to Pogorelka. From there to Dvoriky you will go with your own team. You are a landlady yourself, I dare say. You've got your own horses."
She had to consent. There is something tremendously powerful in vulgarity. It catches a person unawares, and while he is staring in bewilderment, it has him in its clutches. When we pass a cesspool we close our noses and try not to breathe. We have to do the same violence to ourselves in an atmosphere saturated with idle chatter and vulgarity, deaden our sight, hearing, smell and taste, overcome all sensibility, turn into stone. Otherwise we run the danger of suffocation from the miasma of vulgarity.
Anninka understood this, a bit late, perhaps. At any rate, she decided to let the process of her liberation from the Golovliovo captivity take its own course. She was so thoroughly overcome by Yudushka's irresistible twaddle that she dared not resist when he, like a good relative, embraced her and stroked her back, saying as he did so: