"As I look at you, lady," she said, "I am so sorry for you, so sorry."
"Drink with me and you won't be sorry," Anninka retorted.
"No, how can I? They nearly chased me out of the clergy estate because of your uncle, and now if I become——"
"Well, then it can't be helped. Let me sing you The Mustache."
She strummed the guitar again, and again came the cry, "I-akh! I-okh!" Late at night sleep would suddenly overtake her, obliterating her past and allaying her sufferings for a few hours. The next day, broken down, half-insane, she would again creep out from beneath the deadening load of sleep and live anew.
One of those vile nights when Anninka was singing her filthy songs to Yevpraksia, Yudushka's pale face, ghastly and harassed, appeared in the doorway. His lips were quivering, his sunken eyes looked like sightless cavities by the light of the candle. His hands were folded for prayer. For a few seconds he stood in front of the dumfounded women, and then slowly faced round and passed out.
CHAPTER IV
There are families that are weighed down by an inevitable fate. They are frequent among that portion of the nobility which once lived idle, useless, and uninfluential, under the wing of serfdom in all parts of Russia and is now passing its last days helpless and unprotected in dilapidated manor-houses. In the life of these wretched families both success and failure come unexpectedly and as if by sheer accident.
Sometimes it happens that a shower of good luck, as it were, suddenly comes streaming down on such a family. The ruined cornet and his wife, peacefully fading away in an out-of-the-way village, will suddenly be blessed with a brood of young people, strong, clean, alert, pushing, adaptable to the new conditions of life—the boys as well as the girls—in a word, "knowing ones." The boys pass examinations with flying colors and even establish connections and procure patrons while still at school. In the nick of time they exhibit their modesty ("j'aime cette modestie" their superiors say about them), and in the nick of time they show that they can be independent ("j'aime cette indépendance!") They quickly scent the direction from which the wind blows, but they never burn their bridges, so that retreat is free and easy. These successful makers of our modern history begin with obsequious cringing, and almost invariably end with perfidy. As to the girls, they, too, in their line, contribute to the regeneration of the family, that is, they all marry successfully and then exhibit so much tact in the art of dressing that they experience no difficulty in gaining prominent places in so-called society.