“So it is true?”
“You are always ready with your eternal doubts. I said the case of Mme. Akimova is dismissed. Clever, is it not, little brother?” he turned to Valia and added in a stern, official tone: “And that said Akimova is to pay the costs.”
“That woman will not take me, then?”
“I guess she won’t, brother mine! Ach, I have entirely forgotten, I brought you some books!”
Gregory Aristarchovich rushed into the corridor, but halted on hearing Nastasia Philippovna’s scream. Valia had fallen back on his chair in a faint.
A happy time began for the family. It was as if some one who had lain dangerously ill in the house had suddenly recovered and all began to breathe more easily and freely. Valia lost his fear of the terrible monsters and no longer suffered from nightmares. When the little monkeys, as he called the children, came to see him again, he was the most inventive of the lot. But even into the most fantastic plays he introduced his habitual earnestness and staidness, and when they played Indians, he found it indispensable to divest himself of almost all his clothing and cover his body with red paint.
In view of the businesslike manner in which these games were conducted, Gregory Aristarchovich now found it possible to participate in them, as far as his abilities allowed. In the rôle of a bear he did not appear to great advantage, but he had a great and well deserved success in his rôle of elephant. And when Valia, silent and earnest as a true son of the Goddess Cali, sat upon his father’s shoulders and gently tapped upon his rosy bald pate with a tiny toy hammer, he really reminded one of a little Eastern prince who despotically reigns over people and animals.
The lawyer Talonsky tried to convey a hint to Gregory Aristarchovich that all was not safe yet, but the former could not comprehend how three judges could reverse the decision of three other judges, when the laws are the same here and everywhere. And when the lawyer insisted, Gregory Aristarchovich grew angry, and to prove that there was nothing to be feared from the higher court, he brought forward that same Talonsky on whom he now implicitly relied:
“Why, are you not going to be present when the case is brought before the court? Well, then what is there to be talked about. I wish you, Nastasia Philippovna, would make him ashamed of himself.”
Talonsky smiled, and Nastasia Philippovna gently chided him for his purposeless doubts. They also spoke of the woman who had caused all the trouble, but now that she could menace them no more, and the court had decided that she must bear all the costs of the trial, they often dubbed her “poor woman.”