Maria Alexandrovna

“ Oh, you boys, you boys!” cried Maria Alexandrovna with difficulty concealing her joy.
“Thanks, thanks, Maria Alexandrovna! you've made a man of me again! I declare I quite feared telling you—for I know you didn't think much of the connection.—He is a common sort of old fellow, I know! So good-bye—my respects to Zina, and apologies—I must be off, of course I shall be back soon!”
“Good-bye—take my blessing with you; say something polite to the old man for me; I have long changed my opinion of him; I have grown to like the real old Russian style of the man. ”

“ We all considered Maria Alexandrovna as our type and model of irreproachable comme-il-faut! She had no rival in this respect in Mordasoff! She could kill and annihilate and pulverize any rival with a single word. ”

“ The fire of inspiration blazed in her eyes. She resolved to smite once, and annihilate this vile nest of poisonous scandal-adders: to destroy the miserable Mosgliakoff, as though he were a blackbeetle, and with one triumphant blow to reassert all her influence over this miserable old idiot-prince!
Some audacity was requisite for such a performance, of course; but Maria Alexandrovna had not even to put her hand in her pocket for a supply of that particular commodity.
“Mesdames,” she began, solemnly, and with much dignity (Maria Alexandrovna was always a great admirer of solemnity) ”

“ Now, why did Maria Alexandrovna, who dearly loves scandal, and cannot sleep at night unless she has heard something new and piquant the day before,—why, or how did she know how to bear herself so that it would never strike anyone, looking at her, to suppose that the dignified lady was the most inveterate scandal-monger in the world—or at all events in Mordasoff? ”

“ Ho ho! You—you are—you are anything you like—but not a lady!” yelled Mosgliakoff.
I don't quite know what he meant, but it was something very terrible, you may be sure!
Maria Alexandrovna looked benignly in his face:
“Sit down!” she said, sorrowfully, showing him a chair, the same that the old prince had reclined in a quarter of an hour before.
“But listen, will you listen, Maria Alexandrovna? You look at me just as though you were not the least to blame; in fact, as though I were the guilty party! Really, Maria Alexandrovna, this is a little too much of a good thing! ”

“ Look at his hair—now: wet, as wet as reeds! it will take three hours to dry that head! How on earth am I to take him like this? How can he show his face among respectable people? What am I to do?”
And Maria Alexandrovna bit her finger-nails with rage as she walked furiously up and down the room.
It was no very great matter, of course; and one that was easily set right; but Maria Alexandrovna required a vent for her feelings and felt the need of emptying out her accumulated wrath upon the head of the wretched Afanassy Matveyevitch; for tyranny is a habit recallable at need. ”

“ Good-bye, my charming child; you alone, you—are the only vir—tuous one of them all; you are a no—oble child. Good-bye, my charming girl! Come along, my friend;—oh, good gra—cious, what people!”
I will not attempt to describe the end of this disagreeable scene, after the prince's departure.
The guests separated in a hurricane of scolding and abuse and mutual vituperation, and Maria Alexandrovna was at last left alone amid the ruins and relics of her departed glory. ”

“ Maria Alexandrovna knew many deadly and scandalous secrets of certain other Mordasoff inhabitants, which, if she liked to reveal them at any convenient opportunity, would produce results little less terrible than the earthquake of Lisbon. Still, she was very quiet about the secrets she knew, and never let them out except in cases of absolute need, and then only to her nearest and dearest friends. She liked to hint that she knew certain things, and frighten people out of their wits; preferring to keep them in a state of perpetual terror, rather than crush them altogether. ”

“ Maria Alexandrovna only guessed at all this at present—but that was quite enough. She knew that the whole town would rise up and use all and every means to defeat her ends. Why, they had tried to “confiscate” the prince already; she would have to retrieve him by force, and if she should succeed in luring or forcing him back now, she could not keep him tied to her apron-strings for ever. Again, what was to prevent this whole troop of Mordasoff gossips from coming en masse to her salon, under such a plausible plea, too, that she would not be able to turn them out. ”

“ If my reader wishes to know how this feat was accomplished with such a circle of enemies about and around her, and how she managed to make such a fool of Mrs. Antipova, then I must be allowed to point out that such a question is an insult to Maria Alexandrovna. As if she were not capable of outwitting any Antipova that ever breathed!
She simply “arrested” the prince at her rival's very door, as he alighted there with Mosgliakoff, in spite of the latter's terror of a scandal, and in spite of everything else; and she popped the old man into the carriage beside her. ”

“ It is quite enough that I have consented to be a party in the main and essence of the base transactions; but—but—I did not know myself, I am poisoned and suffocated with the stench of it!”—So saying, she left the room and banged the door after her.
Maria Alexandrovna looked fixedly after her for a moment, and reflected.
“I must make haste,” she cried, rousing herself; “she is the greatest danger and difficulty of all! If these detestable people do not let us alone, instead of acting the town-criers all over the place (as I fear they are doing already!) —all will be lost! ”

“ Therefore, I think Maria Alexandrovna did a very wise thing when she sent him away to her village, about a couple of miles from town, where she possessed a property of some hundred and twenty souls—which, to tell the truth, was all she had to keep up the respectability and grandeur of her noble house upon!
Everybody knew that Afanassy was only kept because he had earned a salary and perquisites; so that when he ceased to earn the said salary and perquisites, it surprised no-one to learn that he was sent away—“returned empty” to the village, as useless and fit for nothing! ”

“ Maria Alexandrovna trembled in her shoes.
“Surely this fool of a man is not up to anything disagreeable!” she thought. “No, no! that would be worse than anything!” She looked curiously and anxiously into his eyes.
“Is it true, Paul Alexandrovitch, that you have just been politely dismissed?—the Government service, I mean, of course!” remarked the daring Felisata Michaelovna, looking impertinently into his eyes.
“Dismissed! How dismissed? I'm simply changing my department, that's all! I am to be placed at Petersburg!” Mosgliakoff answered, drily. ”

“ Mrs. Antipova had not exaggerated. Guests poured in every moment! Maria Alexandrovna hardly had time to receive one lot and make the usual exclamations of surprise and delight exacted by the laws of etiquette before another arrival would be announced.
I will not undertake to describe all these good people. I will only remark that every one of them, on arrival, looked about her cunningly; and that every face wore an expression of expectation and impatience. ”

“ Who spread them? None could say; but they spread like wild-fire. Everyone suddenly began to assure his neighbour that Maria Alexandrovna had engaged her daughter to the prince; that Mosgliakoff had notice to quit, and that all was settled and signed, and the penniless, twenty-three-year-old Zina was to be the princess.
Whence came this rumour? Could it be that Maria Alexandrovna was so thoroughly known that her friends could anticipate her thoughts and actions under any given circumstances?
The fact is, every inhabitant of a provincial town lives under a glass case ”

“ Of course, no anticipation, no presentiment, deterred or deceived Maria Alexandrovna: she might feel such sensations at times, but she despised them. Now, this is what had happened in the town this morning, and of which our heroine was as yet only partly informed. About mid-day, that is, just three hours after the prince's arrival at Mordasoff, extraordinary rumours began to circulate about the town. ”

“ Having stood over her daughter in a state of bewilderment for some little while, Maria Alexandrovna left the room; and to make up for lost time bade the coachman drive like fury, as she stepped into the carriage.
“I don't quite like Zina having listened!” she thought as she rattled away. “I gave Mosgliakoff very much the same argument as to herself: she is proud, and may easily have taken offence! H'm! Well, the great thing is to be in time with all the arrangements,—before people know what I am up to! Good heavens, fancy, if my fool of a husband were to be out!!” ”

“ What does she know? Mordasoff and the tutor! And what a princess she will make. I love to see her pride and pluck. She looks at you like any queen. And not to know her own good! However, she soon will. Wait a bit; let this old fool die, and then the boy, and I'll marry her to a reigning prince yet! The only thing I'm afraid of is—haven't I trusted her too much? Didn't I allow my feelings to run away with me too far? I am anxious about her. I am anxious, anxious!”
Thus Maria Alexandrovna reflected as she drove along. She was a busy woman, was Maria Alexandrovna. ”

“ But how did you speak to her? As a lover should speak? Again, ought any man of respectable position and tone to speak like that? You insulted and wounded her!”
“Never mind about my ‘tone’ now! All I can say is that this morning, when I went away with the prince, in spite of both of you having been as sweet as honey to me before, you reviled me behind my back like a pickpocket! I know all about it, you see!”
“Yes, from the same dirty source, I suppose?” said Maria Alexandrovna, smiling disdainfully. “Yes, Paul, I did revile you: I pitched into you considerably, and I admit it frankly. ”

“ Maria Alexandrovna burst out at last. “It is just such abominable women as this that sow nonsensical rumours about! it is not the fact that there are such women about, Felisata Michaelovna, that is so surprising; the astonishing part of the matter is that ladies can be found who support and encourage them, and believe their abominable tales, and——”
“The prince, the prince!” cried all the guests at once. ”

“ I know you are much agitated!” cried Maria Alexandrovna. “You say, my child, that you wish me to be candid: very well, I will; I will be quite frank, I assure you. But you might have trusted me! Firstly, then, I must tell you that I have no actually organized plan yet—no detailed plan, that is. You must understand, with that clever little head of yours, you must see, Zina, that I cannot have such a plan, all cut out. I even anticipate some difficulties. Why, that magpie of a woman has just been telling me all sorts of things. We ought to be quick, by the bye ”

“ Besides, she felt sure that Zina need only show herself in society, with her mamma to support her, and every one of all those countesses and princes should very soon either acknowledge her of their own accord, or yield to the head-washing that Maria Alexandrovna felt herself so competent to give to any or all of them, individually or collectively. ”

“ Princess Marie did not hesitate to admit that she herself was a beauty, especially her blue eyes. She was the eldest daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia. She was named Marie Alexandra Victoria, after both her grandmothers, the Russian Empress Marie Alexandrovna and Queen Victoria of England. As already mentioned, her younger sister Victoria Melita (Ducky) was the divorced wife of Mother’s brother Ernest of Hesse; she was now married to the Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich. ”

“ There you will be comfortable and well taken care of; for I do not think, prince, that you are the sort of man to be left to the mercy of Fate in a town like Petersburg. Nina Alexandrovna, Gania’s mother, and Varvara Alexandrovna, are ladies for whom I have the highest possible esteem and respect. Nina Alexandrovna is the wife of General Ardalion Alexandrovitch, my old brother in arms, with whom, I regret to say, on account of certain circumstances, I am no longer acquainted. ”

“ She peers anxiously to see what the outlook is—whether there are any clouds in the sky that might bring rain and make the road muddy, the road upon which Borya would return home.
The heavens are tremulously joyous. The birches are rustling quietly. The sparrows are twittering. Everything is green, bright, quivering; everything palpitates under the tension of hopes and anticipations. Voices are audible; cries of good cheer and sounds of laughter. One of the laughers runs by, as though making haste to live.
A torrent of tears floods Sofia Alexandrovna’s eyes. ”

“ Maria Alexevna has long heard those adjectives applied to her daughter. Love! She clearly sees that Mikhaïl Ivanytch is madly in love. Where there is love there is happiness. It is complete; but when will he speak of marriage?
"You are very ungrateful, Vérotchka," said Maria Alexevna in a low voice to her daughter; "why do you turn away your head? They certainly pay you enough attention, little stupid! Tell me the French for engaged and marriage. ”

“ With the same undue haste Sofia Alexandrovna goes into the garden. She sees nothing, neither the white Aphrodite nor her roses, on her way to the little arbour from which, overlooking a corner of the garden, the road is visible. Vividly green in the sun, a four-sloped roof covers the arbour, while hangings of coarse cloth, with a red border, serve as a protection against inquisitive eyes.
Sofia Alexandrovna looks down the road with dark, hungry eyes. She waits impatiently, listening to the rapid, uneven beat of her heart; she waits: Borya will surely come in sight. ”