Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

And now she was so upset that she was quite unwell. An aunt had come to help Dounyásha keep her courage up, so there were four of them, including the little girl, sitting in the maid’s room, and talking in a low voice.

“Who will go to get some oil?” asked Dounyásha.

“Nothing will induce me to go, Avdótya Nikoláyevna!” the second maid said decidedly.

“Nonsense! You and Aksyúta go together.”

“I’ll run across alone. I’m not afraid of anything!” said Aksyúta, and at once became frightened.

“Well, then, go, dear; ask Granny Anna to give you some in a tumbler, and bring it here; don’t spill any,” said Dounyásha.

Aksyúta lifted her dress with one hand, and, being thereby prevented from swinging both arms, swung one of them twice as quickly across the line of her progression, and darted away. She was afraid, and felt that if she should see or hear anything, even her own living mother, she would perish with fright. She flew, with her eyes shut, along the familiar pathway.

XIII

“Is the mistress asleep or not?” suddenly asked a deep peasant voice close to Aksyúta.

She opened her eyes, which she had kept shut, and saw a figure that appeared taller than the serfs’ house. She screeched, and flew back so fast that her skirts floated behind her. With one bound she was in the porch, with another in the maids’ room⁠—where she threw herself, wildly yelling, on her bed.

Dounyásha, her aunt, and the other maid were paralyzed with fear, and before they had time to recover they heard heavy, slow, and uncertain steps in the passage and by their door.

Dounyásha rushed to her mistress, spilling the melted wax. The second maid hid among the petticoats that hung on the wall; the aunt, a more determined character, was going to keep the door to the passage closed, but it opened, and a peasant came into the room.

It was Doútlof, with his boat-like shoes. Paying no heed to the maids’ fears, he looked round for an icon, and, not seeing the tiny saint’s picture in the left-hand corner of the room, he crossed himself in front of a cupboard in which teacups were kept, laid his cap on the windowsill, and, thrusting his arm so deep into the bosom of his coat that it looked as if he were going to scratch under his other arm, he pulled out a letter with five brown seals, stamped with an anchor.

Dounyásha’s aunt held her hands to her heart, and with difficulty brought out the words:

“Well, you have given me a fright! I can’t bring out a wo⁠ ⁠… ord! I quite thought my last moment had come!”

“Is that the way to behave?” said the second maid, appearing from under the petticoats.

“The mistress herself is upset,” said Dounyásha, coming out of her mistress’s door. “What do you mean, shoving yourself in through the maids’ entrance, without leave?⁠ ⁠… Just like a peasant!”

Doútlof, without apologizing, again said that he wanted to see the lady.

“She is not well,” said Dounyásha.

At this moment Aksyúta burst into such improperly loud laughter that she was obliged to hide her face in the pillow on the bed, whence, in spite of Dounyásha’s and the aunt’s threats, for a long time she could not lift it without going off again, as if something were bursting inside her pink print bosom and rosy cheeks. To her it seemed so funny that everybody should have taken fright, that she again hid her head in the pillows, and, as if in convulsions, scraped the floor with her shoe, and jerked her whole body.

Doútlof stopped and looked at her attentively, as if to ascertain what was happening to her, but turned away again without having made out what it was all about, and continued:

“You see, it’s just this⁠—it’s a most important matter,” he said. “You just go and say that a peasant has found a letter with money.”

“What money?”

Dounyásha, before going to give the information, read the address and questioned Doútlof about when and how he had found this money which Polikéy ought to have brought back from town. Having heard all the particulars, and pushed the little errand-girl⁠—who was still convulsed with laughter⁠—out into the hall, Dounyásha went to her mistress; but, to Doútlof’s surprise, the mistress would not see him, and did not say anything intelligible to Dounyásha.

“I know nothing, and don’t wish to know anything!” the lady had said. “What peasant? What money?⁠ ⁠… I can’t and won’t see anyone! He must leave me in peace.”

“What am I to do?” said Doútlof, turning the envelope over; “it’s not a small sum. What is written on it?” he asked Dounyásha, who again read the address to him.

Doútlof seemed in doubt. He was still hoping that perhaps the money was not the mistress’s, and that the address had not been read out correctly to him. But Dounyásha confirmed it, and he put the envelope back into his bosom with a sigh, and was about to go.

“I suppose I shall have to hand it over to the police,” he said.

“Wait a bit! I’ll try again,” said Dounyásha, stopping him, after having attentively followed the disappearance of the envelope into the bosom of the peasant’s coat. “Let me have the letter.”

Doútlof took it out again, but did not at once put it into Dounyásha’s outstretched hand.

“Say that Doútlof found it⁠—Semyón.⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, let’s have it!”

“I was thinking it was just nothing⁠—only a letter; but a soldier read out to me that there was money inside.⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, then, let’s have it.”

“I dared not even go home first to⁠ ⁠…” Doútlof continued, still not parting with the precious envelope. “Inform the lady of it.”

Dounyásha took it from him and went again to her mistress.

“O my God! Dounyásha, don’t speak to me of that money!” said the lady in a reproachful tone. “Only to remember that little infant.⁠ ⁠…”

“The peasant does not know to whom you desire it to be given, madam,” Dounyásha again said.

The lady opened the envelope, shuddering at the sight of the money, and