a voice, which seemed to rend my heart…

Before me stood Semyon Matveitch!

I was rushing to escape, but he clutched at my arm.

‘Where are you off to, vile hussy?’ he hissed. ‘You ‘re quite equal to stolen interviews with young fools, so you’ll have to be equal to the consequences.’

I was numb with horror, but still struggled towards the door… In vain! Like iron hooks the ringers of Semyon Matveitch held me tight.

‘Let me go, let me go,’ I implored at last.

‘I tell you you shan’t stir!’

Semyon Matveitch forced me to sit down. In the half-darkness I could not distinguish his face. I had turned away from him too, but I heard him breathing hard and grinding his teeth. I felt neither fear nor despair, but a sort of senseless amazement… A captured bird, I suppose, is numb like that in the claws of the kite… and Semyon Matveitch’s hand, which still held me as fast, crushed me like some wild, ferocious claw….

‘Aha!’ he repeated; ‘aha! So this is how it is… so it’s come to this… Ah, wait a bit!’

I tried to get up, but he shook me with such violence that I almost shrieked with pain, and a stream of abuse, insult, and menace burst upon me…

‘Michel, Michel, where are you? save me,’ I moaned.

Semyon Matveitch shook me again… That time I could not control myself… I screamed.

That seemed to have some effect on him. He became a little quieter, let go my arm, but remained where he was, two steps from me, between me and the door.

A few minutes passed… I did not stir; he breathed heavily as before.

‘Sit still,’ he began at last, ‘and answer me. Let me see that your morals are not yet utterly corrupt, and that you are still capable of listening to the voice of reason. Impulsive folly I can overlook, but stubborn obstinacy—never! My son…’ there was a catch in his breath… ‘Mihail Semyonitch has promised to marry you? Hasn’t he? Answer me! Has he promised, eh?’

I answered, of course, nothing. Semyon Matveitch was almost flying into fury again.

‘I take your silence as a sign of assent,’ he went on, after a brief pause. ‘And so you were plotting to be my daughter-in-law? A pretty notion! But you’re not a child of four years old, and you must be fully aware that young boobies are never sparing of the wildest promises, if only they can gain their ends… but to say nothing of that, could you suppose that I—a noble gentleman of ancient family, Semyon Matveitch Koltovsky—would ever give my consent to such a marriage? Or did you mean to dispense with the parental blessing?… Did you mean to run away, get married in secret, and then come back, go through a nice little farce, throw yourself at my feet, in the hope that the old man will be touched…. Answer me, damn you!’

I only bent my head. He could kill me, but to force me to speak—that was not in his power.

He walked up and down a little.

‘Come, listen to me,’ he began in a calmer voice. ‘You mustn’t think… don’t imagine… I see one must talk to you in a different manner. Listen; I understand your position. You are frightened, upset…. Pull yourself together. At this moment I must seem to you a monster… a despot. But put yourself in my position too; how could I help being indignant, saying too much? And for all that I have shown you that I am not a monster, that I too have a heart. Remember how I treated you on my arrival here and afterwards till… till lately… till the illness of Mihail Semyonitch. I don’t wish to boast of my beneficence, but I should have thought simple gratitude ought to have held you back from the slippery path on which you were determined to enter!’

Semyon Matveitch walked to and fro again, and standing still patted me lightly on the arm, on the very arm which still ached from his violence, and was for long after marked with blue bruises.

‘To be sure,’ he began again, ‘we’re headstrong… just a little headstrong! We don’t care to take the trouble to think, we don’t care to consider what our advantage consists in and where we ought to seek it. You ask me: where that advantage lies? You’ve no need to look far…. It’s, maybe, close at hand…. Here am I now. As a father, as head of the family I am bound to be particular…. It’s my duty. But I’m a man at the same time, and you know that very well. Undoubtedly I’m a practical person and of course cannot tolerate any sentimental nonsense; expectations that are quite inconsistent with everything, you must of course dismiss from your mind for really what sense is there in them?—not to speak of the immorality of such a proceeding…. You will assuredly realise all this yourself, when you have thought it over a little. And I say, simply and straightforwardly, I wouldn’t confine myself to what I have done for you. I have always been prepared—and I am still prepared—to put your welfare on a sound footing, to guarantee you a secure position, because I know your value, I do justice to your talents, and your intelligence, and in fact… (here Semyon Matveitch stooped down to me a little)… you have such eyes that, I confess… though I am not a young man, yet to see them quite unmoved… I understand… is not an easy matter, not at all an easy matter.’

These words sent a chill through me. I could scarcely believe my ears. For the first minute I fancied that Semyon Matveitch meant to bribe me to break with Michel, to pay me ‘compensation.’… But what was he saying? My eyes had begun to get used to the darkness and I could make out Semyon Matveitch’s face. It was smiling, that old face, and he was walking to and fro with little steps, fidgeting restlessly before me….

‘Well, what do you say,’ he asked at last, ‘does my offer please you?’

‘Offer?’… I repeated unconsciously,… I simply did not understand a word.

Semyon Matveitch laughed… actually laughed his revolting thin laugh.

‘To be sure,’ he cried, ‘you’re all alike you young women’—he corrected himself—’young ladies… young ladies… you all dream of nothing else… you must have young men! You can’t live without love! Of course not. Well, well! Youth’s all very well! But do you suppose that it’s only young men that can love?… There are some older men, whose hearts are warmer… and when once an old man does take a fancy to any one, well—he’s simply like a rock! It’s for ever! Not like these beardless, feather-brained young fools! Yes, yes; you mustn’t look down on old men! They can do so much! You’ve only to take them the right way! Yes… yes! And as for kissing, old men know all about that too, he-he-he…’ Semyon Matveitch laughed again. ‘Come, please… your little hand… just as a proof… that’s all….’

I jumped up from the chair, and with all my force I gave him a blow in the chest. He tottered, he uttered a sort of decrepit, scared sound, he almost fell down. There are no words in human language to express how loathsome and infinitely vile he seemed to me. Every vestige of fear had left me.

‘Get away, despicable old man,’ broke from my lips; ‘get away, Mr. Koltovsky, you noble gentleman of ancient family! I, too, am of your blood, the blood of the Koltovskys, and I curse the day and the hour when I was born of that ancient family!’

‘What!… What are you saying!… What!’ stammered Semyon Matveitch, gasping for breath. ‘You dare… at the very minute when I’ve caught you… when you came to meet Misha… eh? eh? eh?’

But I could not stop myself…. Something relentless, desperate was roused up within me.

‘And you, you, the brother… of your brother, you had the insolence, you dared… What did you take me for? Can you be so blind as not to have seen long ago the loathing you arouse in me?… You dare use the word offer!… Let me out at once, this instant!’

I moved towards the door.

‘Oh, indeed! oh, oh! so this is what she says!’ Semyon Matveitch piped shrilly, in a fit of violent fury, but obviously not able to make up his mind to come near me…. ‘Wait a bit, Mr. Ratsch, Ivan Demianitch, come here!’

The door of the billiard-room opposite the one I was near flew wide open, and my stepfather appeared, with a lighted candelabrum in each hand. His round, red face, lighted up on both sides, was beaming with the triumph of satisfied revenge, and slavish delight at having rendered valuable service…. Oh, those loathsome white eyes! when shall I cease to behold them?

‘Be so good as to take this girl at once,’ cried Semyon Matveitch, turning to my stepfather and imperiously pointing to me with a shaking hand. ‘Be so good as to take her home and put her under lock and key… so that she… can’t stir a finger, so that not a fly can get in to her! Till further orders from me! Board up the windows if need be! You’ll answer for her with your head!’

Mr. Ratsch set the candelabra on the billiard-table, made Semyon Matveitch a low bow, and with a slight swagger and a malignant smile, moved towards me. A cat, I imagine, approaches a mouse who has no chance of escape in that way. All my daring left me in an instant. I