Indeed, he swore, and kept his oath, that, until all outstanding debts were paid, he would never wear any clothes than his father's greatcoat and a corduroy jacket which he had made for himself, nor yet ride in aught but a country waggon, drawn by peasants' horses.This stoical mode of life he sought to apply also to his family, so far as the sympathetic respect which he conceived to be his mother's due would allow of; so that, although, in the drawing-room, he would show her only stuttering servility, and fulfil all her wishes, and blame any one who did not do precisely as she bid them, in his study or his office he would overhaul the cook if she had served up so much as a duck without his orders, or any one responsible for sending a serf (even though at Madame's own bidding) to inquire after a neighbour's health or for despatching the peasant girls into the wood to gather wild raspberries instead of setting them to weed the kitchen-garden.
Within four years every debt had been repaid, and Peter had gone to Moscow and returned thence in a new jacket and tarantass.[A
two-wheeled carriage.] Yet, despite this flourishing position of affairs, he still preserved the stoical tendencies in which, to tell the truth, he took a certain vague pride before his family and strangers, since he would frequently say with a stutter: "Any one who REALLY wishes to see me will be glad to see me even in my dressing-gown, and to eat nothing but shtchi [Cabbage-soup.] and kasha [Buckwheat gruel.] at my table." "That is what I eat myself," he would add.In his every word and movement spoke pride based upon a consciousness of having sacrificed himself for his mother and redeemed the property, as well as contempt for any one who had not done something of the same kind.
The mother and daughter were altogether different characters from Peter, as well as altogether different from one another.The former was one of the most agreeable, uniformly good-tempered, and cheerful women whom one could possibly meet.Anything attractive and genuinely happy delighted her.Even the faculty of being pleased with the sight of young people enjoying themselves (it is only in the best-natured of elderly folk that one meets with that TRAIT) she possessed to the full.On the other hand, her daughter was of a grave turn of mind.Rather, she was of that peculiarly careless, absent-minded, gratuitously distant bearing which commonly distinguishes unmarried beauties.Whenever she tried to be gay, her gaiety somehow seemed to be unnatural to her, so that she always appeared to be laughing either at herself or at the persons to whom she was speaking or at the world in general--a thing which, possibly, she had no real intention of doing.Often I asked myself in astonishment what she could mean when she said something like, "Yes, I know how terribly good-
looking I am," or, "Of course every one is in love with me," and so forth.Her mother was a person always busy, since she had a passion for housekeeping, gardening, flowers, canaries, and pretty trinkets.Her rooms and garden, it is true, were small and poorly fitted-up, yet everything in them was so neat and methodical, and bore such a general air of that gentle gaiety which one hears expressed in a waltz or polka, that the word "toy" by which guests often expressed their praise of it all exactly suited her surroundings.She herself was a "toy"--being petite, slender, fresh-coloured, small, and pretty-handed, and invariably gay and well-dressed.The only fault in her was that a slight over-prominence of the dark-blue veins on her little hands rather marred the general effect of her appearance.On the other hand, her daughter scarcely ever did anything at all.Not only had she no love for trifling with flowers and trinkets, but she neglected her personal exterior, and only troubled to dress herself well when guests happened to call.Yet, on returning to the room in society costume, she always looked extremely handsome--save for that cold, uniform expression of eyes and smile which is common to all beauties.In fact, her strictly regular, beautiful face and symmetrical figure always seemed to be saying to you, "Yes, you may look at me."
At the same time, for all the mother's liveliness of disposition and the daughter's air of indifference and abstraction, something told one that the former was incapable of feeling affection for anything that was not pretty and gay, but that Avdotia, on the contrary, was one of those natures which, once they love, are willing to sacrifice their whole life for the man they adore.
