VIII.
THE TEMPTATION OF HAMLET.
One day at tea, Marya Alekséyevna said that she had a headache; after serving the tea, and locking up the sugarbowl she went away and retired. Viéra and Lopukhóf remained sitting in the tea-room, which adjoined the bed-room where Marya Alekséyevna had gone.
After a few minutes she sent a message by Feódor: "Tell your sister that their talk keeps me from going to sleep; let 'em go somewhere else so as not to bother me. Say it politely, so as not to offend Dmitri Sergéitch; you see what good care he takes of you." Feódor went and told what his mother wanted.
"Let us go to my room, Dmitri Sergéitch; it is away from mother's bed-room, and we shall not be disturbed."
Of course this was what Marya Alekséyevna expected. At the end of a quarter of an hour she crept in her stocking feet up to the door of Viérotchka's room. The door was ajar; between the door and the jamb was a splendid crack: Marya Alekséyevna applied her eyes to it and strained her ears.
This was the sight that she saw:—
In Viérotchka's rooms were two windows; between them stood a writing-table. Viérotchka was sitting near one window, knitting a woollen chest-protector for her father, religiously fulfilling Marya Alekséyevna's command. At the other window, at the other end of the table, Lopukhóf was sitting: he was leaning with one elbow on the table; he had a cigar in his hand; his other hand was thrust in his pocket; the distance between Viérotchka and him was not less than two arshíns (4.6 feet). Viérotchka was looking most of the time at her knitting; Lopukhóf was looking most of the time at his cigar. This was a gratifying state of things.
The conversation that she overheard was as follows:—
"Is it necessary to look at life in this way?" These were the first words that Marya Alekséyevna caught.
"Yes, Viéra Pavlovna, it is necessary."
"Then cold, practical people must tell the truth, when they say that men are governed only by selfish motives?"
