"Wouldn't you like to talk with me?" asks Marya Alekséyevna, who also appeared suddenly. "You gentlemen get away from here, for I want to talk with my daughter."
All disappear. Viérotchka finds herself alone with Marya Alekséyevna. Marya Alekséyevna's face assumes a laughing expression.
"Viéra Pavlovna, you are an educated woman; you are so virtuous and high-toned," says Marya Alekséyevna, and her voice trembles with anger; "you are so kind; how can I then, who am rough and a drunkard, talk with you? Viéra Pavlovna, you have a bad and beastly mother; but allow me to ask, lady, why your mother took all the bother she did for you? It was about victuals. This, according to your idea, is a genuine care peculiar to humanity; isn't that so? You have had scoldings, you have seen bad deeds and meanness; but allow me to ask what they were meant for? Was it for nothing? Was it all nonsense? No, lady; no matter how things go in your family, it was not an empty, fantastic life. You see, Viéra Pavlovna, I have learned to speak as you do, in scientific language. But it may grieve you and shame you, Viéra Pavlovna, that your mother is a bad and ill-tempered woman? Would you like, Viéra Pavlovna, for me to become a good and honest woman? I am an enchantress, Viéra Pavlovna; I can bewitch things; I can fulfil your wish. Just look, Viéra Pavlovna! your wish is already being fulfilled. I, who am vixenish, vanish. Look at this kind mother and her daughter!"
A room. On the door-sill snores a drunken, unshaven, miserable man. Who it is cannot be told; his face is half covered with his hand, and the rest is discolored and bruised. A bed. On the bed a woman; yes, it is Marya Alekséyevna; but how kind, but how pale she is! how feeble, though she is only forty-five years old! how exhausted! By the bedside is a young girl of eighteen. "It is I myself, Viérotchka; but how ragged I seem! What does this mean? my complexion is so yellow, and my features are so rough! and what a miserable chamber! Scarcely any furniture!"
"Viérotchka, my dear, my angel," says Marya Alekséyevna, "just lie down and take a rest, my treasure. Why do you watch with me? I can attend to myself. This is the third night that you have not slept."
"Never mind; I am not tired," says Viérotchka.
