Uncle's Dream by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Author:Fyodor Dostoyevsky [Dostoyevsky, Fyodor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Anncona Media AB
Published: 1859-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter IX.

He had heard all— all.

He did not actually enter the room, but stood at the door, pale with excitement and fury. Zina looked at him in amazement.

“So that's the sort of person you are!” he cried panting. “At last I have found you out, have I?”

“Found me out?” repeated Zina, looking at him as though he were a madman. Suddenly her eyes flashed with rage. “How dare you address me like that?” she cried, advancing towards him.

“I have heard all!” said Mosgliakoff solemnly, but involuntarily taking a step backwards.

“You heard? I see—you have been eavesdropping!” cried Zina, looking at him with disdain.

“Yes, I have been eavesdropping! Yes—I consented to do a mean action, and my reward is that I have found out that you, too, are——I don't know how to express to you what I think you!” he replied, looking more and more timid under Zina's eyes.

“And supposing that you have heard all: what right have you to blame me? What right have you to speak to me so insolently, in any case?”

“I!—I? what right have I? and you can ask me this? You are going to marry this prince, and I have no right to say a word! Why, you gave me your promise—is that nothing?”

“When?”

“How, when?”

“Did not I tell you that morning, when you came to me with your sentimental nonsense—did I not tell you that I could give you no decided answer?”

“But you did not reject me; you did not send me away. I see—you kept me hanging in reserve, in case of need! You lured me into your net! I see, I see it all!”

An expression of pain flitted over Zina's careworn face, as though someone had suddenly stabbed her to the heart; but she mastered her feelings.

“If I didn't turn you out of the house,” she began deliberately and very clearly, though her voice had a scarcely perceptible tremor in it, “I refrained from such a course purely out of pity. You begged me yourself to postpone, to give you time, not to say you ‘No,’ to study you better, and ‘then,’ you said, ‘then, when you know what a fine fellow I am, perhaps you will not refuse me!’ These were your own words, or very like them, at the very beginning of your courtship!—you cannot deny them! And now you dare to tell me that I ‘lured you into my net,’ just as though you did not notice my expression of loathing when you made your appearance this morning! You came a fortnight sooner than I expected you, and I did not hide my disgust; on the contrary, I made it evident—you must have noticed it—I know you did; because you asked me whether I was angry because you had come sooner than you promised! Let me tell you that people who do not, and do not care to, hide their loathing for a man can hardly be accused of luring that man into their net! You dare to tell me that

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