MASHENKA PAVLETSKY, a young girl who had only just finished her
studies at a boarding school, returning from a walk to the house
of the Kushkins, with whom she was living as a governess, found the
household in a terrible turmoil. Mihailo, the porter who opened the
door to her, was excited and red as a crab.
Loud voices were heard from upstairs.
"Madame Kushkin is in a fit, most likely, or else she has quarrelled
with her husband," thought Mashenka.
In the hall and in the corridor she met maid-servants. One of them
was crying. Then Mashenka saw, running out of her room, the master
of the house himself, Nikolay Sergeitch, a little man with a flabby
face and a bald head, though he was not old. He was red in the face
and twitching all over. He passed the governess without noticing
her, and throwing up his arms, exclaimed:
"Oh, how horrible it is! How tactless! How stupid! How barbarous! Abominable!"
Mashenka went into her room, and then, for the first time in her
life, it was her lot to experience in all its acuteness the feeling
that is so familiar to persons in dependent positions, who eat the
bread of the rich and powerful, and cannot speak their minds. There
was a search going on in her room. The lady of the house, Fedosya
Vassilyevna, a stout, broad-shouldered, uncouth woman with thick
black eyebrows, a faintly perceptible moustache, and red hands, who
was exactly like a plain, illiterate cook in face and manners, was
standing, without her cap on, at the table, putting back into
Mashenka's workbag balls of wool, scraps of materials, and bits of
paper. . . . Evidently the governess's arrival took her by surprise, since, on looking round and seeing the girl's pale and astonished face, she was a little taken aback, and muttered:
"Pardon. I . . . I upset it accidentally. . . . My sleeve caught
in it. . ."
And saying something more, Madame Kushkin rustled her long skirts
and went out. Mashenka looked round her room with wondering eyes, and, unable to understand it, not knowing what to think, shrugged her shoulders, and turned cold with dismay. What had Fedosya Vassilyevna been looking for in her work-bag? If she really had, as she said, caught her sleeve in it and upset everything, why had Nikolay Sergeitch dashed out of her room so excited and red in the face? Why was one drawer of the table pulled out a little way? The money-box, in which the governess put away ten kopeck pieces and old stamps, was open. They had opened it, but did not know how to shut it, though they had scratched the lock all over. The whatnot with her books on it, the things on the table, the bed--all bore fresh traces of a search. Her linen-basket, too. The linen had been carefully folded, but it was not in the same order as Mashenka had left it when she went out. So the search had been thorough, most thorough. But what was it for? Why? What had happened? Mashenka remembered the excited porter, the general turmoil which was still going on, the weeping servant-girl; had it not all some connection with the search that had just been made in her room? Was not she mixed up in something dreadful? Mashenka turned pale, and feeling cold all over, sank on to her linen-basket.
A maid-servant came into the room.
"Liza, you don't know why they have been rummaging in my room?" the
governess asked her.
"Mistress has lost a brooch worth two thousand," said Liza.
"Yes, but why have they been rummaging in my room?"
"They've been searching every one, miss. They've searched all my
things, too. They stripped us all naked and searched us. . . . God
knows, miss, I never went near her toilet-table, let alone touching
the brooch. I shall say the same at the police-station."
"But . . . why have they been rummaging here?" the governess still
wondered.
"A brooch has been stolen, I tell you. The mistress has been rummaging
in everything with her own hands. She even searched Mihailo, the
porter, herself. It's a perfect disgrace! Nikolay Sergeitch simply
looks on and cackles like a hen. But you've no need to tremble like
that, miss. They found nothing here. You've nothing to be afraid
of if you didn't take the brooch."
"But, Liza, it's vile . . . it's insulting," said Mashenka, breathless
with indignation. "It's so mean, so low! What right had she to
suspect me and to rummage in my things?"