two. You are the very portrait of him, and not so much in face as in soul. You are both melancholy, both morose and hot-tempered, both haughty and both generous. … Surely he can’t be an egoist, Dounia. Eh? When I think of what is in store for us this evening, my heart sinks!”
“Don’t be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be.”
“Dounia, only think what a position we are in! What if Pyotr Petrovitch breaks it off?” poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna blurted out, incautiously.
“He won’t be worth much if he does,” answered Dounia, sharply and contemptuously.
“We did well to come away,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in. “He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and has a breath of air … it is fearfully close in his room. … But where is one to get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel like shut-up rooms. Good heavens! what a town! … stay … this side … they will crush you—carrying something. Why, it is a piano they have got, I declare … how they push! … I am very much afraid of that young woman, too.”
“What young woman, mother?”
“Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now.”
“Why?”
“I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but as soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the chief cause of the trouble. …”
“Nothing of the sort!” cried Dounia, in vexation. “What nonsense, with your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the evening before, and he did not know her when she came in.”