Dosia's daughter

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I. Twenty Years of Marriep Lirg, I!

DAUGHTER

DOSIA’S DAUGHTER.

Chapter I. Twenty Years Of Married Life

OUR health, my dear friends, and may : you see many happy returns of the day!” said Pierre Mourief, raising his glass, filled to the brim with ae to the level of his eyes. | The hosts rose and replied to Mourief’s toast with their usual good grace; the children came and kissed their parents; all left their places; kisses and handshakings without number were exchanged, and finally every one returned to his seat. A short silence followed, while all the company looked at each other with smiles.

12 DOSTA’S DAUGHTER.

of content. The servants took the opportunity to remove the knives and forks, and replace the chafing-dishes by a well-ordered dessert.

It was a handsome table, superbly arranged ; everything on it gave proof of a tasteful and long-established luxury; there were no fragile, fanciful things, but massive silverware and thick Bohemian glass, though from the ceiling was suspended a wreath of globes from which hung bunches of leaves and flowers, that swayed to and fro above the table; the traditional lamp was replaced by a chandelier full of candles, and it all had a peculiarly aerial air, quite individual, and of a character not to be found elsewhere.

“ You are looking at our ceiling,” said Platon Sourof to his brother-in-law Pierre. “It is an idea of Dosia’s.”

“A good idea; but one must be in one’s own house in order to execute it. My landlord at Petersburg would make a great to-do if I pleased myself by making a dozen holes like that in his stucco ceiling! But it is very pretty.”

“Dosia has only good ideas,” added Madame Mourief, smiling at her sister-in-law.

“You did not say the same of me when I was a young girl!” exclaimed Madame Sourof, laughing. “I don’t believe there ever was a girl on earth more scolded than I!”

“Oh, yes!” said a sulky voice at the other extremity of the table; “I am!”

A general laugh resounded so gayly that the ivy wreaths began to dance above the guests, and the complainer could not help laughing too.

“You, Ania?” said Uncle Pierre, putting his eye-glass to his eye, in order to look at his niece, who lowered her eyes with a vexed air, in spite of an involuntary movement which still raised the corner of her mouth. ‘ Why, you! You were born to be scolded! ”

“1 perceive it,’ replied Agnes,

She was crimson, and ready to get angry;

but, raising her eyes, she met her Aunt Sophie Mourief’s glance, and her ill-humor vanished at once. Aunt Sophie had a way of smiling at you so sweetly that it went to your heart, whatever might be the matter with you. Agnes held out against her mother sometimes, but never against her Aunt Sophie.

““ She is a second Dosia,”’ said General Baranine, laughing.

“General!” exclaimed Madame Sourof. “I think you are wanting in respect towards me.”

Laughter ran again around the table.

“Tt is not my fault,” continued the old friend of the family, “if your originalities have illustrated the name; you bear, my dear, the burden of glory.”

“Oh!” sighed Dosia, “ it is so long since I was young.”

Here the shouts of laughter were so loud that, for some time, no one could hear anything else. Agnes alone did not laugh.

“IT do not understand,” thought she, “ why they find so droll in mamma the same things which they blame in me!”

But she remained silent.

Dosia’s face, indeed, contradicted her words in a most striking manner. It was easy to see that twenty years ago she had been extremely pretty. The passing years had somewhat altered her former childlike charms, but she was beautiful now; her complexion had retained the pearl-like freshness of youth, and her eyes shone as brightly as ever.

“ Dosia,’ said Pierre Mourief, “it is twenty years ago to-day since you married my good friend Platon; do you remember the year before?”

“T should think so,” answered Madame Sourof, blushing slightly.

“Do you know that it was exactly a year before the same date that we ran away together?”

“ Carrying with you, for all your luggage, two oranges and a jar of sweetmeats, tied up in a handkerchief,’ added Platon, with a satisfied air.

“A year? day for day? No, I did not know it. I didn’t make a note of it,” replied Dosia, with a disdainful manner.

“That, Pierre, is for you,’ said the good Sophie, complacently.

“Yes, my dear wife, that is a hard blow to my vanity. But tell me, Dosia, if I had not brought you back that day, what would have happened?”

Madame Sourof’s eyes sparkled so that it seemed to her friends that they saw her again just as she was twenty years before.

“What would have happened, my dear brother?” she replied with vivacity; “ask your right cheek, for I think the slap you received that day was on your left one.”

At this her guests burst out laughing together, including Agnes. She was not sorry to know that her Uncle Pierre, who was always teasing her, had received a slap on the face one fine morning from her mamma, who was always scolding.

“ A slap, Uncle Pierre?” said she, when calm was restored. |

“Yes, my niece.”

“Pierre!” murmured Dosia; “before the children, I think that” ...

Madame Mourief glanced at her sister-in-law with her tranquil look.

“T think,” she said, “it is far better that children should not have any cause to suspect mysteries in the lives of their parents.”

Dosia acquiesced with a sign of her head, as did also her husband.

Pierre, who had followed this conversation without seeming to take notice of it, turned towards his young niece, ready to receive her attacks.

“Tell me, uncle, did the slap hurt you?”

“My niece, look at your mother’s pretty little hands, and answer the question yourself.”

Agnes looked at her own hands and shook her head. She knew by experience that a slap from those slim fingers had more than once drawn a groan from her big brother, a few years before. :

“ And, uncle, will you have the kindness to tell me what effect it had upon you?” she replied.

“Ania!” said her brother, in a low tone of reproach. |

She shrugged her shoulders, which was her usual way of replying to observations. '

“The effect?” said Pierre; *“* welljsitewes rather curious, and very pleasant. The result was this: I married your Aunt Sophie, and your mother married my friend Platon.”

Ania looked at her parents in turn with a perplexed and somewhat incredulous air.

“JT will tell you about it,” said Sophie Mourief to her niece. ‘‘ Nothing is so simple, you will see.”

“What your aunt could not tell you, my dear,” added Dosia, “is of the extraordinary kindness she has shown to me, and the deep affection which her brother, your father, my child, deserved and has won. . . . There is no one in the world better than your father, except it may be his sister.”

Tears, which she discreetly held back, gave to Dosia’s eyes all their juvenile brilliancy, while she rose from the table, giving the signal to disperse. Platon joined his wife and kissed her hand fervently. He had loved her deeply, with her faults, as a girl; and now, when she had become a wife and mother, full of estimable qualities, he loved her still better, and more and more every day. Their love, like every deep and sincere affection, was destined to grow till the end of their lives.

Aunt Sophie laid her hand on Agnes’s shoulder and led her gently towards a corner of the drawing-room, which was shut off from intruders by a sort of carved wooden screen, ornamented with trailing plants. They both sat down on a small sofa, while the other guests grouped themselves in the large, brilliantly lighted room.

“Do you remember your grandmother?” asked Sophie.

‘““Mamma’s mother? Yes, I remember her. She was always out of spirits.”

“She is dead,’ said Madame Mourief, gently. ‘Well, her character did not at all enable her to understand your mother’s ” —

“T should think so! mamma so gay, and brilliant, and funny — and grandmother so tiresome!”

“Let us not speak of her, since she no longer lives,” insisted Sophie. “ But you can understand, can you not? Your mother could not be very happy with her.”

A very significant nod of the head showed that Agnes understood perfectly.

‘‘Well, one day more unlucky than others, your mother was so vexed that she could not — bearAat.”

“What had she done?” asked Agnes, curiously.

An impulse to laugh showed itself in Sophie’s face, but she restrained herself and remained serious.

“There was a story about a dog, if I remember well, but that has no importance ” —

“O aunt! pray tell me about it!”

“JT don’t remember it very distinctly. However, it seems to me that Dosia had installed in her bed an enormous dog, with a morningjacket and a night-cap on.”

“Oh! I know. Sultan! ”

“Exactly. One of your aunts was sleeping in the same room. She took fright and screamed ” —

“My horrid aunts! I am delighted. I would like to know which of them it was. But I hate them all, one as much as the other,” said the young girl, laughing till she rolled on the sofa.

‘“Dosia was scolded, and the dog was beaten ” —

“ Poor, dear thing!”

“My husband, who was then only your mother’s cousin, happened to be there. Dosia wanted to leave her mother’s house, and did, in fact, leave with him; but she had not gone a verst before she realized how foolish she had been. Pierre was not pleased. He received the memorable slap of which they were talking just now, and he took your mother back to her home.”

“ And, of course, she was scolded still more than before?”

“You must confess that she deserved it.”

“ That depends,” replied Agnes, with a knowing aif.” 7 “SArosnen sr. 4

“ Then, a little while after, my brother met Dosia; he had heard Pierre speak of her. They were friends; we all made each other’s acquaintance, and it ended by our two marbod ” riages,

TWENTY YVEARS OF MARRIED LIFE. 23

Agnes remained in deep meditation.

“ Of what are you thinking?” asked her aunt.

“T am thinking that, if I had left the house like that, I would not have gone back to it in a quarter of an hour.” shyt:

“Vou would have done wrong,” replied Sophie, in her kind, commanding way. “But your mother, capricious as she was at that time, was really unhappy on account of her sisters. You are the very happiest of young girls; there is, therefore, no analogy whatever between the two situations.”

“Vou are an excellent, dear aunt,” replied Agnes, kissing Madame Moutrief.

A few moments after, she joined her brother, who had sought refuge in a corner, with two or three young people, his youngest sister and his friend Ermile Drakof. They were very merry in the little group, where they made a place for Agnes.

Ermile was a tall fellow, somewhat heavy, and with broad shoulders, which had already

' caught a slight bend from a habit of leaning over his books, although he was _ scarcely twenty-five years old. One could see from his appearance that he was simple-hearted, of an upright character, and an enemy to all deceit. His clothes, which were very neat, bore that individual stamp peculiar to men who care for their toilet as a duty only, and not asa pleasure. There was nothing striking about him, and one could have met him frequently without remarking him; but once

having noticed him one could not fail to be | attracted, and, having once conversed with him for an hour, to be desirous of becoming his friend.

“ Are you not going to give us a little music, Miss Agnes?” said he.

Agnes at first looked a refusal, and then relented; for, in truth, she was very fond of playing.

“T am willing,’ she replied, “ only you must play with me.”

“T shall be only too happy,” murmured Ermile, and he hurried to open the piano.

They both played very well: Agnes with more caprice and Orzo, he with faultless surety and excellent taste. Separately they would certainly not have obtained such satisfactory results as when playing together, for they corrected each other’s faults, and their good qualities appeared to better advantage from contrast.

The company listened but inattentively, and the general conversation followed its course; it mattered little to them, however, for they loved music enough for itself to find pleasure in playing without preoccupying themselves about applause.

“How well they play together,” said Pierre Mourief. Platon looked at his charming daughter with a paternal pride that was very justifiable.

“She is a good musician,” said he; ‘she can do whatever she wishes to do. What a pity that she is so hard to manage!”

“She belongs to the family,” said Pierre.

He loved his sister-in-law very sincerely; but from their perpetual quarrels and makingsup, in the days of their childhood and youth, they had retained an inveterate habit of teasing each other. |

“Ves,” replied Dosia;* pat I was not so rough ” —

Ohl “said fiers touching his cheek in so droll a way that they ll three smiled. | Biren

“T mean,” continued Madame Sourof, “ that I did not have that somewhat rude firmness which I regret to see in my daughter.”

“That,” interrupted Pierre, “is one of her father’s virtues, which has been slightly modified by transmission.” ;

“You can laugh at’ me,” said *Platons"@ you know it will not make me angry; but it is nevertheless true that at times Agnes evinces something ascetic, so to speak, which makes me anxious for her future.”

“Wait a bit, till she wants to marry, and then you will see!”

“Precisely. I see her just as severe to herself as she is to others, and I don’t know what will come of it. Kola was made in another mould.”

“Oh! Kola, he is perfection,” said Dosia, throwing complacently a mother’s glance upon her son, who was occupied at the time in explaining to the children the complicated mechanism of a toy. ‘He is good, he is patient, he is well-behaved. He is the picture of his father!”

“A hit!” said Platon, laughing. ‘ Well, Agnes is not the picture of her mother, and it is really a pity.”

“IT used to be very terrible, though,” replied Dosia; ‘‘ I even think, were it necessary,I could be so again. The old Adam is not yet dead in me!”

Mamma, aunt, will you let us dance? ” cried the children and young people, all in one breath, running towards the mistress of the house.

“As much as you please,” replied Dosia. Ermile and Agnes had just struck the final chord. The young girl left the piano with a sulky air. She did not like dancing. The young man, seeing what they all desired, turned round on the piano-stool, which he had not left, and began one of Strauss’s most brilliant waltzes. Immediately all the company, with the exception of some venerable personages seated round the whist-tables, commenced dancing in the lofty, cool drawing-room, where the breeze of a soft summer night came through the open windows. .

Mademoiselle Titof, who had educated the girls, came and sat by Agnes, who was not dancing. “Wouldn't you like to dance?” said she. “See how gay they all are! Your mother does not look twenty years old to-night.”

‘““And I feel as if I were sixty,” replied

Agnes, inacurttone. ‘It disgusts me to see people act so youthful when they have not a hair on their heads! I don’t say that for mamma, nor for my father, or Aunt and Uncle Mourief.” She hastened to add: ‘“ They are good-natured and jolly, and I am glad of everything that gives them pleasure.”

Saal You don’t look so!” said her brother as he passed her, waltzing with Ermile’s sister.

Agnes did not deign to reply.

“What disgusts me is to see grave people, like General Baranine, who ought to know better—- Well, it seems the world is happy so.”

“Miss Agnes, will you give me a turn?” asked Ermile, bowing before her. An old lady had taken his place at the piano.

She looked at him with a displeased air, but his face was so kind, and he seemed so disposed not to dance again that evening if she exacted it, that she rose slowly and let herself be carried off in the whirl. They had not gone half-way round the room when she perceived a little boy and girl, about twelve years old, who were obstinately turning round in a corner, with a helpless air, being unable to get outside a rampart some chairs made about them.

She at once left her partner, seized the small boy, and threw the little girl into Ermile’s arms, saying to him: —

“Let us make two people happy! ”

In less than a second after she was whirling madly at the other end of the drawing-room. A French window, opening on the balcony that went round the house, being close at hand, Agnes cried out: —

“Let us go outside; let us go out in the moonlight!”

Her voice, as clear as the sound of a bell, rang to the very end of the room; all the dancers ran down the five or six steps that led to the gravelled garden, and without losing time began to waltz in good order.

“A polonaise!”’ cried Pierre Mourief, in a loud voice, “and let us lead the dance gayly!”

Mademoiselle Titof heard him. The old lady gave up her place to her, and a _ brilliant polonaise, played so as to make the very trees dance, resounded in the large, empty, and splendidly illuminated drawing-room. The imperturbable whist-players did not even perceive the change. Pierre had taken his sister-in-law’s hand, and led her with a solemn air to the head of the column of dancers. Couple after couple ranged themselves in line, and, marking the time, they made the round of the house. The flower-beds, lit up by the first rays of the full moon, embalmed the air.

They had begun by laughing, and then a certain gravity spread over the merry company. The penetrating odors of heliotrope and mignonette, the calm beauty of the landscape bathed in a soft, transparent mist, which the moon penetrated with a milky light, and a certain indescribable melancholy inspired by the night, awoke some poetic feeling in the most prosaic minds.

“What a night, Dosia!” said Pierre, as he led the column. ‘What a pity we are no longer young!”

“We live our own youth again in our children,” replied his sister-in-law, with a touch of sadness.

“Yes, but it is not ourselves! Do they even know how to be young? We were really so. Bah! we are so still,” continued he. ‘“ Fie upon sadness! Change ladies!” cried he, in a strong voice, and clapped his hands together.

An indescribable confusion followed amid shouts of laughter, except from the first two or three ladies in the column, who were obliged to recede, while Pierre ran and- took Agnes from the end of the line. Every one found a partner at last, but Mademoiselle Titof had unfortunately changed the tune and had begun to play a galop. The time was soon seized by the dancers, and all the company reéntered the drawing-room, rushing wildly:

Pierre threw himself on a sofa and gave vent to a loud “ Phew!”

The piano stopped, and the room was suddenly filled with noise and laughter.

“Well, Ania, are you enjoying yourself?” said Platon, seizing his daughter by one of the braids of her hair.

The face which was turned towards him was certainly not that of one who felt bored.

“Be happy, my darling,’ said the father, kissing his daughter’s brow. ‘“ May this day be without a cloud for you, my children, as it is for us!”

Agnes returned his caress, ran away and sat down at the piano; for the young people clamored for more dancing.

Ermile Drakof had withdrawn into a comparatively obscure corner, whence he looked at Agnes without being seen. The thought that she could not distinguish the expression of his face gave him confidence, and he no longer constrained himself to appear conventionally friendly.

If she had known all the tenderness that this young and upright heart contained for her! If she could have discerned how much resolution, courage, and dauntless ‘stoicism was hidden behind the smiling, almost silly air of the tall and rather heavy young man! But he would have been ashamed to have shown himself to her as he really was. She had told him so many times that one should know how to command one’s feelings, and that one was only a man when self-possessed; and he feared so to displease her.

Agnes was just eighteen. Ermile had known her from her childhood. The six years of difference between Nicolas Sourof’s age and his own had not interfered with their friendship; but would he have been as fond of a boy who was only a child, while he was finishing his studies at the university, if Kola had not been brother to the disdainful Agnes?

He loved this house where the Sourofs lived six months of the year. He also loved their house at Petersburg; but the real nest, the refuge, the home, was the country-seat of Sourova, where a thousand memories of childhood united his life with those of his kind neighbors. Ermile’s father was a quiet old man, who went out very little, and went to sleep regularly after dinner in an arm-chair in the smoking-room. Married late in life, and a widower after a few years, he passionately loved his daughter Marie and his son Ermile. Marie, the elder, was an excellent girl, twentyeight years old. Plain, and a good housekeeper, expert and active, she had long since given up all thought of marriage, and _ lived very happy without it. ‘‘No one can ever know,” she was wont to say, ‘how easy it makes life!”

While Ermile was gazing at Agnes, whose lovely face had become rosy from the movement of her agile hands, Marie came near and leaned her chin on the shoulder of her brother, whom she adored. She had been almost a mother to him from the time he was left an orphan in his cradle; and, in spite of the years passed since then, she could not help always treating him somewhat likea a baby.

“Why don’t you dance?” she asked him.

“Tam resting,’ replied he, hastening to fix his eyes on another object.

What he most dreaded of all things was to have Marie guess his secret.

“Look at Agnes! Is she not pretty when rosy like that? One can find no fault with her except that she is ordinarily a little too pale ; to-night she is adorable.”

“She is tiring herself, I am going to takeher away,” said Ermile, hastening towards the piano.

Marie saw him lean over Agnes to speak to her, but without daring to look at her. She made a sign, and rose, still playing. The young man took her seat and continued the dance she had begun. He kept the measure so well that no one noticed. the substitution. ©

“ How we understand each other!” said Agnes, smiling.

“Like a pair of thieves,” replied Ermile, whose heart beat with joy at that friendly Ses

He was indefatigable that evening; waltz following polka, quadrille after quadrille. He sat at the piano without growing tired. The children had gone to bed, their eyes full of sleep and regret at not being able to keep open any longer; their parents talked, seated in happy groups. Not one of the fifty guests who had dined that day with Dosia felt within the sting of discontent. This happy house was one of sunshine, where reigned the sweetness of a constant and luminous peace, |

When the burnt-out candles made their glass supporters crack, the players of whist or of geet i ei Tn Bea rte ae - { - preference atlast rose. To them, too, the evening had been a pleasant and happy one. They were good people who had known each other for many years, and liked to play together. More than one of them would have found life joyless if the same round of visits had not allowed him to meet every day of the week the same friends whom he had been accustomed to see for forty years. From time to time death gathered a member from the circle, but kind Providence aged together those who, young at first, had gradually given up dancing, and acquired a taste for cards, so that the card-tables were still well crowded.

Dosia’s house contained a large number of guest chambers, and they were all occupied that night. They had made beds for the young men even in the out-houses, in rooms where provisions were ordinarily kept, and which retained a pleasant smell of fruit or grain.

Other guests, who were nearer neighbors, had come with their equipages, and their departure presented an interesting sight. A dozen four-horse carriages, for the most part open, came in turn to the front door, ready for the travellers; they left one by one, and the noise of the bells on the harnesses gradually grew less. When the last one had quitted the court the servants extinguished the torches that had lighted the departure; all sought their beds, and the moon shed floods of serene light over the silent house, over the perfumed garden, and over the fertile country of Sourova.

CHAPTER CONFESSIONS.

T is said that féte-days make sad to-morrows. | This is true sometimes; above all, when in the gayeties of the evening there has been something of license. But rejoicings like those which marked the twentieth anniversary of the marriage of Monsieur and Madame Sourof leave behind them no regrets.

One rises late, however. The children may chatter at dawn with the birds in the garden and park, but those who have danced until two o’clock in the morning have no wish to see the sun rise. They enter, one after the other, the great dining-room, where the crystal bowls, full of foaming milk, the old utensils of silver vepoussé, and the little rolls, smoking and golden, make for them the most cheering sight.

CONFESSIONS. Al

Ermile and his sister arose first. Marie was seated at the table, where for two hours already she had poured tea and coffee, and served each new-comer with inexhaustible complacency. She had not her equal for remaining half a day before a samovar, refilled from time to time by the attentive servants, and giving a kindly word with each cup. No wonder that Madame Sourof scarcely knew how to do without her when she entertained her guests.

Agnes entered, a quiet expression on her face, her eyes beaming. She inherited from her mother a wonderful vitality; but, instead of showing it on the surface, and spending it in those fancies which made Dosia, when young, the heroine of many a tale, she carefully reserved it in concealment, like a smothered fire. Throwing back the braids of blonde hair, which fell on her breast at every motion, she seated herself comfortably near Marie, and, pouring out a cup of milk, she rested her.

arms on the table and her chin upon her arms, looking about her. |

“Are your breakfasts like this?” asked Marie, taking from her pocket a ball of white wool and an ivory crochet-needle. She was always making afghans, and her father declared that she had already finished three dozen.

Agnes regarded her cup of milk with indifference. ‘(I have seen my bears just now; they eat with such appetites that it has satiated mes |

“Your bears! Have you bears now?”

“Yes, I have two. They are very pretty. I will show them to you. They are not in the house.” ,

“T fancy they are not in the sheepfold, either! ”

“No. They are near the greenhouse; they were given to me last spring, when they were very small. Just imagine, when mamma and I came here last April, at a post-station, while

- we were changing horses, a peasant came up carrying something in his cloak. ‘Are they dogs?’ said mamma. You know she cannot see a dog without a palpitation of the heart.

““*No,’ replied the peasant; ‘ they are little bears.’

«“<So little! Show them to us,’ said mamma, and the man placed them on the ground.

“QO Marie, you cannot imagine what dears they were! They were three weeks old, and as large as a Newfoundland dog of three months; and they had such pretty little ways! I sat down on the ground to play with them; they laid down on the train of my dress, and when I got up I drew them along on it. They did not wish to leave me. Their mother had been killed the day before. We gave them some milk, and they drank it like kittens, putting their lovely little noses and their paws into the bowl naturally, and when they had finished it they sat down to lick their paws. Then they ran after me about the room. And so mamma bought them and gave me one; the other belongs to Vera, but she does not care for ie? |