They went in to dinner. They dined quietly. After dinner Viérotchka went to her room. Pavel Konstantinuitch lay down, as he usually did, to take a nap, but this time the nap was a failure. As soon as he closed his eyes, Matrióna came in and said that the khozyáïka's manservant was there; that the landlady asks Pavel Konstantinuitch to call upon her immediately. Matrióna was trembling like an aspen leaf. Why should she tremble?
VIII.
How could Matrióna help trembling when the whole trouble arose through her? As soon as she called Viérotchka to her pápenka and mámenka, she immediately ran off to tell the wife of the khozyáïka's cook how "your barin is courting our baruishna"; they called the youngest of the khozyáïka's chambermaids, and began to blame her for her unfriendliness in not having told them anything about it before. The youngest chambermaid could not understand what the secret was that they blamed her for not telling: she had never concealed anything. They told her when she said, "I have not concealed anything," that they were sorry for reproaching her for concealing anything. She ran off to tell the news to the oldest of the chambermaids; the oldest of the chambermaids said, "Of course, he has done this without his mother's knowledge, because I have not heard anything, and I must know everything that Anna Petrovna knows," and she went off to tell the whole story to the baruina; such was the mischief caused by Matrióna! "My confounded little tongue has made me a great deal of bother," she thought. "Marya Alekséyevna will find out who let the cat out of the bag." But it happened that Marya Alekséyevna forgot to ask who told of it.
Anna Petrovna could not say anything else but akh and okh: twice she fell in a swoon, even while she was alone with the senior chambermaid. Of course, she was greatly shocked, and she summoned her son. The son appeared.
"Michel, is it true what I have heard?" in a tone of indignant suffering.
"What have you heard, maman?"
"That you have offered yourself to this—to this—to this—to the daughter of our manager!"
"I have, maman."
