ged in thought. All
this was pre-ordained and foretold, and is accursed. Polina could
perpetrate any mad act. She--she--But who called me by name?" I broke
off. "Who is shouting for me? I heard some one calling in Russian,
'Alexis Ivanovitch!' It was a woman's voice. Listen!"

At the moment, we were approaching my hotel. We had left the cafe long
ago, without even noticing that we had done so.

"Yes, I DID hear a woman's voice calling, but whose I do not know. The
someone was calling you in Russian. Ah! NOW I can see whence the cries
come. They come from that lady there--the one who is sitting on the
settee, the one who has just been escorted to the verandah by a crowd
of lacqueys. Behind her see that pile of luggage! She must have arrived
by train."

"But why should she be calling ME? Hear her calling again! See! She is
beckoning to us!"

"Yes, so she is," assented Mr. Astley.

"Alexis Ivanovitch, Alexis Ivanovitch! Good heavens, what a stupid
fellow!" came in a despairing wail from the verandah.

We had almost reached the portico, and I was just setting foot upon the
space before it, when my hands fell to my sides in limp astonishment,
and my feet glued themselves to the pavement!

IX

For on the topmost tier of the hotel verandah, after being carried up
the steps in an armchair amid a bevy of footmen, maid-servants, and
other menials of the hotel, headed by the landlord (that functionary
had actually run out to meet a visitor who arrived with so much stir
and din, attended by her own retinue, and accompanied by so great a
pile of trunks and portmanteaux)--on the topmost tier of the verandah,
I say, there was sitting--THE GRANDMOTHER! Yes, it was she--rich, and
imposing, and seventy-five years of age--Antonida Vassilievna
Tarassevitcha, landowner and grande dame of Moscow--the "La Baboulenka"
who had caused so many telegrams to be sent off and received--who had
been dying, yet not dying--who had, in her own person, descended upon
us even as snow might fall from the clouds! Though unable to walk, she
had arrived borne aloft in an armchair (her mode of conveyance for the
last five years), as brisk, aggressive, self-satisfied, bolt-upright,
loudly imperious, and generally abusive as ever. In fact, she looked
exactly as she had on the only two occasions when I had seen her since
my appointment to the General's household. Naturally enough, I stood
petrified with astonishment. She had sighted me a hundred pac