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24
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
" Te, te, te, so that’s it!" she exclaimed, throwing
up her hands. "Ah, you meek hypocrite; ah, you
wretch; well, just wait, and we ’11 show you up in
your true light," she cried, brimming over with
indignation.
It appeared, as we were told later on, that
Alexandra had long cherished suspicions of Marya Vasilievna.
She had observed that the latter was carrying on
an intrigue with the gardener. " Well, and you can
judge for yourself," she said to nurse, " whether such
a fine fellow as Philip Matvyeevitch would love such
an old woman for nothing. She certainly won his
good-will with gifts." And in fact she soon convinced
herself that Marya Vasilievna was in the habit of
giving him presents and money. Where did she get
them 1 So she instituted a regular system of
espionage on the unsuspecting Marya Vasilievna. This
penknife was merely the last link in the long chain of
evidence.
This affair turned out interesting and absorbing to
a degree which no one could have foreseen. There
suddenly awoke in nurse that passionate instinct of
the detective which so often lies slumbering in the
souls of old women, and instigates them to fling
themselves with fury into the unraveling of any
tangled affair, even though it does not concern them
in the least. In the present case, nurse was
encouraged in her eagerness by the fact that she felt guilty
of a great sin toward Feklusha, and was burning with
the desire to expiate it as speedily as possible.
Consequently an offensive and defensive league against
Marya Vasilievna was formed between her and v
Alexandra.
As both women were already morally convinced to
the last degree of the woman’s guilt, they decided on
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