The Birds Fall Down Read Online Free PDF Page B

in a pleasant voice. She had forgotten his voice as she had forgotten nearly everything about him, yet it was charming, so unhurried, so good-humoured. “I’ve been away, I’ve been being an engineer instead of doing what I like and being a humble friend, and now I’m back I see a great improvement.”
    “But isn’t Laura exactly like her mother, Sofia? And doesn’t that mean that she’s exactly like my mother?” cried Nikolai, exultantly. Then concern sallowed his skin, dimmed his eyes, made him petitioning and humble. He was sorry for his wife after all. But no. He thought of her for hardly a moment. “Kamensky. Alexander Gregorievitch. While you were out I thought of something. I once had some correspondence with a man named Botkin. It might have some bearing on my case. I thought of a little, little thing, which might have some significance. Could you get me out the file? Is it too much trouble? I don’t want to give you too much trouble.”
    “You couldn’t do that, Excellence,” said Monsieur Kamensky. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till the morning. That file was sent down to the bank with the Muraviev material. A mistake in judgment, mine more than yours. But in the meantime read what I have here for you. It’s a copy of a letter from Souvorin about the way things are going in St. Petersburg. You’ll see from the envelope who received it. As an indirect gesture of respect to you, he sent it to me yesterday, with obvious indications that it wasn’t for my eyes but for yours.” Nikolai gave a sigh of pleasure and snatched the letter from his hand and sat down in an armchair by a lamp. Monsieur Kamensky bent over Laura’s hand and said, “Good evening, Miss Laura,” and as soon as he sat down beside her said in a quick undertone, “Please, Miss Laura, look happier. Sofia Andreievna is talking to your mother now, but she might look over here, and all day long she has been saying to me, ‘I hope the little one will not be frightened when she sees what my horrible toothache has done to me.’”
    “Is that all it is, toothache!” exclaimed Laura in relief. “Is it really only toothache?”
    “So she would tell you,” he said, taking off his spectacles and polishing them. “Persistent toothache. On many nights it gives her no sleep at all. Before long she will have to have a number of teeth extracted. That is why she wanted your mother to come over and be with her for a little time.”
    “You’ve taken a weight off my mind,” said Laura. “I can’t tell you how glad I am it’s only that. I was quite frightened. It is awful for anybody to be ill, but for my grandmother of all people, it’s far worse. Don’t you feel that?”
    “I feel it very strongly,” said Monsieur Kamensky. “All your family is extraordinary. Sometimes I speculate whether your grandmother was as wonderful when she married your grandfather, for I think him one of the most marvellous people who has ever lived, and some of his genius might well have rubbed off on to her. But now I have watched her enduring this illness I know she brought her own genius with her.”
    He believed in laying it on with a trowel. It was embarrassing. It seemed silly to say, “Oh, no,” but the alternative was to say, “Yes, we are wonderful, aren’t we?” But she forgot her annoyance, for a wave of scent had broken over her. It was too medicinal to be scent out of a bottle. But it made her think of gardens. It was the scent of something which grew in a big patch by the greenhouse in the house they rented every year outside Torquay, a herb called tansy. It seemed to be coming from Monsieur Kamensky’s handkerchief, and that made her want to ask him a question. But it was impertinent. She did not ask it.
    Though Monsieur Kamensky had not seemed to be watching Tania and her mother, he was up on his feet as soon as they started to move towards the door and was there to open it for them. Then he sighed, looked round the room,