said Semeonov. Children, said Olga Feodorovna. The poor.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Semeonov. ‘The poor.’
For some reason Dmitri began to feel depressed.
‘And church,’ said Olga Feodorovna. ‘She used to go to church.’
‘But stopped,’ said Semeonov.
Stopped?
‘A girlish whim!’ said Olga Feodorovna.
When was this?
‘About three months ago,’ said Semeonov.
‘I pleaded with her,’ said Olga Feodorovna. ‘I asked her to think how it would look.’
But she wouldn’t be persuaded?
‘Well,’ said Olga Feodorovna, ‘you know girls.’
Any reason?
‘Doubts,’ said Semeonov.
Doubts? What sort of doubts? Religious ones?
The Semeonovs wouldn’t say that.
‘She was having a difficult time,’ said Olga Feodorovna. ‘You know; girls.’
Dmitri hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about.
‘Moody,’ said Semeonov.
‘Well, yes,’ Olga Feodorovna had to admit, you could say that. A passing phase, though. And didn’t Dmitri Alexandrovich think that made young women more interesting?
Oh, yes, Dmitri was sure of that.
‘I knew you would understand,’ said Olga Feodorovna softly.
It was a pity Dmitri Alexandrovich had never met her.
Dmitri was sure about that, too. In fact, he couldn’t think how it was that he had come to miss her.
‘Well, she didn’t get about much,’ said Olga Feodorovna. ‘I tried to encourage her to, but she preferred to stay at home.’
‘Reading,’ supplemented Semeonov.
‘You see!’ said Olga Feodorovna, making what had once been a pretty moue. ‘Serious!’
Not many friends, then?
‘Only a few,’ Olga Feodorovna conceded. ‘In the best families, of course.’
Men friends?
‘Oh, Dmitri Alexandrovich! We’re not like St Petersburg, you know!’
Nevertheless –
‘Frankly,’ said Semeonov, ‘there’s no one here you’d encourage her to meet.’
‘Except yourself, Dmitri Alexandrovich,’ said Olga Feodorovna, smiling.
‘When you get on a bit,’ said Semeonov. ‘In your career, I mean.’
But had there been anyone particular? A tendresse, perhaps?
‘Oh, Dmitri Alexandrovich!’ said Olga Feodorovna roguishly.
‘No,’ said Semeonov shortly.
Servants came and cleared the dishes away. Over the coffee, Dmitri said:
‘And what exactly was Anna Semeonova doing in the Court House yesterday?’
‘A fad!’ said Semeonov, frowning.
‘A whim!’ said Olga Feodorovna.
‘But what …?’
‘She wanted to see a court in action,’ said Semeonov. ‘Well, I ask you!’
‘Such a serious girl!’ said Olga Feodorovna.
‘It’s all these books she’s been reading. I’m all for giving girls education,’ said Semeonov, ‘but you can go too far.’
‘I told her we could receive the lawyers socially,’ said Olga Feodorovna. ‘Only that wasn’t what she wanted.’
‘She wanted to go and see,’ said Semeonov. ‘I fixed it up with Smirnov. I didn’t want anything too … well, you know what I mean. She’s only a young girl.’
‘Smirnov?’ said Dmitri. ‘That would be contracts, then.’
‘I thought that was safest. Nothing too juicy. Smirnov said that it would be so boring she’d never want to go again.’
‘I see. So there was nothing specific she particularly wanted to see, it was just the working of the courts in general?’
‘She wanted to see the working of justice, she said.’
In that case, thought Dmitri, why go to the Law Courts?
Dmitri considered the fact that she was a serious girl a major indictment. He knew what serious girls were like. Especially in Kursk.
Besides, with her parents’ permission, he’d taken a look in her room and seen the books: heavy, figure-filled stuff and all in German. Dmitri felt guilty about German. Germany was where a lot of the most advanced social thinking was going on and as a committed Westernizer, he should have been keeping himself au courant. He found the German language, however – or, at least, the German language as written by heavy German academics – hard going. So, apparently, had Anna Semeonova. She had persevered, nonetheless. That was another thing that Dmitri held against her.
The books gave a clue as to the direction of her seriousness. She was not serious about novels, she was not serious about music, she was not serious about ballet. What she was serious about was society. Unless Dmitri was much mistaken, the poor girl had had a fit of politics coming on.
This threw a different light on things. It knocked on the head, for a start, Dmitri’s favourite theory at the moment (Dmitri had a lot of theories, it was relating them to facts that was the problem), namely, that Anna Semeonova had gone off with a boyfriend. Seriousness and sexuality were, in Dmitri’s view, incompatible. Unless – the thought made him stop in his tracks as he trudged back to the Court House through the remnants of snow – unless having a boyfriend was itself a political act!
It might be. With parents like the Semeonovs, any daughter could be excused for turning to rebellion; and what better form could rebellion take than running off with an unsuitable boyfriend? It was a sort of inverse of the mother’s position. Psychologically, thought Dmitri, this sounded right; or if not right, at least interesting.
He decided he would pursue the matter with Novikov when he got back to the Court House. He was already sure that the Chief of Police’s searching would not uncover a body. Dmitri was an optimistic fellow at heart and found it hard to believe, in general, that anyone was dead.
And so it turned out, at least in so far as all the searching that morning, in the park, in the grounds, in the back yard and, again, in the building itself, had failed to produce a body.
‘Of course you won’t find a body,’ said Dmitri confidently, ‘because the body walked out.’
‘Now, look here, Dmitri Alexandrovich – ’ began the caretaker.
They were sitting in his room drinking tea. The room was right next to the entrance and he was always in it, always drinking tea, as he pointed out.
‘No one gets in or out without me seeing them. What do you think I’m here for?’
Dmitri had often wondered but wisely refrained from the comment.
‘Your attention might have been distracted,’ said Novikov.
‘In that case Peter Profimovich would have noticed. Wouldn’t you, Peter Profimovich?’