ANNA ANDREYEVNA had long been expecting me. What I had told her the day before, about Natasha’s note, had greatly excited her curiosity; and she had expected me much earlier in the morning, by ten o’clock at the latest. By the time I turned up at two o’clock in the afternoon the poor woman’s agonies of suspense had reached an extreme pitch. She was longing, too, to talk to me of the new hopes aroused in her the day before, and of Nikolay Sergeyitch, who had been ailing since then, who was gloomy, and at the same time seemed specially tender to her. When I made my appearance she received me with an expression of coldness and displeasure in her face, hardly opened her mouth, and showed no sign of interest, almost as though she would ask why I had come, and what possessed me to drop in every day. She was angry at my coming so late. But I was in a hurry, and without further delay I described to her the whole scene at Natasha’s the evening before. As soon as she heard of the elder prince’s visit and his solemn proposal, her assumed indifference vanished instantly. I cannot find words to describe how delighted she was; she seemed quite beside herself, crossed herself, shed tears, bowed down before the ikons, embraced me, and was on the point of running to Nikolay Sergeyitch to tell him of her joy.
Bless me, my dear, why, it’s all the insults and humiliation he’s been through that are making him ill, and as soon as he knows that full reparation will be made to Natasha, he’ll forget it all in a twinkling.”
I had much ado to dissuade her. Though the good lady had lived twenty-five years with her husband she did not understand him. She was desperately anxious, too, to set off with me immediately to Natasha’s. I put it to her not only that Nikolay Sergeyitch would disapprove of her action, but that we might even ruin the whole business by going. With difficulty she was brought to think better of it, but she detained me another half-hour unnecessarily, talking herself the whole time.
“With whom shall I be left here?” she said, “sitting alone within four walls with such joy in my heart?”
At last I persuaded her to let me go, reminding her that Natasha must be sick of waiting for me. She made the sign of the cross several times to bless me on my way, sent a special blessing to Natasha, and almost shed tears when I absolutely refused to come back again that evening, unless anything special had happened at Natasha’s. I did not see Nicholay Sergeyitch on this occasion; he had been awake all night, complained of a headache, a chill, and was now asleep in his study.
Natasha, too, had been expecting me all the morning. When I went in she was, as usual, walking up and down the room, with her hands clasped, meditating. Even now when I think of her I always see her alone in a poor room, dreamy, deserted, waiting with folded hands and downcast eyes, walking aimlessly up and down.
Still walking up and down she asked me in a low voice why I was so late. I gave her a brief account of all my adventures, but she scarcely listened. One could see she was in great anxiety about something.
“Anything fresh?” I asked her.
“Nothing fresh,” she answered. But I guessed at once from her face that there was something fresh, and that she was expecting me on purpose to tell me, and she would tell me, not at once but just as I was going, as she always did.
That was always our habit. I was used to her and I waited. We began, of course, talking of the previous evening. I was particularly struck by the fact that we were quite agreed in our impression of Prince Valkovsky; and she positively disliked him, disliked him much more than she had at the time. And when we analysed the visit, point by point, Natasha suddenly said:
“Listen, Vanya, you know it’s always like that, if one doesn’t like a man at first, it’s almost a sure sign that one will like him afterwards. That’s how it’s always been with me, anyway.”
“Let us hope so, Natasha. And this is my opinion, and it’s a final one. I went over it all, and what I deduced was that though the prince was perhaps Jesuitical, he is giving his consent to your marriage genuinely and in earnest.”
Natasha stood still in the middle of the room and looked at me sternly. Her whole face was transformed; her lips twitched a little.
“But how could he in a case like this begin deceiving and . . . lying?”
“Of course not, of course not!” I assented hurriedly.
“Of course he wasn’t lying. It seems to me there’s no need to think of that. There’s no excuse to be found for such deception. And, indeed, am I so abject in his eyes that he could jeer at me like that? Could any man be capable of such an insult?”
“Of course not, of course not,” I agreed, thinking to myself, “you’re thinking of nothing else as you pace up and down, my poor girl, and very likely you’re more doubtful about it than I am.”
“Ah, how I could wish he were coming back sooner!” she said. “He wanted to spend the whole evening with me, and then. . . . It must have been important business, since he’s given it all up and gone away. You don’t know what it was, Vanya? You haven’t heard anything?”
“The Lord only knows. You know he’s always making money. I’ve heard he’s taking up a share in some contract in Petersburg. We know nothing about business, Natasha.”
“Of course we don’t. Alyosha talked of some letter yesterday.”
“News of some sort. Has Alyosha been here?
“Yes.”
“Early?”
“At twelve o’clock; he sleeps late, you know. He stayed a little while. I sent him off to Katerina Fyodorovna. Shouldn’t I have, Vanya?”
“Why, didn’t he mean to go himself?”
“Yes, he did.”
She was about to say more, but checked herself. I looked at her and waited. Her face was sad. I would have questioned her, but she sometimes particularly disliked questions.
“He’s a strange boy.” she said at last, with a slight twist of her mouth, trying not to look at me.
“Why? I suppose something’s happened?”
“No, nothing; I just thought so. . . . He was sweet, though. . . . But already . . .”
“All his cares and anxieties are over now,” said I.
Natasha looked intently and searchingly at me. She felt inclined perhaps to answer, “he hadn’t many cares or anxieties before,” but she fancied that my words covered the same thought. She pouted.
But she became friendly and cordial again at once. This time she was extraordinarily gentle. I spent more than an hour with her. She was very uneasy. The prince had frightened her. I noticed from some of her questions that she was very anxious to know what sort of impression she had made on him. Had she behaved properly? Hadn’t she betrayed her joy too openly? Had she been too ready to take offence? Or on the contrary too conciliatory? He mustn’t imagine anything. He mustn’t laugh at her! He mustn’t feel contempt for her! . . . Her cheeks glowed like fire at the thought!
How can you be so upset simply at a bad man’s imagining something? Let him imagine anything!” said I.
“Why is he bad?” she asked.
Natasha was suspicious but pure-hearted and straightforward. Her doubts came from no impure source. She was proud and with a fine pride, and would not endure what she looked upon as higher than anything to be turned into a laughing-stock before her. She would, of course, have met with contempt the contempt of a base man, but at the same time her heart would have ached at mockery of what she thought sacred, whoever had been the mocker. This was not due to any lack of firmness. It arose partly from too limited a knowledge of the world, from being unaccustomed to people from having been shut up in her own little groove. She had spent all her life in her own little corner and had hardly left it. And finally that characteristic of good-natured people, inherited perhaps from her father — the habit of thinking highly of people, of persistently thinking them better that they really are, warmly exaggerating everything good in them — was highly developed in her. It is hard for such people to be disillusioned afterwards; and it is hardest of all when one feels one is oneself to blame. Why did one expect more than could be given? And such a disappointment is always in store for such people. It is best for them to stay quietly in their corners and not to go out into the world; I have noticed, in fact, that they really love their corners so much that they grow shy and unsociable in them. Natasha, however, had suffered many misfortunes, many mortifications, She was already a wounded creature, and she cannot be blamed, if indeed there be any blame in what I have said.
But I was in a hurry and got up to go. She was surprised and almost cried at my going, though she had shown no particular affection for me all the while I was with her; on the contrary, she seemed rather colder to me than usual. She kissed me warmly and looked for a long time into my face.
“Listen,” she said. “Alyosha was very absurd this morning and quite surprised me. He was very sweet, very happy apparently. but flew in, such a butterfly — such a dandy, and kept prinking before the looking-glass. He’s a little too unceremonious now. . . . Yes, and he didn’t stay long. Fancy, he brought me some sweets.”
“Sweets? Why, that’s very charming and simple-hearted, Ah, what a pair you are. Now you’ve begun watching and spying on one another, studying each other’s faces, and reading hidden thoughts in them (and understanding nothing about it). He’s not different. He’s merry and schoolboyish as he always was. But you, you!”
And whenever Natasha changed her tone and came to me with some complaint against Alyosha, or to ask for a solution of some ticklish question, or to tell me some secret, expecting me to understand her at half a word, she always, I remember, looked at me with a smile, as it were imploring me to answer somehow so that she should feel happy at heart at once. And I remember, too, I always in such cases assumed a severe and harsh tone as though scolding someone, and this happened quite unconsciously with me, but it was always successful. My severity and gravity were what was wanted; they seemed more authoritative, and people sometimes feel an irresistible craving to be scolded. Natasha was sometimes left quite consoled.
“No, Vanya, you see,” she went on, keeping one of her little hands on my shoulder, while her other pressed my hand and her eyes looked into mine, “I fancied that he was somehow too little affected . . . he seemed already such a man — you know, as though he’d been married ten years but was still polite to his wife. Isn’t that very premature? . . . He laughed, and prinked, but just as though all that didn’t matter, as though it only partly concerned me, not as it used to be . . . he was in a great hurry to see Katerina Fyodorovna. . . . If I spoke to him he didn’t listen to me, or began talking of something else, you know, that horrid, aristocratic habit we’ve both been getting him out of. In fact, he was too . . . even indifferent it seemed . . . but what am I saying! Here I’m doing it, here I’ve begun! Ah, what exacting, capricious despots we all are, Vanya! Only now I see it! We can’t forgive a man for a trifling change in his face, and God knows what has made his face change! You were right, Vanya, in reproaching me just now! It’s all my fault! We make our own troubles and then we complain of them. . . . Thanks, Vanya, you have quite comforted me. Ah, if he would only come today! But there perhaps he’ll be angry for what happened this morning.”
“Surely you haven’t quarrelled already!” I cried with surprise.
“I made no sign! But I was a little sad, and though he came in so cheerful he suddenly became thoughtful, and I fancied he said good-bye coldly. Yes, I’ll send for him. . . . You come, too, today, Vanya.”
“Yes, I’ll be sure to, unless I’m detained by one thing.”
“Why, what thing is it?”
“I’ve brought it on myself! But I think I’m sure to come all the same. ”
AT seven o’clock precisely I was at Masloboev’s. He lived in lodge, a little house, in Shestilavotchny Street. He had three rather grubby but not badly furnished rooms. There was even the appearance of some prosperity, at the same time an extreme slovenliness. The door was opened by a very pretty girl of nineteen, plainly but charmingly dressed, clean, and with very good-natured, merry eyes. I guessed at once that this was the Alexandra Semyonovna to whom he had made passing allusion that morning, holding out an introduction to her as an allurement to me. She asked who I was, and hearing my name said that Masloboev was expecting me, but that he was asleep now in his room, to which she took me. Masloboev was asleep on a very good soft sofa with his dirty great-coat over him, and a shabby leather pillow under his head. He was sleeping very lightly. As soon as we went in he called me by my name.
“Ah, that was you? I was expecting you. I was just dreaming you’d come in and wake me. So it’s time. Come along.”
“Where are we going?
“To see a lady.”
“What lady? Why?”
“Mme. Bubnov, to pay her out. Isn’t she a beauty?” he drawled, turning to Alexandra Semyonovna, and he positively kissed his finger-tips at the thought of Mme. Bubnov.
“Get along, you’re making it up!” said Alexandra Semyonovna, feeling it incumbent on her to make a show of anger.
“Don’t you know her? Let me introduce you, old man. Here, Alexandra Semyonovna, let me present to you a literary general; it’s only once a year he’s on view for nothing, at other times you have to pay.”
“Here he is up to his nonsense again! Don’t you listen to him; he’s always laughing at me. How can this gentleman be a general!”
“That’s just what I tell you, he’s a special sort. But don’t you imagine, your excellency, that we’re silly; we are much cleverer than we seem at first sight.”
“Don’t listen to him! He’s always putting me to confusion before honest folk, the shameless fellow. He’d much better take me to the theatre sometimes.”
“Alexandra Semyonovna, love your household. . . . Haven’t you forgotten what you must love? Haven’t you forgotten the word? the one I taught you!”
“Of course I haven’t! It means some nonsense.”
“Well, what was the word then?”
“As if I were going to disgrace myself before a visitor! Most likely it means something shameful. Strike me dumb if I’ll say it!”
“Well, you have forgotten then.”
“Well, I haven’t then, penates! . . . love your penates, that’s what he invents! Perhaps there never were any penates. An why should one love them? He’s always talking nonsense!”
“But at Mme. Bubnov’s . . . ”
“Foo! You and your Bubnov!”
And Alexandra Semyonovna ran out of the room in great indignation.
“It’s time to go. Good-bye, Alexandra Semyonovna.”
We went out.
“Look here, Vanya, first let’s get into this cab. That’s right And secondly, I found out something after I had said good-by to you yesterday, and not by guesswork, but for a certainty I spent, a whole hour in Vassilyevsky Island. That fat man an awful scoundrel, a nasty, filthy brute, up to all sorts of trick and with vile tastes of all kinds. This Bubnov has long been notorious for some shifty doings in the same line. She was almost caught over a little girl of respectable family the other day. The muslin dress she dressed that orphan up in (as you described this morning) won’t let me rest, because I’ve heard something of the sort already. I learnt something else this morning, quite by chance, but I think I can rely on it. How old is she?”
“From her face I should say thirteen.”
“But small for her age. Well, this is how she’ll do, then. When need be she’ll say she’s eleven, and another time that she’s fifteen. And as the poor child has no one to protect her she’s . . .”
“Is it possible!”
“What do you suppose? Mme. Bubnov wouldn’t have adopted an orphan simply out of compassion. And if the fat man’s hanging round, you may be sure it’s that. He saw her yesterday. And that blockhead Sizobryuhov’s been promised a beauty today, a married woman, an officer’s wife, a woman of rank. These profligate merchants’ sons are always keen on that; they’re always on the look-out for rank. It’s like that rule in the Latin grammar, do you remember: the significance takes precedence of the ending. But I believe I’m still drunk from this morning. But Bubnov had better not dare meddle in such doings. She wants to dupe the police, too; but that’s rot! And so I’ll give her a scare, for she knows that for the sake of old scores . . . and all the rest of it, do you understand?”
I was terribly shocked. All these revelations alarmed me. I kept being afraid we were too late and urged on the cabman.
“Don’t be uneasy. Measures have been taken,” said Masloboev. “Mitroshka’s there. Sizobryulov will pay for it with money; but the fat scoundrel with his skin. That was settled this morning. Well, and Bubnov comes to my share . . . for don’t let her dare . . .”
We drew up at the eating-house; but the man called Mitroshka was not there. Telling the cabman to wait for us at the eating-house steps, we walked to Mme. Bubnov’s. Mitroshka was waiting for us at the gate. There was a bright light in the windows, and we heard Sizobryuhov’s drunken, giggling laugh.
“They’re all here, have been a quarter of an hour,” Mitroshka announced; “now’s the very time.”
“But how shall we get in?” I asked.
“As visitors,” replied Masloboev. “She knows me, and she knows Mitroshka, too. It’s true it’s all locked up, but not for us.”
He tapped softly at the gate, and it was immediately opened. The porter opened it and exchanged a signal with Mitroshka. We went in quietly; we were not heard from the house. The porter led us up the steps and knocked. His name was called from within. He answered that a gentleman said he wanted to speak to her.
The door was opened and we all went in together. The porter vanished.
“Aie, who’s this?” screamed Mme. Bubnov, standing drunken and dishevelled in the tiny entry with the candle in her hand.
“Who?” answered Masloboev quickly. “How can you ask, Anna Trifonovna. Don’t you know your honoured guests? Who, if not me? Filip Filippitch.”
“Ah, Filip Filippitch! It’s you . . . very welcome. . . . But how is it you. . . . I don’t know . . . please walk in.”
She was completely taken aback.
“Where? Here? But there’s a partition here! No, you must give us a better reception. We’ll have a drop of champagne. But aren’t there any little mam’zelles?”
The woman regained her confidence at once.
“Why, for such honoured guests I’d get them if I had to dig for them underground. I’d send for them from the kingdom of China.”
“Two words, Anna Trifonovna, darling; is Sizobryuhov here?
“Yes.”
“He’s just the man I want. How dare he go off on the spree without me, the rascal?”
“I expect he has not forgotten you. He seems expecting someone; it must be you.”
Masloboev pushed the door, and we found ourselves in a small room with two windows with geraniums in them, with wicker-work chairs, and a wretched-looking piano; all as one would expect. But even before we went in, while we were still talking in the passage, Mitroshka had disappeared. I learned afterwards that he had not come in, but had been waiting behind the door. He had someone to open it to him afterwards. The dishevelled and painted woman I had seen peeping over Mme. Bubnov’s shoulder that morning was a pal of his.
Sizobryuhov was sitting on a skimpy little sofa of imitation mahogany, before a round table with a cloth on it. On the table were two bottles of tepid champagne, and a bottle of horrible rum; and there were plates of sweets from the confectioner’s, biscuits, and nuts of three sorts. At the table facing Sizobryuhov sat a repulsive-looking, pock-marked female of forty wearing a black taffeta dress and a bronze brooch and bracelets. This was the “officer’s wife,” unmistakably a sham. Sizobryuhov was drunk and perfectly satisfied. His fat friend was nor with him.
“That’s how people behave!” Masloboev bawled at the top of his voice. “After inviting one to Dussot’s, too!”
“Filip Filippitch, doing us the pleasure?” muttered Sizobryuhov, getting up to meet us with a blissful air.
“Are you drinking?
“Excuse me.”
“Don’t apologize, but invite your guests to join you. We’ve come to keep it up with you. Here, I’ve brought a friend to join us.”
Masloboev pointed to me.
“Delighted, that is, you do me pleasure. . . . K-k-k-he!”
“Ugh, do you call this champagne? It’s more like kvas.”
“You insult me.”
“So you don’t dare show yourself at Dussot’s! And after inviting one!”
“He’s just been telling me he’s been in Paris,” put in the officer’s wife. “He must be fibbing.”
“Fedosya Titishna, don’t insult me. I have been there. I’ve travelled.”
“A peasant like him in Paris!”
“We have been! We could! Me and Karp Vassilitch — we cut a dash there. Do you know Karp Vassilitch?”
“What do I want with your Karp Vassilitch?”
“Why, it’s only just . . . it might be worth your while. Why, it was there, in Paris, at Mme. Joubert’s, we broke an English pier-glass.”
“What did you break?”
A pier-glass. There was a looking-glass over the whole wall and Karp Vassilitch was that drunk that he began jabbering Russian to Mme. Joubert. He stood by that pier-glass and leaned his elbow against it. And Joubert screamed at him in her own way, that the pier-glass cost seven hundred francs (that is four hundred roubles), and that he’d break it! He grinned and looked at me. And I was sitting on a sofa opposite, and a beauty beside me, not a mug like this one here, but a stunner, that’s the only word for it. He cries out, ‘ Stepan Terentyitch, hi, Stepan Terentyitch! We’ll go halves, shall we? ‘ And I said ‘Done!’ And then he banged his fist on the looking-glass, crash! The glass was all in splinters. Joubert squealed and went for him straight in the face: ‘What are you about, you ruffian? ‘ (In her own lingo, that is.) ‘Mme. Joubert,’ says he, ‘here’s the price of it and don’t disperse my character.’ And on the spot he forked out six hundred and fifty francs. They haggled over the other fifty.”
At that moment a terrible, piercing shriek was heard two or three rooms away from the one in which we were. I shuddered, and I, too, cried out. I recognized that shriek: it was the voice of Elena. Immediately after that pitiful shriek we heard other outcries, oaths, a scuffle, and finally the loud, resonant, distinct sound of a slap in the face. It was probably Mitroshka inflicting retribution in his own fashion. Suddenly the door was violently flung open and Elena rushed into the room with a white face and dazed eyes in a white muslin dress, crumpled and torn, and her hair, which had been carefully arranged, dishevelled as though by a struggle. I stood facing the door, and she rushed straight to me and flung her arms round me. Everyone jumped up. Everybody was alarmed. There were shouts and exclamations when she appeared. Then Mitroshka appeared in the doorway, dragging after him by the hair his fat enemy, who was in a hopelessly dishevelled condition. He dragged him up to the door and flung him into the room.
“Here he is! Take him!” Mitroshka brought out with an air of complete satisfaction.
“I say,” said Masloboev, coming quietly up to me and tapping me on the shoulder, “take our cab, take the child with you and drive home; there’s nothing more for you to do here. We’ll arrange the rest tomorrow.”
I did not need telling twice. I seized Elena by the arm and took her out of that den. I don’t know how things ended there — No one stopped us. Mme. Bubnov was panic-stricken. Everything had passed so quickly that she did not know how to interfere. The cab was waiting for us, and in twenty minutes we were at my lodgings.
Elena seemed half-dead. I unfastened the hooks of her dress, sprinkled her with water, and laid her on the sofa. She began to be feverish and delirious. I looked at her white little face, at her colourless lips, at her black hair, which had been done up carefully and pomaded, though it had come down on one side, at her whole get-up, at the pink bows which still remained here and there on her dress — and I had no doubt at all about the revolting facts. Poor little thing! She grew worse and worse. I did not leave her, and I made up my mind not to go to Natasha’s that evening. From time to time Elena raised her long, arrow-like eyelashes to look at me, and gazed long and intently as though she recognize me. It was late, past midnight, when at last she fell asleep. I slept on the floor not far from her.
I GOT up very early. I had waked up almost every half hour through the night, and gone up to look intently at my poor little visitor. She was in a fever and slightly delirious. But towards morning she fell into a sound sleep. A good sign, I thought, but when I waked in the morning I decided to run for the doctor’ while the poor little thing was still asleep. I knew a doctor, a very good-natured old bachelor, who with his German house-keeper had lived in Vladimirsky Street from time immemorial. I set off to him. He promised to be with me at ten o’clock. It was eight when I reached him. I felt much inclined to call in at Masloboev’s on the way, but I thought better of it. He was sure not to be awake yet after yesterday; besides, Elena might wake up and be frightened at finding herself alone in my room. In her feverish state she might well forget how and when she had come there.
She waked up at the moment when I went into the room. I went up to her and cautiously asked her how she felt. She did not answer, but bent a long, long, intent look upon me with her expressive black eyes. I thought from the look in her eyes that she was fully conscious and understood what had happened. Her not answering me perhaps was just her invariable habit. Both on the previous day and on the day before that when she had come to see me she had not uttered a word in answer to some of my questions, but had only looked into my face with her slow, persistent stare, in which there was a strange pride as well as wonder and wild curiosity. Now I noticed a severity, even a sort of mistrustfulness in her eyes. I was putting my hand on her forehead to feel whether she were still feverish, but quietly, without a word, she put back my hand with her little one and turned away from me to the wall. I walked away that I might not worry her.
I had a big copper kettle. I had long used it instead of a samovar, for boiling water. I had wood, the porter had brought me up enough to last for five days. I lighted the stove, fetched some water and put the tea-pot on. I laid the tea-things on the table. Elena turned towards me and watched it all with curiosity. I asked her whether she would not have something. But again she turned away from me and made no answer.
“Why is she angry with me?” I wondered. “Queer little girl!” My old doctor came at ten o’clock as he had promised. He examined the patient with German thoroughness, and greatly cheered me by saying that though she was feverish there was no special danger. He added that she probably had another chronic disease, some irregularity in the action of the heart, “but that point would want special watching, for now she’s out of danger.” More from habit than necessity he prescribed her a mixture and some powders, and at once proceeded to ask me how she came to be with me. At the same time he looked about my room wanderingly. The old man was an awful chatterbox. He was struck with Elena. She pulled her hand away when he tried to feel her pulse, and would not show him her tongue; to all his questions she did not answer one word. All the while she stared intently at the enormous Stanislav Order that hung upon his neck.
“Most likely her head is aching badly,” said the old man, but how she does stare!” I did not think it necessary to tell him all about Elena, so I put him off, saying it was a long story.
“Let me know if there’s any need,” said he as he went away “But at present there’s no danger.”
I made up my mind to stay all day with Elena, and to leave her alone as rarely as possible till she was quite well. But knowing that Natasha and Anna Andreyevna would be worried if they expected me in vain, I decided to let Natasha know by post that I could not be with her that day. I could not write to Anna Andreyevna. She had asked me herself once for all not to send her letters, after I had once sent her news when Natasha was ill “My old man scowls when he sees a letter from you,” she said “He wants to know, poor dear, what’s in the letter, and he can’t ask, he can’t bring himself to. And so he’s upset for the whole day. And besides, my dear, you only tantalize me with letters. What’s the use of a dozen lines? One wants to ask the details and you’re not there.” And so I wrote only to Natasha, and when I took the prescription to the chemist’s I posted the letter.
Meanwhile Elena fell asleep again. She moaned faintly and started in her sleep. The doctor had guessed right, she had a bad headache. From time to time she cried out and woke up. She looked at me with positive vexation, as though my attention was particularly irksome. I must confess this wounded me.
At eleven o’clock Masloboev turned up. He was preoccupied and seemed absent-minded; he only came in for a minute, and was in a great hurry to get away.
“Well, brother, I didn’t expect that you lived in great style, he observed, looking round, “but I didn’t think I should find you in such a box. This is a box, not a lodging. But that’s nothing though what does matter is that all these outside worries take you off your work. I thought of that yesterday when we were driving to Bubnov’s. By natural temperament, brother, and by social position I’m one of those people who can do nothing sensible themselves, but can read sermons to other people. Now, listen, I’ll look in, perhaps, tomorrow or next day, and you be sure to come and see me on Sunday morning. I hope by then the problem of this child will be completely settled; then we’ll talk things over seriously, for you need looking after in earnest. You can’t go on living like this. I only dropped a hint yesterday, but now I’ll put it before you logically. And tell me, in short, do you look on it as a dishonour to take money from me for a time?”
“Come, don’t quarrel,” I interrupted. “You’d better tell me how things ended there yesterday.”
“Well, they ended most satisfactorily. My object was attained you understand. I’ve no time now. I only looked in for a minute to tell you I’m busy and have no time for you, and to find out by the way whether you’re going to place her somewhere, or whether you mean to keep her yourself. Because it wants thinking over and settling.”
“That I don’t know for certain yet, and I must own I was waiting to ask your advice. How could I keep her?”
“Why, as a servant . . . .”
“Please don’t speak so loud. Though she’s ill she’s quite conscious, and I noticed she started when she saw you. No doubt she remembered yesterday.”
Then I told him about her behaviour and all the peculiarities I had noticed in her. Masloboev was interested in what I told him. I added that perhaps I could place her in a household, and told him briefly about my old friends. To my astonishment he knew something of Natasha’s story, and when I asked him how he had heard of it:
“Oh,” he said, “I heard something about it long ago in connexion with some business. I’ve told you already that I know Prince Valkovsky. That’s a good idea of yours to send her to those old people. She’d only be in your way. And another thing, she wants some sort of a passport. Don’t you worry about that. I’ll undertake it. Good-bye. Come and see me often. Is she asleep now?”
“I think so,” I answered.
But as soon as he had gone Elena called to me.
“Who’s that?” she asked. Her voice shook, but she looked at me with the same intent and haughty expression. I can find no other word for it.
I told her Masloboev’s name, and said that it was by his help I got her away from Mme. Bubnov’s, and that Mme. Bubnov was very much afraid of him. Her cheeks suddenly flushed fiery red, probably at the recollection of the past.
“And she will never come here?” asked Elena, with a searching look at me.
I made haste to reassure her. She remained silent, and was taking my hand in her burning fingers, but she dropped it again at once as though recollecting herself.
“It cannot be that she really feels such an aversion for me,” I thought. “It’s her manner, or else . . . or else the poor little thing has had so much trouble that she mistrusts everyone.”
At the hour fixed I went out to fetch the medicine, and at the same time went into a restaurant where they knew me and gave me credit. I took a pot with me, and brought back some chicken broth for Elena. But she would not eat, and the soup remained for the time on the stove.
I gave her her medicine and sat down to my work. I though she was asleep, but chancing to look round at her I saw that she had raised her head, and was intently watching me write. I pretended not to notice her.
At last she really did fall asleep, and to my great delight she slept quietly without delirium or moaning. I fell into a reverie Natasha, not knowing what was the matter, might well be angry with me for not coming today, would be sure, indeed, I reflected to be hurt at my neglect, just when, perhaps, she needed me most. She might at this moment have special worries, perhaps some service to ask of me, and I was staying away as though expressly.
As for Anna Andreyevna, I was completely at a loss as to how I should excuse myself to her next day. I thought it over and suddenly made up my mind to run round to both of them. I should only be absent about two hours. Elena was asleep and would not hear me go out. I jumped up, took my coat and cap but just as I was going out Elena called me. I was surprised. Could she have been pretending to be asleep?
I may remark in parenthesis that, though Elena made a show of not wanting to speak to me, these rather frequent appeals this desire to apply to me in every difficulty, showed a contrary feeling, and I confess it really pleased me.
“Where do you mean to send me?” she asked when I went up to her.
She generally asked her questions all of a sudden, when I did not expect them. This time I did not take in her meaning at first.
“You were telling your friend just now that you meant to place me in some household. I don’t want to go.”
I bent down to her; she was hot all over, another attack of fever had come on. I began trying to soothe and pacify her assuring her that if she cared to remain with me I would not send her away anywhere. Saying this, I took off my coat and cap I could not bring myself to leave her alone in such a condition.
“No, go,” she said, realizing at once that I was meaning to stay. “I’m sleepy; I shall go to sleep directly.”
“But how will you get on alone?” I said, uncertainly. “Though I’d be sure to be back in two hours’ time . . . .”
“Well, go then. Suppose I’m ill for a whole year, you can’t stay at home all the time.”
And she tried to smile, and looked strangely at me as though struggling with some kindly feeling stirring in her heart. Poor little thing! Her gentle, tender heart showed itself in glimpses in spite of her aloofness and evident mistrust.
First I ran round to Anna Andreyevna. She was waiting for me with feverish impatience and she greeted me with reproaches; she was in terrible anxiety. Nikolay Sergeyitch had gone out immediately after dinner, and she did not know where. I had a presentiment that she had not been able to resist telling him everything in hints, of course, as she always did. She practically admitted it herself, telling me that she could not resist sharing such joyful tidings with him, but that Nikolay Sergeyitch had become, to use her expression, “blacker than night, that he had said nothing. He wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t even answer my questions, and suddenly after dinner had got ready and gone out.” When she told me this Anna Andreyevna was almost trembling with dismay, and besought me to stay with her until Nikolay Sergeyitch came back. I excused myself and told her almost flatly that perhaps I should not come next day either, and that I had really hurried to her now to tell her so; this time we almost quarrelled. She shed tears, reproached me harshly and bitterly, and only when I was just going out at the door she suddenly threw herself on my neck, held me tight in both arms and told me not to be angry with a lonely creature like her, and not to resent her words.
Contrary to my expectations, I found Natasha again alone. And, strange to say, it seemed to me that she was by no means so pleased to see me as she had been the day before and on other occasions; as though I were in the way or somehow annoying her. When I asked whether Alyosha had been there that day she answered:
“Of course he has, but he didn’t stay long. He promised to look in this evening,” she went on, hesitating.
And yesterday evening, was he here?”
“N-no. He was detained,” she added quickly. “Well, Vanya, how are things going with you?” I saw that she wanted to stave off our conversation and begin a fresh subject. I looked at her more intently. She was evidently upset. But noticing that I was glancing at her and watching her closely, she looked at me rapidly and, as it were, wrathfully and with such intensity that her eyes seemed to blaze at me. “She is miserable again,” I thought, “but she doesn’t want to speak to me about it.”
In answer to her question about my work I told her the whole story of Elena in full detail. She was extremely interested and even impressed by my story.
“Good heavens! And you could leave her alone, and ill! she cried.
I told her that I had meant not to come at all that day, but that I was afraid she would be angry with me and that she might be in need of me.
“Need,” she said to herself as though pondering. “Perhaps I do need you, Vanya, but that had better be another time. Have you been to my people?
I told her.
“Yes, God only knows how my father will take the news. Though what is there to take after all? . . .”
“What is there to take?” I repeated. “A transformation like this!”
“I don’t know about that. . . . Where can he have gone again? That time before, you thought he was coming to me. Do you know, Vanya, come to me tomorrow if you can. I shall tell you something perhaps. . . . Only I’m ashamed to trouble you. But now you’d better be going home to your visitor. I expect it’s two hours since you came out.”
“Yes, it is. Good-bye, Natasha. Well, and how was Alyosha with you today?”
“Oh, Alyosha. All right. . . . I wonder at your curiosity.”
“Good-bye for now, my friend.”
“Good-bye.”
She gave me her hand carelessly and turned away from my last, farewell look. I went out somewhat surprised. “She has plenty to think about, though,” I thought. “It’s no jesting matter. To-morrow she’ll be the first to tell me all about it.”
I went home sorrowful, and was dreadfully shocked as soon as I opened the door. By now it was dark. I could make out Elena sitting on the sofa, her head sunk on her breast as though plunged in deep thought. She didn’t even glance at me. She seemed lost to everything. I went up to her. She was muttering something to herself. “Isn’t she delirious?” I thought.
“Elena, my, dear, what’s the matter?” I asked, sitting beside her and putting my arm round her.
“I want to go away. . . . I’d better go to her,” she said, not raising her head to look at me.
“Where? To whom?” I asked in surprise.
“To her. To Bubnov. She’s always saying I owe her a lot of money; that she buried mother at her expense. I don’t want her to say nasty things about mother. I want to work there, and pay her back. . . . Then I’ll go away of myself. But now I’m going back to her.”
“Be quiet, Elena, you can’t go back to her,” I said. “She’ll torment you. She’ll ruin you.”
“Let her ruin me, let her torment me.” Elena caught up the words feverishly. “I’m not the first. Others better than I are tormented. A beggar woman in the street told me that. I’m poor and I want to be poor. I’ll be poor all my life. My mother told me so when she was dying. I’ll work. . . . I don’t want to wear this dress . . . .”
“I’ll buy you another one tomorrow. And I’ll get you your books. You shall stay with me. I won’t send you away to anyunless you want to go. Don’t worry yourself.”
“I’ll be a work-girl!”
“Very well, very well. Only be quiet. Lie down. Go to sleep.” But the poor child burst into tears. By degrees her tears passed to sobs. I didn’t know what to do with her. I offered her water and moistened her temples and her head. At last she sank on the sofa completely exhausted, and she was overcome by feverish shivering. I wrapped her up in what I could find and she fell into an uneasy sleep, starting and waking up continually. Though I had not walked far that day, I was awfully tired, and I decided to go to bed as early as possible. Tormenting doubts swarmed in my brain. I foresaw that I should have a lot of trouble with this child. But my chief anxiety was about Natasha and her troubles. Altogether, as I remember now, I have rarely been in a mood of such deep dejection as when I fell asleep that unhappy night.
I waked up late, at ten o’clock in the morning, feeling ill. I felt giddy and my head was aching; I glanced towards Elena’s bed. The bed was empty. At the same moment from my little room on the right sounds reached me as though someone were sweeping with a broom. I went to look. Elena had a broom in her hand and holding up her smart dress which she had kept on ever since at evening, she was sweeping the floor. The wood for the stove was piled up in the corner. The table had been scrubbed, the kettle had been cleaned. In a word, Elena was doing the housework.
“Listen, Elena,” I cried. “Who wants you to sweep the floor? I don’t wish it, you’re ill. Have you come here to be a drudge for me?”
“Who is going to sweep the floor here?” she answered, drawing herself up and looking straight at me. “I’m not ill now.”
“But I didn’t take you to make you work, Elena. You seem to be afraid I shall scold you like Mme. Bubnov for living with me for nothing. And where did you get that horrid broom? I had no broom,” I added, looking at her in wonder.
“It’s my broom. I brought it here myself, I used to sweep the floor here for grandfather too. And the broom’s been lying here ever since under the stove.”
I went back to the other room musing. Perhaps I may have been in error, but it seemed to me that she felt oppressed by my hospitality and that she wanted in every possible way to show me that she was doing something for her living.
“What an embittered character, if so,” I thought. Two minutes later she came in and without a word sat down on the sofa in the same place as yesterday, looking inquisitively at me. Meanwhile I boiled the kettle, made the tea, poured out a cup for her and handed it her with a slice of white bread. She took it in silence and without opposition. She had had nothing for twenty-four hours.
“See, you’ve dirtied your pretty dress with that broom,” I said, noticing a streak of dirt on her skirt.
She looked down and suddenly, to my intense astonishment, she put down her cup, and, apparently calm and composed, she picked up a breadth of the muslin skirt in both hands and with one rip tore it from top to bottom. When she had done this she raised her stubborn, flashing eyes to me in silence. Her face was pale.
“What are you about, Elena?” I cried, feeling sure the child was mad.
“It’s a horrid dress,” she cried, almost gasping with excitement. “Why do you say it’s a nice dress? I don’t want to wear it!” she cried suddenly, jumping up from her place. “I’ll tear it up. I didn’t ask her to dress me up. She did it herself, by force. I’ve torn one dress already. I’ll tear this one! I’ll tear it, I’ll tear it, I’ll tear it! . . .”
And she fell upon her luckless dress with fury. In one moment she had torn it almost into rags. When she had finished she was so pale she could hardly stand. I looked with surprise at such rage. She looked at me with a defiant air as though I too had somehow offended her. But I knew now what to do.
I made up my mind to buy her a new dress that morning. This wild, embittered little creature must be tamed by kindness. She looked as though she had never met anyone kind. If once already in spite of severe punishment she had torn another similar dress to rags, with what fury she must look on this one now, when it recalled to her those awful moments.
In Tolkutchy Market one could buy a good, plain dress very cheaply. Unfortunately at that moment I had scarcely any money. But as I went to bed the night before I had made up my mind to go that morning to a place where I had hopes of getting some. It was fortunately not far from the market. I took my hat. Elena watched me intently as though expecting something.
“Are you going to lock me in again?” she asked when I took up the key to lock the door behind me, as I had done the day before and the day before that.
“My dear,” I said, going up to her. “Don’t be angry at that. I lock the door because someone might come. You are ill, and you’d perhaps be frightened. And there’s no knowing who might not come. Perhaps Bubnov might take it into her head to . . . .”
I said this on purpose. I locked her in because I didn’t trust her. I was afraid that she might suddenly take it into her head to leave me. I determined to be cautious for a time. Elena said nothing and I locked her in again.
I knew a publisher who had been for the last twelve years bringing out a compilation in many volumes. I often used to get work from him when I was obliged to make money somehow. He paid regularly. I applied to him, and he gave me twenty-five roubles in advance, engaging me to compile an article by the end of the week. But I hoped to pick up time on my novel. I often did this when it came to the last necessity. Having got the money I set off to the market. There I soon found an old woman I knew who sold old clothes of all sorts. I gave her Elena’s size approximately, and she instantly picked me out a light-coloured cotton dress priced extremely cheaply, though it was quite strong and had not been washed more than once. While I was about it I took a neckerchief too. As I paid for them I reflected that Elena would need a coat, mantle, or something of that kind. It was cold weather and she had absolutely nothing. But I put off that purchase for another time. Elena was so proud and ready to take offence. Goodness knows, I thought, how she’ll take this dress even though I purposely picked out the most ordinary garment as plain and unattractive as possible. I did, however, buy her two pairs of thread stockings and one pair of woollen. Those I could give her on the ground that she was ill and that it was cold in the room. She would need underclothes too. But all that I left till I should get to know her better. Then I bought some old curtains for the bed. They were necessary and might be a great satisfaction to Elena.
With all these things I returned home at one o’clock in the afternoon. My key turned almost noiselessly in the lock, so that Elena did not at once hear me come in. I noticed that she was standing at the table turning over my books and papers. Hearing me she hurriedly closed the book she was reading, and moved away from the table, flushing all over. I glanced at the book. It was my first novel, which had been republished in book form and had my name on the title-page.
“Someone knocked here while you were away!” she said in a tone which seemed to taunt me for having locked her in.
“Wasn’t it the doctor?” I said. “Didn’t you call to him, Elena?”
“No!
I made no answer, but took my parcel, untied it, and took out the dress I had bought.
“Here, Elena, my dear!” I said going up to her. “You can’t go about in such rags as you’ve got on now. So I’ve bought you a dress, an everyday one, very cheap. So there’s no need for you to worry about it. It only cost one rouble twenty kopecks. Wear it with my best wishes.”
I put the dress down beside her. She flushed crimson and looked at me for some time with open eyes.
She was extremely surprised and at the same time it seemed to me that she was horribly ashamed for some reason. But there was a light of something soft and tender in her eyes. Seeing that she said nothing I turned away to the table. What I had done had evidently impressed her, but she controlled herself with an effort, and sat with her eyes cast down.
My head was going round and aching more and more. The fresh air had done me no good. Meanwhile I had to go to Natasha’s. My anxiety about her was no less than yesterday. On the contrary it kept growing more and more. Suddenly I fancied that Elena called me. I turned to her.
“Don’t lock me in when you go out,” she said, looking away and picking at the border of the sofa, as though she were entirely absorbed in doing so. “I will not go away from you.”
“Very well, Elena, I agree, But what if some stranger comes? There’s no knowing who may!”
“Then leave me the key and I’ll lock myself in and if they knock I shall say, ‘not at home.’”
And she looked slyly at me as much as to say, “See how simply that’s done!”
“Who washes your clothes?” she asked suddenly, before I had had time to answer her.
“There’s a woman here, in this house.”
“I know how to wash clothes. And where did you get the food yesterday?”
“At a restaurant.”
“I know how to cook, too. I will do your cooking.”
“That will do, Elena. What can you know about cooking? You’re talking nonsense . . . .”
Elena looked down and was silent. She was evidently wounded at my remark. Ten minutes at least passed. We were both silent.
“Soup!” she said suddenly, without raising her head.
“What about soup? What soup?” I asked, surprised.
“I can make soup. I used to make it for mother when she was ill. I used to go to market too.”
“See, Elena, just see how proud you are,” I said, going up to her and sitting down beside her on the sofa. “I treat you as my heart prompts me. You are all alone, without relations, and unhappy. I want to help you. You’d help me in the same way if I were in trouble. But you won’t look at it like that, and it’s disagreeable to you to take the smallest present from me. You want to repay it at once, to pay for it by work, as though I were Mme. Bubnov and would taunt you with it. If that is so, it’s a shame, Elena.”
She made no answer. Her lips quivered. I believe she wanted to say something; but she controlled herself and was silent. I got up to go to Natasha. That time I left Elena the key, begging her if anybody should come and knock, to call out and ask who was there. I felt perfectly sure that something dreadful was happening to Natasha, and that she was keeping it dark from me for the time, as she had done more than once before. I resolved in any case to look in only for one moment for fear of irritating her by my persistence.
And it turned out I was right. She met me again with a look of harsh displeasure. I ought to have left her at once but my legs were giving way under me.
“I’ve only come for a minute, Natasha,” I began, “to ask your advice what I’m to do with my visitor.”
And I began briefly telling her all about Elena. Natasha listened to me in silence.
“I don’t know what to advise you, Vanya,” she said. “Everything shows that she’s a very strange little creature. Perhaps she has been dreadfully ill-treated and frightened. Give her time to get well, anyway. You think of my people for her?”
“She keeps saying that she won’t go anywhere away from me. And goodness knows how they’ll take her, so I don’t know what to do. Well, tell me, dear, how you are. You didn’t seem quite well yesterday,” I said timidly.
“Yes . . . my head aches rather today, too,” she answered absent-mindedly. “Haven’t you seen any of our people?”
“No. I shall go tomorrow. To-morrow’s Saturday, you know . . . .”
“Well, what of it?”
“The prince is coming in the evening.”
“Well? I’ve not forgotten.”
“No, I only . . . .”
She stood still, exactly opposite me, and looked for a long time intently into my face. There was a look of determination, of obstinacy, in her eyes, something feverish and wrathful.
“Look here, Vanya,” she said, “be kind, go away, you worry me.”
I got up from my chair and looked at her, unutterably astonished.
“Natasha, dear, what’s the matter? What has happened?” I cried in alarm.
“Nothing’s happened. You’ll know all about it tomorrow, but now I want to be alone. Do you hear, Vanya? Go away at once. I can’t bear, I can’t bear to look at you!”
“But tell me at least . . . . ”
“You’ll know all about it tomorrow! Oh, my God! Are you going?”
I went out. I was so overcome that I hardly knew what I was doing. Mavra started out into the passage to meet me.
“What, is she angry?” she asked me. “I’m afraid to go near her.”
“But what’s the matter with her
“‘Why, our young gentleman hasn’t shown his nose here for the last three days!”
“Three days! “I repeated in amazement. “Why, she told me yesterday that he had been here in the morning and was coming again in the evening . . .”
“She did? He never came near us in the morning! I tell you we haven’t set eyes on him for three days. You don’t say she told you yesterday that he’d been in the morning?”
“Yes, she said so.”
“Well,” said Mavra, musing, “it must have cut her to the quick if she won’t own it even to you. Well, he’s a pretty one!”
“But what does it mean?” I cried.
“It means I don’t know what to do with her,” said Mavra, throwing up her hands. “She was sending me to him yesterday, but twice she turned me back as I was starting. And today she won’t even speak to me. If only you could see him. I daren’t leave her now.”
I rushed down the staircase, beside myself.
“Will you be here this evening?” Mavra called after me.
“We’ll see then,” I called up to her. “I may just run in to you to ask how she is. If only I’m alive myself.”
I really felt as though something had struck me to the very heart.
I WENT straight to Alyosha’s. He lived with his father in Little Morskaya. Prince Valkovsky had a rather large flat, though he lived alone. Alyosha had two splendid rooms in the flat. I had very rarely been to see him, only once before, I believe, in fact. He had come to see me much oftener, especially at first, during the early period of his connexion with Natasha.
He was not at home. I went straight to his rooms and wrote him the following note:
“Alyosha, you seem to have gone out of your mind. As on Tuesday evening your father himself asked Natasha to do you the honour of becoming your wife, and you were delighted at his doing so, as I saw myself, you must admit that your behaviour is somewhat strange. Do you know what you are doing to Natasha? In any case this note will remind you that your behaviour towards your future wife is unworthy and frivolous in the extreme. I am very well aware that I have no right to lecture you, but I don’t care about that in the least.
“P.S.-She knows nothing about this letter, and in fact it was not she who told me about you.”
I sealed up the letter and left it on his table. In answer to my question the servant said that Alexey Petrovitch was hardly ever at home, and that he would not be back now till the small hours of the morning.
I could hardly get home. I was overcome with giddiness, and my legs were weak and trembling. My door was open. Nikolay Sergeyitch Ichmenyev was sitting waiting for me. He was sitting at the table watching Elena in silent wonder, and she, too, was watching him with no less wonder, though she was obstinately silent. “To be sure,” I thought, “he must think her queer.”
“Well, my boy, I’ve been waiting for you for a good hour, and I must confess I had never expected to find things . . . like this,” he went on, looking round the room, with a scarcely perceptible sign towards Elena.
His face expressed his astonishment. But looking at him more closely I noticed in him signs of agitation and distress. His face was paler than usual.
“Sit down, sit down,” he said with a preoccupied and anxious air. “I’ve come round to you in a hurry. I’ve something to say to you. But what’s the matter? You don’t look yourself.”
“I’m not well. I’ve been giddy all day.”
“Well, mind, you mustn’t neglect that. Have you caught cold, or what?”
“No, it’s simply a nervous attack. I sometimes have them. But aren’t you unwell?”
“No, no! It’s nothing; it’s excitement. I’ve something to say. Sit down.”
I moved a chair over and sat down at the table, facing him. The old man bent forward to me, and said in a half whisper:
“Mind, don’t look at her, but seem as though we were speaking of something else. What sort of visitor is this you’ve got here?”
“I’ll explain to you afterwards, Nikolay Sergeyitch. This poor girl is absolutely alone in the world. She’s the grandchild of that old Smith who used to live here and died at the confectioner’s.”
“Ah, so he had a grandchild! Well, my boy, she’s a queer little thing! How she stares, how she stares! I tell you plainly if you hadn’t come in I couldn’t have stood it another five minutes. She would hardly open the door, and all this time not a word! It’s quite uncanny; she’s not like a human being. But how did she come here? I suppose she came to see her grandfather, not knowing he was died?”
“Yes, she has been very unfortunate. The old man thought of her when he was dying.”
“Hm! She seems to take after her grandfather. You’ll tell me all about that later. Perhaps one could help her somehow, in some way, if she’s so unfortunate. But now, my boy, can’t you tell her to go away, for I want to talk to you of something serious.”
“But she’s nowhere to go. She’s living here.”
I explained in a few words as far as I could, adding that he could speak before her, that she was only a child.
“To be sure . . . she’s a child. But you have surprised me, my boy. She’s staying with you! Good heavens!
And the old man looked at her again in amazement.
Elena, feeling that we were talking about her, sat silent, with her head bent, picking at the edge of the sofa with her fingers. She had already had time to put on her new dress, which fitted her perfectly. Her hair had been brushed more carefully than usual, perhaps in honour of the new dress. Altogether, if it had not been for the strange wildness of her expression, she would have been a very pretty child.
“Short and clear, that’s what I have to tell you,” the old man began again. “It’s a long business, an important business.”
He sat looking down, with a grave and meditative air and in spite of his haste and his “short and clear,” he could find no words to begin. “What’s coming?” I wondered.
“Do you know, Vanya, I’ve come to you to ask a very great favour. But first . . . as I realize now myself, I must explain to you certain circumstances . . . very delicate circumstances.”
He cleared his throat and stole a look at me; looked and flushed red; flushed and was angry with himself for his awkwardness; he was angry and pressed on.
“Well, what is there to explain! You understand yourself The long and short of it is, I am challenging Prince Valkovsky to a duel, and I beg you to make the arrangements and be my second.”
I fell back in my chair and gazed at him, beside myself with astonishment.
“Well, what are you staring at? I’ve not gone out of my mind.”
“But, excuse me, Nikolay Sergeyitch! On what pretext P With what object? And, in fact, how is it possible?”
“Pretext! Object!” cried the old man. “That’s good!”
“Very well, very well. I know what you’ll say; but what good will you do by your action? What will be gained by the duel! I must own I don’t understand it.”
“I thought you wouldn’t understand. Listen, our lawsuit over (that is, it will be over in a few days, There are only a few formalities to come). I have lost the case. I’ve to pay ten thousand; that’s the decree of the court. Ichmenyevka is the security for it. So now this base man is secure of his money, and giving up Ichmenyevka I have paid him the damages and become a free man. Now I can hold up my head and say, ‘You’ve been insulting me one way and another, honoured prince, for the last two years; you have sullied my name and the honour of my family, and I have been obliged to bear all this! I could not then challenge you to a duel. You’d have said openly then, ‘You cunning fellow, you want to kill me in order not to pay me the money which you foresee you’ll be sentenced to pay sooner or later. No, first let’s see how the case ends and then you can challenge me.’ Now, honoured prince, the case is settled, you are secure, so now there are no difficulties, and so now will you be pleased to meet me at the barrier?’ That’s what I have to say to you. What, to your thinking haven’t I the right to avenge myself, for everything, for everything?”
His eyes glittered. I looked at him for a long time without speaking. I wanted to penetrate to his secret thought.
“Listen, Nikolay Sergeyitch,” I said at last, making up my mind to speak out on the real point without which we could not understand each other. “Can you be perfectly open with me?
“I can,” he answered firmly.
“Tell me plainly. Is it only the feeling of revenge that prompts you to challenge him, or have you other objects in view?”
“Vanya,” he answered, “you know that I allow no one to touch on certain points with me, but I’ll make an exception in the present case. For you, with your clear insight, have seen at once that we can’t avoid the point. Yes, I have another aim. That aim is to save my lost daughter and to rescue her from the path of ruin to which recent events are driving her now.”
“But how will you save her by this duel? That’s the question.”
“By hindering all that is being plotted among them now. Listen; don’t imagine that I am actuated by fatherly tenderness or any weakness of that sort. All that’s nonsense! I don’t display my inmost heart to anyone. Even you don’t know it. My daughter has abandoned me, has left my house with a lover, and I have cast her out of my heart — I cast her out once for all that very evening — you remember? If you have seen me sobbing over her portrait, it doesn’t follow that I want to forgive her. I did not forgive her then. I wept for my lost happiness, for my vain dreams, but not for her as she is now. I often weep perhaps. I’m not ashamed to own it, just as I’m not ashamed to own that I once loved my child more than anything on earth. All this seems to belie my conduct now. You may say to me ‘If it’s so, if you are indifferent to the fate of her whom you no longer look on as a daughter, why do you interfere in what they are plotting there?’ I answer: in the first place that I don’t want to let that base and crafty man triumph, and secondly, from a common feeling of humanity. If she’s no longer my daughter she’s a weak creature, defenceless and deceived, who is being still more deceived, that she may be utterly ruined. I can’t meddle directly, but indirectly, by a duel, I can. If I am killed or my blood is shed, surely she won’t step over our barrier, perhaps over my corpse, and stand at the altar beside the son of my murderer, like the daughter of that king (do you remember in the book you learnt to read out of?) who rode in her chariot over her father’s body? And, besides, if it comes to a duel, our princes won’t care for the marriage themselves. In short, I don’t want that marriage, and I’ll do everything I can to prevent it. Do you understand me now?”
“No. If you wish Natasha well, how can you make up your mind to hinder her marriage, that is, the one thing that can establish her good name? She has all her life before her; she will have need of her good name.”
“She ought to spit on the opinion of the world. That’s how she ought to look at it. She ought to realize that the greatest disgrace of all for her lies in that marriage, in being connected with those vile people, with that paltry society. A noble pride — that should be her answer to the world. Then perhaps I might consent to hold out a hand to her, and then we would see who dared cry shame on my child!”
Such desperate idealism amazed me. But I saw at once that he was not himself and was speaking in anger.
“That’s too idealistic,” I answered, “and therefore cruel. You’re demanding of her a strength which perhaps you did not give her at her birth. Do you suppose that she is consenting to this marriage because she wants to be a princess? Why, she’s in love; it’s passion; it’s fate. You expect of her a contempt for public opinion while you bow down before it yourself! The prince has insulted you, has publicly accused you of a base scheme to ally yourself with his princely house, and now you are reasoning that if she refuses them now after a formal offer of marriage from their side it will, of course, be the fullest and plainest refutation of the old calumny. That’s what you will gain by it. You are deferring to the opinion of the prince himself, and you’re struggling to make him recognize his mistake. You’re longing to turn him into derision, to revenge yourself on him, and for that you will sacrifice your daughter’s happiness. Isn’t that egoism?”
The old man sat gloomy and frowning, and for a long time he answered not a word.
“You’re unjust to me, Vanya,” he said at last, and a tear glistened on his eyelashes. “I swear you are unjust. But let us leave that! I can’t turn my heart inside out before you,” he went on, getting up and taking his hat. “One thing I will say — you spoke just now of my daughter’s happiness. I have absolutely and literally no faith in that happiness. Besides which, the marriage will never come off, apart from my interference.”
“How so? What makes you think so? Perhaps you know something?” I cried with curiosity.
“No. I know nothing special. But that cursed fox can never have brought himself to such a thing. It’s all nonsense, all a trap. I’m convinced of that, and, mark my words, it will turn out so. And secondly, even if this marriage did take place, which could only happen if that scoundrel has some special, mysterious interests to be served by it — interests which no one knows anything about, and I’m utterly at a loss to understand — tell me, ask your own heart, will she be happy in that marriage? Taunts, humiliations, with the partner of her life a wretched boy who is weary of her love already, and who will begin to neglect her, insult her, and humiliate her as soon as he is married. At the same time her own passion growing stronger as his grows cooler; jealousy, tortures, hell, divorce, perhaps crime itself. . . . No, Vanya! If you’re all working for that end, and you have a hand in it, you’ll have to answer to God for it. I warn you, though it will be too late then! Good-bye.”
I stopped him.
“Listen, Nikolay Sergeyitch. Let us decide to wait a bit. Let me assure you that more than one pair of eyes is watching over this affair. And perhaps it will be settled of itself in the best possible way without violence and artificial interference, such as a duel, for instance. Time is the very best arbiter. And, finally, let me tell you, your whole plan is utterly impossible. Could you for a moment suppose that Prince Valkovsky would accept your challenge?”
“Not accept it? What do you mean by that?”
“I swear he wouldn’t; and believe me, he’d find a perfectly satisfactory way out of it; he would do it all with pedantic dignity and meanwhile you would be an object of derision. . .”
“Upon my word, my boy, upon my word! You simply overwhelm me! How could he refuse to accept it? No, Vanya, you’re simply a romancer, a regular romancer! Why, do you suppose there is anything unbecoming in his fighting me? I’m just as good as he is. I’m an old man, ail insulted father. You’re a Russian author, and therefore also a respectable person. You can be a second and . . . and . . . I can’t make out what more you want . . . . ..
“Well, you’ll see. He’ll bring forward such excuses that you’ll be the first to see that it will be utterly impossible for you to fight him.”
“Hm! . . . very well, my friend. Have it your own way wait, for a certain time, that is. We’ll see what time will do. But one thing, my dear, give me your word of honour that you’ll not speak of this conversation there, nor to Anna Andreyevna.”
“I promise.”
“Do me another favour, Vanya: never begin upon the subject again.”
“Very well. I promise.”
“And one more request: I know, my dear, that it’s dull for you perhaps, but come and see us as often as ever you can. My poor Anna Andreyevna is so fond of you, and . . . and . . . she’s so wretched without you. . . . You understand, Vanya.”
And he pressed my hand warmly. I promised him with all my heart.
“And now, Vanya, the last delicate question. Have you any money?
“Money?” I repeated with surprise.
“Yes.” (And the old man flushed and looked down.) “I look at you, my boy, at your lodgings . . . at your circumstances . . . and when I think that you may have other, outside expenses (and that you may have them just now), then . . . Here, my boy, a hundred and fifty roubles as a first instalment . . . .”
“A hundred and fifty! As a first instalment. And you’ve just lost your case!”
“Vanya, I see you didn’t understand me at all! You may have exceptional calls on you, understand that. In some cases money may help to an independent position, an independent decision. Perhaps you don’t need it now, but won’t you need it for something in the future? In any case I shall leave it with you. It’s all I’ve been able to get together. If you don’t spend it you can give it back. And now good-bye. My God, how pale you are! Why, you’re quite ill . . .”
I took the money without protest. It was quite clear why he left it with me.
“I can scarcely stand up,” I answered.
“You must take care of yourself, Vanya, darling! Don’t go out today. I shall tell Anna Andreyevna what a state you’re in. Oughtn’t you to have a doctor? I’ll see how you are tomorrow; I’ll try my best to come, anyway, if only I can drag my legs along myself. Now you’d better lie down . . . Well, good-bye. Good-bye, little girl; she’s turned her back! Listen, my dear, here are another five roubles. That’s for the child, but don’t tell her I gave it her. Simply spend it for her. Get her some shoes or underclothes. She must need all sorts of things. Good-bye, my dear . . . .”
I went down to the gate with him. I had to ask the porter to go out to get some food for me. Elena had had no dinner.
BUT as soon as I came in again I felt my head going round and fell down in the middle of the room. I remember nothing but Elena’s shriek. She clasped her hands and flew to support me. That is the last moment that remains in my memory. . . .
When I regained consciousness I found myself in bed. Elena told me later on that, with the help of the porter who came in with some eatables, she had carried me to the sofa.
I woke up several times, and always saw Elena’s compassionate and anxious little face leaning over me. But I remember all that as in a dream, as through a mist, and the sweet face of the poor child came to me in glimpses, through my stupor, like a vision, like a picture. She brought me something to drink, arranged my bedclothes, or sat looking at me with a distressed and frightened face, and smoothing my hair with her fingers. Once I remember her gentle kiss on my face. Another time, suddenly waking up in the night, by the light of the smouldering candle that had been set on a little table by my bedside I saw Elena lying with her face on my pillow with her warm cheek resting on her hand, and her pale lips half parted in an uneasy sleep. But it was only early next morning that I fully regained consciousness. The candle had completely burnt out. The vivid rosy beams of early sunrise were already playing on the wall. Elena was sitting at the table, asleep, with her tired little head pillowed on her left arm, and I remember I gazed a long time at her childish face, full, even in sleep, of an unchildlike sadness and a sort of strange, sickly beauty. It was pale, with long arrowy eyelashes lying on the thin cheeks, and pitch-black hair that fell thick and heavy in a careless knot on one side. Her other arm lay on my pillow. Very softly I kissed that thin little arm. But the poor child did not wake, though there was a faint glimmer of a smile on her pale lips. I went on gazing at her, and so quietly fell into a sound healing sleep. This time I slept almost till midday. When I woke up I felt almost well again. A feeling of weakness and heaviness in my limbs was the only trace left of my illness, I had had such sudden nervous attacks before; I knew them very well. The attack generally passed off within twenty-four hours, though the symptoms were acute and violent for that time.
It was nearly midday. The first thing I saw was the curtain I had bought the day before, which was hanging on a string across the corner. Elena had arranged it, screening off the corner as a separate room for herself. She was sitting before the stove boiling the kettle. Noticing that I was awake she smiled cheerfully and at once came up to me.
“My dear,” I said, taking her hand, “you’ve been looking after me all night. I didn’t know you were so kind.”
“And how do you know I’ve been looking after you? Perhaps I’ve been asleep all night,” she said, looking at me with shy and good-humoured slyness, and at the same time flushing shame-facedly at her own words.
“I woke up and saw you. You only fell asleep at day break.”
“Would you like some tea?” she interrupted, as though feeling it difficult to continue the conversation, as all delicately modest and sternly truthful people are apt to when they are praised.
“I should,” I answered, “but did you have any dinner yesterday?”
“I had no dinner but I had some supper. The porter brought it. But don’t you talk. Lie still. You’re not quite well yet,” she added, bringing me some tea and sitting down on my bed.
“Lie still, indeed! I will lie still, though, till it gets dark, and then I’m going out. I really must, Lenotchka.”
“Oh, you must, must you! Who is it you’re going to see? Not the gentleman who was here yesterday?”
“No, I’m not going to him.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re not. It was he upset you yesterday. To his daughter then?”
“What do you know about his daughter?
“I heard all you said yesterday,” she answered, looking down. Her face clouded over. She frowned.
“He’s a horrid old man,” she added.
“You know nothing about him. On the contrary, he’s a very kind man.”
“No, no, he’s wicked. I heard,” she said with conviction.
“Why, what did you hear?”
“He won’t forgive his daughter . . . ”
“But he loves her. She has behaved badly to him; and he is anxious and worried about her.”
“Why doesn’t he forgive her? If he does forgive her now she shouldn’t go back to him.”
“How so? Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t deserve that she should love him,” she answered hotly. “Let her leave him for ever and let her go begging, and let him see his daughter begging, and be miserable.”
Her eyes flashed and her cheeks glowed. “There must be something behind her words,” I thought.
“Was it to his home you meant to send me?” she added after a pause.
“Yes, Elena.”
“No. I’d better get a place as a servant.”
“Ah, how wrong is all that you’re saying, Lenotchka! And what nonsense! Who would take you as a servant?”
“Any peasant,” she answered impatiently, looking more and more downcast.
She was evidently hot-tempered.
“A peasant doesn’t want a girl like you to work for him,” I said, laughing.
“Well, a gentleman’s family, then.”
“You live in a gentleman’s family, with your temper?”
“Yes.”
The more irritated she became, the more abrupt were her answers
“But you’d never stand it.”
“Yes I would. They’d scold me, but I’d say nothing on purpose. They’d beat me, but I wouldn’t speak, I wouldn’t speak. Let them beat me — I wouldn’t cry for anything. That would annoy them even more if I didn’t cry.”
“Really, Elena! What bitterness, and how proud you are! You must have seen a lot of trouble . . . .”
I got up and went to my big table. Elena remained on the sofa, looking dreamily at the floor and picking at the edge of the sofa. She did not speak. I wondered whether she were angry at what I had said.
Standing by the table I mechanically opened the books I had brought the day before, for the compilation, and by degrees I became absorbed in them. It often happens to me that I go and open a book to look up something, and go on reading so that I forget everything.
“What are you always writing?” Elena asked with a timid smile, coming quietly to the table.
“All sorts of things, Lenotchka. They give me money for it.”
“Petitions?”
“No, not petitions.”
And I explained to her as far as I could that I wrote all sorts of stories about different people, and that out of them were made books that are called novels. She listened with great curiosity.
“Is it all true — what you write?”
“No, I make it up.”
“Why do you write what isn’t true?”
“Why, here, read it. You see this book; you’ve looked at it already. You can read, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ll see then. I wrote this book.”
“You? I’ll read it . . . . ”
She was evidently longing to say something, but found it difficult, and was in great excitement. Something lay hidden under her questions.
“And are you paid much for this?” she asked at last.
“It’s as it happens. Sometimes a lot, sometimes nothing, because the work doesn’t come off. It’s difficult work, Lenotchka.”
“Then you’re not rich?”
“No, not rich.”
“Then I shall work and help you.”
She glanced at me quickly, flushed, dropped her eyes, and taking two steps towards me suddenly threw her arms round me, and pressed her face tightly against my breast; I looked at her with amazement.
“I love you . . . I’m not proud,” she said. “You said I was proud yesterday. No, no, I’m not like that. I love you. You are the only person who cares for me . . . .”
But her tears choked her. A minute later they burst out with as much violence as the day before. She fell on her knees before me, kissed my hands, my feet. . . .
“You care for me!” she repeated. “You’re the only one, the only one.”
She embraced my knees convulsively. All the feeling which she had repressed for so long broke out at once, in an uncon-. trollable outburst, and I understood the strange stubbornness of a heart that for a while shrinkingly masked its feeling, the more harshly, the more stubbornly as the need for expression and utterance grew stronger, till the inevitable outburst came, when the whole being forgot itself and gave itself up to the craving for love, to gratitude, to affection and to tears. She sobbed till she became hysterical. With an effort I loosened her arms, lifted her up and carried her to the sofa. For a long time she went on sobbing, hiding her face in the pillow as though ashamed to look at me. But she held my hand tight, and kept it pressed to her heart.
By degrees she grew calmer, but still did not raise her face to me. Twice her eyes flitted over my face, and there was a great softness and a sort of timorous and shrinking emotion in them.
At last she flushed and smiled.
“Are you better?” I asked, “my sensitive little Lenotchka, my sick little child!”
“Not Lenotchka, no . . . ” she whispered, still hiding her face from me.
“Not Lenotchka? What then?”
“Nellie.”
“Nellie? Why must it be Nellie? If you like; it’s a very pretty name. I’ll call you so if that’s what you wish.”
“That’s what mother called me. And no one else ever called me that, no one but she. . . . And I would not have anyone call me so but mother. But you call me so. I want you to. I will always love you, always.”
“A loving and proud little heart,” I thought. “And how long it has taken me to win the right to call you Nellie!”
But now I knew her heart was gained for ever.
“Nellie, listen,” I said, as soon as she was calmer. “You say that no one has ever loved you but your mother. Is it true your grandfather didn’t love you?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yet you cried for him; do you remember, here, on the stairs?”
For a minute she did not speak.
“No, he didn’t love me. . . . He was wicked.”
A look of pain came into her face.
“But we mustn’t judge him too harshly, Nellie, I think he had grown quite childish with age. He seemed out of his mind when he died. I told you how he died.”
“Yes. But he had only begun to be quite forgetful in the last month. He would sit here all day long, and if I didn’t come to him he would sit on for two or three days without eating or drinking. He used to be much better before.”
“What do you mean by ‘before’?”
“Before mother died.”
“Then it was you brought him food and drink, Nellie?”
“Yes, I used to.”
“Where did you get it? From Mme. Bubnov?”
“No, I never took anything from Bubnov,” she said emphatically, with a shaking voice.
“Where did you get it? You had nothing, had you?”
Nellie turned fearfully pale and said nothing; she bent a long, long look upon me.
“I used to beg in the streets. . . . When I had five kopecks I used to buy him bread and snuff . . . .”
“And he let you! Nellie! Nellie!”
“At first I did it without telling him, But when he found out he used to send me out himself. I used to stand on the bridge and beg of passers-by, and he used to walk up and down near the bridge, and when he saw me given anything he used to rush at me and take the money, as though I wanted to hide it from him, and were not getting it for him.”
As she said this she smiled a sarcastic, bitter smile.
“That was all when mother was dead,” she added. “Then he seemed to have gone quite out of his mind.”
“So he must have loved your mother very much. How was it he didn’t live with her?
“No, he didn’t love her. . . . He was wicked and didn’t forgive her . . . like that wicked old man yesterday,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper, and grew paler and paler.
I started. The plot of a whole drama seemed to flash before my eyes. That poor woman dying in a cellar at the coffin-maker’s, her orphan child who visited from time to time the old grandfather who had cursed her mother, the queer crazy old fellow who had been dying in the confectioner’s shop after his dog’s death.
“And Azorka used to be mother’s dog,” said Nellie suddenly, smiling at some reminiscence. “Grandfather used to be very fond of mother once, and when mother went away from him she left Azorka behind. And that’s why he was so fond of Azorka. He didn’t forgive mother, but when the dog died he died too,” Nellie added harshly, and the smile vanished from her face.
“What was he in old days, Nellie?” I asked her after a brief pause.
“He used to be rich. . . . I don’t know what he was,” she answered. “He had some sort of factory. So mother told me. At first she used to think I was too little and didn’t tell me everything. She used to kiss me and say, ‘You’ll know everything, the time will come when you’ll know everything, poor, unhappy child!’ She was always calling me poor and unhappy. And sometimes at night when she thought I was asleep (though I was only pretending to be asleep on purpose) she used to be always crying over me, she would kiss me and say ‘poor, unhappy child’!”
“What did your mother die of?”
“Of consumption; it’s six weeks ago.”
“And you do remember the time when your grandfather was rich?”
“But I wasn’t born then. Mother went away from grandfather before I was born.”
“With whom did she go?
“I don’t know,” said Nellie softly, as though hesitating. “She went abroad and I was born there.”
“Abroad? Where?”
“In Switzerland. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve been in Italy and in Paris too.”
I was surprised.
“And do you remember it all, Nellie?”
“I remember a great deal.”
“How is it you know Russian so well, Nellie?
“Mother used to teach me Russian even then. She was Russian because her mother was Russian. But grandfather was English, but he was just like a Russian too. And when we came to Russia a year and a half ago I learnt it thoroughly. Mother was ill even then. Then we got poorer and poorer. Mother was always crying. At first she was a long time looking for grandfather here in Petersburg, and always crying and saying that she had behaved badly to him. How she used to cry! And when she knew grandfather was poor she cried more than ever. She often wrote letters to him, and he never answered.”
“Why did your mother come back here? Was it only to see her father?”
“I don’t know. But there we were so happy.” And Nellie’s eyes sparkled. “Mother used to live alone, with me. She had one friend, a kind man like you. He used to know her before she went away. But he died out there and mother came back . . .”
“So it was with him that your mother went away from your grandfather?”
“No, not with him. Mother went away with someone else, and he left her . . .”
“Who was he, Nellie?”
Nellie glanced at me and said nothing. She evidently knew the name of the man with whom her mother had gone away and who was probably her father. It was painful to her to speak that name even to me.
I did not want to worry her with questions. Hers was a strange character, nervous and fiery, though she suppressed her impulses, lovable, though she entrenched herself behind a barrier of pride and reserve. Although she loved me with her whole heart, with the most candid and ingenuous love, almost as she had loved the dead mother of whom she could not speak without pain, yet all the while I knew her she was rarely open with me, and except on that day she rarely felt moved to speak to me of her past; on the contrary, she was, as it were, austerely reserved with me, but on that day through convulsive sobs of misery that interrupted her story, she told me in the course of several hours all that most distressed and tortured her in her memories, and I shall never forget that terrible story, but the greater part of it will be told later. . . .
It was a fearful story. It was the story of a woman abandoned and living on after the wreck of her happiness, sick, worn out and forsaken by everyone, rejected by the last creature to whom she could look — her father, once wronged by her and crazed by intolerable sufferings and humiliations. It was the story of a woman driven to despair, wandering through the cold, filthy streets of Petersburg, begging alms with the little girl whom she regarded as a baby; of a woman who lay dying for months in a damp cellar, while her father, refusing to forgive her to the last moment of her life, and only at the last moment relenting, hastened to forgive her only to find a cold corpse instead of the woman he loved above everything on earth.
It was a strange story of the mysterious, hardly comprehensible relations of the crazy old man with the little grandchild who already understood him, who already, child as she was, understood many things that some men do not attain to in long years of their smooth and carefully guarded lives. It was a gloomy story, one of those gloomy and distressing dramas which are so often played out unseen, almost mysterious, under the heavy sky of Petersburg, in the dark secret corners of the vast town, in the midst of the giddy ferment of life, of dull egoism, of clashing interests, of gloomy vice and secret crimes, in that lowest hell of senseless and abnormal life. . . .
But that story will be told later. . . .
TWILIGHT had fallen, the evening had come on before I roused myself from the gloomy nightmare and came back to the present.
“Nellie,” I said, “you’re ill and upset, and I must leave you alone, in tears and distress. My dear! Forgive me, and let me tell you that there’s someone else who has been loved and not forgiven, who is unhappy, insulted and forsaken. She is expecting me. And I feel drawn to her now after your story, so that I can’t bear not to see her at once, this very minute.”
I don’t know whether she understood all that I said. I was upset both by her story and by my illness, but I rushed to Natasha’s. It was late, nine o’clock, when I arrived.
In the street I noticed a carriage at the gate of the house where Natasha lodged, and I fancied that it was the prince’s carriage. The entry was across the courtyard. As soon as I began to mount the stairs I heard, a flight above me, someone carefully feeling his way, evidently unfamiliar with the place. I imagined this must be the prince, but I soon began to doubt it. The stranger kept grumbling and cursing the stairs as he climbed up, his language growing stronger and more violent as he proceeded. Of course the staircase was narrow, filthy, steep, and never lighted; but the language I heard on the third floor was such that I could not believe it to be the prince: the ascending gentleman was swearing like a cabman. But there was a glimmer of light on the third floor; a little lamp was burning at Natasha’s door. I overtook the stranger at the door, and what was my astonishment when I recognized him as Prince Valkovsky! I fancied he was extremely annoyed at running up against me so unexpectedly. At the first moment he did not recognize me, but suddenly his whole face changed. His first glance of anger and hatred relaxed into an affable, good-humoured expression, and he held out both hands to me with extraordinary delight.
“Ach, that’s you! And I was just about to kneel down to thank God my life was safe! Did you hear me swearing?”
And he laughed in the most good-natured way. But suddenly his face assumed an earnest and anxious expression.
“How could Alyosha let Natalya Nikolaevna live in such a place!” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just these so-called trifles that show what a man’s made of. I’m anxious about him. He is good-natured, he has a generous heart, but here you have an example: he’s frantically in love, yet he puts the girl he loves in a hole like this. I’ve even heard she has sometimes been short of food,” he added in a whisper, feeling for the bell-handle. “My head aches when I think about his future and still more of the future of Anna Nikolaevna when she is his wife. . .
He used the wrong name, and did not notice it in his evident vexation at not finding the bell-handle. But there was no bell.
I tugged at the door-handle and Mavra at once opened the door to us, and met us fussily. In the kitchen, which was divided off from the tiny entry by a wooden screen, through an open door some preparations could be seen; everything seemed somehow different from usual, cleaned and polished; there was a fire in the stove, and some new crockery on the table. It was evident that we were expected. Mavra flew to help us off with our coats.
“Is Alyosha here?” I asked her.
“He has not been,” she whispered mysteriously. We went in to Natasha. There was no sign of special preparation in her room. Everything was as usual. But everything in her room was always so neat and charming that there was no need to arrange it. Natasha met us, facing the door. I was struck by the wasted look in her face, and its extreme pallor, though there was a flush of colour for a moment on her wan cheeks. Her eyes were feverish. Hastily she held out her hand to the prince without speaking, visibly confused and agitated. She did not even glance at me. I stood and waited in silence.
“Here I am!” said the prince with friendly gaiety. “I’ve only been back a few hours. You’ve never been out of my mind all these days” (he kissed her hand tenderly) “and how much, how much I have thought about you. How much I have thought of to say to you. . . . Well, we can talk to our hearts’ content! In the first place my feather-headed youngster who is not here yet . . .”
“Excuse me, prince,” Natasha interrupted, flushing and embarrassed, “I have to say a word to Ivan Petrovitch. Vanya, come along . . . two words. . .”
She seized my hand and drew me behind the screen.
“Vanya,” she said in a whisper, leading me to the furthest comer, “will you forgive me?”
“Hush, Natasha, what do you mean?”
“No, no, Vanya, you have forgiven me too much, and too often. But there’s an end to all patience. You will never leave off caring for me, I know. But you’ll call me ungrateful. And I was ungrateful to you yesterday and the day before yesterday, selfish, cruel . . .”
She suddenly burst into tears and pressed her face on my shoulder.
“Hush, Natasha,” I hastened to reassure her. “I’ve been very ill all night, and I can hardly stand now; that’s why I didn’t come yesterday or today, and you’ve been thinking I was angry. Dearest, do you suppose I don’t understand what’s going on in your heart now?”
“Well, that’s right then . . . then you’ve forgiven me as you always do,” she said, smiling through her tears, and squeezing my hand till it hurt. “The rest later. I’ve a lot I must say to you, Vanya. But now come back to him . . . ”
“Make haste, Natasha, we left him so suddenly . . . ”
“You’ll see, you’ll see what’s coming directly,” she whispered to me. “Now I understand it all, I see through it all. It’s all his doing. A great deal will be decided this evening. Come along!”
I didn’t understand, but there was no time to ask. Natasha came up to the prince with a serene expression. He was still standing with his hat in his hand. She apologized good-humouredly, took his hat from him, moved up a chair for him and we three sat down round her little table.
“I was beginning about my feather-headed boy,” the prince went on. “I’ve only seen him for a moment and that was in the street when he was getting into his carriage to drive to the Countess Zinaida Fyodorovna. He was in a terrible hurry and, would you believe it, wouldn’t even stop to come to my room, after four days of absence, and I believe it’s my fault, Natalya Nikolaevna, that he’s not here and that we’ve arrived before him. I seized the chance. As I couldn’t be at the countess’s myself today, I gave him a message to her. But he will be here in a minute or two.”
“I supposed he promised you to come today?” asked Natasha, looking at the prince with a look of perfect simplicity.
“Good heavens, as though he wouldn’t have come anyway! How can you ask!” he exclaimed, looking at her in wonder. I understand though, you are angry with him. Indeed, it does seem wrong of him to be the last to come. But I repeat that it’s my fault. Don’t be angry with him. He’s shallow, frivolous I don’t defend him, but certain special circumstances make it necessary that he should not give up the countess and some other connexions, but, on the contrary, should go to see them as often as possible. And as now he never leaves your side, I expect, and has forgotten everything else on earth, please do not be angry if I sometimes take him off for an hour or two, not more, to do things for me. I dare say he has not been to see Princess A. once since that evening, and I’m vexed that I have not had time to question him yet! . . .”
I glanced towards Natasha. She was listening to Prince Valkovsky with a slight, half-mocking smile. But he spoke so frankly, so naturally. It seemed impossible to suspect him.
“And did you really not know that he has not been near me all these days?” asked Natasha in a quiet and gentle voice, as though she were talking of the most ordinary matter.
“What? not been here once? Good heavens, what are you saying!” said the prince, apparently in extreme astonishment.
“You were with me late on Tuesday evening. Next morning he came in to see me for half an hour, and I’ve not seen him once since then.”
“But that’s incredible! (He was more and more astonished.) “I expected that he would never leave your side, Excuse me, this is so strange . . . it’s simply beyond belief.”
“But it’s true, though, and I’m so sorry. I was looking forward to seeing you. I was expecting to learn from you where he has been.”
“Upon my soul! But he’ll be here directly. But what you tell me is such a surprise to me that . . . I confess I was prepared for anything from him, but this, this!”
“How it surprises you! While I thought that, so far from being surprised, you knew beforehand that it would be so.”
“Knew! I? But I assure you, Natalya Nikolaevna, that I’ve only seen him for one moment today, and I’ve questioned no one about him. And it strikes me as odd that you don’t seem to believe me,” he went on, scanning us both.
“God forbid! “ Natasha exclaimed. “I’m quite convinced that what you say is true.”
And she laughed again, right in Prince Valkovsky’s face, so that he almost winced.
“Explain yourself!” he said in confusion.
“Why, there’s nothing to explain. I speak very simply. You know how heedless and forgetful he is. And now that he has been given complete liberty he is carried away.”
“But to be carried away like that is impossible. There something behind it, and as soon as he comes in I’ll make him explain what it is. But what surprises me most of all is that you seem to think me somehow to blame, when I’ve not even been here. But I see, Natalya Nikolaevna, that you are very angry with him-and I can quite understand. You’ve every right to be so, and of course I’m the first person to blame if only that I’m the first to turn up. That’s how it is, isn’t it?” went on, turning to me, with angry derision.
Natasha flushed red.
“Certainly, Natalya Nikolaevna,” he continued with dignity
“I’ll admit I am to blame, but only for going away the day after I made your acquaintance; so with the suspiciousness of character I observe in you, you have already changed your opinion of me circumstances, of course, have given some grounds for this. Had I not gone away, you would have known me better, and Alyosha would not have been so heedless with me to look after him. You shall hear yourself what I say to him this evening.”
“That is, you’ll manage to make him begin to feel me a burden. Surely, with your cleverness, you can’t imagine that that would be any help to me.”
“Do you mean to hint that I would intentionally try to make him feel you a burden? You insult me, Natalya Nikolaevna.”
“I try to speak without hints when I can, whoever the person may be I am speaking to,” answered Natasha. “I always try, on the contrary, to be as open as I can, and you will perhaps be convinced of that this evening. I don’t wish to insult you and there’s no reason I should; if only because you won’t be insulted by my words, whatever I may say. Of that I am quite certain, for I quite realize the relation in which we stand to one another. You can’t take it seriously, can you? But if I really have been rude to you, I am ready to ask your pardon that I may not be lacking in any of the obligations of . . . hospitality.”
In spite of the light and even jesting tone with which she uttered these words, and the smile on her lips, I had never seen Natasha so intensely irritated. It was only now that I realized what her heartache must have been during those three days. Her enigmatic saying that she knew everything now and that she guessed it all frightened me; it referred directly to Prince Valkovsky. She had changed her opinion of him and looked upon him as her enemy; that was evident. She apparently attributed her discomfiture with Alyosha to his influence and had perhaps some grounds for this belief. I was afraid there might be a scene between them at any moment. Her mocking tone was too manifest, too undisguised. Her last words to the prince that he could not take their relations seriously, the phrase about the obligations of hospitality, her promise, that looked like a threat, to show him that she knew how to be open — all this was so biting, so unmistakable, that it was impossible that the prince should not understand it. I saw his face change, but he was well able to control himself. He at once pretended not to have noticed these words, not to have seen their significance, and took refuge course in raillery.
“God forbid I should ask for apologies!” he cried, laughing. That’s not at all what I wanted, and indeed it’s against my rules to ask apologies from a woman. At our first interview I warned you what I was like, so you’re not likely to be angry with me for one observation, especially as it applies to all women. You probably agree with this remark,” he went on, politely turning to me. “I have noticed as a trait in the female character that if woman is in fault in any way, she will sooner smooth over her offence with a thousand caresses later on than admit her fault and ask forgiveness at the moment when she is confronted with it. And so, supposing even that I have been insulted by you, I am not anxious for an apology. It will be all the better for me later on when you own your mistake and want to make it up to me . . . with a thousand caresses. And you are so sweet, so pure, so fresh, so open, that the moment of your penitence will, I foresee, be enchanting. You had better, instead of apologizing, tell me now whether I cannot do something this evening to show you that I am behaving much more sincerely and straight-forwardly than you suppose.”
Natasha flushed. I, too, fancied that there was somewhat too flippant, even too casual, a tone in Prince Valkovsky’s answer, a rather unseemly jocosity.
“You want to prove that you are simple and straightforward with me?” asked Natasha, looking at him with a challenging air.
“Yes.”
“If so, do what I ask.”
“I promise beforehand.”
“And that is, not by one word, one hint, to worry Alyosha about me, either today or tomorrow. No reproof for having forgotten me; no remonstrance. I want to meet him as though nothing had happened, so that he may notice nothing. That’s what I want. Will you make me such a promise?”
“With the greatest pleasure,” answered Prince Valkovsky and allow me to add with all my heart that I have rarely met more sensible and clear-sighted attitude in such circumstances . . . But I believe this is Alyosha.”
A sound was in fact heard in the passage. Natasha started and seemed to prepare herself for something, Prince Valkovsky sat with a serious face waiting to see what would happen. He watching Natasha intently. But the door opened and Alyosha flew in.
HE literally flew in with a beaming face, gay and joyous. It was evident that he had spent those four days gaily and happily. One could see from his face that he had something he was longing to tell us.
“Here I am!” he cried out, addressing us all, “I, who ought to have been here before anyone. But I’ll tell you everything directly, everything, everything! I hadn’t time to say two words to you this morning, daddy, and I had so much to say to you. It’s only in his sweet moments he lets me speak to him like that,” he interrupted himself, addressing me. “I assure you at other times he forbids it! And I’ll tell you what he does. He begins to use my full name. But from this day I want him always to have good minutes, and I shall manage it! I’ve become quite a different person in these last four days, utterly, utterly different, and I’ll tell you all about it. But that will be presently. The great thing now is that she’s here. Her she is! Again! Natasha, darling, how are you, my angel!” he said, sitting down beside her and greedily kissing her hand. How I’ve been missing you all this time! But there it is! I couldn’t help it! I wasn’t able to manage it, my darling! You look a little thinner, you’ve grown so pale . . .”
He rapturously covered her hands with kisses, and looked eagerly at her with his beautiful eyes, as though he could never look enough. I glanced at Natasha, and from her face I guessed that our thoughts were the same: he was absolutely innocent. And indeed when and how could this innocent be to blame? A bright flush suddenly overspread Natasha’s pale cheeks, as though all the blood had suddenly rushed from her heart to her head. Her eyes flashed and she looked proudly at Prince Valkovsky.
“But where . . . have you been so many days?” she said in a suppressed and breaking voice. She was breathing in hard uneven gasps. My God, how she loved him!”
“To be sure I must have seemed to blame, and it’s not only seeming, indeed! Of course I’ve been to blame, and I know it myself, and I’ve come knowing it. Katya told me yesterday today that no woman could forgive such negligence (she knows all that happened here on Tuesday; I told her next day): I argued with her, I maintained that there is such a woman and her name is Natasha, and that perhaps there was only one other woman equal to her in the world and that was Katya; and I came here of course knowing I’d won the day. Could an angel like you refuse to forgive? ‘He’s not come, so something must have kept him. It’s not that he doesn’t love me!’ — that’s what my Natasha will think! As though one could leave off loving you! As though it were possible! My whole heart has been aching for you. I’m to blame all the same. But when you know all about it you’ll be the first to stand up for me. I’ll tell you all about it directly; I want to open my heart to you all; that’s what I’ve come for. I wanted to fly to you today (I was free for half a minute) to give you a flying kiss, but I didn’t succeed even in that. Katya sent for me on important business. That was before you saw me in the carriage, father. That was the second time I was driving to Katya after a second note. Messengers are running all day long with notes between the two houses. Ivan Petrovitch, I only had time to read your note last night and you are quite right in all you say in it. But what could I do? It was a physical impossibility! And so I thought ‘tomorrow evening I’ll set it all straight,’ for it was impossible for me not to come to you this evening, Natasha.”
“What note?” asked Natasha.
“He went to my rooms and didn’t find me. Of course he pitched into me roundly in the letter he left for me for not having been to see you. And he’s quite right. It was yesterday.”
Natasha glanced at me.
“But if you had time to be with Katerina Fyodorovna from morning till night . . .” Prince Valkovsky began.
“I know, I know what you’ll say,” Alyosha interrupted. “If I could be at Katya’s I ought to have had twice as much reason to be here. I quite agree with you and will add for myself not twice as much reason but a million times as much. But, to begin with, there are strange unexpected events in life which upset everything and turn it topsy-turvy, and it’s just things of that sort that have been happening to me. I tell you I’ve become an utterly different person during the last days. New all over to the tips of my fingers. So they must have been important events!”
“Oh, dear me, but what has happened to you? Don’t keep us in suspense, please!” cried Natasha, smiling at Alyosha’s heat.
He really was rather absurd, he talked very fast, his words rushed out pell-mell in a quick, continual patter. He was longing to tell us everything, to speak, to talk. But as he talked he still held Natasha’s hand and continually raised it to his lips as though he could never kiss it enough.
“That’s the whole point — what has happened to me,” Alyosha went on. “Ah, my friends, the things I’ve been seeing and doing, the people I’ve got to know! To begin with Katya! Such a perfect creature! I didn’t know her a bit, not a bit till now. Even the other day, that Tuesday when I talked about her, do you remember, Natasha, with such enthusiasm, even then I hardly knew her a bit. She hasn’t shown her real self to me till now. But now we’ve got to know each other thoroughly. We call each other Katya and Alyosha. But I’ll begin at the beginning. To begin with, Natasha, if only you could hear all that she said to me when I spoke to her about you the other day, Wednesday it was, and told her all that had happened here. . . . And by the way, I remember how stupid I was when I came to see you on Wednesday! You greeted me with enthusiasm, you were full of our new position; you wanted to talk to me about it all; you were sad, and at the same time you were full of mischief and playing with me; while I was trying to be dignified. Oh, fool, fool that I was! Would you believe it, I was longing to show off, to boast that I was soon to be a husband, a dignified person, and to think of my showing off to you! Ah, how you must have laughed at me, and how I deserved your ridicule!
Prince Valkovsky sat in silence, looking with a sort of triumphantly ironical smile at Alyosha. He seemed to be glad that his son was showing himself so flighty and even ridiculous. I watched him carefully all that evening, and came to the conclusion that he was not at all fond of his son, though he was always talking of his warm fatherly devotion to him.
“From you I went to Katya,” Alyosha rattled on. “I’ve told you already that it was only that morning we got to know each other thoroughly, and it’s queer how it happened . . . I don’t remember how it was . . . some warm words, some feelings, thoughts frankly uttered and we were friends for ever. You must know her, you must, Natasha. How she talked to me, how she interpreted you to me. How she explained to me what a treasure you are. By degrees she made me understand all her ideas, all her views of life; she’s such an earnest, such an enthusiastic girl! She talked of duty, of our mission in life, of how we all ought to serve humanity and, as we thoroughly agreed, after five or six hours of conversation, we ended by swearing eternal friendship, and that we would work together all our lives!
“Work at what?” asked his father in astonishment.
“I’m so changed, father, that all this must surprise you. I know all your objections beforehand,” Alyosha responded triumphantly. “You are all practical people, you have so many grave, severe principles that are out of date. You look with mistrust, with hostility, with derision at everything new, everything young and fresh. But I’m not the same now as you knew me a few days ago. I’m a different man! I look everything and everyone in the world boldly in the face. If I know that my conviction is right I will follow it up to its utmost limit. and if I’m not turned aside from my path I’m an honest man. That’s enough for me. You can say what you like after that. I believe in myself.”
“Oh-ho!” said the prince jeeringly.
Natasha looked round at us uneasily. She was afraid for Alyosha. It often happened that he showed to great disadvantage in conversation, and she knew it. She did not want Alyosha to make himself ridiculous before us, and especially before his father.
“What are you saying, Alyosha? I suppose it’s some sort of philosophy,” she said. “Someone’s been lecturing you . . . You’d much better tell us what you’ve been doing.”
“But I am telling you! “ cried Alyosha. “You see, Katya has two distant relations, cousins of some sort, called Levinka and Borinka. One’s a student, the other’s simply a young man. She’s on friendly terms with them, and they’re simply extraordinary men. They hardly ever go to the countess’s, on principle. When Katya and I talked of the destiny of man, of our mission in life and all that, she mentioned them to me, and gave me a note to them at once; I flew immediately to make their acquaintance. We became close friends that very evening. There were about twelve fellows of different sorts there. Students, officers, artists. There was one author. They all know you, Ivan Petrovitch. That is, they’ve read your books and expect great things of you in the future. They told me so themselves. I told them I knew you and promised to introduce them to you. They all received me with open arms like a brother. I told them straight off that I should soon be a married man, so they received me as a married man. They live on the fifth storey right under the roof. They meet as often as they can, chiefly on Wednesdays at Levinka’s and Borinka’s. They’re all fresh young people filled with ardent love for all humanity. We all talked of our present, of our future, of science and literature, and talked so well, so frankly and simply . . . . There’s, a high-school boy who comes too. You should see how they behave to one another, how generous they are! I’ve never seen men like them before! Where have I been all this time? What have I seen? What ideas have I grown up in? You’re the only one Natasha, who has ever told me anything of this sort. Ah, Natasha, you simply must get to know them; Katya knows them already. They speak of her almost with reverence. And Katya’s told Levinka and Borinka already that when she comes into her property she’ll subscribe a million to the common cause at once.”
“And I suppose Levinka and Borinka and all their crew will be the trustees for that million?” Prince Valkovsky asked.
“That’s false, that’s false! It’s a shame to talk like that, father!” Alyosha cried with heat. “I suspect what you’re thinking! We certainly have talked about that million, and spent a long time discussing how to use it. We decided at last on public enlightenment before everything else . . . ”
“Yes, I see that I did not quite know Katerina Fyodorovna, certainly,” Prince Valkovsky observed as it were to himself, still with the same mocking smile. “I was prepared for many things from her, but this . . . ”
“Why this?” Alyosha broke in. “Why do you think it so odd? Because it goes somewhat beyond your established routine? because no one has subscribed a million before, and she subscribes it? What of it! What if she doesn’t want to live at the expense of others, for living on those millions means living at the expense of others (I’ve only just found that out). She wants to be of service to her country and all, and to give her mite to the common cause. We used to read of that mite in our copy-books, and when that mite means a million you think there’s something wrong about it! And what does it all rest on, this common sense that’s so much praised and that I believed in so? Why do you look at me like that, father? As though you were looking at a buffoon, a fool! What does it matter my being a fool? Natasha, you should have heard what Katya said about that, ‘It’s not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.’ But better still, Bezmygin has a saying about that that’s full of genius. Bezmygin is a friend of Levinka’s and Borinka’s, and between ourselves he is a man of brains and a real leader of genius. Only yesterday he said in conversation, ‘The fool who recognizes that he is a fool is no longer a fool.’ How true that is! One hears utterances like that from him every minute. He positively scatters truths.”
“A sign of genius, certainly,” observed Prince Valkovsky.
“You do nothing but laugh. But I’ve never heard anything like that from you, and I’ve never heard anything like it from any of your friends either. On the contrary, in your circle you seem to be hiding all this, to be grovelling on the ground, so that all figures, all noses may follow precisely certain measurements, certain rules — as though that were possible; as though that were not a thousand times more impossible than what we talk about and what we think. And yet they call us Utopian! You should have heard what they said to me yesterday . . . ”
“Well, but what is it you talk and think about? Tell us, Alyosha. I can’t quite understand yet,” said Natasha.
“Of everything in general that leads up to progress, to humanity, to love, it’s all in relation to contemporary questions. We talk about the need of a free press, of the reforms that are beginning, of the love of humanity, of the leaders of today; we criticize them and read them. But above all we’ve promised to be perfectly open with one another and to tell everything about ourselves, plainly, openly, without hesitation. Nothing but openness and straightforwardness can attain our object. That’s what Bezmygin is striving most for. I told Katya about that and she is in complete sympathy with Bezmygin. And so all of us, under Bezmygin’s leadership, have promised to act honestly and straightforwardly all our lives, and not to be disconcerted in any way, not to be ashamed of our enthusiasm, our fervour, our mistakes, and to go straight forward whatever may be said of us and however we may be judged. If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect, will you compel others to respect you. That’s what Bezmygin says, and Katya agrees with him entirely. We’re agreeing now upon our convictions in general, and have resolved to pursue the study of ourselves severally, and when we meet to explain ourselves to each other.”
“What a string of nonsense!” cried Prince Valkovsky uneasily. “And who is this Bezmygin? No, it can’t be left like this . . . ”
“What can’t be left?” cried Alyosha. “Listen, father, why I say all this before you. It’s because I want and hope to bring you, too, into our circle. I’ve pledged myself in your name already. You laugh; well, I knew you’d laugh! But hear me out. You are kind and generous, you’ll understand. You don’t know, you’ve never seen these people, you haven’t heard them. Supposing you have heard of all this and have studied it all, you are horribly learned, yet you haven’t seen them themselves, have not been in their house, and so how can you judge of them correctly? You only imagine that you know them. You be with them, listen to them, and then — then I’ll give you my word you’ll be one of us. Above all I want to use every means I can to rescue you from ruin in the circle to which you have so attached yourself, and so save you from your convictions.”
Prince Valkovsky listened to this sally in silence, with a malignant sneer; there was malice in his face. Natasha was watching him with unconcealed repulsion. He saw it, but pretended not to notice it. But as soon as Alyosha had finished, his father broke into a peal of laughter. He fell back in his chair as though he could not control himself. But the laughter was certainly not genuine. He was quite unmistakably laughing simply to wound and to humiliate his son as deeply as possible. Alyosha was certainly mortified. His whole face betrayed intense sadness. But he waited patiently until his father’s merriment was over.
“Father,” he began mournfully, “why are you laughing at me? I have come to you frankly and openly. If, in your opinion, what I say is silly, teach me better, and don’t laugh at me. And what do you find to laugh at? At what is for me good and holy now? Why, suppose I am in error, suppose this is all wrong, mistaken, suppose I am a little fool as you’ve called me several times; if I am making a mistake I’m sincere and honest in it; I’ve done nothing ignoble. I am enthusiastic over lofty ideas. They may be mistaken, but what they rest upon is holy. I’ve told you that you and all your friends have never yet said anything to me that could guide me, or influence me. Refute them, tell me something better than they have said, and I will follow you, but do not laugh at me, for that grieves me very much.”
Alyosha pronounced these words with extreme sincerity and a sort of severe dignity. Natasha watched him sympathetically. The prince heard his son with genuine amazement, and instantly changed his tone.
“I did not mean to grieve you, my dear,” he answered. “0n the contrary I am sorry for you. You are preparing to take such a step in life that it is only seemly for you to leave off being such a feather-headed boy. That’s what is in my mind. I could not help laughing, and had no wish to hurt your feelings.”
“Why was it that I thought so?” said Alyosha, with bitter feeling. “Why has it seemed for a long time past that you look at me as though you were antagonistic to me, with cold mockery, not like a father? Why is it I feel that if I were in your place I should not laugh so offensively as you do at me? Listen, let us speak openly with one another, at once, and for ever, that there may be no further misunderstanding. And . . . I want to tell you the whole truth. I thought when I came here that there was some misunderstanding. It was not like this that I expected to meet you all together. Am I right? If I am, wouldn’t it be better for each of us to say openly what he feels. How much evil may be averted by openness!”
“Speak, speak, Alyosha,” said Prince Valkovsky. “What you propose is very sensible. Perhaps you ought to have begun with that,” he added, glancing at Natasha.
“Don’t be angry with my perfect frankness,” began Alyosha. “You desire it and call for it yourself. Listen, you have agreed to my marriage with Natasha; you’ve made us happy by doing so, and for the sake of it you have overcome your own feelings. You have been magnanimous and we have all appreciated your generosity. But why is it now that with a sort of glee you keep hinting that I’m a ridiculous boy, and am not fit to be a husband? What’s more, you seem to want to humiliate me and make me ridiculous, and even contemptible, in Natasha’s eyes. You are always delighted when you can make me look absurd. I’ve noticed that before now, for a long time past. As though you were trying for some reason to show us that our marriage is absurd and foolish, and that we are not fitted for one another. It’s really as though you didn’t believe yourself in what you design for us; as though you look upon it all as a joke, as an absurd fancy, as a comic farce. I don’t think so only from what you’ve said today. That very evening, that Tuesday when I came back to you from here, I heard some strange expressions from you which surprised and hurt me. And on Wednesday, too, as you were going away you made some allusions to our present position, and spoke of her, not slightingly, quite the contrary, but yet not as I would like to hear you speak, somehow too lightly, without affection, without the respect for her. . . . It’s difficult to describe, but the tone was clear; one feels it in one’s heart. Tell me that I’m mistaken. Reassure me, comfort me and . . . and her, for you’ve wounded her too. I guessed that from the first moment I came in . . . ”
Alyosha said this with warmth and resolution. Natasha listened to him with a certain triumph, and, her face glowing with excitement, she said, as though to herself, once or twice during his speech, “Yes, yes. That’s true.” Prince Valkovsky was taken aback.
“My dear boy,” he answered, “of course I can’t remember everything I’ve said to you; but it’s very strange you should have taken my words in that way. I’m quite ready to reassure you in every way I can. If I laughed just now that was quite natural. I tell you that I tried to hide under a laugh my bitter feeling. When I imagine that you are about to be a husband it seems to me now so utterly incredible, so absurd, excuse my saying so, even ludicrous. You reproach me for that laugh, but I tell you that it is all your doing. I am to blame, too. Perhaps I haven’t been looking after you enough of late, and so it’s only this evening that I have found out of what you are capable. Now I tremble when I think of your future with Natalya Nikolaevna. I have been in too great a hurry; I see that there is a great disparity between you. Love always passes, but incompatibility remains for ever. I’m not speaking now of your fate, but if your intentions are honest, do consider; you will ruin Natalya Nikolaevna as well as yourself, you certainly will! Here you’ve been talking for an hour of love for humanity, of the loftiness of your convictions, of the noble people you’ve made friends with. But ask Ivan Petrovitch what I said to him just now as we climbed up that nasty staircase to the fourth storey, and were standing at the door, thanking God that our lives and limbs were safe. Do you know the feeling that came into my mind in spite of myself? I was surprised that with your love for Natalya Nikolaevna you could bear to let her live in such a flat. How is it you haven’t realized that, if you have no means, if you are not in a position to do your duty, you have no right to be a husband, you have no right to undertake any responsibilities? Love alone is a small matter; love shows itself in deeds, but your motto is ‘live with me if you have to suffer with me’ — that’s not humane, you know, not honourable, to talk of love for all humanity, to go into raptures over the problems of the universe, and at the same time to sin against love without noticing it — it’s incomprehensible! Don’t interrupt me, Natalya Nikolaevna, let me finish. I feel it too bitterly, I must speak out. You’ve been telling us, Alyosha, that during these last days you’ve been attracted by everything that’s honourable, fine and noble, and you have reproached me that among my friends there are no such attractions, nothing but cold common sense. Only imagine, to be attracted by everything lofty and fine, and, after what happened here on Tuesday, to neglect for four whole days the woman who, one would have thought, must be more precious to you than anything on earth. You positively confess that you argued with with Katerina Fyodorovna that Natalya Nikolaevna is so generous and loves you so much that she will forgive you your behaviour. But what right have you to reckon on such forgiveness, and make bets about it? And is it possible you haven’t once reflected what distress, what bitter feelings, what doubts, what suspicions you’ve been inflicting on Natalya Nikolaevna all this time? Do you think that because you’ve been fascinated there by new ideas, you had the right to neglect your first duty? Forgive me, Natalya Nikolaevna, for breaking my word. But the present position is more important than any promise, you will realize that yourself. . . . Do you know, Alyosha, that I found Natalya Nikolaevna in such agonies of distress that it was plain what a hell you had made of these four days for her, which should, one would have thought, have been the happiest in her life. Such conduct on one side, and on the other — words, words, words . . . am I not right? And you can blame me when it’s entirely your own fault?”
Prince Valkovsky finished. He was really carried away by his own eloquence and could not conceal his triumph from us. When Alyosha heard of Natasha’s distress he looked at her with painful anxiety, but Natasha had already come to a decision.
“Never mind, Alyosha, don’t be unhappy,” she said. “Others are more to blame than you. Sit down and listen to what I have to say to your father. It’s time to make an end of it!”
“Explain yourself, Natalya Nikolaevna!” cried the prince. “I beg you most earnestly! For the last two hours I have been listening to these mysterious hints. It is becoming intolerable, and I must admit I didn’t expect such a welcome here.”
“Perhaps; because you expected so to fascinate us with words that we should not notice your secret intentions. What is there to explain to you? You know it all and understand it all yourself. Alyosha is right. Your first desire is to separate us. You knew beforehand, almost by heart, everything that would happen here, after last Tuesday, and you were reckoning on it all. I have told you already that you don’t take me seriously, nor the marriage you have planned. You are making fun of us, you are playing, and you have your own objects. Your game is a safe one. Alyosha was right when he reproached you for looking on all this as a farce. You ought, on the contrary, to be delighted and not scold Alyosha, for without knowing anything about it he has done all that you expected of him, and perhaps even more.”
I was petrified with astonishment, I had expected some catastrophe that evening. But I was utterly astounded at Natasha’s ruthless plain speaking and her frankly contemptuous tone. Then she really must know something, I thought, and has irrevocably determined upon a rupture. Perhaps she had been impatiently expecting the prince in order to tell him everything to his face. Prince Valkovsky turned a little pale. Alyosha’s face betrayed naive alarm and agonizing expectation.
“Think what you have just accused me of,” cried the prince, “and consider your words a little . . . I can make nothing of it!”
“Ah! So you don’t care to understand at a word,” said Natasha. “Even he, even Alyosha, understood you as I did, and we are not in any agreement about it. We have not even seen each other! He, too, fancied that you were playing an ignoble and insulting game with us, and he loves you and believes in you as though you were a god. You haven’t thought it necessary to be cautious and hypocritical enough with him, you reckoned that he would not see through you. But he has a tender, sensitive, impressionable heart, and your words, your tone, as he says, have left a trace in his heart . . .”
“I don’t understand a word of it, not a word of it,” repeated Prince Valkovsky, turning to me with an air of the utmost perplexity, as though he were calling me to witness. He was hot and angry.
“You are suspicious, you are agitated,” he went on, addressing her. “The fact is you are jealous of Katerina Fyodorovna, and so you’re ready to find fault with everyone, and me especially . . . and, allow me to say, you give one a strange idea of your character. . . . I am not accustomed to such scenes. I would not remain here another moment if it were not for my son’s interests. I am still waiting. Will you condescend to explain?”
“So you still persist and will not understand though you know all this by heart. Do you really want me to speak out?
“That is all I am anxious for.”
“Very well then, listen,” cried Natasha, her eyes flashing with anger. “I’ll tell you everything, everything.”
SHE got up and began to speak standing, unconscious of doing so in her excitement. After listening for a time, Prince Valkovsky too, stood up. The whole scene became quite solemn.
“Remember your own words on Tuesday.” Natasha began. “You said you wanted money, to follow the beaten track, importance in the world — do you remember?”
“I remember.”
“Well, to gain that money, to win all that success which was slipping out of your hands, you came here on Tuesday and made up this match, calculating that this practical joke would help you to capture what was eluding you.”
“Natasha!” I cried. “Think what you’re saying!”
“Joke! Calculating!” repeated the prince with an air of insulted dignity.
Alyosha sat crushed with grief and gazed scarcely comprehending.
“Yes, yes, don’t stop me. I have sworn to speak out,” Natasha went on, irritated. “Remember, Alyosha was not obeying you. For six whole months you had been doing your utmost to draw him away from me. He held out against you. And at last the time came when you could not afford to lose a moment. If you let it pass, the heiress, the money — above all the money, the three millions of dowry — would slip through your fingers. Only one course was left you, to make Alyosha love the girl you destined for him; you thought that if he fell in love with her he would abandon me.”
“Natasha! Natasha!” Alyosha cried in distress, “what are you saying?”
“And you have acted accordingly,” she went on, not heeding Alyosha’s exclamation, “but — it was the same old story again! Everything might have gone well, but I was in the way again. There was only one thing to give you hope. A man of your cunning and experience could not help seeing even then that Alyosha seemed at times weary of his old attachment. You could not fail to notice that he was beginning to neglect me, to be bored, to stay away for five days at a time. You thought he might get tired of it altogether and give me up, when suddenly on Tuesday Alyosha’s decided action came as a shock to you. What were you to do!”
“Excuse me,” cried Prince Valkovsky, “on the contrary, that fact . . .”
“I say,” Natasha went on emphatically, “you asked yourself that evening what you were to do, and resolved to sanction his marrying me not in reality but only in words, simply to soothe him. The date of the wedding could be deferred, you thought, indefinitely, and meanwhile the new feeling was growing; you saw that. And on the growth of this new love you rested all your hopes.”
“Novels, novels,” the prince pronounced, in an undertone, as though speaking to himself, “solitude, brooding, and novel-reading.”
“Yes, on this new love you rested everything,” Natasha repeated, without listening or attending to his words, more and more carried away in a fever of excitement. “And the chances in favour of this new love! It had begun before he knew all the girl’s perfections. At the very moment when he disclosed to her that evening that he could not love her, that duty and another love forbade it — the girl suddenly displayed such nobility of character, such sympathy for him and for her rival, such spontaneous forgiveness, that though he had believed in her beauty, he only realized then how splendid she was. When he came to me he talked of nothing but her, she had made such an impression upon him. Yes, he was bound next day to feel an irresistible impulse to see this noble being again, if only from gratitude. And, indeed, why shouldn’t he go to her? His old love was not in distress now, her future was secured, his whole life was to be given up to her, while the other would have only a minute. And how ungrateful Natasha would be if she were jealous even of that minute. And so without noticing it he robs his Natasha not of a minute, but of one day, two days, three. . . . And meantime, in those three days, the girl shows herself to him in a new and quite unexpected light. She is so noble, so enthusiastic, and at the same time such a naive child, and in fact so like himself in character. They vow eternal friendship and brotherhood, they wish never to be parted. In five or six hours of conversation his soul is opened to new sensations and his whole heart is won. The time will come at last, you reckon, when he will compare his old feeling with his new, fresh sensations. There everything is familiar and the same as usual; there it’s all serious and exacting; there he finds jealousy and reproaches; there he finds tears. . . . Or if there is lightness and playfulness, he is treated liked a child not an equal . . . But worst of all, its all familiar, the same as ever . . . .”
Tears and a spasm of bitterness choked her, but Natasha controlled herself for a minute longer.
“And what besides! Why, time. The wedding with Natasha is not fixed yet, you think; there’s plenty of time and all will change. . . . And then your words, hints, arguments, eloquence. . . . You may even be able to trump up something against that troublesome Natasha. You may succeed in putting her in an unfavourable light and . . . there’s no telling how it will be done; but the victory is yours! Alyosha! Don’t blame me, my dear! Don’t say that I don’t understand your love and don’t appreciate it. I know you love me even now, and that perhaps at this moment you don’t understand what I complain of. I know I’ve done very wrong to say all this. But what am I to do, understanding all this, and loving you more and more . . . simply madly!”
She hid her face in her hands, fell back in her chair, and sobbed like a child. Alyosha rushed to her with a loud exclamation. He could never see her cry without crying too.
Her sobs were, I think, of great service to the prince; Natasha’s vehemence during this long explanation, the violence of her attack on him which he was bound, if only from decorum, to resent, all this might be set down to an outburst of insane jealousy, to wounded love, even to illness. It was positively appropriate to show sympathy.
“Calm yourself, don’t distress yourself, Natalya Nikolaevna,” Prince Valkovsky encouraged her. “This is frenzy, imagination, the fruits of solitude. You have been so exasperated by his thoughtless behaviour. It is only thoughtlessness on his part, you know. The most important fact on which you lay so much stress, what happened on Tuesday, ought rather to prove to you the depth of his love for you, while you have been imagining on the contrary . . . ”
“Oh, don’t speak to me, don’t torture me even now!” cried Natasha, weeping bitterly. “My heart has told me everything, has told me long ago! Do you suppose I don’t understand that our old love is over here in this room, alone . . . when he left me, forgot me I have been through everything, thought over everything What else have I to do? I don’t blame you, Alyosha. . . . Why are you deceiving me? Do you suppose I haven’t tried to deceive myself? Oh how often, how often! Haven’t I listened to every tone of his voice? Haven’t I learnt to read his face, his eyes? It’s all, all over. It’s all buried. . . . Oh! how wretched I am!”
Alyosha was crying on his knees before her.
“Yes, yes, it’s my fault! It’s all my doing!” he repeated through his sobs.
“No, don’t blame yourself, Alyosha. It’s other people our enemies. . . . It’s their doing . . . theirs!”
“But excuse me,” the prince began at last with some impatience, “what grounds have you for ascribing to me all these . . . crimes? These are all your conjectures. There’s no proof of them . . . ”
“No proof!” cried Natasha, rising swiftly from her easy chair. “You want proof, treacherous man. You could have had no other motive, no other motive when you came here with your project! You had to soothe your son, to appease his conscience-pricks that he might give himself up to Katya with a freer and easier mind. Without that he would always have remembered me, he would have held out against you, and you have got tired of waiting. Isn’t that true?”
“I confess,” said the prince, with a sarcastic smile, “if I had wanted to deceive you that would certainly have been my calculation. You are very . . . quick-witted, but you ought to have proofs before you insult people with such reproaches.”
“Proofs! But all your behaviour in the past when you were trying to get him away from me. A man who trains his son to disregard such obligations, and to play with them for the sake of worldly advantage, for the sake of money, is corrupting him! What was it you said just now about the staircase and the poorness of my lodging? Didn’t you stop the allowance you used to give him, to force us to part through poverty and hunger? This lodging and the staircase are your fault, and now you reproach him with it double-faced man! And what was it roused in you that night such warmth, such new and uncharacteristic convictions? And why was I so necessary to you? I’ve been walking up and down here for these four days; I’ve thought over everything, I have weighed every word you uttered, every expression of your face, and I’m certain that it has all been a pretence, a sham, a mean, insulting and unworthy farce. . . . I know you, I’ve known you for a long time. Whenever Alyosha came from seeing you I could read from his face all that you had been saying to him, all that you had been impressing on him. No, you can’t deceive me! Perhaps you have some other calculations now; perhaps I haven’t said the worst yet; but no matter! You have deceived me — that’s the chief thing. I had to tell you that straight to your face!”
“Is that all? Is that all the proof you have? But think, you frantic woman: by that farce, as you call my proposal on Tuesday, I bound myself too much, it would be too irresponsible on my part . . .
“How, how did you bind yourself! What does it mean for you to deceive me? And what does it signify to insult a girl in my position? A wretched runaway, cast off by her father, defenceless, who has disgraced herself, immoral! Is there any need to be squeamish with her if this joke can be of the very smallest use!”
“Only think what a position you are putting yourself into, Natalya Nikolaevna. You insist that you have been insulted by me. But such an insult is so great, so humiliating, that I can’t understand how you can even imagine it, much less insist on it. What must you be accustomed to, to be able to suppose this so easily, if you will excuse my saying so. I have the right to reproach you, because you are setting my son against me. If he does not attack me now on your account his heart is against me.
“No, father, no!” cried Alyosha, “If I haven’t attacked you it’s because I don’t believe you could be guilty of such an insult, and I can’t believe that such an insult is possible!
“Do you hear?” cried Prince Valkovsky.
“Natasha, it’s all my fault! Don’t blame him. It’s wicked and horrible.”
“Do you hear, Vanya? He is already against me!” cried Natasha.
“Enough!” said the prince. “We must put an end to this painful scene. This blind and savage outburst of unbridled jealousy shows your character in quite a new light. I am forewarned. We have been in too great a hurry. We certainly have been in too great a hurry. You have not even noticed how you have insulted me. That’s nothing to you. We were in too great a hurry . . . too great a hurry . . . my word ought to be sacred of course, but . . . I am a father, and I desire the happiness of my son . . .”
“You go back from your word!” cried Natasha, beside herself. “You are glad of the opportunity. But let me tell you that here, alone, I made up my mind two days ago to give him back his promise, and now I repeat it before every one. I give him up!”
“That is, perhaps, you want to reawaken his old anxieties again, his feeling of duty, all this worrying about his obligations (as you expressed it just now yourself), so as to bind him to you again. This is the explanation on your own theory. That is why I say so; but enough, time will decide. I will await a calmer moment for an explanation with you. I hope we may not break off all relations. I hope, too, that you may learn to appreciate me better. I meant today to tell you of my projects for your family, which would have shown you. . . . But enough! Ivan Petrovitch,” he added, coming up to me, “I have always wanted to know you better, and now, more than ever, I should appreciate it. I hope you understand me. I shall come and see you in a day or two if you will allow me.”
I bowed. It seemed to me, too, that now I could not avoid making his acquaintance. He pressed my hand, bowed to Natasha without a word, and went out with an air of affronted dignity.
FOR some minutes we all said nothing. Natasha sat in thought, sorrowful and exhausted. All her energy had suddenly left her. She looked straight before her seeing nothing, holding Alyosha’s hand in hers and seeming lost in oblivion. He was quietly giving vent to his grief in tears, looking at her from time to time with timorous curiosity.
At last he began timidly trying to comfort her, besought her not to be angry, blamed himself; it was evident that he was very anxious to defend his father, and that this was very much on his mind. He began on the subject several times, but did not dare to speak out, afraid of rousing Natasha’s wrath again. He protested his eternal unchanging love, and hotly justified his devotion to Katya, continually repeating that he only loved Katya as a sister, a dear, kind sister, whom he could not abandon altogether; that that would be really coarse and cruel on his part, declaring that if Natasha knew Katya they would be friends at once, so much so that they would never part and never quarrel. This idea pleased him particularly. The poor fellow was perfectly truthful. He did not understand her apprehensions, and indeed had no clear understanding of what she had just said to his father. All he understood was that they had quarrelled, and that above all lay like a stone on his heart.
“You are blaming me on your father’s account?” asked Natasha.
“How can I blame you?” he said with bitter feeling, “when I’m the cause, and it’s all my fault? It’s I who have driven you into such a fury, and in your anger you blamed him too, because you wanted to defend me. You always stand up for me, and I don’t deserve it. You had to fix the blame on someone, so you fixed it on him. And he’s really not to blame!” cried Alyosha, warming up. “And was it with that thought he came here? Was that what he expected?”
But seeing that Natasha was looking at him with distress and reproach, he was abashed at once.
“Forgive me, I won’t, I won’t,” he said. “It’s all my fault!”
“Yes, Alyosha,” she went on with bitter feeling. “Now he has come between us and spoilt all our peace, for all our lives. You always believed in me more than in anyone. Now he has poured distrust and suspicion of me into your heart; you blame me; he has already taken from me half your heart. The black cat has run between us.”
“Don’t speak like that, Natasha. Why, do you talk of the black cat?”
He was hurt by the expression.
“He’s won you by his false kindness, his false generosity,” Natasha continued. “And now he will set you more and more against me.”
“I swear that it isn’t so,” said Alyosha with still greater heat. “He was irritated when he said he was ‘in too great a hurry.’ You will see tomorrow, in a day or two, he’ll think better of it; and if he’s so angry that he really won’t have our marriage I swear I won’t obey him. I shall have the strength, perhaps, for that. And do you know who will help us?” he cried, delighted with his idea. “Katya will help us! And you will see, you will see what a wonderful creature she is! You will see whether she wants to be your rival and part us. And how unfair you were just now when you said that I was one of those who might change the day after marriage! It was bitter to me to hear that! No, I’m not like that, and if I went often to see Katya . . .”
“Hush, Alyosha! Go and see her whenever you like. That wasn’t what I meant just now. You didn’t understand it all. Be happy with anyone you like. I can’t ask more of your heart than it can give me . . . ”
Mavra came in.
“Am I to bring in the tea? It’s no joke to keep the samovar boiling for two hours. It’s eleven o’clock.”
She spoke rudely and crossly. She was evidently out of humour and angry with Natasha. The fact was that ever since Tuesday she had been in the greatest delight that her young lady (whom she was very fond of) was to be married, and had already had time to proclaim it all over the house and neighbourhood, in the shop, and to the porter. She had been boasting of it and relating triumphantly that a prince, a man of consequence, and a general, awfully rich, had come himself to beg her young lady’s consent, and she, Mavra, had heard it with her own cars; and now, suddenly, it had all ended in smoke. The prince had gone away furious, and no tea had been offered to him, and of course it was all her young lady’s fault. Mavra had heard her speaking disrespectfully to him.
“Oh . . . yes,” answered Natasha.
“And the savouries?”
“Yes, bring them too.”
Natasha was confused.
“We’ve been making such preparations, such preparations,” Mavra went on. “I’ve been run off my feet ever since yesterday. I ran to the Nevsky for wine, and here . . .”
And she went out, slamming the door angrily.
Natasha reddened and looked at me rather strangely.
Meanwhile tea was served, and with it savouries. There was game, fish of some sort, two bottles of excellent wine from Eliseyev. What were all these preparations for, I wondered.
“You see what I am, Vanya,” said Natasha, going up to the table, and she was ashamed even to face me. “I foresaw it would all end as it has ended, you know; and still I thought that perhaps it wouldn’t end so. I thought Alyosha might come, and begin to make peace, and we should be reconciled. All my suspicions would turn out to be unjust. I should be convinced . . . and I got a supper ready on the chance. I thought perhaps we should sit and talk till late.”
Poor Natasha! She blushed so deeply as she said this. Alyosha was delighted.
“There, you see, Natasha! “ he cried. “You didn’t believe it yourself. Two hours ago you didn’t believe in your suspicions yourself. Yes, it must all be set right. I’m to blame. It’s all my fault and I’ll make it all right. Natasha, let me go straight to my father. I must see him; he is hurt, he is offended; I must comfort him. I will tell him everything, speaking only for myself, only for myself! You shan’t be mixed up in it. And I’ll settle everything. Don’t be angry with me for being so anxious to get to him and ready to leave you. It’s not that at all. I am sorry for him; he will justify himself to you, you will see. To-morrow I’ll be with you as soon as it’s light, and I’ll spend the whole day with you. I won’t go to Katya’s.”
Natasha did not detain him; she even urged him to go. She was dreadfully afraid that Alyosha would now force himself to stay with her from morning till night, and would weary of her. She only begged him to say nothing in her name, and tried to smile at him more cheerfully at parting. He was just on the point of going, but he suddenly went up to her, took her by both hands and sat down beside her. He looked at her with indescribable tenderness.
“Natasha, my darling, my angel, don’t be angry with me, and don’t let us ever quarrel. And give me your word that you’ll always believe me, and I will believe you. There, my angel, I’ll tell you now. We quarrelled once; I don’t remember what about: it was my fault. We wouldn’t speak to one another. I didn’t want to be the first to beg pardon and I was awfully miserable. I wandered all over the town, lounged about everywhere, went to see my friends, and my heart was so heavy, so heavy. . . . And then the thought came into my mind, what if you fell ill, for instance, and died? And when I imagined that, I suddenly felt such despair as though I had really lost you for ever. My thoughts grew more and more oppressive and terrible. And little by little I began to imagine going to your tomb, falling upon it in despair, embracing it, and swooning with anguish. I imagined how I would kiss that tomb, and call you out of it, if only for a moment, and pray God for a miracle that for one moment you might rise up before me; I imagined how I would rush to embrace you, press you to me, kiss you, and die, it seemed, with bliss at being able once more for one instant to hold you in my arms as before. And as I was imagining that, the thought suddenly came to me: why, I shall pray to God for one minute of you, and meanwhile you have been with me six months, and during those six months how many times we’ve quarrelled, how many days we wouldn’t speak to one another. For whole days we’ve been on bad terms and despised our happiness, and here I’m praying you to come for one minute from the tomb, and I’m ready to give my whole life for that minute. . . . When I fancied all that I couldn’t restrain myself, but rushed to you as fast as I could; I ran here, and you were expecting me, and when we embraced after that quarrel I remember I held you in my arms as tightly as though I were really losing you, Natasha. Don’t let us ever quarrel! It always hurts me so. And, good heavens, how could you imagine that I could leave you!”
Natasha was crying. They embraced each other warmly, and Alyosha swore once more that he would never leave her. Then he flew off to his father. He was firmly convinced that he would settle everything, that he would make everything come right.
“It’s all ended! It’s all over!” said Natasha, pressing my hand convulsively. “He loves me and he will never cease to love me. But he loves Katya, too, and in a little time he’ll love her more than me. And that viper, the prince, will keep his eyes open, and then . . .”
“Natasha! I, too, believe that the prince is not acting straight-forwardly, but . . .”
“You don’t believe all I’ve said to him! I saw that from your face. But wait a little, you’ll see for yourself whether I’m right. I was only speaking generally, but heaven knows what else he has in his mind! He’s an awful man. I’ve been walking up and down this room for the last four days, and I see through it all. He had to set Alyosha free, to relieve his heart from the burden of sadness that’s weighing on his life, from the duty of loving me. He thought of this project of marriage with the idea, too, of worming his way in between us and influencing us, and of captivating Alyosha by his generosity and magnanimity. That’s the truth, that’s the truth, Vanya! Alyosha’s just that sort of character. His mind would be set at rest about me, his uneasiness on my account would be over. He would think, ‘why, she’s my wife now, and mine for life,’ and would unconsciously pay more attention to Katya. The prince has evidently studied Katya, and realizes that she’s suited to him, and that she may attract him more than I can. Ach, Vanya, you are my only hope now! He wants for some reason to approach you, to get to know you. Don’t oppose this, and for goodness’ sake, dear, try to find some way of going to the countess’s soon; make friends with this Katya, study her thoroughly and tell me what she is like. I want to know what you think of her. No one knows me as you do, and you will understand what I want. Find out, too, how far their friendship goes, how much there is between them, what they talk about. It’s Katya, Katya, you must observe chiefly. Show me this once more, dear, darling Vanya, show me this once more what a true friend you are to me! You are my hope, my only hope now.”
It was nearly one O’clock by the time I got home. Nellie opened the door to me with a sleepy face. She smiled and looked at me brightly. The poor child was very much vexed with herself for having fallen asleep. She had been very anxious to sit up for me. She told me someone had been and inquired for me, had sat and waited for a time, and had left a note on the table for me. The note was from Masloboev. He asked me to go to him next day between twelve and one. I wanted to question Nellie, but I put it off till next morning, insisting that she should go to bed at once. The poor child was tired as it was with sitting up for me, and had only fallen asleep half an hour before I came in.