IN the morning Nellie told me some rather strange details about the visit of the previous evening. Indeed, the very fact that Masloboev had taken it into his head to come that evening at all was strange. He knew for a fact that I should not be at home. I had warned him of it myself at our last meeting, and I remembered it distinctly. Nellie told me that at first she had been unwilling to open the door, because she was afraid — it was eight o’clock in the evening. But he persuaded her to do so through the door, assuring her that if he did not leave a note for me that evening it would be very bad for me next day. When she let him in he wrote the note at once, went up to her, and sat down beside her on the sofa.
“I got up, and didn’t want to talk to him,” said Nellie. “I was very much afraid of him; he began to talk of Mme. Bubnov, telling me how angry she was, that now she wouldn’t dare to take me, and began praising you; said that he was a great friend of yours and had known you as a little boy. Then I began to talk to him. He brought out some sweets, and asked me to take some. I didn’t want to; then he began to assure me he was a good-natured man, and that he could sing and dance. He jumped up and began dancing. It made me laugh. Then he said he’d stay a little longer — ‘I’ll wait for Vanya, maybe he’ll come in’; and he did his best to persuade me not to be afraid of him, but to sit down beside him. I sat down, but I didn’t want to say anything to him. Then he told me he used to know mother and grandfather and then I began to talk, And he stayed a long time . . . ”
“What did you talk about?”
“About mother . . . Mme. Bubnov . . . grandfather. He stayed two hours.”
Nellie seemed unwilling to say what they had talked about. I did not question her, hoping to hear it all from Masloboev. But it struck me that Masloboev had purposely come when I was out, in order to find Nellie alone. “What did he do that for?” I wondered.
She showed me three sweetmeats he had given her. They were fruit-drops done up in green and red paper, very nasty ones, probably bought at a greengrocer’s shop. Nellie laughed as she showed me them.
“Why didn’t you eat them?” I asked.
“I don’t want to,” she answered seriously, knitting her brows. “I didn’t take them from him; he left them on the sofa himself . . . .”
I had to run about a great deal that day. I began saying good-bye to Nellie.
“Will you be dull all alone?” I asked her as I went away.
“Dull and not dull. I shall be dull because you won’t be here for a long while.”
And with what love she looked at me as she said this. She had been looking at me tenderly all that morning, and she seemed so gay, so affectionate, and at the same time there was something shamefaced, even timid, in her manner, as though she were afraid of vexing me in some way, and losing my affection and . . . and of showing her feelings too strongly, as though she were ashamed of them.
“And why aren’t you dull then? You said you were ‘dull and not dull.’” I could not help asking, smiling to her — she had grown sweet and precious to me.
“I know why,” she answered laughing and for some reason abashed again.
We were talking in the open doorway. Nellie was standing before me with her eyes cast down, with one hand on my shoulder, and with the other pinching my sleeve.
“What is it, a secret?” I asked.
“No . . . it’s nothing. . . . I’ve . . . I’ve begun reading your book while you were away.” she brought out in a low voice, and turning a tender, penetrating look upon me she flushed crimson.
“Ah, that’s it! Well, do you like it?”
I felt the embarrassment of an author praised to his face, but I don’t know what I would have given to have kissed her at that moment. But it seemed somehow impossible to kiss her. Nellie was silent for a moment.
“Why, why did he die?” she asked with an expression of the deepest sadness, stealing a glance at me and then dropping her eyes again.
“Who?”
“Why, that young man in consumption . . . in the book.”
“It couldn’t be helped. It had to be so, Nellie.”
“It didn’t have to at all,” she answered, hardly above a whisper, but suddenly, abruptly, almost angrily, pouting and staring still more obstinately at the floor.
Another minute passed.
“And she . . . they . . . the girl and the old man,” she whispered, still plucking at my sleeve, more hurriedly than before. Will they live together? And will they leave off being poor?”
“No, Nellie, she’ll go far away; she’ll marry a country gentleman, and he’ll be left alone,” I answered with extreme regret, really sorry that I could not tell her something more comforting.
“Oh, dear! . . . How dreadful! Ach, what people! I don’t want to read it now!”
And she pushed away my arm angrily, turned her back on me quickly, walked away to the table and stood with her face to the corner, and her eyes on the ground . . . She was flushed all over, and breathed unsteadily, as though from some terrible disappointment.
“Come, Nellie, you’re angry,” I said, going up to her. “You know, it’s not true what’s written in it, it’s all made up; what is there to be angry about! You’re such a sensitive little girl!”
“I’m not angry,” she said timidly, looking up at me with clear and loving eyes; then she suddenly snatched my hand, pressed her face to my breast, and for some reason began crying,
But at the same moment she laughed — laughed and cried together. I, too, felt it was funny, and somehow . . . sweet. But nothing would make her lift her head, and when I began pulling her little face away from my shoulder she pressed it more and more closely against me, and laughed more and more.
At last this sentimental scene was over. We parted. I was in a hurry. Nellie, flushed, and still seeming as it were shame-faced, with eyes that shone like stars, ran after me out on the stairs, and begged me to come back early. I promised to be sure to be back to dinner, and as early as possible.
To begin with I went to the Ichmenyevs. They were both in Anna Andreyevna was quite ill; Nikolay Sergeyitch was sitting in his study. He heard that I had come, but I knew that, a usual, he would not come out for a quarter of an hour, so as to give us time to talk. I did not want to upset Anna Andreyevna too much, and so I softened my account of the previous evening as far as I could, but I told the truth. To my surprise, though my old friend was disappointed, she was not astonished to hear the possibility of a rupture.
“Well, my dear boy, it’s just as I thought,” she said. “When you’d gone I pondered over it, and made up my mind that it wouldn’t come to pass. We’ve not deserved such a blessing, besides he’s such a mean man; one can’t expect anything good to come from him. It shows what he is that he’s taking ten thousand roubles from us for nothing. He knows it’s for nothing, but he takes it all the same. He’s robbing us of our last crust of bread. Ichmenyevka will be sold. And Natasha’s right and sensible not to believe him. But do you know, my dear boy,” she went on dropping her voice, “my poor man! My poor man! He’s absolutely against this marriage. He let it out. ‘I won’t have it,’ said he. At first I thought it was only foolishness; no, meant it. What will happen to her then, poor darling? The he’ll curse her utterly. And how about Alyosha? What does he say?”
And she went on questioning me for a long time, and as usual she sighed and moaned over every answer I gave her. Of late I noticed that she seemed to have quite lost her balance. Every piece of news upset her. Her anxiety over Natasha was ruining her health and her nerves.
The old man came in in his dressing-gown and slippers. He complained of being feverish, but looked fondly at his wife, and all the time that I was there he was looking after her like a nurse peeping into her face, and seeming a little timid with her in fact There was a great deal of tenderness in the way he looked at her He was frightened at her illness; he felt he would be bereaved of everything on earth if he lost her.
I sat with them for an hour. When I took leave he came into the passage with me and began speaking of Nellie. He seriously thought of taking her into his house to fill the place of his daughter, Natasha. He began consulting me how to predispose Anna Andreyevna in favour of the plan. With special curiosity he questioned me about Nellie, asking whether I had found out anything fresh about her. I told him briefly, my story made an impression on him.
“We’ll speak of it again,” he said decisively. “And meanwhile . . . but I’ll come to you myself, as soon as I’m a little better. Then we’ll settle things.”
At twelve o’clock precisely I reached Masloboev’s. To my intense amazement the first person I met when I went in was Prince Valkovsky. He was putting on his overcoat in the entry, and Masloboev was officiously helping him and handing him his cane. He had already told me that he was acquainted with the prince, but yet this meeting astonished me extremely.
Prince Valkovsky seemed confused when he saw me.
“Ach, that’s you!” he cried, with somewhat exaggerated warmth. “What a meeting, only fancy! But I have just heard from Mr. Masloboev that he knew you. I’m glad, awfully glad to have met you. I was just wishing to see you, and hoping to call on you as soon as possible. You will allow me? I have a favour to ask of you. Help me, explain our present position. You understand, of course, that I am referring to what happened yesterday. . . . You are an intimate friend; you have followed the whole course of the affair; you have influence . . . I’m awfully sorry that I can’t stay now . . . Business . . . But in a few days, and perhaps sooner, I shall have the pleasure of calling on you. But now . . .”
He shook my hand with exaggerated heartiness, exchanged a glance with Masloboev, and went away.
“Tell me for mercy’s sake . . . ” I began, as I went into the room.
“I won’t tell you anything,” Masloboev interrupted, hurriedly snatching up his cap and going towards the entry. “I’ve business. I must run, too, my boy. I’m late.”
“Why, you wrote to me yourself to come at twelve o’clock!”
“What if I did write twelve o’clock? I wrote to you yesterday, but today I’ve been written to myself, and such a piece of business that my head’s in a whirl! They’re waiting for me. Forgive me, Vanya, the only thing I can suggest to you by way of satisfaction is to punch my head for having troubled you for nothing. If you want satisfaction, punch it; only, for Christ’s sake, make haste! Don’t keep me. I’ve business. I’m late . . . ”
“What should I punch your head for? Make haste then if you’ve business . . . things unforeseen may happen to anyone. Only . . .”
“Yes, as for that only, let me tell you,” he interrupted, dashing out into the entry and putting on his coat (I followed his example). “I have business with you, too; very important business; that’s why I asked you to come; it directly concerns you and your interests. And as it’s impossible to tell you about it in one minute now, for goodness’ sake promise me to come to me today at seven o’clock, neither before nor after. I’ll be at home.”
“To-day,” I said uncertainly. “Well, old man, I did mean this evening to go . . .”
“Go at once, dear boy., where you meant to go this evening, and come this evening to me. For you can’t imagine, Vanya, the things I have to tell you.”
“But I say, what is it? I confess you make me curious.”
Meanwhile we had come out of the gate and were standing on the pavement.
“So you’ll come?” he asked insistently.
“I’ve told you I will.”
“No, give me your word of honour.”
“Foo! what a fellow! Very well, my word of honour.”
“Noble and excellent. Which way are you going?”
“This way,” I answered, pointing to the right.
“Well, this is my way,” said he, pointing to the left. “Good-bye, Vanya. Remember, seven o’clock.”
“Strange,” thought I, looking after him.
I had meant to be at Natasha’s in the evening. But as now I had given my word to Masloboev, I decided to call on Natasha at once. I felt sure I should find Alyosha there. And, as a fact, he was there, and was greatly delighted when I came in.
He was very charming, extremely tender with Natasha, and seemed positively to brighten up at my arrival. Though Natasha tried to be cheerful it was obviously an effort. Her face looked pale and ill, and she had slept badly. To Alyosha she showed an exaggerated tenderness.
Though Alyosha said a great deal and told her all sorts of things, evidently trying to cheer her up and to bring a smile to her lips, which seemed set in unsmiling gravity, he obviously avoided speaking of Katya or of his father. Evidently his efforts at reconciliation had not succeeded.
“Do you know what? He wants dreadfully to get away from me,” Natasha whispered to me hurriedly when he went out for a minute to give some order to Mavra. “But he’s afraid. And I’m afraid to tell him to go myself, for then perhaps he’ll stay on purpose; but what I’m most afraid of is his being bored with me, and getting altogether cold to me through that! What am I to do?”
“Good heavens, what a position you’ve put yourselves in! And how suspicious, how watchful you are of one another. Simply explain to him and have done with it. Why, he may well be weary of such a position.”
“What’s to be done?” she cried, panic-stricken.
“Wait a minute. I’ll arrange it all for you.”
And I went into the kitchen on the pretext of asking Mavra to clean one of my overshoes which was covered with mud.
“Be careful, Vanya,” she cried after me.
As soon as I went out to Mavra, Alyosha flew up to me as though he had been waiting for me.
“Ivan Petrovitch, my dear fellow, what am I to do? Do advise me. I promised yesterday to be at Katya’s just at this time today. I can’t avoid going. I love Natasha beyond expression; I would go through the fire for her, but you’ll admit that I can’t throw up everything over there . . . ”
“Well, go then.”
“But what about Natasha? I shall grieve her, you know. Ivan Petrovitch, do get me out of it somehow . . . .”
“I think you’d much better go. You know how she loves you; she will be thinking all the while that you are bored with her and staying with her against your will. It’s better to be more unconstrained. Come along, though. I’ll help you.”
“Dear Ivan Petrovitch, how kind you are!”
We went back; a minute later I said to him:
“I saw your father just now.”
“Where?” he cried, frightened.
“In the street, by chance. He stopped to speak to me a minute, and asked again to become better acquainted with me. He was asking about you, whether I knew where you were now. He was very anxious to see you, to tell you something.”
“Ach, Alyosha, you’d better go and show yourself,” Natasha put in, understanding what I was leading up to.
“But where shall I meet him now? Is he at home?”
“No, I remember he said he was going to the countess’s.”
“What shall I do, then?” Alyosha asked naively, looking mournfully at Natasha.
“Why, Alyosha, what’s wrong?” she said. “Do you really mean to give up that acquaintance to set my mind at rest? Why, that’s childish. To begin with, it’s impossible, and secondly, it would be ungrateful to Katya. You are friends — it’s impossible to break off relations so rudely. You’ll offend me at last if you think I’m so jealous. Go at once, go, I beg you, and satisfy your father.”
“Natasha, you’re an angel, and I’m not worth your little finger,” cried Alyosha rapturously and remorsefully. “You are so kind, while I . . . I . . . well, let me tell you, I’ve just been asking Ivan Petrovitch out there in the kitchen to help me to get away. And this was his plan. But don’t be hard on me, Natasha, my angel! I’m not altogether to blame, for I love you a thousand times more than anything on earth, and so I’ve made a new plan — to tell Katya everything and describe to her our present position and all that happened here yesterday. She’ll think of something to save us; she’s devoted to us, heart and soul . . . ”
“Well, go along,” said Natasha, smiling. “And I tell you what, I am very anxious to make Katya’s acquaintance myself. How can we arrange it?”
Alyosha’s enthusiasm was beyond all bounds. He began at once making plans for bringing about a meeting. To his mind it was very simple; Katya would find a way. He enlarged on his idea warmly, excitedly. He promised to bring an answer that day, within a couple of hours, and to spend the evening with Natasha.
“Will you really come?” asked Natasha, as she let him out.
“Can you doubt it? Good-bye, Natasha, good-bye my darling, my beloved for ever. Good-bye, Vanya. Ach, I called you Vanya by mistake. Listen, Ivan Petrovitch, I love you. Let me call you Vanya. Let’s drop formality.”
“Yes, let us.”
“Thank goodness! It’s been in my mind a hundred times, but I’ve never somehow dared to speak of it. Ivan Petrovitch — there I’ve done it again. You know, it’s so difficult to say Vanya all at once. I think that’s been described somewhere by Tolstoy: two people promise to call each other by their pet names, but they can’t do it and keep avoiding using any name at all. Ach, Natasha, do let’s read over ‘Childhood and Boyhood’ together. It is so fine.”
“Come, be off, be off I” Natasha drove him away, laughing. “He’s babbling with delight . . . .”
“Good-bye. In two hours time I shall be with you.”
He kissed her hand and hastened away.
“You see, you see, Vanya,” said she, and melted into tears.
I stayed with her for about two hours, tried to comfort her and succeeded in reassuring her. Of course, she was right about everything, in all her apprehensions. My heart was wrung with anguish when I thought of her present position. I was afraid but what could I do?
Alyosha seemed strange to me, too. He loved her no less than before; perhaps, indeed, his feeling was stronger, more poignant than ever, from remorse and gratitude. But at the same time, his new passion was taking a strong hold on his heart. It was impossible to see how it would end. I felt very inquisitive to see Katya. I promised Natasha again that I would make her acquaintance.
Natasha seemed to be almost cheerful at last. Among other things I told her all about Nellie, about Masloboev, and Mme. Bubnov, about my meeting Prince Valkovsky that morning at Masloboev’s, and the appointment I had made with the latter at seven o’clock. All this interested her extremely. I talked a little about her parents, but I said nothing for the present about her father’s visit to me; his project of a duel with the prince might have frightened her. She, too, thought it very strange that the prince should have anything to do with Masloboev, and that he should display such a great desire to make friends with me, though this could be to some extent explained by the position of affairs . . . .
At three o’clock I returned home. Nellie met me with her bright little face.
AT seven o’clock punctually I was at Masloboev’s. He greeted me with loud exclamations and open arms. He was, of course, half drunk. But what stuck me most was the extraordinary preparation that had been made for my visit. It was evident that I was expected. A pretty brass samovar was boiling on a little round table covered with a handsome and expensive tablecloth. The tea-table glittered with crystal, silver and china. On another table, which was covered with a tablecloth of a different kind, but no less gorgeous, stood plates of excellent sweets, Kiev preserves both dried and liquid, fruit-paste, jelly, French preserves, oranges, apples, and three or four sorts of nuts; in fact, a regular fruit-shop. On a third table, covered with a snow-white cloth, there were savouries of different sorts — caviar, cheese, a pie, sausage, smoked ham, fish and a row of fine glass decanters containing spirits of many sorts, and of the most attractive colours — green, ruby, brown and gold. Finally on a little table on one side — also covered with a white cloth — there were two bottles of champagne. On a table before the sofa there were three bottles containing Sauterne, Lafitte, and Cognac, very expensive brands from Eliseyev’s. Alexandra Semyonovna was sitting at the tea-table, and though her dress and general get-up was simple, they had evidently been the subject of thought and attention, and the result was indeed very successful. She knew what suited her, and evidently took pride in it. She got up to meet me with some ceremony. Her fresh little face beamed with pleasure and satisfaction. Masloboev was wearing gorgeous Chinese slippers, a sumptuous dressing-gown, and dainty clean linen. Fashionable studs and buttons were conspicuous on his shirt everywhere where they could possibly be attached. His hair had been pomaded, and combed with a fashionable side parting.
I was so much taken aback that I stopped short in the middle of the room and gazed open-mouthed, first at Masloboev and then at Alexandra Semyonovna, who was in a state of blissful satisfaction.
“What’s the meaning of this, Masloboev? Have you got a party this evening?” I cried with some uneasiness.
“No, only you!” he answered solemnly.
“But why is this?” I asked (pointing to the savouries). “Why, you’ve food enough for a regiment!”
“And drink enough! You’ve forgotten the chief thing — drink!” added Masloboev.
“And is this only on my account?
“And Alexandra Semyonovna’s. It was her pleasure to get it all up.”
“Well, upon my word. I knew that’s how it would be,” exclaimed Alexandra Semyonovna, flushing, though she looked just as satisfied. “I can’t receive a visitor decently, or I’m in fault at once.”
“Ever since the morning, would you believe it, as soon as she knew you were coming for the evening, she’s been bustling about; she’s been in agonies . . . .”
“And that’s a fib! It’s not since early morning, it’s since last night. When you came in last night you told me the gentleman was coming to spend the whole evening.”
“You misunderstood me.”
“Not a bit of it. That’s what you said. I never tell lies. And why shouldn’t I welcome a guest? We go on and on, and no one ever comes to see us, though we’ve plenty of everything. Let our friends see that we know how to live like other people.”
“And above all see what a good hostess and housekeeper you are,” added Masloboev. “Only fancy, my friend, I’ve come in for something too. She’s crammed me into a linen shirt, stuck in studs — slippers, Chinese dressing-gown — she combed my hair herself and pomaded it with bergamot; she wanted to sprinkle me with scent — creme brulee, but I couldn’t stand that. I rebelled and asserted my conjugal authority.”
“It wasn’t bergamot. It was the best French pomatum out of a painted china pot,” retorted Alexandra Semyonovna, firing up. “You judge, Ivan Petrovitch; he never lets me go to a theatre, or a dance, he only gives me dresses, and what do I want with dresses? I put them on and walk about the room alone. The other day I persuaded him and we were all ready to go to the theatre. As soon as I turned to fasten my brooch he went to the cupboard, took one glass after another until he was tipsy. So we stayed at home. No one, no one, no one ever comes to see us. Only of a morning people of a sort come about business, and I’m sent away. Yet we’ve samovars, and a dinner service and good cups — we’ve everything, all presents. And they bring us things to eat too. We scarcely buy anything but the spirits; and the pomade and the savouries there, the pie, the ham and sweets we bought for you. If anyone could see how we live! I’ve been thinking for a whole year: if a visitor would come, a real visitor, we could show him all this and entertain him. And folks would praise things and we should be pleased. And as for my pomading him, the stupid, he doesn’t deserve it. He’d always go about in dirty clothes. Look what a dressing-gown he’s got on. It was a present. But does he deserve a dressing-gown like that? He’d rather be tippling than anything. You’ll see. He’ll ask you to take vodka before tea.”
“Well! That’s sense indeed! Let’s have some of the silver seal and some of the gold, Vanya, and then with souls refreshed we’ll fall upon the other beverages.”
“There, I knew that’s how it would be!
“Don’t be anxious, Sashenka. We’ll drink a cup of tea, too, with brandy in it, to your health.”
“Well, there it is! “ she cried, clasping her hands. “It’s caravan tea, six roubles the pound, a merchant made us a present of it the day before yesterday, and he wants to drink it with brandy. Don’t listen to him, Ivan Petrovitch, I’ll pour you out a cup directly. You’ll see . . . you’ll see for yourself what it’s like!”
And she busied herself at the samovar,
I realized that they were reckoning on keeping me for the whole evening. Alexandra Semyonovna had been expecting visitors for a whole year, and was now prepared to work it all off on me This did not suit me at all.
“Listen, Masloboev,” I said, sitting down. “I’ve not come to pay you a visit. I’ve come on business; you invited me yourself to tell me something . . . .”
“Well, business is business, but there’s a time for friendly conversation too.”
“No, my friend, don’t reckon upon me. At half-past eight I must say good-bye. I’ve an appointment. It’s a promise.”
“Not likely. Good gracious, what a way to treat me! What a way to treat Alexandra Semyonovna. Just look at her, she’s overwhelmed. What has she been pomading me for: why I’m. covered with bergamot. Just think!”
“You do nothing but make jokes, Masloboev. I swear to Alexandra Semyonovna that. I’ll dine with you next week, or Friday if you like. But now, my boy, I’ve given my word; or rather it’s absolutely necessary for me to be at a certain place, You’d better explain what you meant to tell me.”
“Then can you really only stay till half-past eight?” cried Alexandra Semyonovna in a timid and plaintive voice, almost weeping as she handed me a cup of excellent tea.
“Don’t be uneasy, Sashenka; that’s all nonsense” Masloboev put in. “He’ll stay. That’s nonsense. But I’ll tell you what, Vanya, you’d much better let me know where it is you always go. What is your business? May I know? You keep running off somewhere every day. You don’t work . . . .”
“But why do you want to know? I’ll tell you perhaps afterwards. You’d better explain why you came to see me yesterday when I told you myself I shouldn’t be at home.”
“I remembered afterwards. But I forgot at the time. I really did want to speak to you about something. But before everything I had to comfort Alexandra Semyonovna. ‘Here,’ says she, ‘is a person, a friend, who has turned up. Why not invite him?’ And here she’s been pestering me about you for the last four days. No doubt they’ll let me off forty sins for the bergamot in the next world, but I thought why shouldn’t he spend an evening with us in a friendly way? So I had recourse to strategy: I wrote to you that I had such business that if you didn’t come it would quite upset our apple-cart.”
I begged him not to do like this in the future, but to speak to me directly. But this explanation did not altogether satisfy me.
“Well, but why did you run away from me this morning?” I asked.
“This morning I really had business. I’m not telling the least little fib.”
“Not with the prince?”
“Do you like our tea?” Alexandra Semyonovna asked, in honied accents. For the last five minutes she had been waiting for me to praise the tea, but it never occurred to me.
“It’s splendid, Alexandra Semyonovna, superb. I have never drunk anything like it.”
Alexandra Semyonovna positively glowed with satisfaction and flew to pour me out some more.
“The prince!” cried Masloboev, “the prince! That prince, my boy, is a rogue, a rascal such as . . . Well! I can tell you, my boy, though I’m a rogue myself, from a mere sense of decency I shouldn’t care to be in his skin. But enough. Mum’s the word! That’s all I can tell you about him.”
“But I’ve come, among other things, on purpose to ask you about him. But that will do later. Why did you give my Elena sweetmeats and dance for her when I was away yesterday? And what can you have been talking about for an hour and a half!”
“Elena is a little girl of twelve, or perhaps eleven, who is living for the time at Ivan Petrovitch’s,” Masloboev exclaimed, suddenly addressing Alexandra Semyonovna. “Look, Vanya, look,” he went on, pointing at her, “how she flushed up when she heard I had taken sweets to an unknown girl. Didn’t she give a start and turn red as though we’d fired a pistol at her? . . . I say, her eyes are flashing like coals of fire! It’s no use, Alexandra Semyonovna, it’s no use to try and hide it! She’s jealous. If I hadn’t explained that it was a child of eleven she’d have pulled my hair and the bergamot wouldn’t have saved me!”
“It won’t save you as it is!”
And with these words Alexandra Semyonovna darted at one bound from behind the tea-table, and before Masloboev had time to protect his head she snatched at a tuft of his hair and gave it a good pull.
“So there! So there! Don’t dare to say I’m jealous before a visitor! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! ”
She was quite crimson, and though she laughed, Masloboev caught it pretty hotly.
“He talks of all sorts of shameful things,” she added serious] turning to me.
“Well, Vanya, you see the sort of life I lead! That’s I must have a drop of vodka,” Masloboev concluded, setting his hair straight and going almost at a trot to the decanter But Alexandra Semyonovna was beforehand with him. She skipped up to the table, poured some out herself, handed it him, and even gave him a friendly pat on the cheek. Masloboev winked at me, triumphantly clicked with his tongue, an solemnly emptied his glass.
“As for the sweets, it’s difficult to say,” he began, sitting down on the sofa beside me. “I bought them at a greengrocer’s shop the other day when I was drunk, I don’t know why. Perhaps it was to support home industries and manufactures, don’t know for sure. I only remember that I was walking along the street drunk, fell in the mud, clutched at my hair and cried at being unfit for anything. I forgot about the sweets, of course so they remained in my pocket till yesterday when I sat down on your sofa and sat on them. The dances, too, were a question of inebriety. Yesterday I was rather drunk, and when I’m drunk, if I’m contented with my lot I sometimes dance. That’s all. Except, perhaps, that that little orphan excited my pity besides, she wouldn’t talk to me, she seemed cross. And so danced to cheer her up and gave her the fruit-drops.”
“And you weren’t bribing her to try and find something out from her? Own up, honestly, didn’t you come then on purpose knowing I shouldn’t be at home, to talk to her tete-a-tete, to get something out of her? You see, I know you spent an hour and a half with her, declared that you had known her dead mother, and that you questioned her about something.”
Masloboev screwed up his eyes and laughed roguishly.
“Well, it wouldn’t have been a bad idea,” he said. “Vanya, that was not so. Though, indeed, why shouldn’t I question her if I got a chance; but it wasn’t that. Listen, my friend, though as usual I’m rather drunk now, yet you may be sure that with evil intent Filip will never deceive you, with evil intent, that is.”
“Yes, but without evil intent?
“Well . . . even without evil intent. But, damn it all, let’s have a drink and then to business. It’s not a matter of much consequence,” he went on after a drink; “that Bubnov woman had no sort of right to keep the girl. I’ve gone into it all. There was no adoption or anything of that sort. The mother owed her money, and so she got hold of the child. Though the Bubnov woman’s a sly hag and a wicked wretch, she’s a silly woman like all women. The dead woman had a good passport and so everything was all right. Elena can live with you, though it would be a very good thing if some benevolent people with a family would take her for good and bring her up. But meanwhile, let her stay with you. That’s all right. I’ll arrange it all for you. The Bubnov woman won’t dare to stir a finger. I’ve found out scarcely anything certain about Elena’s mother. She was a woman of the name of Salzmann.”
“Yes, so Nellie told me.”
“Well, so there the matter ends. Now, Vanya,” he began with a certain solemnity, “I’ve one great favour to ask of you. Mind you grant it. Tell me as fully as you can what it is you’re busy about, where you’re going, and where you spend whole days at a time. Though I have heard something, I want to know about it much more fully.”
Such solemnity surprised me and even made me uneasy.
“But what is it? Why do you want to know? You ask so solemnly.”
“Well, Vanya, without wasting words, I want to do you a service. You see, my dear boy, if I weren’t straight with you I could get it all out of you without being so solemn. But you suspect me of not being straight — just now, those fruit-drops; I understood. But since I’m speaking with such seriousness, you may be sure it’s not my interest but yours I’m thinking of. So don’t have any doubts, but speak out the whole truth.”
“But what sort of service? Listen, Masloboev, why won’t you tell me anything about the prince? That’s what I want. That would be a service to me.”
“About the prince? H’m! Very well, I’ll tell you straight out. I’m going to question you in regard to the prince now.”
“How so?”
“I’ll tell you how. I’ve noticed, my boy, that he seems to be somehow mixed up in your affairs; for instance, he questioned me about you. How he found out that we knew each other is not your business. The only thing that matters is that you should be on your guard against that man. He’s a treacherous Judas, and worse than that too. And so, when I saw that he was mixed up in your affairs I trembled for you. But of course I knew nothing about it; that’s why I asked you to tell me, that I may judge. . . . And that’s why I asked you to come her today. That’s what the important business is. I tell you straight out.”
“You must tell me something, anyway, if only why I need to be afraid of the prince.”
“Very good, so be it. I am sometimes employed, my boy, in certain affairs. But I’m trusted by certain persons just because I’m not a chatterbox. Judge for yourself whether I should talk to you. So you mustn’t mind if I speak somewhat generally, very generally in fact, simply to show what a scoundrel he is. Well, to begin with, you tell your story.”
I decided there was really no need to conceal anything in my affairs from Masloboev. Natasha’s affairs were not a secret; moreover I might expect to get some help for her from Masloboev. Of course I passed over certain points as far as possible in my story. Masloboev listened particularly attentively to all that related to Prince Valkovsky; he stopped me in many places, asked me about several points over again, so that in the end I told him the story rather fully. The telling of it lasted half an hour.
“H’m! That girl’s got a head,” Masloboev commented.
“If she hasn’t guessed quite correctly about the prince, it’s a good thing anyway that she recognized from the first the sort of man she had to deal with, and broke off all relations with him. Bravo, Natalya Nikolaevna! I drink to her health.” (He took a drink.) “It’s not only brains, it must have been her heart too, that saved her from being deceived. And her heart didn’t mislead her. Of course her game is lost. The prince will get his way and Alyosha will give her up. I’m only sorry for Ichmenyev — to pay ten thousand to that scoundrel. Why, who took up his case, who acted for him? Managed it himself, I bet! E-ech! just like all these noble, exalted people! They’re no good for anything! That’s not the way to deal with the prince. I’d have found a nice little lawyer for Ichmenyev — ech!”
And he thumped on the table with vexation.
“Well, now about Prince Valkovsky?”
“Ah, you’re still harping on the prince. But what am I to say about him? I’m sorry I’ve offered to, I only wanted, Vanya, to warn you against that swindler, to protect you, so to say, from his influence. No one is safe who comes in contact with him. So keep your eyes open, that’s all. And here you’ve been imagining I had some mysteries of Paris I wanted to reveal to you. One can see you’re a novelist. Well, what am I to tell you about the villain? The villain’s a villain. . . . Well, for example, I’ll tell you one little story, of course without mentioning places, towns, or persons, that is, without the exactitude of a calendar. You know that when he was very young and had to live on his official salary, he married a very rich merchant’s daughter. Well, he didn’t treat that lady very ceremoniously, and though we’re not discussing her case now, I may mention in passing, friend Vanya, that he has all his life been particularly fond of turning such affairs to profit. Here’s another example of it. He went abroad. There . . . .”
“Stop, Masloboev, what journey abroad are you speaking of? In what year?”
“Just ninety-nine years and three months ago. Well, there he seduced the daughter of a certain father, and carried her off with him to Paris. And this is what he did! The father was some sort of a manufacturer, or was a partner in some enterprise of that sort. I don’t know for sure. What I tell you is what I’ve gathered from my own conjectures, and what I’ve concluded from other facts. Well, the prince cheated him, worming himself into his business too. He swindled him out and out, and got hold of his money. The old man, of course, had some legal documents to prove that the prince had had the money from him. The prince didn’t want to give it back; that is, in plain Russian, wanted to steal it. The old man had a daughter, and she was a beauty, and she had an ideal lover, one of the Schiller brotherhood, a poet, and at the same time a merchant, a young dreamer; in short a regular German, one Pfefferkuchen.”
“Do you mean to say Pfefferkuchen was his surname?”
“Well, perhaps it wasn’t Pfefferkuchen. Hang the man, he doesn’t matter. But the prince made up to the daughter, and so successfully that she fell madly in love with him. The prince wanted two things at that time, first to possess the daughter, and secondly the documents relating to the money he had had from the old man. All the old man’s keys were in his daughter’s keeping. The old man was passionately fond of his daughter, so much so that he didn’t want her to be married. Yes, really. He was jealous of every suitor she had, he didn’t contemplate parting with her, and he turned Pfefferkuchen out. He was a queer fish the father, an Englishman . . . .”
“An Englishman? But where did it all happen?”
“I only called him an Englishman, speaking figuratively, and you catch me up. It happened in the town of Santa-fe-da-Bogota, or perhaps it was Cracow, but more likely it was in the principality of Nassau, like the label on the seltzer-water bottles; certainly it was Nassau. Is that enough for you? Well, so the prince seduced the girl and carried her off from her father, and managed to induce the girl to lay hands on the documents and take them with her. There are cases of love like that, you know, Vanya. Fugh! God have mercy upon us! She was an honest girl, you know, noble, exalted. It’s true she very likely didn’t know much about the documents. The only thing that troubled her was that her father might curse her. The prince was equal to the occasion this time too; he gave her a formal, legal promise of marriage in writing. By so doing he persuaded her that they were only going abroad for a time, for a holiday tour, and that when the old father’s anger had subsided they would return to him married, and would, the three of them, live happy ever after, and so on, to infinity. She ran away, the old father cursed her and went bankrupt. She was followed to Paris by Frauenmilch, who chucked up everything, chucked up his business even; he was very much in love with her.”
“Stop, who’s Frauenmilch?”
“Why, that fellow! Feurbach, wasn’t it? Damn the fellow, Pfefferkuchen! Well, of course, the prince couldn’t marry her: what would Countess Hlestov have said? What would Baron Slops have thought? So he had to deceive her. And he did deceive her, too brutally. To begin with, he almost beat her, and secondly, he purposely invited Pfefferkuchen to visit them. Well, he used to go and see them and became her friend. They would spend whole evenings alone, whimpering together, weeping over their troubles, and he would comfort her. To be sure, dear, simple souls! The prince brought things to this pass on purpose. Once, he found them late at night, and pretended that they had an intrigue, caught at some pretext; said he’d seen it with his own eyes. Well, he turned them both out of the house, and took his departure to London for a time. She was just on the eve of her confinement; when he turned her out she gave birth to a daughter, that is, not a daughter but a son, to be sure, a little son. He was christened Volodka. Pfefferkuchen stood godfather. Well, so she went off with Pfefferkuchen. He had a little money. She travelled in Switzerland and Italy, through all the poetical places to be sure, most appropriately. She cried all the time, and Pfefferkuchen whimpered, and many years passed like that, and the baby grew into a little girl. And everything went right for the prince, only one thing was wrong, he hadn’t succeeded in getting back the promise of marriage. ‘You’re a base man,’ she had said to him at parting. ‘You have robbed me, you have dishonoured me and now you abandon me. Good-bye. But I won’t give you back your promise. Not because I ever want to marry you, but because you’re afraid of that document. So I shall always keep it in my hands.’ She lost her temper in fact, but the prince felt quite easy. Such scoundrels always come off well in their dealings with so-called lofty souls. They’re so noble that it’s always easy to deceive them, and besides they invariably confine themselves to lofty and noble contempt instead of practically applying the law to the case if it can be applied. That young mother, for instance, she took refuge in haughty contempt, and though she kept the promise of marriage, the prince knew, of course, that she’d sooner hang herself than make use of it; so he felt secure for the time. And though she spat in his nasty face, she had her Volodka left on her hands; if she had died what would have become of him? But she didn’t think about that. Bruderschaft, too, encouraged her and didn’t think about it. They read Schiller. At last Bruderschaft sickened of something and died.”
The Russian “Mrs. Grundy.”— Translator’s note.
“You mean Pfefferkuchen?”
“To be sure-hang him! And she . . .”
“Stay. How many years had they been travelling?”
“Exactly two hundred. Well, she went back to Cracow. Her father wouldn’t receive her, cursed her. She died, and the prince crossed himself for joy. I was there too, drank goblets not a few, our ears full of mead, but our mouths full of need; they gave me a flip, and I gave them the slip. . . . Let’s drink, brother Vanya.”
“I suspect that you are helping him in that business, Masloboev.”
“You will have it so, will you?
“Only I can’t understand what you can do in it.”
“Why, you see, when she went back under another name to Madrid after being away for ten years, all this had to be verified, and about Bruderschaft too, and about the old man and about the kid, and whether she was dead, and whether she’d any papers, and so on, to infinity. And something else besides, too. He’s a horrid man, be on your guard, Vanya, and remember one thing about Masloboev, don’t let anything make you call him a scoundrel. Though he’s a scoundrel (to my thinking there’s no man who isn’t) he’s not a scoundrel in his dealings with you. I’m very drunk, but listen. If ever, sooner or later, now or next year, it seems to you that Masloboev has hoodwinked you (and please don’t forget that word hoodwinked), rest assured that it’s with no evil intent. Masloboev is watching over you. And so don’t believe your suspicions, but come to Masloboev and have it out with him like a friend. Well, now, will you have a drink?”
“No.”
“Something to eat?”
“No, brother, excuse me.”
“Well then, get along with you. It’s a quarter to nine and you’re in a hurry. It’s time for you to go.”
“Well, what next? He’s been drinking till he’s drunk and now he sends away a guest. He’s always like that. Ach, you shameless fellow!” cried Alexandra Semyonovna, almost in tears.
“A man on foot’s poor company for a man on horseback, Alexandra Semyonovna; we shall be left alone to adore on another. And this is a general! No, Vanya, I’m lying, you’re not a general, but I’m a scoundrel! Only see what I look like now! What am I beside you? Forgive me, Vanya, don’t judge me and let me pour out . . .”
He embraced me and burst into tears. I prepared to go away.
“Good heavens! And we’ve prepared supper for you!” cried Alexandra Semyonovna in terrible distress. “And will you come to us on Friday?”
“I will, Alexandra Semyonovna. Honour bright, I will.”
“Perhaps you look down on him because he’s so . . . tipsy. Don’t look down upon him, Ivan Petrovitch! He’s a good-hearted man, such a good-hearted man, and how he loves you. He talks to me about you day and night, nothing but you. He bought your books on purpose for me. I haven’t read the yet. I’m going to begin tomorrow. And how glad I shall be when you come! I never see anyone. No one ever comes to sit with us. We’ve everything we can want, but we’re always alone. Here I’ve been sitting listening all the while you’ve been talking, and how nice it’s been. . . . So good-by till Friday.”
I WENT out and hurried home. Masloboev’s words had made a great impression on me. All sorts of ideas occurred to me. . . . As luck would have it, at home an incident awaited me which startled me like an electric shock.
Exactly opposite the gate of the house where I lodged stood a street-lamp. just as I was in the gateway a strange figure rushed out from under the street-lamp, so strange that I uttered a cry. It was a living thing, terror-stricken, shaking, half-crazed, and it caught at my hand with a scream. I was over-whelmed with horror. It was Nellie.
“Nellie, what is it?” I cried. “What’s the matter?”
“There, upstairs . . . he’s in our . . . rooms.”
“Who is it? Come along, come with me.”
“I won’t, I won’t. I’ll wait till he’s gone away . . . in the passage . . . I won’t.”
I went up to my room with a strange foreboding in my heart, opened the door and saw Prince Valkovsky. He was sitting at the table reading my novel. At least, the book was open.
“Ivan Petrovitch,” he cried, delighted. “I’m so glad you’ve come back at last. I was on the very point of going away. I’ve been waiting over an hour for you. I promised the countess at her earnest and particular wish to take you to see her this evening. She begged me so specially, she’s so anxious to make your acquaintance. So as you had already promised me I thought I would come and see you earlier before you’d had time to go out anywhere, and invite you to come with me. Imagine my distress. When I arrived your servant told me you were not at home. What could I do? I had given my word of honour that I’d take you with me. And so I sat down to wait for you, making up my mind to wait a quarter of an hour for you. But it’s been a long quarter of an hour! I opened your novel and forgot the time, reading it. Ivan Petrovitch! It’s a masterpiece! They don’t appreciate you enough! You’ve drawn tears from me, do you know? Yes, I’ve been crying, and I don’t often cry,”
“So you want me to come? I must confess that just now . . . not that I’m against it, but . . .”
“For God’s sake let us go! What a way to treat me! Why, I have been waiting an hour and a half for you. . . . Besides, I do so want to talk to you. You know what about. You understand the whole affair better than I do. . . . Perhaps we shall decide on something, come to some conclusion. Only think of it For God’s sake, don’t refuse.”
I reflected that sooner or later I should have to go. Of course Natasha was alone now, and needed me, but she had herself charged me to get to know Katya as soon as possible. Besides, Alyosha might be there. I knew that Natasha would not be satisfied till I had brought her news of Katya, and I decided to go. But I was worried about Nellie.
“Wait a minute,” I said to the prince, and I went out on the stairs. Nellie was standing there in a dark comer.
“Why won’t you come in, Nellie? What did he do? What did he say to you?”
“Nothing. . . . I don’t want to, I won’t . . .” she repeated.
“I’m afraid.”
I tried hard to persuade her, but nothing was any use. I agreed with her that as soon as I had gone out with the prince she should return and lock herself in.
“And don’t let anyone in, Nellie, however much they try and persuade you.”
“But are you going with him?”
“Yes.”
She shuddered and clutched at my arm, as though to beg me not to go, but she didn’t utter one word. I made up my mind to question her more minutely next day.
Apologizing to the prince, I began to dress. He began assuring me that I had no need to dress, no need to get myself up to go to the countess.
“Perhaps something a little more spruce,” he added, eyeing me inquisitively from head to foot. “You know . . . these conventional prejudices . . . it’s impossible to be rid of them altogether. It’ll be a long time before we get to that ideal state in our society,” he concluded, seeing with satisfaction that I had a dress-coat.
We went out. But I left him on the stairs, went back into the room into which Nellie had already slipped, and said good-bye to her again. She was terribly agitated. Her face looked livid. I was worried about her; I disliked having to leave her.
“That’s a queer servant of yours,” the prince said as we went downstairs. “I suppose that little girl is your servant?
“No . . . she . . . is staying with me for the time.”
“Queer little girl. I’m sure she’s mad. Only fancy, at first she answered me civilly, but afterwards when she’d looked at me she rushed at me, screaming and trembling, clung to me . . . tried to say something, but couldn’t. I must own I was scared. I wanted to escape from her, but thank God she ran away herself. I was astounded. How do you manage to get on with her?”
“She has epileptic fits,” I answered.
“Ah, so that’s it! Well, it’s no wonder then . . . if she has fits.”
The idea suddenly struck me that Masloboev’s visit of the previous day when he knew I was not at home, my visit to Masloboev that morning, the story that Masloboev had just told me, when he was drunk and against his will, his pressing invitation for me to come at seven o’clock that evening, his urging me not to believe in his hoodwinking me and, finally, the prince’s waiting for an hour and a half for me while perhaps he knew I was at Masloboev’s, and while Nellie had rushed away from him into the street, that all these facts were somehow connected. I had plenty to think about.
Prince Valkovsky’s carriage was waiting at the gate. We got in and drove off.
WE had not far to go, to the Torgovoy Bridge. For the first minute we were silent. I kept wondering how he would begin. I fancied that he would try me, sound me, probe me. But he spoke without any beating about the bush, and went straight to the point.
“I am very uneasy about one circumstance, Ivan Petrovitch,” he began, “about which I want to speak to you first of all, and to ask your advice. I made up my mind some time ago to forgo what I have won from my lawsuit and to give up the disputed ten thousand to Ichmenyev. How am I to do this?”
“It cannot be that you really don’t know how to act,” was the thought that flashed through my mind. “Aren’t you making fun of me?”
“I don’t know, prince,” I answered as simply as I could; “in something else, that is, anything concerning Natalya Nikolaevna, I am ready to give you any information likely to be of use to you or to us, but in this matter you must know better than I do.”
“No, no, I don’t know so well, of course not. You know them, and perhaps Natalya Nikolaevna may have given you her views on the subject more than once, and they would be my guiding principle. You can be a great help to me. It’s an extremely difficult matter. I am prepared to make a concession. I’m even determined to make a concession, however other matters may end. You understand? But how, and in what form, to make that concession? That’s the question. The old man’s proud and obstinate. Very likely he’ll insult me for my good-nature, and throw the money in my face.”
“But excuse me. How do you look upon that money? As your own or as his?”
“I won the lawsuit, so the money’s mine.”
“But in your conscience?”
“Of course I regard it as mine,” he answered, somewhat piqued at my unceremoniousness. “But I believe you don’t know all the facts of the case. I don’t accuse the old man of intentional duplicity, and I will confess I’ve never accused him. It was his own choice to take it as an insult. He was to blame for carelessness, for not looking more sharply after business entrusted to him. And by our agreement he was bound to be responsible for some of his mistakes. But, do you know, even that’s not really the point. What was really at the bottom of it was our quarrelling, our mutual recriminations at the time, in fact, wounded vanity on both sides. I might not have taken any notice of that paltry ten thousand, but you know, of course, how the whole case began and what it arose from. I’m ready to admit that I was suspicious and perhaps unjust (that is, unjust at the time), but I wasn’t aware of it, and in my vexation and resentment of his rudeness I was unwilling to let the chance slip, and began the lawsuit. You may perhaps think all that not very generous on my part. I don’t defend myself; only I may observe that anger, or, still more, wounded pride is not the same as lack of generosity, but is a natural human thing, and I confess, I repeat again, that I did not know Ichmenyev at all, and quite believed in those rumours about Alyosha and his daughter, and so was able to believe that the money had been intentionally stolen. . . . But putting that aside, the real question is, what am I to do now? I might refuse the money, but if at the same time I say that I still consider my claim was a just one, it comes to my giving him the money, and, add to that the delicate position in regard to Natalya Nikolaevna, he’ll certainly fling the money in my face . . . .”
“There, you see, you say yourself he’ll fling it in your face so you do consider him an honest man, and that’s why you can be perfectly certain that he did not steal your money. And if so, why shouldn’t you go to him and tell him straight out that you consider your claim as unjustified. That would be honourable, and Ichmenyev would not perhaps find it difficult then to accept his money.”
“Hm! His money . . . that’s just the question; what sort of position do you put me into? Go to him and tell him I consider my claim illegal. ‘Why did you make it then, if you considered it illegal?’ that’s what every one would say to my face. And I’ve not deserved it, for my claim was legal. I have never said and never written that he stole the money, but I am still convinced of his carelessness, his negligence, and incapacity in managing business. That money is undoubtedly mine, and therefore it would be mortifying to make a false charge against myself, and finally, I repeat, the old man brought the ignominy of it upon himself, and you want to force me to beg his pardon for that ignominy — that’s hard.”
“It seems to me that if two men wanted to be reconciled, then . . .”
“You think it’s easy?
“Yes.”
“No, sometimes it’s very far from easy, especially . . .”
“Especially if there are other circumstances connected with it. Yes, there I agree with you, prince. The position of Natalya Nikolaevna and of your son ought to be settled by you in all those points that depend upon you, and settled so as to be fully satisfactory to the Ichmenyevs. Only then can you be quite sincere with Ichmenyev about the lawsuit too. Now, while nothing has been settled, you have only one course open to you: to acknowledge the injustice of your claim, and to acknowledge it openly, and if necessary even publicly, that’s my opinion. I tell you so frankly because you asked me my opinion yourself. And probably you do not wish me to be insincere with you. And this gives me the courage to ask you why you are troubling your head about returning this money to Ichmenyev? If you consider that you were just in your claim, why return it? Forgive my being so inquisitive, but this has such an intimate bearing upon other circumstances.”
“And what do you think?” he asked suddenly, as though he had not heard my question. “Are you so sure that old Ichmenyev would refuse the ten thousand if it were handed to him without any of these evasions and . . . and . . . and blandishments?”
“Of course he would refuse it.”
I flushed crimson and positively trembled with indignation. This impudently sceptical question affected me as though he had spat into my face. My resentment was increased by something else: the coarse, aristocratic manner in which, without answering my question, and apparently without noticing it, he interrupted it with another, probably to give me to understand that I had gone too far and had been too familiar in venturing to ask him such a question. I detested, I loathed that aristocratic manoeuvre and had done my utmost in the past to get Alyosha out of it.
“Hm! You are too impulsive, and things are not done in real life as you imagine,” the prince observed calmly, at my exclamation. “But I think that Natalya Nikolaevna might do something to decide the question; you tell her that she might give some advice.”
“Not a bit of it,” I answered roughly. “You did not deign to listen to what I was saying to you just now, but interrupted me. Natalya Nikolaevna will understand that if you return the money without frankness and without all those blandishments, as you call them, it amounts to your paying the father for the loss of his daughter, and her for the loss of Alyosha — in other words your giving them money compensation . . .”
“Hm! . . . so that’s how you understand me, my excellent Ivan Petrovitch,” the prince laughed. Why did he laugh?
“And meanwhile,” he went on, “there are so many, many things we have to talk over together. But now there’s no time. I only beg you to understand one thing: Natalya Nikolaevna and her whole future are involved in the matter, and all this depends to some extent on what we decide. You are indispensable, you’ll see for yourself. So if you are still devoted to Natalya Nikolaevna, you can’t refuse to go frankly into things with me, however little sympathy you may feel for me. But here we are . . . a bientot.”
THE countess lived in good style. The rooms were furnished comfortably and with taste, though not at all luxuriously. Everything, however, had the special character of a temporary residence, not the permanent established habitation of a wealthy family with all the style of the aristocracy, and all the whims that they take for necessities. There was a rumour that the countess was going in the summer to her ruined and mortgaged property in the province of Simbirsk, and that the prince would accompany her. I had heard this already, and wondered uneasily how Alyosha would behave when Katya went away with the countess, I had not vet spoken of this to Natasha. I was afraid to. But from some signs I had noticed, I fancied that she, too, knew of the rumour. But she was silent and suffered in secret.
The countess gave me an excellent reception, held out her hand to me cordially, and repeated that she had long wished to, make my acquaintance. She made tea herself from a handsome silver samovar, round which we all sat, the prince, and I and another gentleman, elderly and extremely aristocratic wearing a star on his breast, somewhat starchy and diplomatic in his manners. This visitor seemed an object of great respect. The countess had not, since her return from abroad, had time that winter to make a large circle of acquaintances in Petersburg and to establish her position as she had hoped and reckoned upon doing. There was no one besides this gentleman, and no one else came in all the evening. I looked about for Katerina Fyodorovna; she was in the next room with Alyosha, but hearing that we had arrived she came in at once. The prince kissed her hand politely, and the countess motioned her towards me. The prince at once introduced us. I looked at her with impatient attention. She was a short, soft little blonde dressed in a white frock, with a mild and serene expression of face, with eyes of perfect blue, as Alyosha had said, she had the beauty of youth, that was all. I had expected to meet the perfection of beauty, but it was not a case of beauty. The regular, softly outlined oval of the face, the fairly correct features, the thick and really splendid hair, the simple and homely style in which it was arranged, the gentle, attentive expression — all this I should have passed by without paying special attention to it if I had met her elsewhere. But this was only the first impression, and I succeeded in getting a fuller insight into her in the course of that evening. The very way in which she shook hands with me, standing looking into my face with a sort of naively exaggerated intentness, without saying a word, impressed me by its strangeness, and I could not help smiling at her. It was evident, I felt at once, that I had before me a creature of the purest heart. The countess watched her intently. After shaking hands Katya walked away from me somewhat hurriedly, and sat down at the other end of the room with Alyosha. As he greeted me Alyosha whispered: “I’m only here for a minute. I’m just going there.”
The “diplomat,” I don’t know his name and call him a diplomat simply to call him something, talked calmly and majestically, developing some idea. The countess listened to him attentively. The prince gave him an encouraging and flattering smile. The orator often addressed himself to him, apparently appreciating him as a listener worthy of his attention. They gave me some tea and left me in peace, for which I was very thankful. Meanwhile I was looking at the countess. At first sight she attracted me in spite of myself. Perhaps she was no longer young, but she seemed to me not more than twenty-eight. Her face was still fresh, and in her first youth she must have been very beautiful. Her dark. brown hair was still fairly thick; her expression was extremely kindly, but frivolous, and mischievously mocking. But just now she was evidently keeping herself in check. There was a look of great intelligence, too, in her eyes, but even more of good-nature and gaiety. It seemed to me that her predominant characteristic was a certain levity, an eagerness for enjoyment, and a sort of good-natured egoism; a great deal of egoism, perhaps, She was absolutely guided by the prince, who had an extraordinary influence on her. I knew that they had a liaison; I had heard, too, that he had been anything but a jealous lover while they had been abroad; but I kept fancying, and I think so still, that apart from their former relations there was something else, some rather mysterious tie binding them together, something like a mutual obligation resting upon motives of self-interest . . . in fact there certainly was something of the sort. I knew, too, that by now the prince was tired of her, and yet their relations had not been broken off. Perhaps what kept them together especially was their design for Katya,, which must have owed its initiative to the prince. By persuading her to help him bring about Alyosha’s marriage with her stepdaughter, the prince had good reasons for getting out of marriage with the countess, which she really had urged upon him. So, at least, I concluded from facts dropped in all simplicity by Alyosha; even he could not help noticing something. I kept fancying, too, partly from Alyosha’s talk, that although the countess was completely under the prince’s control he had some reason for being afraid of her. Even Alyosha had noticed this. I learnt afterwards that the prince was very anxious to get the countess married to someone else, and that it was partly with that object he was sending her off to Simbirsk, hoping to pick up a suitable husband for her in the province.
I sat still and listened, not knowing how I could quickly secure a tete-a-tete interview with Katerina Fyodorovna. The diplomat was answering some questions of the countess’s about the present political position, about the reforms that were being instituted, and whether they were to be dreaded or not. He said a great deal at great length, calmly, like one having authority. He developed his idea subtly and cleverly, but the idea was a repulsive one. He kept insisting that the whole spirit of reform and improvement would only too soon bring forth certain results, that seeing those results “they would come to their senses,” and that not only in society (that is, of course, in a certain part of it) would this spirit of reform pass away, but they would learn their mistake from experience, and then with redoubled energy would return to the old traditions; that the experience, though distressing, would be of great benefit, because it would teach them to maintain that salutary tradition, would give fresh grounds for doing so, and that consequently it was to be hoped that the extreme limit of recklessness would be reached as soon as possible. “They cannot get on without us,” he concluded that no society has ever stood its ground without us. We shall lose nothing. On the contrary we stand to win. We shall rise to the surface, and our motto at the moment should be ‘pire ca va, mieux ca est!’ Prince Valkovsky smiled to him with revolting sympathy. The orator was completely satisfied with himself. I was so stupid as to want to protest; my heart was boiling. But what checked me was the malignant expression of the prince; he stole a glance in my direction, and it seemed to me that he was just expecting some strange and youthful outburst from me. Perhaps he even wanted this in order to enjoy my compromising myself. Meanwhile I felt convinced that the diplomat would not notice my protest, nor perhaps me either. It was revolting for me to sit with them; but Alyosha rescued me.
He came up to me quietly, touched me on the shoulder, and asked to have a few words with me. I guessed he came with a message from Katya. And so it was. A minute later I was sitting beside her. At first she kept watching me intently as though saying to herself: “So that’s what you’re like,” and for the first minute neither of us could find words to begin our conversation. I felt sure though that when once she began she would be ready to go on without stopping till next morning. The “five or six hours talk” of which Alyosha had spoken came back to my mind. Alyosha sat by us, waiting impatiently for us to begin.
“Why don’t you say something?” he began, looking at us with a smile. “They come together and sit silent.”
“Ach, Alyosha, how can you . . . we’ll begin directly,” answered Katya. “We have so much to talk over together, Ivan Petrovitch, that I don’t know where to begin. We’ve been late in getting to know one another; we ought to have met long ago, though I’ve known you for ages. And I was very anxious to see you! I was even thinking of writing you a letter . . .”
“What about?” I asked, smiling involuntarily.
“Ever so many things,” she answered earnestly. “Why, if only to know whether it’s true what Alyosha says, that Natalya Nikolaevna is not hurt at his leaving her alone at such a time. Can anyone behave as he does? Why are you here now, tell me that, please?”
“Why, good heavens, I’m just going! I just said that I should only be here for a minute, simply to look at you two and see how you talk to one another, and then I’ll be off to Natasha.”
“Well, here we are together, we’re sitting here, do you see? He’s always like that,” she added, flushing a little and pointing her finger at him. “‘One minute,’ he always says, ‘just one minute’ and, mind, he’ll stay on till midnight and then it’s too late to go there. ‘She won’t be angry,’ he says, ‘she’s kind.’ That’s how he looks at it. Is that right? Is that generous?”
“Well, I’ll go if you like,” Alyosha responded plaintively, “but I do want dreadfully to stay with you two . . . .”
“What do you want with us? On the contrary we must talk of lots of things alone. Listen, don’t be cross. It’s necessary — take that in thoroughly.”
“If it’s necessary I’ll be off at once — what is there to be cross at? I’ll just look in for a minute on Levinka, and then go on to her at once. I say, Ivan Petrovitch,” he added, taking up his hat to go, “do you know that my father wants to refuse to take the money he won by his lawsuit with Ichmenyev?
“I know. He told me.”
“How generous he is in doing that. Katya won’t believe that he’s acting generously. Talk to her about that. Good-bye, Katya, and please don’t doubt that I love Natasha. And why do you both always tie me down like this, scold me, and look after me — as though you had to watch over me? She knows how I love her, and is sure of me, and I’m sure that she’s sure of me. I love her, apart from anything, apart from any obligations. I don’t know how I love her, I simply love her. And so there’s no need to question me as though I were to blame. You can ask Ivan Petrovitch, he’s here now and he will confirm what I say, that Natasha’s jealous, and though she loves me so much there’s a great deal of egoism in her love, for she will never sacrifice anything for me.”
“What’s that?” I asked in amazement, hardly able to believe my ears.
“What are you saying, Alyosha?” Katya almost screamed, clasping her hands.
“Why, what is there so surprising in that? Ivan Petrovitch knows it. She’s always insisting that I should stay with her. Not that she insists, exactly, but one can see that’s what she wants.”
“Aren’t you ashamed? Aren’t you ashamed?” said Katya, turning crimson with anger.
“What is there to be ashamed of? What a person you are, really, Katya! I love her more than she thinks, and if she really loves me as I love her, she certainly would sacrifice her pleasure to me. It’s true she lets me go herself, but I see from her face that she hates doing it, so that it comes to the same thing as if she didn’t let me.”
“Oh, there’s something behind that,” cried Katya, turning to me again with flashing, angry eyes. “Own up, Alyosha, own up at once, it’s your father who has put all that into your head. He’s been talking to you today, hasn’t he? And please don’t try and deceive me: I shall find out directly! Is it so or not?”
“Yes, he has been talking,” Alyosha answered in confusion, “what of it? He talked in such a kind and friendly way today, and kept praising her to me. I was quite surprised, in fact, that he should praise her like that after she had insulted him so.”
“And you, you believed it?” said I. “You, for whom she has given up everything she could give up! And even now, this very day, all her anxiety was on your account, that you might not be bored, that you might not be deprived of the possibility of seeing Katerina Fyodorovna. She said that to me today herself. And you believe those false insinuations at once. Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Ungrateful boy! But that’s just it. He’s never ashamed of anything,” said Katya, dismissing him with a wave of her hand, as though he were lost beyond all hope.
“But really, how you talk!” Alyosha continued in a plaintive voice. “And you’re always like that, Katya! You’re always suspecting me of something bad . . . . . I don’t count, Ivan Petrovitch! You think I don’t love Natasha. I didn’t mean that when I said she was an egoist. I only meant that she loves me too much, so that it’s all out of proportion, and I suffer for it, and she too. And my father never does influence me, though he’s tried to. I don’t let him. He didn’t say she was an egoist in any bad sense; I understood him. He said exactly what I said just now: that she loves me so much, too much, so intensely, that it amounts to simple egoism and that that makes me suffer and her too, and that I shall suffer even more hereafter. He told the truth, and spoke from love of me, and it doesn’t at all follow that he meant anything offensive to Natasha; on the contrary, he saw the strength of her love, her immense, almost incredible love . . .”
But Katya interrupted him and would not let him finish. She began hotly upbraiding him, and maintaining that the prince had only praised Natasha to deceive him by a show of kindness, all in order to destroy their attachment, with the idea of invisibly and imperceptibly turning Alyosha against her. Warmly and cleverly she argued that Natasha loved him, that no love could forgive the way he was treating her, and that he himself, Alyosha, was the real egoist. Little by little Katya reduced him to utter misery and complete penitence. He sat beside us, utterly crushed, staring at the floor with a look of suffering on his face and gave up attempting to answer. But Katya was relentless. I kept looking at her with the greatest interest. I was eager to get to know this strange girl. She was quite a child, but a strange child, a child of convictions, with steadfast principles, and with a passionate, innate love of goodness and justice. If one really might call her a child she belonged to that class of thinking children who are fairly numerous in our Russian families. It was evident that she had pondered on many subjects. It would have been interesting to peep into that little pondering head and to see the mixture there of quite childish images and fancies with serious ideas and notions gained from experience of life (for Katya really had lived), and at the same time with ideas of which she had no real knowledge or experience, abstract theories she had got out of books, though she probably mistook them for generalizations gained by her own experience. These abstract ideas must have been very numerous. In the course of that evening and subsequently I studied her, I believe, pretty thoroughly; her heart was ardent and receptive. In some cases she, as it were, disdained self-control, putting genuineness before everything, and looking upon every restraint on life as a conventional prejudice. And she seemed to pride herself on that conviction, which is often the case indeed with persons of ardent temperament, even in those who are not very young. But it was just that that gave her a peculiar charm. She was very fond of thinking and getting at the truth of things, but was so far from being pedantic, so full of youthful ways that from the first moment one began to love all these originalities in her, and to accept them. I thought of Levinka and Borinka, and it seemed to me that that was all in the natural order of things. And, strange to say, her face, in which I had seen nothing particularly handsome at first sight, seemed that evening to grow finer and more attractive every minute. This naive combination in her of the child and the thinking woman, this childlike and absolutely genuine thirst for truth and justice, and absolute faith in her impulses — all this lighted up her face with a fine glow of sincerity, giving it a lofty, spiritual beauty, and one began to understand that it was not so easy to gauge the full significance of that beauty which was not all at once apparent to every ordinary unsympathetic eye. And I realized that Alyosha was bound to be passionately attached to her. If he was himself incapable of thought and reasoning he was especially attracted by those who could do his thinking, and even wishing, for him, and Katya had already taken him under her wing. His heart was generous, and it instantly surrendered without a struggle to everything that was fine and honourable. And Katya had spoken openly of many things before him already with sympathy and all the sincerity of a child. He was absolutely without a will of his own. She had a very great deal of strong, insistent, and fervidly concentrated will; and Alyosha would only attach himself to one who could dominate and even command him. It was partly through this that Natasha had attracted him at the beginning of their relations, but Katya had a great advantage over Natasha in the fact that she was still a child herself and seemed likely to remain so for a long time. This childishness, her bright intelligence, and at the same time a certain lack of judgement, all this made her more akin to Alyosha. He felt this, and so Katya attracted him more and more. I am certain that when they talked alone together, in the midst of Katya’s earnest discussion of “propaganda” they sometimes relapsed into childish trivialities. And though Katya probably often lectured Alyosha and already had him under her thumb, he was evidently more at home with her than with Natasha. They were more equals, and that meant a great deal.
“Stop, Katya, stop. That’s enough; you always have the best of it, and I’m always wrong, That’s because your heart is purer than mine,” said Alyosha, getting up and giving her his hand at parting. I’m going straight to her and I won’t look in on Levinka. . .”
“There’s nothing for you to do at Levinka’s. But you’re very sweet to obey and go now.”
“And you’re a thousand times sweeter than anybody,” answered Alyosha sadly. “Ivan Petrovitch, I’ve a word or two I want to say to you.”
We moved a couple of paces away.
“I’ve behaved shamefully today,” he whispered to me. “I’ve behaved vilely, I’ve sinned against everyone in the world, and these two more than all. After dinner today father introduced me to Mlle. Alexandrine (a French girl) — a fascinating creature. I . . . was carried away and . . . but what’s the good of talking . . . .I’m unworthy to be with them . . . . Good-bye, Ivan Petrovitch!”
“He’s a kind, noble-hearted boy,” Katya began hurriedly, when I had sat down beside her again, “but we’ll talk a great deal about him later; first of all we must come to an understanding; what is your opinion of the prince?
“He’s a very horrid man.”
“I think so too. So we’re agreed about that, and so we shall be able to decide better. Now, of Natalya Nikolaevna . . . Do you know, Ivan Petrovitch, I am still, as it were, in the dark; I’ve been looking forward to you to bring me light. You must make it all clear to me, for about many of the chief points I can judge only by guesswork from what Alyosha tells me. There is no one else from whom I can learn anything. Tell me, in the first place (this is the chief point) what do you think: will Alyosha and Natasha be happy together or not? That’s what I must know before everything, that I may make up my mind once for all how I must act.”
“How can one tell that with any certainty?”
“No, of course, not with certainty,” she interrupted, “but what do you think, for you are a very clever man?”
“I think that they can’t be happy.”
“Why?”
“They’re not suited.”
“That’s just what I thought”
And she clasped her hands as though deeply distressed.
“Tell me more fully. Listen, I’m awfully anxious to see Natasha, for there’s a great deal I must talk over with her, and it seems to me that she and I can settle everything together. I keep picturing her to myself now. She must be very clever, serious, truthful, and beautiful. Isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“I was sure of it. Well, if she is like that how could she love a baby like Alyosha? Explain that. I often wonder about it.”
“That can’t be explained, Katerina Fyodorovna. It’s difficult to imagine how people can fall in love and what makes them. Yes, he’s a child. But you know how one may love a child.” (My heart melted looking at her and at her eyes fastened upon me intently with profound, earnest and impatient attention.) “And the less Natasha herself is like a child, the more serious she is, the more readily she might fall in love with him. He’s truthful, sincere, awfully naive, and sometimes charmingly naive! Perhaps she fell in love with him — how shall I express it? — as it were from a sort of compassion. A generous heart may love from compassion. I feel though that I can’t give any explanation, but I’ll ask you instead: do you love him?”
I boldly asked her this question and felt that I could not disturb the infinite childlike purity of her candid soul by the abruptness of such a question.
“I really don’t know yet,” she answered me quietly, looking me serenely in the face, “but I think I love him very much . . . .”
“There, you see. And can you explain why you love him?”
“There’s no falsehood in him,” she answered after thinking a moment, “and I like it when he looks into my eyes and says something. Tell me, Ivan Petrovitch, here I’m talking about this to you, I’m a girl and you’re a man, am I doing right in this, or not?”
“Why, what is there in it?”
“Nothing. Of course there’s nothing in it. But they,” she glanced at the group sitting round the samovar, “they would certainly say it was wrong. Are they right or not?”
“No. Why, you don’t feel in your heart you’ve done wrong, so . . .”
“That’s how I always do,” she broke in, evidently in haste to get in as much talk with me as she could. “When I’m confused about anything I always look into my own heart, and when it’s at ease then I’m at ease. That’s how I must always behave. And I speak as frankly to you as I would speak to myself because for one thing you are a splendid man and I know about your past, with Natasha, before Alyosha’s time, and I cried when I heard about it.”
“Why, who told you?”
“Alyosha, of course, and he had tears in his eyes himself when he told me. That was very nice of him, and I liked him for it. I think he likes you better than you like him, Ivan Petrovitch. It’s in things like that I like him. And another reason why I am so open with you is that you’re a very clever man, and you can give me advice and teach me about a great many things.”
“How do you know that I’m clever enough to teach you?”
“Oh, well, you needn’t ask!”
She grew thoughtful.
“I didn’t mean to talk about that really. Let’s talk of what matters most. Tell me, Ivan Petrovitch; here I feel now that I’m Natasha’s rival, I know I am, how am I to act? That’s why I asked you: would they be happy. I think about it day and night. Natasha’s position is awful, awful! He has quite left off loving her, you know, and he loves me more and more. That is so, isn’t it?”
“It seems so.”
“Yet he is not deceiving her. He doesn’t know that he is ceasing to love her, but no doubt she knows it. How miserable she must be!”
“What do you want to do, Katerina Fyodorovna?
“I have a great many plans,” she answered seriously, “and meanwhile I’m all in a muddle. That’s why I’ve been so impatient to see you, for you to make it all clear to me. You know all that so much better than I do. You’re a sort of divinity to me now, you know. Listen, this is what I thought at first: if they love one another they must be happy, and so I ought to sacrifice myself and help them — oughtn’t I?”
“I know you did sacrifice yourself.”
“Yes, I did. But afterwards when he began coming to me and caring more and more for me, I began hesitating, and I’m still hesitating whether I ought to sacrifice myself or not. That’s very wrong, isn’t it?”
“That’s natural,” I answered, “that’s bound to be so and it’s not your fault.”
“I think it is. You say that because you are very kind. I think it is because my heart is not quite pure. If I had a pure heart I should know how to behave. But let us leave that. Afterwards I heard more about their attitude to one another, from the prince, from maman, from Alyosha himself, and guessed they were not suited, and now you’ve confirmed it. I hesitated more than ever, and now I’m uncertain what to do. If they’re going to be unhappy, you know, why, they had better part. And so I made up my mind to ask you more fully about it, and to go myself to Natasha, and to settle it all with her.”
“But settle it how? That’s the question.”
“I shall say to her, ‘You love him more than anything, don’t you, and so you must care more for his happiness than your own, and therefore you must part from him.’”
“Yes, but how will she receive that? And even if she agrees with you will she be strong enough to act on it?”
“That’s what I think about day and night, and . . . and . . . ”
And she suddenly burst into tears.
“You don’t know how sorry I am for Natasha,” she whispered, her lips quivering with tears.
There was nothing more to be said. I was silent, and I too felt inclined to cry as I watched her, for no particular reason, from a vague feeling like tenderness. what a charming child she was! I no longer felt it necessary to ask her why she thought she could make Alyosha happy.
“Are you fond of music?” she asked, growing a little calmer, though she was still subdued by her recent tears.
“Yes,” I answered, with some surprise.
“If there were time I’d play you Beethoven’s third concerto. That’s what I’m playing now. All those feelings are in it . . . just as I feel them now. So it seems to me. But that must be another time, now we must talk.”
We began discussing how she could meet Natasha, and how it was all to be arranged. She told me that they kept a watch on her, and though her stepmother was kind and fond of her, she would never allow her to make friends with Natalya Nikolaevna, and so she had decided to have recourse to deception. She sometimes went a drive in the morning, but almost always with the countess. Sometimes the countess didn’t go with her but sent her out alone with a French lady, who was ill just now. Sometimes the countess had headaches, and so she would have to wait until she had one. And meanwhile she would over-persuade her Frenchwoman (an old lady who was some sort of companion), for the latter was very good-natured. The upshot of it was that it was impossible to fix beforehand what day she would be able to visit Natasha.
“You won’t regret making Natasha’s acquaintance,” I said. “She is very anxious to know you too, and she must, if only to know to whom she is giving up Alyosha. Don’t worry too much about it all. Time will settle it all, without your troubling You are going into the country, aren’t you?”
“Quite soon. In another month perhaps,” she answered “And I know the prince is insisting on it.”
“What do you think — will Alyosha go with you?
“I’ve thought about that,” she said, looking intently at me “He will go, won’t he?”
“Yes, he will.”
“Good heavens, how it will all end I don’t know. I tell you what, Ivan Petrovitch, I’ll write to you about everything, I’ll write to you often, fully. Now I’m going to worry you, too. Will you often come and see us?”
“I don’t know, Katerina Fyodorovna. That depends upon circumstances. Perhaps I may not come at all.”
“Why not?”
“It will depend on several considerations, and chiefly what terms I am on with the prince.”
“He’s a dishonest man,” said Katya with decision. “I tell you what, Ivan Petrovitch, how if I should come to see you? Will that be a good thing, or not?”
“What do you think yourself?”
“I think it would be a good thing. In that way I could bring you news,” she added with a smile. “And I say this because I like you very much as well as respect you. And could learn a great deal from you. And I like you. . . . And it’s not disgraceful my speaking of it, is it?”
“Why should it be? You’re as dear to me already as on of my own family.”
“Then you want to be my friend?
“Oh yes, yes!” I answered.
“And they would certainly say it was disgraceful and that a young girl ought not to behave like this,” she observed, again indicating the group in conversation at the tea-table.
I may mention here that the prince seemed purposely to leave us alone that we might talk to our heart’s content.
“I know very well,” she added, “that the prince wants my money. They think I’m a perfect baby, and in fact they tell me so openly. But I don’t think so. I’m not a child now. They’re strange people: they’re like children themselves What are they in such a fuss about?”
“Katerina Fyodorovna, I forgot to ask you, who are these Levinka and Borinka whom Alyosha goes to see so often?”
“They’re distant relations. They’re very clever and very honest, but they do a dreadful lot of talking. . . . I know them . . .”
And she smiled.
“Is it true that you mean to give them a million later on?
“Oh, well, you see, what if I do? They chatter so much about that million that it’s growing quite unbearable. Of course I shall be delighted to contribute to everything useful; what’s the good of such an immense fortune? But what though I am going to give it some day, they’re already dividing it, discussing it, shouting, disputing what’s the best use to make of it, they even quarrel about it, so that it’s quite queer. They’re in too great a hurry. But they’re honest all the same and clever. They are studying. That’s better than going on as other people do. Isn’t it?”
And we talked a great deal more. She told me almost her whole life, and listened eagerly to what I told her. She kept insisting that I should tell her more about Natasha and Alyosha. It was twelve o’clock when Prince Valkovsky came and let me know it was time to take leave. I said good-bye. Katya pressed my hand warmly and looked at me expressively. The countess asked me to come again; the prince and I went out.
I cannot refrain from one strange and perhaps quite inappropriate remark. From my three hours’ conversation with Katya I carried away among other impressions the strange but positive conviction that she was still such a child that she had no idea of the inner significance of the relations of the sexes. This gave an extraordinarily comic flavour to some of her reflections, and in general to the serious tone in which she talked of many very important matters.
“I TELL you what,” said Prince Valkovsky, as he seated himself beside me in the carriage, “what if we were to go to supper now, hein? What do you say to that?”
“I don’t know, prince,” I answered, hesitating, “I never eat supper.”
“Well, of course, we’ll have a talk, too, over supper,” he added, looking intently and slyly into my face.
There was no misunderstanding! “He means to speak out,” I thought; “and that’s just what I want.” I agreed.
“That’s settled, then. To B.‘s, in Great Morskaya.”
“A restaurant?” I asked with some hesitation.
“Yes, why not? I don’t often have supper at home. Surely you won’t refuse to be my guest?”
“But I’ve told you already that I never take supper.”
“But once in a way doesn’t matter; especially as I’m inviting you. . .”
Which meant he would pay for me. I am certain that he added that intentionally. I allowed myself to be taken, but made up my mind to pay for myself in the restaurant. We arrived. The prince engaged a private room, and with the taste of a connoisseur selected two or three dishes. They were expensive and so was the bottle of delicate wine which he ordered. All this was beyond my means. I looked at the bill of fare and ordered half a woodcock and a glass of Lafitte. The prince looked at this.
“You won’t sup with me! Why, this is positively ridiculous! Pardon, mon ami, but this is . . . revolting punctiliousness. It’s the paltriest vanity. There’s almost a suspicion of class feeling about this. I don’t mind betting that’s it. I assure you you’re offending me.”
But I stuck to my point.
“But, as you like,” he added. “I won’t insist. . . . Tell me, Ivan Petrovitch, may I speak to you as a friend?”
“I beg you to do so.”
“Well, then, to my thinking such punctiliousness stands in your way. All you people stand in your own light in that way. You are a literary man; you ought to know the world, and you hold yourself aloof from everything. I’m not talking of your woodcock now, but you are ready to refuse to associate with our circle altogether, and that’s against your interests. Apart from the fact that you lose a great deal, a career, in fact, if only that you ought to know what you’re describing, and in novels we have counts and princes and boudoirs. . . . But what am I saying! Poverty is all the fashion with you now, lost coats,* inspectors, quarrelsome officers, clerks, old times, dissenters, I know, I know . . . .”
The reference is to Gogol’s story “The Lost Coat.”— Translator’s note
“But you are mistaken, prince. If I don’t want to get into your so-called ‘higher circle,’ it’s because in the first place it’s boring, and in the second I’ve nothing to do there; though, after all, I do sometimes . . . .”
“I know; at Prince R.‘s, once a year. I’ve met you there. But for the rest of the year you stagnate in your democratic pride, and languish in your garrets, though not all of you behave like that. Some of them are such adventurers that they sicken me . . . .”
“I beg you, prince, to change the subject and not to return to our garrets.”
“Dear me, now you’re offended. But you know you gave me permission to speak to you as a friend. But it’s my fault; I have done nothing to merit your friendship. The wine’s very decent. Try it.”
He poured me out half a glass from his bottle.
“You see, my dear Ivan Petrovitch, I quite understand that to force one’s friendship upon anyone is bad manners. We’re not all rude and insolent with you as you imagine. I quite understand that you are not sitting here from affection for me, but simply because I promised to talk to you. That’s so, isn’t it?”
He laughed.
“And as you’re watching over the interests of a certain person you want to hear what I am going to say. That’s it, isn’t it?” he added with a malicious smile.
“You are not mistaken,” I broke in impatiently. (I saw that he was one of those men who if anyone is ever so little in their power cannot resist making him feel it. I was in his power. I could not get away without hearing what he intended to say, and he knew that very well. His tone suddenly changed and became more and more insolently familiar and sneering.) “You’re not mistaken, prince, that’s just what I’ve come for, otherwise I should not be sitting here . . . so late.”
I had wanted to say “I would not on any account have been supping with you,” but I didn’t say this, and finished my phrase differently, not from timidity, but from my cursed weakness and delicacy. And really, how can one be rude to a man to his face, even if he deserves it, and even though one may wish to be rude to him? I fancied the prince detected this from my eyes, and looked at me ironically as I finished my sentence, as though enjoying my faintheartedness, and as it were challenging me with his eyes: “So you don’t dare to be rude; that’s it, my boy!” This must have been so, for as I finished he chuckled, and with patronizing friendliness slapped me on the knee.
“You’re amusing, my boy!” was what I read in his eyes.
“Wait a bit!” I thought to myself.
“I feel very lively to-night!” said he,” and I really don’t know why. Yes, yes, my boy! It was just that young person I wanted to talk to you about. We must speak quite frankly; talk till we reach some conclusion, and I hope that this time you will thoroughly understand me. I talked to you just now about that money and that old fogey of a father, that babe of sixteen summers. . . . Well! It’s not worth mentioning it now. That was only talk, you know! Ha-ha-ha! You’re a literary man, you ought to have guessed that.”
I looked at him with amazement, I don’t think he was drunk.
“As for that girl, I respect her, I assure you; I like her in fact. She’s a little capricious but ‘there’s no rose without thorn,’ as they used to say fifty years ago, and it was well said too: thorns prick. But that’s alluring and though my Alexey’s a fool, I’ve forgiven him to some extent already for his good taste. In short, I like such young ladies, and I have” (and he compressed his lips with immense significance) “views of my own, in fact. . . . But of that later . . . .”
“Prince! Listen, prince! “ I cried. “I don’t understand your quick change of front but . . . change the subject, if you please.”
“You’re getting hot again! Very good. . . . I’ll change it, I’ll change it! But I’ll tell you what I want to ask you, my good friend: have you a very great respect for her?”
“Of course,” I answered, with gruff impatience.
“Ah, indeed. And do you love her?” he continued, grinning revoltingly and screwing up his eyes.
“You are forgetting yourself!” I cried.
“There, there, I won’t! Don’t put yourself out! I’m in wonderful spirits today. I haven’t felt so gay for a long time. Shall we have some champagne? What do you say, my poet?
“I won’t have any. I don’t want it.”
“You don’t say so! You really must keep me company today. I feel so jolly, and as I’m soft-hearted to sentimentality I can’t bear to be happy alone. Who knows, we may come to drinking to our eternal friendship. Ha-ha-ha! No, my young friend, you don’t know me yet! I’m certain you’ll grow to love me. I want you this evening to share my grief and my joy, my tears and my laughter, though I hope that I at least may not shed any. Come, what do you say, Ivan Petrovitch? You see, you must consider that if I don’t get what I want, all my inspiration may pass, be wasted and take wing and you’ll hear nothing. And you know you’re only sitting here in the hope of hearing something. Aren’t you?” he added, winking at me insolently again. “So make your choice.”
The threat was a serious one. I consented. “Surely he doesn’t want to make me drunk?” I thought. This is the place, by the way, to mention a rumour about the prince which had reached me long before. It was said that though he was so elegant and decorous in society he sometimes was fond of getting drunk at night, of drinking like a fish, of secret debauchery, of loathsome and mysterious vices. . . . I had heard awful rumours about him. It was said that Alyosha knew his father sometimes drank, and tried to conceal the fact from everyone, especially from Natasha. Once he let something slip before me, but immediately changed the subject and would not answer my questions. I had not heard it from him, however, and I must admit I had not believed it. Now I waited to see what was coming.
The champagne was brought; the prince poured out a glass for himself and another for me.
“A sweet, sweet girl, though she did scold me,” he went on, sipping his wine with relish, “but these sweet creatures are particularly sweet just at those moments. . . . And, you know, she thought no doubt she had covered me with shame; do you remember that evening when she crushed me to atoms? Ha-ha-ha! And how a blush suits her! Are you a connoisseur in women? Sometimes a sudden flush is wonderfully becoming to a pale cheek. Have you noticed that? Oh dear, I believe you’re angry again!”
“Yes, I am angry!” I cried, unable to restrain myself. “And I won’t have you speak of Natalya Nikolaevna . . . that is, speak in that tone . . . I . . . I won’t allow you to do it!”
“Oho! Well, as you like, I’ll humour you and change the conversation. I am as yielding and soft as dough. Let’s talk of you. I like you, Ivan Petrovitch. If only you knew what a friendly, what a sincere interest I take in you.”
“Prince, wouldn’t it be better to keep to the point?” I interrupted.
“You mean talk of our affair. I understand you with half a word, mon ami, but you don’t know how closely we are touching on the point if we speak of you and you don’t interrupt me of course. And so I’ll go on. I wanted to tell you, my priceless Ivan Petrovitch, that to live as you’re living is simply self-destruction, Allow me to touch on this delicate subject; I speak as a friend. You are poor, you ask your publisher for money in advance, you pay your trivial debts, with what’s left you live for six months on tea, and shiver in your garret while you wait for your novel to be written for your publisher’s magazine. That’s so, isn’t it?
“If it is so, anyway it’s . . .”
“More creditable than stealing, cringing, taking bribes, intriguing and so on, and so on. I know, I know what you want to say, all that’s been printed long ago.”
“And so there’s no need for you to talk about my affairs. Surely, prince, I needn’t give you a lesson in delicacy!”
“Well, certainly you needn’t. But what’s to be done if it’s just that delicate chord we must touch upon? There’s no avoiding it. But there, let’s leave garrets alone. I’m by no means fond of them, except in certain cases,” he added with a loathsome laugh. “But what surprises me is that you should be so set on playing a secondary part. Certainly one of you authors, I remember, said somewhere that the greatest achievement is for a man to know how to restrict himself to a secondary role in life. . . . I believe it’s something of that sort. I’ve heard talk of that somewhere too, but you know Alyosha has carried off your fiancee. I know that, and you, like some Schiller, are ready to go to the stake for them, you’re waiting upon them, and almost at their beck and call. . . . You must excuse me, my dear fellow, but it’s rather a sickening show of noble feeling. I should have thought you must be sick of it! It’s really shameful! I believe I should die of vexation in your place, and worst of all the shame of it, the shame of it!”
“Prince, you seem to have brought me here on purpose to insult me!” I cried, beside myself with anger.
“Oh no, my dear boy, not at all. At this moment I am simply a matter-of-fact person, and wish for nothing but your happiness. In fact I want to put everything right. But let’s lay all that aside for a moment; you hear me to the end, try not to lose your temper if only for two minutes. Come, what do you think, how would it be for you to get married? You see, I’m talking of quite extraneous matters now. Why do you look at me in such astonishment?”
“I’m waiting for you to finish,” I said, staring at him indeed with astonishment.
“But there’s no need to enlarge. I simply wanted to know what you’d say if any one of your friends, anxious to secure your genuine permanent welfare, not a mere ephemeral happiness, were to offer you a girl, Young and pretty, but . . . of some little experience; I speak allegorically but you’ll understand, after the style of Natalya Nikolaevna, say, of course with a suitable compensation (observe I am speaking of an irrelevant case, not of our affair); well, what would you say?”
“I say you’re . . . mad.”
“Ha-ha-ha! Bah! Why, you’re almost ready to beat me!”
I really was ready to fall upon him. I could not have restrained myself longer. He produced on me the impression of some sort of reptile, some huge spider, which I felt an intense desire to crush. He was enjoying his taunts at me. He was playing with me like a cat with a mouse, supposing that I was altogether in his power. It seemed to me (and I understood it) that he took a certain pleasure, found a certain sensual gratification in the shamelessness, in the insolence, in the cynicism with which at last he threw off his mask before me. He wanted to enjoy my surprise, my horror. He had a genuine contempt for me and was laughing at me.
I had a foreboding from the very beginning that this was all premeditated, and that there was some motive behind it, but I was in such a position that whatever happened I was bound to listen to him. It was in Natasha’s interests and I was obliged to make up my mind to everything and endure it, for perhaps the whole affair was being settled at that moment. But how could I listen to his base, cynical jeers at her expense, how could I endure this coolly! And, to make things worse, he quite realized that I could not avoid listening to him, and that redoubled the offensiveness of it. Yet he is in need of me himself, I reflected, and I began answering him abruptly and rudely. He understood it.
“Look here, my young friend,” he began, looking at me seriously, “we can’t go on like this, you and I, and so we’d better come to an understanding. I have been intending, you see, to speak openly to you about something, and you are bound to be so obliging as to listen, whatever I may say. I want to speak as I choose and as I prefer; yes, in the present case that’s necessary. So how is it to be, my young friend, will you be so obliging?”
I controlled myself and was silent, although he was looking at me with such biting mockery, as though he were challenging me to the most outspoken protest. But he realized that I had already agreed not to go, and he went on,
“Don’t be angry with me, my friend! You are angry at something, aren’t you? Merely at something external, isn’t it? Why, you expected nothing else of me in substance, however I might have spoken to you, with perfumed courtesy, or as now; so the drift would have been the same in any case. You despise me, don’t you? You see how much charming simplicity there is in me, what candour, what bonhomie! I confess everything to you, even my childish caprices. Yes, mon cher, yes, a little more bonhomie on your side too, and we should agree and get on famously, and understand one another perfectly in the end. Don’t wonder at me. I am so sick of all this innocence, all these pastoral idyllics of Alyosha’s, all this Schillerism, all the loftiness of this damnable intrigue with this Natasha (not that she’s not a very taking little girl) that I am, so to speak, glad of an opportunity to have my fling at them. Well, the opportunity has come. Besides, I am longing to pour out my heart to you. Ha! ha! ha!”
“You surprise me, prince, and I hardly recognize you. You are sinking to the level of a Polichinello. These unexpected revelations . . . .”
“Ha! ha! ha! to be sure that’s partly true! A charming comparison, ha-ha-ha! I’m out for a spree, my boy, I’m out for a spree! I’m enjoying myself! And you, my poet, must show me every possible indulgence. But we’d better drink,” he concluded filling up his glass, perfectly satisfied with himself. “I tell you what, my boy, that stupid evening at Natasha’s, do you remember, was enough to finish me off completely. It’s true she was very charming in herself, but I came away feeling horribly angry, and I don’t want to forget it. Neither to forget it nor to conceal it. Of course our time will come too, and it’s coming quickly indeed, but we’ll leave that for now. And among other things, I wanted to explain to you that I have one peculiarity of which you don’t know yet, that is my hatred for all these vulgar and worthless naivities and idyllic nonsense; and one of the enjoyments I relish most has always been putting on that style myself, falling in with that tone, making much of some ever-young Schiller, and egging him on, and then, suddenly, all at once, crushing him at one blow, suddenly taking off my mask before him, and suddenly distorting my ecstatic countenance into a grimace, putting out my tongue at him when he is least of all expecting such a surprise. What? You don’t understand that, you think it nasty, stupid, undignified perhaps, is that it?”
“Of course it is.”
“You are candid. I dare say, but what am I to do if they plague me? I’m stupidly candid too, but such is my character. But I want to tell you some characteristic incidents in my life. It will make you understand me better, and it will be very interesting. Yes, I really am, perhaps, like a Polichinello today, but a Polichinello is candid, isn’t he?”
“Listen, prince, it’s late now, and really . . . ”
“What? Good heavens, what impatience! Besides what’s the hurry? You think I’m drunk. Never mind. So much the better. Ha-ha-ha! These friendly interviews are always remembered so long afterwards, you know, one recalls them with such enjoyment. You’re not a good-natured man, Ivan Petrovitch. There’s no sentimentality, no feeling about you. What is a paltry hour or two to you for the sake of a friend like me? Besides, it has a bearing on a certain affair. . . . Of course you must realize that, and you a literary man too; yes, you ought to bless the chance. You might create a type from me, ha-ha-ha! My word, how sweetly candid I am today!”
He was evidently drunk. His face changed and began to assume a spiteful expression. He was obviously longing to wound, to sting, to bite, to jeer. “In a way it’s better he’s drunk,” I thought, “men always let things out when they’re drunk.” But he knew what he was about.
“My young friend,” he began, unmistakably enjoying himself, “I made you a confession just now, perhaps an inappropriate one, that I sometimes have an irresistible desire to put out my tongue at people in certain cases. For this naive and simple-hearted frankness you compare me to Polichinello, which really amuses me. But if you wonder or reproach me for being rude to you now, and perhaps as unmannerly as a peasant, with having changed my tone to you in fact, in that case you are quite unjust. In the first place it happens to suit me, and secondly I am not at home, but out with you . . . by which I mean we’re out for a spree together like good friends, and thirdly I’m awfully given to acting on my fancies. Do you know that once I had a fancy to become a metaphysician and a philanthropist, and came round almost to the same ideas as you? But that was ages ago, in the golden days of my youth. I remember at that time going to my home in the country with humane intentions, and was, of course, bored to extinction. And you wouldn’t believe what happened to me then. In my boredom I began to make the acquaintance of some pretty little girls . . . What, you’re not making faces already? Oh, my young friend! Why, we’re talking as friends now! One must sometimes enjoy oneself, one must sometimes let oneself go! I have the Russian temperament, you know, a genuine Russian temperament, I’m a patriot, I love to throw off everything; besides one must snatch the moment to enjoy life.. We shall die — and what comes then! Well, so I took to dangling after the girls. I remember one little shepherdess had a husband, a handsome lad he was. I gave him a sound thrashing and meant to send him for a soldier (past pranks, my poet), but I didn’t send him for a soldier. He died in my hospital. I had a hospital in the village, with twelve beds, splendidly fitted up; such cleanliness, parquet floors. I abolished it long ago though, but at that time I was proud of it: I was a philanthropist. Well, I nearly flogged the peasant to death on his wife’s account. . . . Why are you making faces again? It disgusts you to hear about it? It revolts your noble feelings? There, there, don’t upset yourself! All that’s a thing of the past. I did that when I was in my romantic stage. I wanted to be a benefactor of humanity, to found a philanthropic society. . . . That was the groove I was in at that time. And then it was I went in for thrashing. Now I never do it; now one has to grimace about it; now we all grimace about it — such are the times. . . . But what amuses me most of all now is that fool Ichmenyev. I’m convinced that he knew all about that episode with the peasant . . . and what do you think? In the goodness of his heart, which is made, I do believe, of treacle, and because he was in love with me at that time, and was cracking me up to himself, he made up his mind not to believe a word of it, and he didn’t believe a word of it; that is, he refused to believe in the fact and for twelve years he stood firm as a rock for me, till he was touched himself. Ha-ha-ha! But all that’s nonsense! Let us drink, my young friend. Listen: are you fond of women?”
I made no answer. I only listened to him. He was already beginning the second bottle.
“Well, I’m fond of talking about them over supper. I could introduce you after supper to a Mlle. Philiberte I know. Hein? What do you say? But what’s the matter? You won’t even look at me . . . hm!”
He seemed to ponder. But he suddenly raised his head, glanced at me as it were significantly, and went on:
“I tell you what, my poet, I want to reveal to you a mystery of nature of which it seems to me you are not in the least aware, I’m certain that you’re calling me at this moment a sinner, perhaps even a scoundrel, a monster of vice and corruption. But I can tell you this. If it were only possible (which, however, from the laws of human nature never can be possible), if it were possible for every one of us to describe all his secret thoughts, without hesitating to disclose what he is afraid to tell and would not on any account tell other people, what he is afraid to tell his best friends, what, indeed, he is even at times afraid to confess to himself, the world would be filled with such a stench that we should all be suffocated. That’s why, I may observe in parenthesis, our social proprieties and conventions are so good. They have a profound value, I won’t say for morality, but simply for self-preservation, for comfort, which, of course, is even more, since morality is really that same comfort, that is, it’s invented simply for the sake of comfort. But we’ll talk of the proprieties later; I’m wandering from the point, remind me later. I will conclude by saying: you charge me with vice, corruption, immorality, but perhaps I’m only to blame for being more open than other people, that’s all; for not concealing what other people hide even from themselves, as I said before. . . . It’s horrid of me but it’s what I want to do just now. But don’t be uneasy,” he added with an ironical smile, “I said ‘to blame’ but I’m not asking forgiveness. Note this too: I’m not putting you to the blush. I’m not asking you whether you haven’t yourself some such secrets, in order to justify myself. I am behaving quite nicely and honourably. I always behave like a gentleman . . . ”
“This is simply silly talk,” I said, looking at him with contempt.
“Silly talk! Ha-ha-ha! But shall I tell you what you’re thinking? You’re wondering why I brought you here, and am suddenly, without rhyme or reason, beginning to be so open with you. Isn’t that it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that you will find out later.”
“The simplest explanation is that you’ve drunk two bottles and . . . are not sober.”
“You mean I’m simply drunk. That maybe, too. ‘Not sober!’ That’s a milder way of putting it than drunk. Oh, youth, brimming over with delicacy! But . . . we seem to have begun abusing one another again, and we were talking of something so interesting. Yes, my poet, if there is anything sweet and pretty left in the world it’s women.”
“Do you know, prince, I still can’t understand why you have selected me as a confidant of your secrets and your amorous propensities.”
“Hm! But I told you that you’d learn that later on, Don’t excite yourself; but what if I’ve no reason; you’re a poet, you’ll understand me, but I’ve told you that already. There’s a peculiar gratification in suddenly removing the mask, in the cynicism with which a man suddenly exposes himself before another without even deigning to consider decency in his presence. I’ll tell you an anecdote. There was a crazy official in Paris, who was afterwards put into a madhouse when it was realized that he was mad. Well, when he went out of his mind this is what he thought of to amuse himself. He undressed at home, altogether, like Adam, only keeping on his shoes and socks, put on an ample cloak that came down to his heels, wrapped himself round in it, and with a grave and majestic air went out into the street. Well, if he’s looked at sideways — he’s a man like anyone else, going for a walk in a long cloak to please himself. But whenever he met anyone in a lonely place where there was no one else about, he walked up to him in silence, and with the most serious and profoundly thoughtful air suddenly stopped before him, threw open his cloak and displayed himself in all the . . . purity of his heart! That used to last for a minute, then he would wrap himself up again, and in silence, without moving a muscle of his face, he would stalk by the petrified spectator, as grave and majestic as the ghost in Hamlet. That was how he used to behave with everyone, men, women, and children, and that was his only pleasure. Well, some degree of the same pleasure may be experienced when one flabbergasts some romantic Schiller, by putting out one’s tongue at him when he least expects it. Flabbergast — what a word! I met it somewhere in one of you modern writers!”
“Well, that was a madman, but you. . .”
“I’m in my right mind?”
“Yes.”
Prince Valkovsky chuckled.
“You’re right there, my boy!” he added, with a most insolent expression of face.
“Prince,” I said, angered by his insolence, “you hate us all, including me, and you’re revenging yourself on me for everyone and everything. It all comes from your petty vanity. You’re spiteful, and petty in your spite. We have enraged you, and perhaps what you are most angry about is that evening. Of course, there’s no way in which you could pay me out more effectually than by this absolute contempt. You throw off the most ordinary, universally obligatory civility which we all owe to one another. You want to show me clearly that you don’t even deign to consider decency before me, so openly and unexpectedly throwing off your filthy mask before me, and exhibiting yourself in such moral cynicism . . . ”
“Why are you saying all this to me?” he asked, looking rudely and maliciously at me. “To show your insight?”
“To show that I understand you, and to put it plainly before you.”
“Quelle idle, mon cher,” he went on, changing his note and suddenly reverting to his former light-hearted, chatty and good-humoured tone. “You are simply turning me from my subject. Buvons, mon ami, allow me to fill your glass. I only wanted to tell you about a charming and most curious adventure. I will tell it you in outline. I used at one time to know a lady; she was not in her first youth, but about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. She was a beauty of the first rank. What a bust, what a figure, what a carriage! Her eyes were as keen as an eagle’s, but always stem and forbidding; her manner was majestic and unapproachable. She was reputed to be as cold as the driven snow, and frightened everyone by her immaculate, her menacing virtue. Menacing’s the word. There was no one in the whole neighbourhood so harsh in judgement as she. She punished not only vice, but the faintest weakness in other women, and punished it inflexibly, relentlessly. She had great influence in her circle. The proudest and most terribly virtuous old women respected her and even made up to her. She looked upon everyone with impartial severity, like the abbess of a mediaeval convent. Young women trembled before her glances and her criticism. A single remark, a single hint, from her was able to ruin a reputation, so great was her influence in society; even men were afraid of her. Finally she threw herself into a sort of contemplative mysticism of the same calm dignified character. . . . And, would you believe? You couldn’t have found a sinner more profligate than she was, and I was so happy as to gain her complete confidence. I was, in fact, her secret and mysterious lover. Our meetings were contrived in such a clever, masterly fashion that none even of her own household could have the slightest suspicion of them. Only her maid, a very charming French girl, was initiated into all her secrets, but one could rely on that girl absolutely. She had her share in the proceedings — in what way? — I won’t enter into that now. My lady’s sensuality was such that even the Marquis de Sade might have taken lessons from her. But the intensest, the most poignant thrill in this sensuality was its secrecy, the audacity of the deception. This jeering at everything which in public the countess preached as being lofty, transcendent and inviolable, this diabolic inward chuckle, in fact, and conscious trampling on everything held sacred, and all this unbridled and carried to the utmost pitch of licentiousness such as even the warmest imagination could scarcely conceive — in that, above all, lay the keenness of the gratification. Yes, she was the devil incarnate, but it was a devil supremely fascinating. I can’t think of her now without ecstasy. In the very heat of voluptuousness she would suddenly laugh like one possessed, and I understood it thoroughly, I understood that laughter and laughed too. It makes me sigh now when I think of it, though it’s long ago now. She threw me over in a year. If I had wanted to injure her I couldn’t have. Who would have believed me? A character like hers. What do you say, my young friend?”
“Foo, how disgusting!” I answered, listening to this avowal with repulsion.
“You wouldn’t be my young friend if your answer were different. I knew you’d say that. Ha-ha-ha! Wait a bit, mon ami, live longer and you’ll understand, but now, now you still need gilt on your gingerbread. No, you’re not a poet if that’s what you say. That woman understood life and knew how to make the most of it.”
“But why descend to such beastliness?”
“What beastliness?”
“To which that woman descended, and you with her.”
“Ah, you call that beastliness — a sign that you are still in bonds and leading-strings. Of course, I recognize that independence may be shown in quite an opposite direction. Let’s talk more straightforwardly, my friend. . . . you must admit yourself that all that’s nonsense.”
“What isn’t nonsense?”
“What isn’t nonsense is personality — myself. All is for me, the whole world is created for me. Listen, my friend, I still believe that it’s possible to live happily on earth. And that’s the best faith, for without it one can’t even live unhappily: there’s nothing left but to poison oneself. They say that this was what some fool did. He philosophised till he destroyed everything, everything, even the obligation of all normal and natural human duties, till at last he had nothing left. The sum total came to nil, and so he declared that the best thing in life was prussic acid. You say that’s Hamlet. That’s terrible despair in fact, something so grand that we could never dream of it. But you’re a poet, and I’m a simple mortal, and so I say one must look at the thing from the simplest, most practical point of view. I, for instance, have long since freed myself from all shackles, and even obligations. I only recognize obligations when I see I have something to gain by them. You, of course, can’t look at things like that, your legs are in fetters, and your taste is morbid. You talk of the ideal, of virtue. Well, my dear fellow, I am ready to admit anything you tell me to, but what am I to do if I know for a fact that at the root of all human virtues lies the completest egoism? And the more virtuous anything is, the more egoism there is in it. Love yourself, that’s the one rule I recognize. Life is a commercial transaction, don’t waste your money, but kindly pay for your entertainment, and you will be doing your whole duty to your neighbour. Those are my morals, if you really want to know them, though I confess that to my thinking it is better not to pay one’s neighbour, but to succeed in making him do things for nothing. I have no ideals and I don’t want to have them; I’ve never felt a yearning for them. One can live such a gay and charming life without ideals . . . and, en somme, I’m very glad that I can get on without prussic acid. If I were a little more virtuous I could not perhaps get on without it, like that fool philosopher (no doubt a German). No! There’s still so much that’s good left in life! I love consequence, rank, a mansion, a huge stake at cards (I’m awfully fond of cards). But best of all, best of all — woman . . . and woman in all her aspects: I’m even fond of secret, hidden vice, a bit more strange and original, even a little filthy for variety, ha-ha-ha! I’m looking at your face: with what contempt you are looking at me now!”
“You are right,” I answered.
“Well, supposing you are right, anyway filth is better than prussic acid, isn’t it?”
“No. Prussic acid is better.”
“I asked you ‘isn’t it’ on purpose to enjoy your answer knew what you’d say. No, my young friend. If you’re a genuine lover of humanity, wish all sensible men the same taste as mine, even with a little filth, or sensible men will soon have nothing to do in the world and there’ll be none but the fools left. It will be good luck for them. Though, indeed, there’s a proverb even now that fools are lucky. And do you know there’s nothing pleasanter than to live with fools and to back them up; it pays! You needn’t wonder at my valuing convention, keeping up certain traditions, struggling for influence; I see, of course, that I’m living in a worthless world; but meanwhile it’s snug there and I back it up, and show I stand firm for it. Though I’d be the first to leave it if occasion arose. I know all your modern ideas, though I’ve never worried about them, and had no reason to. I’ve never had any conscience-pricks about anything. I’ll agree to anything so long as I’m all right, and there are legions like me, and we really are all right. Everything in the world may perish, but we shall not perish. We shall exist as long as the world exists. All the world may sink, but we shall float, we shall always float to the top. Consider, by the way, one thing: how full of life people like us are. We are pre-eminently, phenomenally tenacious of life; has that ever struck you? We live to be eighty, ninety. So nature itself protects us, he-he-he! I particularly want to live to be ninety. I’m not fond of death, and I’m afraid of it. The devil only knows what dying will be like. But why talk of it? It’s that philosopher who poisoned himself that has put me on that track. Damn philosophy! Buvons, mon cher. We began talking about pretty girls . . . Where are you off to?”
“I’m going home, and it’s time for you to go.”
“Nonsense, nonsense! I’ve, so to speak, opened my whole heart to you, and you don’t seem to feel what a great proof of friendship it is. He-he-he! There’s not much love in you, my poet. But wait a minute, I want another bottle . . . ”
“A third?”
“Yes, As for virtue, my young hopeful (you will allow me to call you by that sweet name), who knows, maybe my precepts may come in useful one day. And so, my young hopeful, about virtue I have said already: the more virtuous virtue is, the more egoism there is in it. I should like to tell you a very pretty story apropos of that. I once loved a young girl, and loved her almost genuinely. She even sacrificed a great deal for me.”
“Is that the one you robbed?” I asked rudely, unwilling to restrain myself longer.
Prince Valkovsky started, his face changed, and he fixed his blood-shot eyes on me. There was amazement and fury in them.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said as though to himself, “let me consider, I really am drunk, and it’s difficult for me to reflect.”
He paused, and looked searchingly, with the same spitefulness, at me, holding my hand in his as though afraid I should go away. I am convinced that at that moment he was going over things in his mind, trying to discover where I could have heard of this affair which scarcely anyone knew; and whether there were any danger in my knowing of it. This lasted for a minute; but suddenly his face changed quickly. The same mocking, drunken, good-humoured expression appeared in his eyes. He laughed.
“Ha-ha-ha! You’re a Talleyrand, there’s no other word for you. Why, I really stood before her dumbfounded when she sprang it upon me that I had robbed her! How she shrieked then, how she scolded! She was a violent woman and with no self-control. But, judge for yourself: in the first place I hadn’t robbed her as you expressed it just now. She gave me her money herself, and it was mine. Suppose you were to give me your best dress-coat” (as he said this he looked at my only and rather unshapely dress-coat which had been made for me three years ago by a tailor called Ivan Skornyagin), “that I thanked you and wore it and suddenly a year later you quarrel with me and ask for it back again when I’ve worn it out. . . . That would be ungentlemanly; why give it at all? And, secondly, though the money was mine I should certainly have returned it, but think: where could I have got hold of such a sum all at once? And, above all, I can’t endure all this Schillerism and idyllic nonsense: I’ve told you so already — and that was at the back of it all. You can’t imagine how she posed for my benefit, protesting that she would give me the money (which was mine already). I got angry at last and I suddenly succeeded in judging the position quite correctly, for I never lose my presence of mind; I reflected that by giving her back the money I should perhaps make her unhappy. I should have deprived her of the enjoyment of being miserable entirely owing to me, and of cursing me for it all her life. Believe me, my young friend, there is positively a lofty ecstasy in unhappiness of that kind, in feeling oneself magnanimous and absolutely in the right, and in having every right to call one’s opponent a scoundrel. This ecstasy of spite is often to be met with in these Schilleresque people, of course; afterwards perhaps she may have had nothing to cat, but I am convinced that she was happy. I did not want to deprive her of that happiness and I did not send her back the money. And this fully justified my maxim that the louder and more conspicuous a person’s magnanimity, the greater the amount of revolting egoism underlying it . . . Surely that’s clear to you . . . But . . . you wanted to catch me, ha-ha-ha! . . . Come, confess you were trying to catch me. . . . Oh, Talleyrand!
“Good-bye,” I slid, getting up.
“One minute! Two words in conclusion!” he shouted, suddenly dropping his disgusting tone and speaking seriously. “Listen to my last words: from all I have said to you it follows clearly and unmistakably (I imagine you have observed it yourself) that I will never give up what’s to my advantage for anyone. I’m fond of money and I need it. Katerina Fyodorovna has plenty. Her father held a contract for the vodka tax for ten years. She has three millions and those three millions would be very useful to me. Alyosha and Katya are a perfect match for one another; they are both utter fools; and that just suits me. And, therefore, I desire and intend their marriage to take place as soon as possible. In a fortnight or three weeks the countess and Katya are going to the country. Alyosha must escort them. Warn Natalya Nikolaevna that there had better be no idyllic nonsense, no Schillerism, that they had better not oppose me. I’m revengeful and malicious; I shall stand up for myself. I’m not afraid of her. Everything will no doubt be as I wish it, and therefore if I warn her now it is really more for her sake. Mind there’s no silliness, and that she behaves herself sensibly. Otherwise it will be a bad look-out for her, very. She ought to be grateful to me that I haven’t treated her as I ought to have done, by law. Let me tell you, my poet, that the law protects the peace of the family, it guaranteed a son’s obedience to his father, and that those who seduce children from their most sacred duties to their parents are not encouraged by the laws. Remember, too, that I have connexions, that she has none, and . . . surely you must realize what I might do to her. . . . But I have not done it, for so far she has behaved reasonably. Don’t be uneasy. Every moment for the last six months, every action they have taken has been watched by sharp eyes. And I have known everything to the smallest trifle. And so I have waited quietly for Alyosha to drop her of himself, and that process is beginning and meanwhile it has been a charming distraction for him. I have remained a humane father in his imagination, and I must have him think of me like that. Ha-ha-ha! When I remember that I was almost paying her compliments the other evening for having been so magnanimous and disinterested as not to marry him! I should like to know how she could have married him. As for my visit to her then, all that was simply because the time had come to put an end to the connexion. But I wanted to verify everything with my own eyes, my own experience. Well, is that enough for you? Or perhaps you want to know too why I brought you here, why I have carried on like this before you, why I have been so simple and frank with you, when all this might have been said without any such frank avowals — yes?”
“Yes.”
I controlled myself and listened eagerly. I had no need to answer more.
“Solely, my young friend, that I have noticed in you more common sense and clear-sightedness about things than in either of our young fools. You might have known before the sort of man I am, have made surmises and conjectures about me, but I wanted to save you the trouble, and resolved to show you face to face who it is you hare to deal with. A first-hand impression is a great thing. Understand me, mon ami: you know whom you have to deal with, you love her, and so I hope now that you will use all your influence (and you have an influence over her) to save her from certain unpleasantness. Otherwise there will be such unpleasantness, and I assure you, I assure you it will be no joking matter. Finally, the third reason for my openness with you . . . (but of course you’ve guessed that, my dear boy) yes, I really did want to spit upon the whole business and to spit upon it before your eyes, too!”
Under the Russian system of regulation a girl in an irregular position may easily become the object of persecution and blackmail on the part of the police de moeurs, and this is what is suggested here.— Translator’s note.
“And you’ve attained your object, too,” said I, quivering with excitement. “I agree that you could not have shown your spite and your contempt for me and for all of us better than by your frankness to me. Far from being apprehensive that your frankness might compromise you in my eyes, you are not even ashamed to expose yourself before me. You have certainly been like that madman in the cloak. You have not considered me as a human being.”
“You have guessed right, my young friend,” he said, getting up, “you have seen through it all. You are not an author for nothing. I hope that we are parting as friends. Shan’t we drink bruderschaft together?”
“You are drunk, and that is the only reason that I don’t answer you as you deserve . . . .”
“Again a figure of silence! — you haven’t said all you might have said. Ha-ha-ha! You won’t allow me to pay for you?”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll pay for myself.”
“Ah, no doubt of it. Aren’t we going the same way?”
“I am not coming with you.”
“Farewell, my poet. I hope you’ve understood me . . . .”
He went out, stepping rather unsteadily and not turning to me again. The footman helped him into his carriage. I went my way. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning. It was raining The night was dark . . . .
I WON’T attempt to describe my exasperation. Though I might have expected anything, it was a blow; it was as though he had appeared before me quite suddenly in all his hideousness. But I remember my sensations were confused, as though I had been knocked down, crushed by something, and black misery gnawed more and more painfully at my heart. I was afraid for Natasha. I foresaw much suffering for her in the future, and I cast about in perplexity for some way by which to avoid it, to soften these last moments for her, before the final catastrophe. Of that catastrophe there could be no doubt. It was near at hand, and it was impossible not to see the form it would take.
I did not notice how I reached home, though I was getting wet with the rain all the way. It was three o’clock in the morning. I had hardly knocked at the door of my room when I heard a moan, and the door was hurriedly unlocked, as though Nellie had not gone to bed but had been watching for me all the time at the door. There was a candle alight. I glanced into Nellie’s face and was dismayed; it was completely transformed; her eyes were burning as though in fever, and had a wild look as though she did not recognize me. She was in a high fever.
“Nellie, what’s the matter, are you ill?” I asked, bending down and putting my arm round her.
She nestled up to me tremulously as though she were afraid of something, said something, rapidly and impetuously, as though she had only been waiting for me to come to tell me it. But her words were strange and incoherent; I could understand nothing. She was in delirium.
I led her quickly to bed. But she kept starting up and clinging to me as though in terror, as though begging me to protect her from someone, and even when she was lying in bed she kept seizing my hand and holding it tightly as though afraid that I might go away again. I was so upset and my nerves were so shaken that I actually began to cry as I looked at her. I was ill myself. Seeing my tears she looked fixedly at me for some time with strained, concentrated attention, as though trying to grasp and understand something. It was evident that this cost her great effort. At last something like a thought was apparent in her face. After a violent epileptic fit she was usually for some time unable to collect her thoughts or to articulate distinctly. And so it was now. After making an immense effort to say something to me and realizing that I did not understand, she held out her little hand and began to wipe away my tears, then put her arm round my neck, drew me down to her and kissed me.
It was clear that she had had a fit in my absence, and it had taken place at the moment when she had been standing at the door. Probably on recovery she had been for a long time unable come to herself. At such times reality is mixed up with delirium and she had certainly imagined something awful, some horror. At the same time she must have been dimly aware that I was to come back and should knock at the door, and so, lying right in the doorway on the floor, she had been on the alert for my coming and had stood up at my first tap.
“But why was she just at the door,” I wondered, and suddenly I noticed with amazement that she was wearing her little wadded coat. (I had just got it for her from an old pedlar woman I knew who sometimes came to my room to offer me goods in repayment of money I had lent her.) So she must have been meaning to go out, and had probably been already unlocking the door when she was suddenly struck down by the fit. Where could she have been meaning to go? Was she already in delirium?
Meanwhile the fever did not leave her, and she soon sank into delirium and unconsciousness. She had twice already had a fit in my flat, but it had always passed off harmlessly; now, however, she seemed in a high fever. After sitting beside her for half an hour I pushed a chair up to the sofa and lay down, as I was, without undressing, close beside her that I might wake the more readily if she called me. I did not even put the candle out. I looked at her many times again before I fell asleep myself. She was pale; her lips were parched with fever and stained with blood, probably from the fall. Her face still retained the look of terror and a sort of poignant anguish which seemed to be still haunting her in her sleep, I made up my mind to go as early as possible next morning for the doctor, if she were worse. I was afraid that it might end in actual brain fever.
“It must have been the prince frightened her!” I thought, with a shudder, and I thought of his story of the woman who had thrown the money in his face.
A FORTNIGHT passed by. Nellie was recovering. She did not develop brain fever but she was seriously ill. She began to get up again on a bright sunny day at the end of April. It was Passion Week.
Poor little creature. I cannot go on with my story in the same consecutive way. Now that I am describing all this it is long past, but to this very minute I recall with an oppressive heart. rending anguish that pale, thin little face, the searching, intent gaze of her black eyes when we were sometimes left alone together and she fixed upon me from her bed a prolonged gaze as though challenging me to guess what was in her mind; but seeing that I did not guess and was still puzzled she would smile gently, as it were, to herself, and would suddenly hold out to me her hot little hand, with its thin, wasted little fingers. Now it is all over, and everything is understood, but to this day I do not know the secrets of that sick, tortured and outraged little heart.
I feel that I am digressing, but at this moment I want to think only of Nellie. Strange to say, now that I am lying alone on a hospital bed, abandoned by all whom I loved so fondly and intensely, some trivial incident of that past, often unnoticed at the time and soon forgotten, comes back all at once to my mind and suddenly takes quite a new significance, completing and explaining to me what I had failed to understand till now.
For the first four days of her illness, we, the doctor and I, were in great alarm about her, but on the fifth day the doctor took me aside and told me that there was no reason for anxiety and she would certainly recover. This doctor was the one I had known so long, a good-natured and eccentric old bachelor whom I had called in in Nellie’s first illness, and who had so impressed her by the huge Stanislav Cross on his breast.
“So there’s no reason for anxiety,” I said, greatly relieved.
“No, she’ll get well this time, but afterwards she will soon die.”
“Die! But why?” I cried, overwhelmed at this death sentence.
“Yes, she is certain to die very soon. The patient has an organic defect of the heart, and at the slightest unfavourable circumstance she’ll be laid up again. She will perhaps get better, but then she’ll be ill again and at last she’ll die.”
“Do you mean nothing can be done to save her? Surely that’s impossible. ”
“But it’s inevitable. However, with the removal of unfavourable circumstances, with a quiet and easy life with more pleasure in it, the patient might yet be kept from death and there even are cases . . . unexpected . . . strange and exceptional . . . in fact the patient may be saved by a concatenation of favourable conditions, but radically cured — never.”
“But, good heavens, what’s to be done now?”
“Follow my advice, lead a quiet life, and take the powders regularly. I have noticed this girl’s capricious, of a nervous temperament, and fond of laughing. She much dislikes taking her powders regularly and she has just refused them absolutely.”
“Yes, doctor. She certainly is strange, but I put it all down to her invalid state. Yesterday she was very obedient; today, when I gave her her medicine she pushed the spoon as though by accident and it was all spilt over. When I wanted to mix another powder she snatched the box away from me, threw it on the ground and then burst into tears. Only I don’t think it was because I was making her take the powders,” I added, after a moment’s thought.
“Hm! Irritation! Her past great misfortunes.” (I had told the doctor fully and frankly much of Nellie’s history and my story had struck him very much.) “All that in conjunction, and from it this illness. For the time the only remedy is to take the powders, and she must take the powders. I will go and try once more to impress on her the duty to obey medical instructions, and . . . that is, speaking generally . . . take the powders.”
We both came out of the kitchen (in which our interview had taken place) and the doctor went up to the sick child’s bedside again. But I think Nellie must have overheard. Anyway she had raised her head from the pillow and turned her ear in our direction, listening keenly all the time. I noticed this through the crack of the half-opened door. When we went up to her the rogue ducked under the quilt, and peeped out at us with a mocking smile. The poor child had grown much thinner during the four days of her illness. Her eyes were sunken and she was still feverish, so that the mischievous expression and glittering, defiant glances so surprising to the doctor, who was one of the most good-natured Germans in Petersburg, looked all the more incongruous on her face.
Gravely, though trying to soften his voice as far as he could, he began in a kind and caressing voice to explain how essential and efficacious the powders were, and consequently how incumbent it was on every invalid to take them. Nellie was raising her head, but suddenly, with an apparently quite accidental movement of her arm, she jerked the spoon, and all the medicine was spilt on the floor again. No doubt she did it on purpose.
“That’s very unpleasant carelessness,” said the old man quietly, “and I suspect that you did it on purpose; that’s very reprehensible. But . . . we can set that right and prepare another powder.”
Nellie laughed straight in his face. The doctor shook his head methodically.
“That’s very wrong,” he said, opening another powder, “very, very reprehensible.”
“Don’t be angry with me,” answered Nellie, and vainly tried not to laugh again. “I’ll certainly take it. . . . But do you like me?”
“If you will behave yourself becomingly I shall like you very much.”
“Very much?”
“Very much.”
“But now, don’t you like me?”
“Yes, I like you even now.”
“And will you kiss me if I want to kiss you?”
“Yes, if you desire it.”
At this Nellie could not control herself and laughed again.
“The patient has a merry disposition, but now this is nerves and caprice,” the doctor whispered to me with a most serious air.
“All right, I’ll take the powder,” Nellie cried suddenly, in her weak little voice. “But when I am big and grown up will you marry me?”
Apparently the invention of this new fancy greatly delighted her; her eyes positively shone and her lips twitched with laughter as she waited for a reply from the somewhat astonished doctor,
“Very well,” he answered, smiling in spite of himself at this new whim, “very well, if you turn out a good, well-brought-up young lady, and will be obedient and will . . . ”
“Take my powders?” put in Nellie.
“0-ho! To he sure, take your powders. A good girl,” he whispered to me again; “there’s a great deal, a great deal in her . . . that’s good and clever but . . . to get married . . . what a strange caprice . . .”
And he took her the medicine again. But this time she made no pretence about it but simply jerked the spoon up from below with her hand and all the medicine was splashed on the poor doctor’s shirt-front and in his face. Nellie laughed aloud, but not with the same merry, good-humoured laugh as before. There was a look of something cruel and malicious in her face. All this time she seemed to avoid my eyes, only looked at the doctor, and with mockery, through which some uneasiness was discernible, waited to see what the “funny” old man would do next.
“Oh! You’ve done it again! . . . What a misfortune! But . . . I can mix you another powder! “ said the old man, wiping his face and his shirt-front with his handkerchief.
This made a tremendous impression on Nellie. She had been prepared for our anger, thought that we should begin to scold and reprove her, and perhaps she was unconsciously longing at that moment for some excuse to cry, to sob hysterically, to upset some more powders as she had just now and even to break something in her vexation, and with all this to relieve her capricious and aching little heart. Such capricious humours are to be found not only in the sick and not only in Nellie. How often I have walked up and down the room with the unconscious desire for someone to insult me or to utter some word that I could interpret as an insult in order to vent my anger upon someone. Women, venting their anger in that way, begin to cry, shedding the most genuine tears, and the more emotional of them even go into hysterics. It’s a very simple and everyday experience, and happens most often when there is some other, often a secret, grief in the heart, to which one longs to give utterance but cannot.
But, struck by the angelic kindness of the old doctor and the patience with which he set to work to mix her another powder without uttering one word of reproach, Nellie suddenly subsided. The look of mockery vanished from her lips, the colour rushed to her face, her eyes grew moist. She stole a look at me and turned away at once. The doctor brought her the medicine. She took it meekly and shyly, seized the old man’s plump red hand, and looked slowly into his face.
“You . . . are angry that I’m horrid,” she tried to say, but could not finish; she ducked under the quilt, hid her head and burst into loud, hysterical sobs.
“Oh, my child, don’t weep! . . . It is nothing . . . It’s nerves, drink some water.”
But Nellie did not hear.
“Be comforted . . . don’t upset yourself,” he went on, almost whimpering over her, for he was a very sensitive man. “I’ll forgive you and be married to you if, like a good, well-brought-up girl, you’ll . . .”
“Take my powders,” came from under the quilt with a little nervous laugh that tinkled like a bell, and was broken by sobs — a laugh I knew very well.
“A good-hearted, grateful child!” said the doctor triumphantly, almost with tears in his eyes. “Poor girl!”
And a strange and wonderful affection sprang up from that day between him and Nellie. With me, on the contrary, Nellie became more and more sullen, nervous, and irritable. I didn’t know what to ascribe this to, and wondered at her, especially as this change in her seemed to happen suddenly. During the first days of her illness she was particularly tender and caressing with me; it seemed as though she could not take her eyes off me; she would not let me leave her side, clutched my hand in her feverish little hand and made me sit beside her, and if she noticed that I was gloomy and anxious she tried to cheer me up, made jokes, played with me and smiled at me, evidently making an effort to overcome her own sufferings. She did not want me to work at night, or to sit up to look after her, and was grieved because I would not listen to her. Sometimes I noticed an anxious look in her face; she began to question me, and tried to find out why I was sad, what was in my mind. But strange to say, when Natasha’s name was mentioned she immediately dropped the conversation or began to speak of something else. She seemed to avoid speaking of Natasha, and that struck me. When I came home she was delighted. When I took up my hat she looked at me dejectedly and rather strangely, following me with her eyes, as it were reproachfully.
On the fourth day of her illness, I spent the whole evening with Natasha and stayed long after midnight. There was something we had to discuss. As I went out I said to my invalid that I should be back very soon, as indeed I reckoned on being. Being detained almost unexpectedly at Natasha’s, I felt quite easy in my mind about Nellie. Alexandra Semyonovna was sitting up with her, having heard from Masloboev, who came in to see me for a moment, that Nellie was ill and that I was in great difficulties and absolutely without help. Good heavens, what a fuss kind-hearted Alexandra Semyonovna was in!
“So of course he won’t come to dinner with us now! Ach, mercy on us! And he’s all alone, poor fellow, all alone! Well, now we can show how kindly we feel to him. Here’s the opportunity. We mustn’t let it slip.”
She immediately appeared at my flat, bringing with her in a cab a regular hamper. Declaring at the first word that she was going to stay and had come to help me in my trouble, she undid her parcels. In them there were syrups and preserves for the invalid, chickens and a fowl in case the patient began to be convalescent, apples for baking, oranges, dry Kiev preserves (in case the doctor would allow them) and finally linen, sheets, dinner napkins, nightgowns, bandages, compresses — an outfit for a whole hospital.
“We’ve got everything,” she said to me, articulating every word as though in haste, “and, you see, you live like a bachelor. You’ve not much of all this. So please allow me . . . and Filip Filippovitch told me to. Well, what now . . . make haste, make haste, what shall I do now? How is she? Conscious? Ah, how uncomfortably she is lying! I must put her pillow straight that she may lie with her head low, and, what do you think, wouldn’t a leather pillow be better? The leather is cooler. Ah, what a fool I am! It never occurred to me to bring one. I’ll go and get it. Oughtn’t we to light a fire? I’ll send my old woman to you. I know an old woman. You’ve no servant, have you? . . . Well, what shall I do now? What’s that? Herbs . . . did the doctor prescribe them? For some herb tea, I suppose? I’ll go at once and light the fire.”
But I reassured her, and she was much surprised and even rather chagrined that there turned out to be not so very much to do. But this did not discourage her altogether. She made friends with Nellie at once and was a great help to me all through her illness. She visited us almost every day and she always used to come in looking as though something had been lost or had gone astray and she must hasten to catch it up. She always added that Filip Filippovitch had told her to come. Nellie liked her very much. They took to each other like two sisters, and I fancy that in many things Alexandra Semyonovna was as much of a baby as Nellie. She used to tell the child stories and amuse her, and Nellie often missed her when she had gone home. Her first appearance surprised my invalid, but she quickly guessed why the uninvited visitor had come, and as usual frowned and became silent and ungracious.
“Why did she come to see us?” asked Nellie, with an air of displeasure after Alexandra Semyonovna had gone away.
“To help you Nellie, and to look after you.”
“Why? What for? I’ve never done anything like that for her.”
“Kind people don’t wait for that, Nellie. They like to help people who need it, without that. That’s enough, Nellie; there are lots of kind people in the world. It’s only your misfortune that you haven’t met them and didn’t meet them when you needed them.”
Nellie did not speak. I walked away from her. But a quarter of an hour later she called me to her in a weak voice, asked for something to drink, and all at once warmly embraced me and for a long while would not let go of me. Next day, when Alexandra Semyonovna appeared, she welcomed her with a joyful smile I though she still seemed for some reason shamefaced with her.
IT was on that day that I was the whole evening at Natasha’s I arrived home late. Nellie was asleep. Alexandra Semyonovna was sleepy too, but she was still sitting up with the invalid waiting for me to come in. At once in a hurried whisper she began to tell me that Nellie had at first been in very good spirits, even laughing a great deal, but afterwards she was depressed and, as I did not come back, grew silent and thoughtful. “Then she began complaining that her head ached, began to cry, and sobbed so that I really didn’t know what to do with her,” Alexandra Semyonovna added. “She began talking to me about Natalya Nikolaevna, but I could not tell her anything. She left off questioning me but went on crying afterwards, so that she fell asleep in tears. Well, good-bye, Ivan Petrovitch. She’s better anyway, I can see that, and I must go home. Filip Filippovitch told me to. I must confess that this time he only let me come for two hours but I stayed on of myself. But never mind, don’t worry about me. He doesn’t dare to be angry. . . . Only perhaps. . . . Ach, my goodness, Ivan Petrovitch, darling, what am I to do? He always comes home tipsy now! He’s very busy over something, he doesn’t talk to me, he’s worried, he’s got some important business in his mind; I can see that; but yet he is drunk every evening. . . . What I’m thinking is, if he has come home, who will put him to bed? Well, I’m going, I’m going, good-bye. Good-bye Ivan Petrovitch. I’ve been looking at your books here. What a lot of books you’ve got, and they must all be clever. And I’m such a fool I’ve never read anything . . . Well, till tomorrow . . . ”
But next morning Nellie woke up depressed and sullen, and answered me unwillingly. She did not speak to me of her own accord, but seemed to be angry with me. Yet I noticed some looks bent upon me stealthily, as it were, on the sly; in those looks there was so much concealed and heart-felt pain, yet there was in them an unmistakable tenderness which was not apparent when she looked at me directly. It was on that day that the scene over the medicine took place with the doctor. I did not know what to think.
But Nellie was entirely changed to me. Her strange ways, her caprices, at times almost hatred for me, continued up to the day when she ceased to live with me, till the catastrophe which was the end of our romance, But of that later.
It happened, however, sometimes that she would be for an hour as affectionate to me as at first. Her tenderness was redoubled at such moments; most often at such times she wept bitterly. But these hours soon passed and she sank back into the same misery as before, and looked at me with hostility again or was as capricious as she had been with the doctor, or suddenly noticing that I did not like some new naughtiness on her part, she would begin laughing, and almost always end in tears.
She once quarrelled even with Alexandra Semyonovna, and told her that she wanted nothing from her. When I began to scold her in Alexandra Semyonovna’s presence she grew angry, answered with an outburst of accumulated spite, but suddenly relapsed into silence and did not say another word to me for two days, would not take one of her medicines, was unwilling even to eat and drink and no one but the old doctor was able to bring her round and make her ashamed.
I have mentioned already that from the day of the scene over the medicine a surprising affection had sprung up between the doctor and her. Nellie was very fond of him and always greeted him with a good-humoured smile however sad she had been before he came. For his part the old man began coming to us every day and sometimes even twice a day even when Nellie had begun to get up and had quite recovered, and she seemed to have so bewitched him that he could not spend a day without hearing her laugh and make fun of him, sometimes very amusingly. He began bringing her picture-books, always of an edifying character. One of them he bought on purpose for her. Then he began bringing her dainties, sweetmeats in pretty boxes. On such occasions he would come in with an air of triumph, as though it were his birthday, and Nellie guessed at once that he had come with a present. But he did not display the presents, but only laughed slyly, seated himself beside Nellie, hinting that if a certain young lady knew how to behave herself and had been deserving of commendation in his absence the young lady in question would merit a handsome reward. And all the while he looked at her so simply and good-naturedly that though Nellie laughed at him in the frankest way, at the same time there was a glow of sincere and affectionate devotion in her beaming eyes at that moment. At last the old man solemnly got up from his chair, took out a box of sweets and as he handed it to Nellie invariably added: “To my future amiable spouse.” At that moment he was certainly even happier than Nellie.
Then they began to talk, and every time he earnestly and persuasively exhorted her to take care of her health and gave her impressive medical advice.
“Above all one must preserve one’s health,” he declared dogmatically, “firstly and chiefly in order to remain alive, and secondly in order to be always healthy and so to attain happiness in life. If you have any sorrows, my dear child, forget them, and best of all try not to think of them. If you have no sorrows . . . well, then too, don’t think about them, but try to think only of pleasant things . . . of something cheerful and amusing.”
“And what shall I think of that’s cheerful and amusing? Nellie would ask.
The doctor was at once nonplussed.
“Well . . .of some innocent game appropriate to your age or, well . . . something of that . . .”
“I don’t want to play games, I don’t like games,” said Nellie. “I like new dresses better.”
“New dresses! Hm! Well, that’s not so good. We should in all things be content with a modest lot in life. However . . . maybe . . . there’s no harm in being fond of new dresses.”
“And will you give me a lot of dresses when I’m married to you?
“What an idea!” said the doctor and he could not help frowning. Nellie smiled slyly and, even forgetting herself for a minute, glanced at me.
“However, I’ll give you a dress if you deserve it by your conduct,” the doctor went on.
“And must I take my medicine every day when I’m married to you?”
“Well, then, perhaps you may not have to take medicine always.”
And the doctor began to smile.
Nellie interrupted the conversation by laughing. The old man laughed with her, and watched her merriment affectionately.
“A playful sportive mind!” he observed, turning to me. “But still one can see signs of caprice and a certain whimsicalness and irritability.”
He was right. I could not make out what was happening to her. She seemed utterly unwilling to speak to me, as though I had treated her badly in some way. This was very bitter to me. I frowned myself, and once I did not speak to her for a whole day, but next day I felt ashamed. She was often crying and I hadn’t a notion how to comfort her. On one occasion, however, she broke her silence with me.
One afternoon I returned home just before dusk and saw Nellie hurriedly hide a book under the pillow. It was my novel which she had taken from the table and was reading in my absence. What need had she to hide it from me?” just as though she were ashamed,” I thought, but I showed no sign of having noticed anything. A quarter of an hour later when I went out for a minute into the kitchen she quickly jumped out of bed and put the novel back where it had been before; when I came back I saw it lying on the table. A minute later she called me to her; there was a ring of some emotion in her voice. For the last four days she had hardly spoken to me.
“Are you . . . today . . . going to see Natasha?” she asked me in a breaking voice,
“Yes, Nellie. It’s very necessary for me to see her today.” Nellie did not speak.
“You . . . are very . . . fond of her?” she asked again, in a faint voice.
“Yes, Nellie, I’m very fond of her.”
“I love her too,” she added softly.
A silence followed again.
“I want to go to her and to live with her,” Nellie began again, looking at me timidly.
“That’s impossible, Nellie,” I answered, looking at her with some surprise. “Are you so badly off with me?”
“Why is it impossible?” And she flushed crimson. “Why, you were persuading me to go and live with her father; I don’t want to go there. Has she a servant?
“Yes.”
“Well, let her send her servant away, and I’ll be her servant. I’ll do everything for her and not take any wages. I’ll love her, and do her cooking. You tell her so today.”
“But what for? What a notion, Nellie! And what an idea you must have of her; do you suppose she would take you as a cook? If she did take you she would take you as an equal, as her younger sister.”
“No, I don’t want to be an equal. I don’t want it like that . . .”
“Why?”
Nellie was silent. Her lips were twitching. She was on the point of crying.
“The man she loves now is going away from her and leaving her alone now?” she asked at last.
I was surprised.
“Why, how do you know, Nellie?”
“You told me all about it yourself; and the day before yesterday when Alexandra Semyonovna’s husband came in the morning I asked him; he told me everything.”
“Why, did Masloboev come in the morning?”
“Yes,” she answered, dropping her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me he’d been here?”
“I don’t know . . . ”
I reflected for a moment. “Goodness only knows why Masloboev is turning up with his mysteriousness. What sort of terms has he got on to with her? I ought to see him,” I thought.
“Well, what is it to you, Nellie, if he does desert her?”
“Why, you love her so much,” said Nellie, not lifting her eyes to me. “And if you love her you’ll marry her when he goes away.”
“No, Nellie, she doesn’t love me as I love her, and I . . . no, that won’t happen, Nellie.”
“And I would work for you both as your servant and you’d live and be happy,” she said, almost in a whisper, not looking at me.
“What’s the matter with her? What’s the matter with her?” I thought, and I had a disturbing pang at my heart. Nellie was silent and she didn’t say another word all the evening. When I went out she had been crying, and cried the whole evening, as Alexandra Semyonovna told me, and so fell asleep, crying. She even cried and kept saying something at night in her sleep.
But from that day she became even more sullen and silent, and didn’t speak to me at all. It is true I caught two or three glances stolen at me on the sly, and there was such tenderness in those glances. But this passed, together with the moment that called forth that sudden tenderness, and as though in opposition to this impulse Nellie grew every hour more gloomy even with the doctor, who was amazed at the change in her character. Meanwhile she had almost completely recovered, and the doctor, at last allowed her to go for a walk in the open air, but only for a very short time. It was settled weather, warm and bright. It was Passion Week, which fell that year very late; I went out in the morning; I was obliged to be at Natasha’s and I intended to return earlier in order to take Nellie out for a walk. Meantime I left her alone at home.
I cannot describe what a blow was awaiting me at home. I hurried back. When I arrived I saw that the key was sticking in the outside of the lock. I went in. There was no one there. I was numb with horror. I looked, and on the table was a piece of paper, and written in pencil in a big, uneven handwriting:
“I have gone away, and I shall never come back to you. But I love you very much. —— Your faithful Nellie.”
I uttered a cry of horror and rushed out of the flat.
BEFORE I had time to run out into the street, before I had time to consider how to act, or what to do, I suddenly saw a droshky standing at the gate of our buildings, and Alexandra Semyonovna getting out of it leading Nellie by the arm. She was holding her tightly as though she were afraid she might run away again. I rushed up to them.
“Nellie, what’s the matter?” I cried, “where have you been, why did you go?”
“Stop a minute, don’t be in a hurry; let’s make haste upstairs. There you shall hear all about it,” twittered Alexandra Semyonovna. “The things I have to tell you, Ivan Petrovitch,” she whispered hurriedly on the way. “One can only wonder . . . Come along, you shall hear immediately.”
Her face showed that she had extremely important news.
“Go along, Nellie, go along. Lie down a little,” she said as soon as we got into the room, “you’re tired, you know; it’s no joke running about so far, and it’s too much after an illness; lie down, darling, lie down. And we’ll go out of the room for a little, we won’t get in her way; let her have a sleep.”
And she signed to me to go into the kitchen with her.
But Nellie didn’t lie down, she sat down on the sofa and hid her face in her hands.
We went into the other room, and Alexandra Semyonovna told me briefly what had happened. Afterwards I heard about it more in detail. This is how it had been.
Going out of the flat a couple of hours before my return and leaving the note for me, Nellie had run first to the old doctor’s. She had managed to find out his address beforehand. The doctor told me that he was absolutely petrified when he saw her, and “could not believe his eyes” all the while she was there. “I can’t believe it even now,” he added, as he finished his story “and I never shall believe it.” And yet Nellie actually had been at his house. He had been sitting quietly in the armchair in his study in his dressing-gown, drinking his coffee, when she ran in and threw herself on his neck before he had time to realize it. She was crying, she embraced and kissed him, kissed his hands, and earnestly though incoherently begged him to let her stay with him, declaring that she wouldn’t and couldn’t live with me any longer, and that’s why she had left me; that she was unhappy; that she wouldn’t laugh at him again or talk about new dresses, but would behave well and learn her lessons, that she would learn to “wash and get up his shirt-front” (probably she had thought over her whole speech on the way or perhaps even before), and that, in fact, she would be obedient and would take as many powders as he liked every day; and that as for her saying she wanted to marry him that had only been a joke, and she had no idea of the kind. The old German was so dumbfounded that he sat open-mouthed the whole time, forgetting the cigar he held in his hand till it went out.
“Mademoiselle,” he brought out at last, recovering his powers of speech, “so far as I can understand you, you ask me to give you a situation in my household. But that’s impossible. As you see, I’m very much cramped and have not a very considerable income . . . and, in fact, to act so rashly without reflection . . . is awful! And, in fact, you, so far as I can see, have run away from home. That is reprehensible and impossible. . . . And what’s more, I only allowed you to take a short walk in charge of your benefactor, and you abandon your benefactor, and run off to me when you ought to be taking care of yourself and . . . and . . . taking your medicine. And, in fact . . . in fact . . . I can make nothing of it . . .”
Nellie did not let him finish. She began to cry and implored him again, but nothing was of use. The old man was more and more bewildered, and less and less able to understand. At last Nellie gave him up and crying “Oh, dear!” ran out of the room. “I was ill all that day,” the old doctor said in conclusion, “and had taken a decoction in the evening . . .”
Nellie rushed off to the Masloboevs. She had provided herself with their address too, and she succeeded in finding them, though not without trouble. Masloboev was at home. Alexandra Semyonovna clasped her hands in amazement when she heard Nellie beg them to take her in. When she asked her why she wanted it, what was wrong, whether she was unhappy with me, Nellie had made no answer, but flung herself sobbing on a chair. “She sobbed so violently, so violently,” said Alexandra Semyonovna, “that I thought she would have died.” Nellie begged to be taken if only as a housemaid or a cook, said she would sweep the floors and learn to do the washing (she seemed to rest her hopes especially on the washing and seemed for some reason to think this a great inducement for them to take her). Alexandra Semyonovna’s idea was to keep her till the matter was cleared up, meanwhile letting me know. But Filip Filippovitch had absolutely forbidden it, and had told her to bring the runaway to me at once. On the way Alexandra Semyonovna had kissed and embraced her, which had made Nellie cry more than ever. Looking at her, Alexandra Semyonovna too had shed tears. So both of them had been crying all the way in the cab.
“But why, Nellie, why don’t you want to go on staying with him? What has he done. Is he unkind to you?” Alexandra Semyonovna asked, melting into tears.
“No.”
“Well, why then?”
“Nothing . . . I don’t want to stay with him . . . I’m always so nasty with him and he’s so kind . . . but with you I won’t be nasty, I’ll work,” she declared, sobbing as though she were in hysterics.
“Why are you so nasty to him, Nellie?”
“Nothing . . . ”
And that was all I could get out of her,” said Alexandra Semyonovna, wiping her tears. “Why is she such an unhappy little thing? Is it her fits? What do you think, Ivan Petrovitch?”
We went in to Nellie. She lay with her face hidden in the pillow, crying. I knelt down beside her, took her hands, and began to kiss them. She snatched her hands from me and sobbed more violently than ever. I did not know what to say. At that moment old Ichmenyev walked in.
“I’ve come to see you on business, Ivan, how do you do? he said, staring at us all, and observing with surprise that I was on my knees.
The old man had been ill of late. He was pale and thin, but as though in defiance of someone, he neglected his illness, refused to listen to Anna Andreyevna’s exhortations, went about his daily affairs as usual, and would not take to his bed.
“Good-bye for the present,” said Alexandra Semyonovna, staring at the old man. “Filip Filippovitch told me to be back as quickly as possible. We are busy. But in the evening at dusk I’ll look in on you, and stay an hour or two.”
“Who’s that?” the old man whispered to me, evidently thinking of something else.
I explained.
“Hm! Well, I’ve come on business, Ivan.”
I knew on what business he had come, and had been expecting his visit. He had come to talk to me and Nellie and to beg her to go to them. Anna Andreyevna had consented at last to adopt an orphan girl. This was a result of secret confabulations between us. I had persuaded the old lady, telling her that the sight of the child, whose mother, too, had been cursed by an unrelenting father, might turn our old friend’s heart to other feelings. I explained my plan so clearly that now she began of herself to urge her husband to take the child. The old man readily fell in with it; in the first place he wanted to please his Anna Andreyevna, and he had besides motives of his own . . . But all this I will explain later and more fully. I have mentioned already that Nellie had taken a dislike to the old man at his first visit. Afterwards I noticed that there was a gleam almost of hatred in her face when Ichmenyev’s name was pronounced in her presence. My old friend began upon the subject at once, without beating about the bush. He went straight up to Nellie, who was still lying down, hiding her head in the pillow, and taking her by the hand asked her whether she would like to come and live with him and take the place of his daughter.
“I had a daughter. I loved her more than myself,” the old man finished up, “but now she is not with me. She is dead. Would you like to take her place in my house and . . . in my heart?” And in his eyes that looked dry and inflamed from fever there gleamed a tear.
“No, I shouldn’t,” Nellie answered, without raising her head.
“Why not, my child? You have nobody belonging to you. Ivan cannot keep you with him for ever, and with me you’d be as in your own home.”
“I won’t, because you’re wicked. Yes, wicked, wicked,” she added, lifting up her head, and facing the old man. “I am wicked, we’re all wicked, but you’re more wicked than anyone.”
As she said this Nellie turned pale, her eyes flashed; even her quivering lips turned pale, and were distorted by a rush of strong feeling. The old man looked at her in perplexity.
“Yes, more wicked than I am, because you won’t forgive your daughter. You want to forget her altogether and take another child. How can you forget your own child? How can you love me? Whenever you look at me you’ll remember I’m a stranger and that you had a daughter of your own whom you’d forgotten, for you’re a cruel man. And I don’t want to live with cruel people. I won’t! I won’t!”
Nellie gave a sob and glanced at me.
“The day after tomorrow is Easter; all the people will be kissing and embracing one another, they all make peace, they all forgive one another . . . I know. . . . But you . . . only you . . . ugh, cruel man! Go away!”
She melted into tears. She must have made up that speech beforehand and have learnt it by heart in case my old friend should ask her again.
My old friend was affected and he turned pale. His face betrayed the pain he was feeling.
“And why, why does everybody make such a fuss over me? I won’t have it, I won’t have it!” Nellie cried suddenly, in a sort of frenzy. “I’ll go and beg in the street.”
“Nellie, what’s the matter? Nellie, darling,” I cried involuntarily, but my exclamation only added fuel to the flames,
“Yes, I’d better go into the street and beg. I won’t stay here!” she shrieked sobbing. “My mother begged in the street too, and when she was dying she said to me, ‘Better be poor and beg in the street than . . .’ ‘It’s not shameful to beg. I beg of all, and that’s not the same as begging from one. To beg of one is shameful, but it’s not shameful to beg of all’; that’s what one beggar-girl said to me. I’m little, I’ve no means of earning money. I’ll ask from all. I won’t! I won’t! I’m wicked, I’m wickeder than anyone. See how wicked I am!”
And suddenly Nellie quite unexpectedly seized a cup from the table and threw it on the floor.
“There, now it’s broken,” she added, looking at me with a sort of defiant triumph. “There are only two cups,” she added, “I’ll break the other . . . and then how will you drink your tea?”
She seemed as though possessed by fury, and seemed to get enjoyment from that fury, as though she were conscious that it was shameful and wrong, and at the same time were spurring herself on to further violence.
“She’s ill, Vanya, that’s what it is,” said the old man, “or . . . or I don’t understand the child. Good-bye!”
He took his cap and shook hands with me. He seemed crushed. Nellie had insulted him horribly. Everything was in a turmoil within me.
“You had no pity on him, Nellie!” I cried when we were left alone. “And aren’t you ashamed? Aren’t you ashamed No, you’re not a good girl! You really are wicked!”
And just as I was, without my hat, I ran after the old man, I wanted to escort him to the gate, and to say at least a few words to comfort him. As I ran down the staircase I was haunted by Nellie’s face, which had turned terribly white at my reproaches.
I quickly overtook my old friend.
“The poor girl has been ill-treated, and has sorrow of her own, believe me, Ivan, and I began to tell her of mine,” he said with a bitter smile. “I touched upon her sore place. They say that the well-fed cannot understand the hungry, but I would add that the hungry do not always under-stand the hungry. Well, good-bye!”
I would have spoken of something else; but the old man waved me off.
“Don’t try to comfort me. You’d much better look out that your girl doesn’t run away from you. She looks like it,” he added with a sort of exasperation, and he walked away from me with rapid steps, brandishing his stick and tapping it on the pavement.
He had no idea of being a prophet.
What were my feelings when, on returning to my room, I found, to my horror, that Nellie had vanished again! I rushed into the passage, looked for her on the stairs, called her name, even knocked at the neighbours’ doors and inquired about her. I could not and would not believe that she had run away again. And how could she have run away? There was only one gateway to the buildings; she must have slipped by us when I was talking to my old friend. But I soon reflected, to my great distress, that she might first have hidden somewhere on the stairs till I had gone back, and then have slipped off so that I should not meet her. In any case she could not have gone far.
In great anxiety I rushed off to search for her again, leaving my rooms unfastened in case she should return.
First of all I went to the Masloboevs’. I did not find either of them at home. Leaving a note for them in which I informed them of this fresh calamity, and begging them if Nellie came to let me know at once, I went to the doctor’s. He was not at home either. The servant told me that there had been no visit since that of the day before. What was to be done? I set off for Mme. Bubnov’s and learnt from my friend, the coffin-maker’s wife, that her landlady had for some reason been detained at the police-station for the last two days; and Nellie had not been seen there since that day. Weary and exhausted I went back to the Masloboevs’. The same answer, no one had come, and they had not returned home themselves. My note lay on the table. What was I to do?
In deadly dejection I returned home late in the evening. I ought to have been at Natasha’s that evening; she had asked me in the morning. But I had not even tasted food that day. The thought of Nellie set my whole soul in a turmoil.
“What does it mean?” I wondered. “Could it be some strange consequence of her illness? Wasn’t she mad, or going out of her mind? But, good God, where was she now? Where should I look for her?” I had hardly said this to myself when I caught sight of Nellie a few steps from me on the V-m Bridge. She was standing under a street lamp and she did not see me. I was on the point of running to her but I checked myself. “What can she be doing here now?” I wondered in perplexity, and convinced that now I should not lose her, I resolved to wait and watch her. Ten minutes passed. She was still standing, watching the passers-by. At last a well-dressed old gentleman passed and Nellie went up to him. Without stopping he took something out of his pocket and gave it to her. She curtsied to him. I cannot describe what I felt at that instant. It sent an agonizing pang to my heart, as if something precious, something I loved, had fondled and cherished, was disgraced and spat upon at that minute before my very eyes. At the same time I felt tears dropping.
Yes, tears for poor Nellie, though at the same time I felt great indignation; she was not begging through need; she was not forsaken, not abandoned by someone to the caprice of destiny. She was not escaping from cruel oppressors, but from friends who loved and cherished her. It was as though she wanted to shock or alarm someone by her exploits, as though she were showing off before someone. But there was something secret maturing in her heart. . . . Yes, my old friend was right; she had been ill-treated; her hurt could not be healed, and she seemed purposely trying to aggravate her wound by this mysterious behaviour, this mistrustfulness of us all; as though she enjoyed her own pain by this egoism of suffering, if I may so express it. This aggravation of suffering and this rebelling in it I could understand; it is the enjoyment of man, of the insulted and injured, oppressed by destiny, and smarting under the sense of its injustice. But of what injustice in us could Nellie complain? She seemed trying to astonish and alarm us by her exploits, her caprices and wild pranks, as though she really were asserting herself against us . . . But no! Now she was alone. None of us could see that she was begging. Could she possibly have found enjoyment in it on her own account? Why did she want charity? What need had she of money? After receiving the gift she left the bridge and walked to the brightly lighted window of a shop. There she proceeded to count her gains. I was standing a dozen paces from her. She had a fair amount of money in her hand already. She had evidently been begging since the morning. Closing her hand over it she crossed the road and went into a small fancy shop. I went up at once to the door of the shop, which stood wide open, and looked to see what she was doing there.
I saw that she laid the money on the counter and was handed a cup, a plain tea-cup, very much like the one she had broken that morning, to show Ichmenyev and me how wicked she was. The cup was worth about fourpence, perhaps even less. The shopman wrapped it in paper, tied it up and gave it to Nellie, who walked hurriedly out of the shop, looking satisfied.
“Nellie!” I cried when she was close to me, “Nellie!”
She started, glanced at me, the cup slipped from her hands, fell on the pavement and was broken. Nellie was pale; but looking at me and realizing that I had seen and understood everything she suddenly blushed. In that blush could be detected an intolerable, agonizing shame. I took her hand and led her home. We had not far to go. We did not utter one word on the way. On reaching home I sat down. Nellie stood before me, brooding and confused, as pale as before, with her eyes fixed on the floor. She could not look at me.
“Nellie, you were begging?”
“Yes,” she whispered and her head drooped lower than ever.
“You wanted to get money to buy a cup for the one broken this morning?
“Yes . . .”
“But did I blame you, did I scold you, about that cup? Surely, Nellie, you must see what naughtiness there is in your behaviour? Is it right? Aren’t you ashamed? Surely . . .”
“Yes,” she whispered, in a voice hardly audible, and a tear trickled down her cheek.
“Yes . . .” I repeated after her. “Nellie, darling, if I’ve not been good to you, forgive me and let us make friends.”
She looked at me, tears gushed from her eyes, and she flung herself on my breast.
At that instant Alexandra Semyonovna darted in.
“What? She’s home? Again? Ach, Nellie, Nellie, what is the matter with you? Well, it’s a good thing you’re at home, anyway. Where did you find her, Ivan Petrovitch?”
I signed to Alexandra Semyonovna not to ask questions and she understood me. I parted tenderly from Nellie, who was still weeping bitterly, and asking kind-hearted Alexandra Semyonovna to stay with her till I returned home, I ran off to Natasha’s. I was late and in a hurry.
That evening our fate was being decided. There was a great deal for Natasha and me to talk over. Yet I managed to slip in a word about Nellie and told her all that had happened in full detail. My story greatly interested Natasha and made a great impression on her, in fact.
“Do you know what, Vanya,” she said to me after a moment’s thought. “I believe she’s in love with you.”
“What . . . how can that be?” I asked, wondering.
“Yes, it’s the beginning of love, real grown-up love.”
“How can you, Natasha! Nonsense! Why, she’s a child!”
“A child who will soon be fourteen. This exasperation is at your not understanding her love; and probably she doesn’t understand it herself. It’s an exasperation in which there’s a great deal that’s childish, but it’s in earnest, agonizing. Above all she’s jealous of me. You love me so that probably even when you’re at home you’re always worrying, thinking and talking about me, and so don’t take much notice of her. She has seen that and it has stung her. She wants perhaps to talk to you, longs to open her heart to you, doesn’t know how to do it, is ashamed, and doesn’t understand herself; she is waiting for an opportunity, and instead of giving her such an opportunity you keep away from her, run off to me, and even when she was ill left her alone for whole days together. She cries about it; she misses you, and what hurts her most of all is that you don’t notice it. Now, at a moment like this, you have left her alone for my sake. Yes, she’ll be ill tomorrow because of it. And how could you leave her? Go back to her at once. . .”
“I should not have left her, but . . .”
“Yes, I know. I begged you to come, myself. But now go.”
“I will, but of course I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Because it’s all so different from other people. Remember her story, think it all over and you will believe, it. She has not grown up as you and I did.”
I got home late, however. Alexandra Semyonovna told me that again Nellie had, as on the previous evening, been crying a great deal and “had fallen asleep in tears,” as before.
“And now I’m going, Ivan Petrovitch, as Filip Filippovitch told me. He’s expecting me, poor fellow.”
I thanked her and sat down by Nellie’s pillow. It seemed dreadful to me myself that I could have left her at such a moment. For a long time, right into the night, I sat beside her, lost in thought. . . . It was a momentous time for us all.
But I must describe what had been happening during that fortnight.