Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (125 page)

The young prince, about whom the whole trouble that led to the lawsuit had arisen, had found an opportunity of visiting the Ichmenyevs five months before. The old man, who loved his dear Alyosha like a son, and spoke of him almost every day, welcomed him joyfully. Anna Andreyevna recalled Vassilyevskoe and shed tears. Alyosha went to see them more and more frequently without his father’s knowledge. Nikolay Sergeyitch with his honesty, openness and uprightness indignantly disdained all precautions. His honourable pride forbade his even considering what the prince would say if he knew that his son inwardly despised all his absurd suspicions, and was received again in the house of the Ichmenyevs. But the old man did not know whether he would have the strength to endure fresh insults. The young prince began to visit them almost daily. The parents enjoyed having him. He used to stay with them the whole evening, long after midnight. His father, of course, heard of all this at last. An abominable scandal followed. He insulted Nikolay Sergeyitch with a horrible letter, taking the same line as before, and peremptorily forbade his son to visit the house. This had happened just a fortnight before I came to them that day.

The old man was terribly depressed. Was his Natasha, his innocent noble girl, to be mixed up in this dirty slander, this vileness again! Her name had been insultingly uttered before by the man who had injured him. And was all this to be left unavenged? For the first few days he took to his bed in despair.

All that I knew. The story had reached me in every detail, though for the last three weeks I had been lying ill and despondent at my lodging and had not been to see them. But I knew besides.… No! At that time I only felt what was coming; I knew, but could not believe, that, apart from these worries, there was something which must trouble them beyond anything in the world, and I looked at them with torturing anguish. Yes, I was in torture; I was afraid to conjecture, afraid to believe, and did all I could to put off the fatal moment. And meanwhile I had come on account of it. I felt drawn to them that evening.

“Yes; Vanya,” the old man began, suddenly rousing himself, “surely you’ve not been ill? Why haven’t you been here for so long? I have behaved badly to you. I have been meaning ever so long to call on you, but somehow it’s all been….”

And he sank into brooding again.

“I haven’t been well,” I answered.

“Hm! Not well,” he repeated five minutes later. “I dare say not! I talked to you and warned you before, but you wouldn’t heed me. Hm! No, Vanya, my boy, the muse has lived hungry in a garret from time immemorial, and she’ll go on so. That’s what it is!”

Yes, the old man was out of spirits. If he had not had a sore heart himself, he would not have talked to me of the hungry muse. I looked intently at his face: it was sallower; there was a look of bewilderment in his eyes, some idea in the form of a question which he had not the strength to answer. He was abrupt and bitter, quite unlike himself. His wife looked at his uneasily and shook her head. When he turned away she stealthily nodded to me.

“How is Natalya Nikolaevna? Is she at home I inquired of the anxious lady.

“She’s at home, my dear man, she’s at home,” she answered as though perturbed by my question. “She’ll come in to see you directly. It’s a serious matter! Not a sight of you for three weeks! And she’s become so queer … there’s no making her out at all. I don’t know whether she’s well or ill, God bless her!

And she looked timidly at her husband.

“Why, there’s nothing wrong with her,” Nikolay Sergeyitch responded jerkily and reluctantly, “she’s quite well. The girl’s beginning to grow up, she’s left off being a baby, that’s all. Who can understand girlish moods and caprices?”

“Caprices, indeed!” Anna Andreyevna caught him up in an offended voice.

The old man said nothing and drummed on the table with his fingertips.

“Good God, is there something between them already?” I wondered in a panic.

“Well, how are you getting on?” he began again. “Is B. still writing reviews?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Ech, Vanya, Vanya,” he ended up, with a wave of his hand.

“What can reviews do now?”

The door opened and Natasha walked in.

CHAPTER VII

SHE HELD HER HAT in her hand and laid it down on the piano; then she came up to me and held out her hand without speaking. Her lips faintly quivered, as though she wanted to utter something, some greeting to me, but she said nothing.

It was three weeks since we had seen each other. I looked at her with amazement and dread. How she had changed in those three weeks! My heart ached as I looked at those pale, hollow cheeks, feverishly parched lips, and eyes that gleamed under the long dark lashes with a feverish fire and a sort of passionate determination.

But, my God, how lovely she was! Never before, or since, have I seen her as she was on that fatal day.  Was it the same, the same Natasha, the same girl who only a year ago had listened to my novel with her eyes fixed on me and her lips following mine, who had so gaily and carelessly laughed and jested with her father and me at supper afterwards; was it the same Natasha who in that very room had said “Yes” to me, hanging her head and flushing all over?

We heard the deep note of the bell ringing for vespers. She started. Anna Andreyevna crossed herself.

“You’re ready for church, Natasha, and they’re ringing for the service. Go, Natasha, go and pray. It’s a good thing it’s so near. And you’ll get a walk, too, at the same time. Why sit shut up indoors? See how pale you are, as though you were bewitched.”

“Perhaps…I won’t go…to-day,” said Natasha slowly, in a low voice, almost a whisper. “I’m…not well,” she added, and turned white as a sheet.

“You’d better go, Natasha. You wanted to just now and fetched your hat. Pray, Natasha, pray that God may give you good health,” Anna Andreyevna persuaded her daughter, looking timidly at her, as though she were afraid of her.

“Yes, go, and it will be a walk for you, too,” the old man added, and he, too, looked uneasily at his daughter. “Mother is right. Here, Vanya will escort you.”

I fancied that Natasha’s lips curled in a bitter smile. She went to the piano, picked up her hat and put it on. Her hands were trembling. All her movements seemed as it were unconscious, as though she did not know what she were doing. Her father and mother watched her attentively.

“Good-bye,” she said, hardly audibly.

“My angel, why ‘good-bye’? Is it so faraway? A blow in the wind will do you good. See how pale you are. Ah, I forgot (I forget everything), I’ve finished a scapular for you; there’s a prayer sewn into it, my angel; a nun from Kiev taught it to me last year; a very suitable prayer. I sewed it in just now. Put it on, Natasha. Maybe God will send you good health. You are all we have.”

And the mother took out of her work-drawer a golden cross that Natasha wore round her neck; on the same ribbon was hung a scapular she had just finished.

“May it bring you health,” she added, crossing her daughter and putting the cross on. “At one time I used to bless you every night before you slept, and said a prayer, and you repeated it after me. But now you’re not the same, and God does not vouchsafe you a quiet spirit. Ach, Natasha, Natasha! Your mother’s prayer is no help to you….”

And the mother began crying.

Natasha kissed her mother’s hand without speaking, and took a step towards the door. But suddenly she turned quickly back and went up to her father. Her bosom heaved.

“Daddy, you cross…your daughter, too,” she brought out in a gasping voice, and she sank on her knees before him.

We were all perplexed at this unexpected and too solemn action. For a few seconds her father looked at her quite at a loss.

“Natasha, my little one, my girl, my darling, what’s the matter with you?” he cried at last, and tears streamed from his eyes. “Why are you grieving? Why are you crying day and night? I see it all, you know. I don’t sleep, it night, but stand and listen at your door. Tell me everything, Natasha, tell me all about it. I’m old, and we …”

He did not finish; he raised her and embraced her, and held her close. She pressed convulsively against his breast, and hid her head on his shoulder.

“It’s nothing, nothing, it’s only … I’m not well”, she kept repeating, choking with suppressed tears.

“May God bless you as I bless you, my darling child, my precious child!” said the father. “May He send you peace of heart for ever, and protect you from all sorrow. Pray to God, my love, that my sinful prayer may reach Him.”

“And my blessing, my blessing, too, is upon you,” added the mother, dissolving into tears.

“Good-bye,” whispered Natasha.

At the door she stood still again, took one more look at them, tried to say something more, but could not and went quickly out of the room. I rushed after her with a foreboding of evil.

CHAPTER VIII

SHE WALKED with her head down, rapidly, in silence, without looking at me. But as she came out of the street on to the embankment she stopped short, and took my arm.

“I’m stifling,” she whispered. “My heart grips me… . I’m stifling.”

“Come back, Natasha,” I cried in alarm.

“Surely you must have seen, Vanya, that I’ve gone away for ever, left them for ever, and shall never go back,” she said, looking at me with inexpressible anguish.

My heart sank. I had foreseen all this on my way to them. I had seen it all as it were in a mist, long before that day perhaps, yet now her words fell upon me like a thunderbolt.

We walked miserably along the embankment. I could not speak. I was reflecting, trying to think, and utterly at a loss. My heart was in a whirl. It seemed so hideous, so impossible!

“You blame me, Vanya?” she said at last.

“No … but … but I can’t believe it; it cannot be!” I answered, not knowing what I was saying.

“Yes, Vanya, it really is so! I have gone away from them and I don’t know what will become of them or what will become of me!”

“You’re going to him, Natasha? Yes?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“But that’s impossible!” I cried frantically. “Don’t you understand that it’s impossible, Natasha, my poor girl! Why, it’s madness. Why you’ll kill them, and ruin yourself! Do you  understand that, Natasha?”

“I know; but what am I to do? I can’t help it,” she said and her voice was as full of anguish as though she were facing the scaffold.

“Come back, come back, before it’s too late,” I besought her; and the more warmly, the more emphatically I implored her, the more I realized the uselessness of my entreaties, and the absurdity of them at that moment. “Do you understand, Natasha, what you are doing to your father? Have you thought of that? You know his father is your father’s enemy. Why, the prince has insulted your father, has accused him of stealing money; why, he called him a thief. You know why they’ve gone to law with one another…. Good heavens! and that’s not the worst. Do you know, Natasha (Oh, God, of course you know it all!) … do you know that the prince suspected your father and mother of having thrown you and Alyosha together on purpose, when Alyosha was staying in the country with you? Think a minute, only fancy what you father went through then owing to that slander; why, his hair has turned grey in these two years! Look at him! And what’s more, you know all this, Natasha. Good heavens! To say nothing of what it will mean to them both to lose you for ever. Why, you’re their treasure, all that is left them in their old age. I don’t want to speak of that, you must know it for yourself. Remember that your father thinks you have been slandered without cause, insulted by these snobs, unavenged! And now, at this very time, it’s all flared up again, all this old rankling enmity has grown more bitter than ever, because you have received Alyosha. The prince has insulted your father again. The old man’s anger is still hot at this fresh affront, and suddenly now all this, all this, all these accusations will turn out to be true! Everyone who knows about it will justify the prince now, and throw the blame on you and your father. Why, what will become of him now? It will kill him outright! Shame, disgrace, and through whom? Through you, his daughter, his one precious child! And your mother? Why, she won’t outlive your old father, you know. Natasha, Natasha! What are you about? Turn back! Think what you are doing!”

She did not speak. At last she glanced at me, as it were, reproachfully. And there was such piercing anguish, such suffering in her eyes that I saw that apart from my words her wounded heart was bleeding already. I saw what her decision was costing her, and how I was torturing her, lacerating her with my useless words that came too late. I saw all that, and yet I could not restrain myself and went on speaking.

“Why, you said yourself just now to Anna Andreyevna that perhaps you would not go out of the house … to the service, So you meant to stay; so you were still hesitating?”

She only smiled bitterly in reply. And why did I ask that? I might have understood that all was irrevocably settled. But I was beside myself, too.

   “Can you love him so much?” I cried, looking at her with a sinking at the heart, scarcely knowing what I was asking.

“What can I say to you, Vanya? You see, he told me to come, and here I am waiting for him,” she said with the same bitter smile.

“But listen, only listen,” I began again, catching at a straw; “this can all be arranged differently, quite differently; you need not go away from the house. I’ll tell you how to manage, Natasha. I’ll undertake to arrange it all for you, meetings, and everything. Only don’t leave home. I will carry your letters; why not? It would be better than what you’re doing. I know how to arrange it; I’ll do anything for both of you. You’ll see. And then you won’t ruin yourself, Natasha, dear, as you’re doing…. For you’ll ruin yourself hopelessly, as it is, hopelessly. Only agree, Natasha, and everything will go well and happily, and you can love each other as much as you like. And when your fathers have left off quarrelling (for they’re bound to leave off some day) — then …”

“Enough, Vanya, stop!” she interrupted, pressing my hand tightly, and smiling through her tears. “Dear, kind Vanya! You’re a good, honourable man! And not one word of yourself! I’ve deserted you, and you forgive everything, you think of nothing but my happiness. You are ready to carry letters for us.”