Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (155 page)

  “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 to-day,” he whispered to me. “I’ve behaved vilely, I’ve sinned against everyone in the world, and these two more than all. After dinner to-day 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?”