Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (161 page)

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 … to-day … going to see Natasha?” she asked me in a breaking voice,

“Yes, Nellie. It’s very necessary for me to see her to-day.” 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 to-day.”

“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.

CHAPTER IV

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 to-morrow 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.