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 finger-tips.
“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 7
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... today,” 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
