found Natasha alone. She was slowly walking up and down the room, with her hands clasped on her bosom, lost in thought. A samovar stood on the table almost burnt out. It had been got ready for me long before. With a smile she held out her hand to me without speaking. Her face was pale and had an expression of suffering. There was a look of martyrdom, tenderness, patience, in her smile. Her clear blue eyes seemed to have grown bigger, her hair looked thicker from the wanness and thinness of her face.
“I began to think you weren’t coming,” she said, giving me her hand. “I was meaning to send Mavra to inquire; I was afraid you might be ill again.”
“No, I’m not ill. I was detained. I’ll tell you directly. But what’s the matter, Natasha, what’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened,” she answered, surprised. “Why?”
“Why, you wrote... you wrote yesterday for me to come, and fixed the hour that I might not come before or after; and that’s not what you usually do.”
“Oh, yes! I was expecting him yesterday.”
“Why, hasn’t be been here yet?”
“No. I thought if he didn’t come I must talk things over with you,” she added, after a pause
“And this evening, did you expect him?”
“No, this evening he’s there.”
“What do you think, Natasha, won’t he come back at all?”
“Of course he’ll come,” she answered, looking at me with peculiar earnestness. She did not like the abruptness of my question. We lapsed into silence, walking up and down the room.
“I’ve been expecting you all this time, Vanya”, she began again with a smile. “And do you know what I was doing? I’ve been walking up and down, reciting poetry. Do you remember the bells, the winter road, ‘My samovar boils on the table of oak’...? We read it together:
“The snowstorm is spent; there’s a glimmer of light
From the millions of dim watching eyes of the night.
“And then:
“There’s the ring of a passionate voice in my ears
In the song of the bell taking part;
Oh, when will my loved one return from afar
To rest on my suppliant heart?
My life is no life! Rosy beams of the Dawn
Are at play on the pane’s icy screen;
My samovar boils on my table of oak,
With the bright crackling fire the dark corner awoke,
And my bed with chintz curtains is seen.
“How fine that is. How tormenting those verses are, Vanya. And what a vivid, fantastic picture! It’s just a canvas with a mere pattern chalked on it. You can embroider what you like! Two sensations: the earliest, and the latest. That samovar, that chintz curtain — how homelike it all is. It’s like some little cottage in our little town at home; I feel as though I could see that cottage: a new one made of logs not yet weather-boarded... And then another picture:
“Of a sudden I hear the same voice ringing out
With the bell; its sad accents I trace;
Oh, where’s my old friend? And I fear he’ll come in
With eager caress and embrace.
What a life, I endure! But my tears are in vain.
Oh, how dreary my room! Through the chinks the wind blows
And outside the house but one cherry-tree grows,
Perhaps that has perished by now though — who knows?
It’s hid by the frost on the pane.
The flowers on the curtain have lost their gay tone,
And I wander sick; all my kinsfolk I shun,
There’s no one to scold me or love me, not one,
The old woman grumbles alone...
‘I wander sick.’ That sick is so well put in. ‘There’s no one to scold me.’ That tenderness, what softness in that line; and what agonies of memory, agonies one has caused oneself, and one broods over them. Heavens, how fine it is! How true it is!...”
She ceased speaking, as though struggling with a rising spasm in her throat.
“Dear Vanya!” she said a minute later, and she paused again, as though she had forgotten what she meant to say, or had spoken without thinking, from a sudden feeling.
Meanwhile we still walked up and down the room. A lamp burned before the ikon. Of late Natasha had become more and more devout, and did not like one to speak of it to her.
“Is tomorrow a holiday?” I asked. “Your lamp is lighted.”
“No, it’s not a holiday... but, Vanya, sit down. You must be tired. Will you have tea? I suppose you’ve not had it yet?”
“Let’s sit down, Natasha. I’ve had tea already.”
“Where have you come from?”
“From them.”
That’s how we always referred to her old home.
“From them? How did you get time? Did you go of your own accord? Or did they ask you?”
She besieged me with questions. Her face grew still paler with emotion. I told her in detail of my meeting with her father, my conversation with her mother, and the scene with the locket. I told her in detail, describing every shade of feeling. I never concealed anything from her, She listened eagerly, catching every word I uttered, the tears glittered in her eyes. The scene with the locket affected her deeply.
“Stay, stay, Vanya,” she said, often interrupting my story. “Tell me more exactly everything, everything as exactly as possible; you don’t tell me exactly enough... ..”
I repeated it again and again, replying every moment to her continual questions about the details.
“And you really think he was coming to see me?”
“I don’t know, Natasha, and in fact I can’t make up my mind; that he grieves for you and loves you is clear; but that he was coming to you is... is...”
“And he kissed the locket?” she interrupted. “What did he say when he kissed it?”
“It was incoherent. Nothing but exclamations; he called you by the tenderest names; he called for you.”
“Called for me?”
“Yes.”
