soon made Katenka feel that her indifference was disagreeable to me;
wherefore she raised her head presently, and, turning round, said:
'Did your Papa tell you that we girls too were going to live at your
Grandmamma's?'
'Yes, he said that we should ALL live there.'
'ALL live there?'
'Yes, of course. We shall have one half of the upper floor, and you the
other half, and Papa the wing; but we shall all of us dine together with
Grandmamma downstairs.'
'But Mamma says that your Grandmamma is so very grave and so easily made
angry?'
'No, she only SEEMS like that at first. She is grave, but not
bad-tempered. On the contrary, she is both kind and cheerful. If you
could only have seen the ball at her house!'
'All the same, I am afraid of her. Besides, who knows whether we--'
Katenka stopped short, and once again became thoughtful.
'What?' I asked with some anxiety.
'Nothing, I only said that--'
'No. You said, 'Who knows whether we--''
'And YOU said, didn't you, that once there was ever such a ball at
Grandmamma's?'
'Yes. It is a pity you were not there. There were heaps of guests-- about
a thousand people, and all of them princes or generals, and there was
music, and I danced--But, Katenka' I broke off, 'you are not listening
to me?'
'Oh yes, I am listening. You said that you danced--?'
'Why are you so serious?'
'Well, one cannot ALWAYS be gay.'
'But you have changed tremendously since Woloda and I first went
to Moscow. Tell me the truth, now: why are you so odd?' My tone was
resolute.
'AM I so odd?' said Katenka with an animation which showed me that my
question had interested her. 'I don't see that I am so at all.'
'Well, you are not the same as you were before,' I continued. 'Once upon
a time any one could see that you were our equal in everything, and that
you loved us like relations, just as we did you; but now you are always
serious, and keep yourself apart from us.'
'Oh, not at all.'
'But let me finish, please,' I interrupted, already conscious of a
slight tickling in my nose--the precursor of the tears which usually
came to my eyes whenever I had to vent any long pent-up feeling. 'You
avoid us, and talk to no one but Mimi, as though you had no wish for our
further acquaintance.'
'But one cannot always remain the same--one must change a little
sometimes,' replied Katenka, who had an inveterate habit of pleading
some such fatalistic necessity whenever she did not know what else to
say.
I recollect that once, when having a quarrel with Lubotshka, who had
called her 'a stupid girl,' she (Katenka) retorted that EVERYBODY
could not be wise, seeing that a certain number of stupid people was
a necessity in the world. However, on the present occasion, I was not
satisfied that any such inevitable necessity for 'changing sometimes'
existed, and asked further:
'WHY is it necessary?'
'Well, you see, we MAY not always go on living together as we are doing
now,' said Katenka, colouring slightly, and regarding Philip's back with
a grave expression on her face. 'My Mamma was able to live with your
mother because she was her friend; but will a similar arrangement always
suit the Countess, who, they say, is so easily offended? Besides, in
any case, we shall have to separate SOME day. You are rich--you have
Petrovskoe, while we are poor--Mamma has nothing.'
'You are rich,' 'we are poor'-- both the words and the ideas which they
connoted seemed to me extremely strange. Hitherto, I had conceived that
only beggars and peasants were poor and could not reconcile in my mind
the idea of poverty and the graceful, charming Katenka. I felt that Mimi
and her daughter ought to live with us ALWAYS and to share everything
that we possessed. Things ought never to be otherwise. Yet, at this
