and I should reply, 'Yes, I do, but you cannot REALLY caress me, and I
cannot REALLY kiss your hand like this.' 'But it is not necessary,' she
would say. 'There can be happiness here without that,'--and I should
feel that it was so, and we should ascend together, ever higher and
higher, until--Suddenly I feel as though I am being thrown down again,
and find myself sitting on the trunk in the dark store-room (my cheeks
wet with tears and my thoughts in a mist), yet still repeating the
words, 'Let us ascend together, higher and higher.' Indeed, it was a
long, long while before I could remember where I was, for at that moment
my mind's eye saw only a dark, dreadful, illimitable void. I tried to
renew the happy, consoling dream which had been thus interrupted by the
return to reality, but, to my surprise, I found that, as soon as ever
I attempted to re-enter former dreams, their continuation became
impossible, while--which astonished me even more--they no longer gave me
pleasure.
XVI. 'KEEP ON GRINDING, AND YOU'LL HAVE FLOUR'
I PASSED the night in the store-room, and nothing further happened,
except that on the following morning--a Sunday--I was removed to a small
chamber adjoining the schoolroom, and once more shut up. I began to hope
that my punishment was going to be limited to confinement, and found my
thoughts growing calmer under the influence of a sound, soft sleep, the
clear sunlight playing upon the frost crystals of the windowpanes, and
the familiar noises in the street.
Nevertheless, solitude gradually became intolerable. I wanted to move
about, and to communicate to some one all that was lying upon my
heart, but not a living creature was near me. The position was the more
unpleasant because, willy-nilly, I could hear St. Jerome walking about
in his room, and softly whistling some hackneyed tune. Somehow, I felt
convinced that he was whistling not because he wanted to, but because he
knew it annoyed me.
At two o'clock, he and Woloda departed downstairs, and Nicola brought me
up some luncheon. When I told him what I had done and what was awaiting
me he said:
'Pshaw, sir! Don't be alarmed. 'Keep on grinding, and you'll have
flour.''
Although this expression (which also in later days has more than once
helped me to preserve my firmness of mind) brought me a little comfort,
the fact that I received, not bread and water only, but a whole
luncheon, and even dessert, gave me much to think about. If they had
sent me no dessert, it would have meant that my punishment was to be
limited to confinement; whereas it was now evident that I was looked
upon as not yet punished--that I was only being kept away from the
others, as an evil-doer, until the due time of punishment. While I was
still debating the question, the key of my prison turned, and St. Jerome
entered with a severe, official air.
'Come down and see your Grandmamma,' he said without looking at me.
I should have liked first to have brushed my jacket, since it was
covered with dust, but St. Jerome said that that was quite unnecessary,
since I was in such a deplorable moral condition that my exterior
was not worth considering. As he led me through the salon, Katenka,
Lubotshka, and Woloda looked at me with much the same expression as
we were wont to look at the convicts who on certain days filed past my
grandmother's house. Likewise, when I approached Grandmamma's arm-chair
to kiss her hand, she withdrew it, and thrust it under her mantilla.
'Well, my dear,' she began after a long pause, during which she regarded
