Of course this doubt could not last long. According as her last days approached, Nástenka’s questions became more persistent; she either would have said that she had a particular reason for knowing the truth, or Lopukhóf and Viéra Pavlovna would have guessed that she had a particular reason in her questions, and two or three weeks, or maybe several days later, the result would have been the same as really happened, owing to Kirsánof’s unexpected appearance in the shop. But now the doubt was at an end; not brought by the further progress of her questions, but by this accidental circumstance.
“How glad I am, how glad I am! I always have been wanting to catch a sight of you, Sáshenka,” said Nástenka, when she took him to her room.
“Yes, Nástenka, I too am no less glad than you; now you shall not leave me again. Come back to my house,” said Kirsánof, who was drawn away by a feeling of sympathy and compassion; but after he said this, it occurred to him, “How could I have said that to her? She most likely is not aware of the nearness of the crisis.”
But she either did not understand at first the sense that could be drawn from these words, or she understood it, and did not care to heed it; and her gladness at seeing once more the man whom she loved, deadened her grief at the approaching end; at all events, she simply showed her happiness by saying, “How kind you are! How could I have ever left you?”
But after he left she wept. Only now she either understood, or may have noticed that she had understood, what it meant for her to see him once more. “Well, it is of no use for you to take care of yourself any longer, but at least you shall enjoy the little of life that is left.”
And indeed she was glad; he never left her for a moment, except those hours when he had to be in the hospital, or at the medical school; so she lived about a month, and he was always with her. And how much they talked about everything; what had happened since she had left his house, and still further recollections about her past, and how many pleasures she had; he even took her out to ride; he hired a coupé, and he took her out every pleasant day into the suburbs of Petersburg, and she was greatly delighted. Nature is so dear to a human being that even this pitiable, miserable nature surrounding Petersburg, which cost millions and tens of millions of rubles, people are delighted with; he used to read to her, and they played loto, and she even tried to play chess, as though she had time to learn it.
Viéra Pavlovna sometimes spent late hours at their house when returning from her walks, and still more often she used to call on the invalid in the morning, to distract her thoughts when she was alone, and when they were alone together, Nástenka had only one thing to tell her, how kind Aleksandr Matvéitch was, and how good, and how she loved him.
XVI
Four months passed. The watching over Nástenka and then his recollections about her deceived Kirsánof; it seemed to him that now he was out of danger as far as Viéra Pavlovna were concerned; he did not avoid her when she came to see Nástenka and stopped to talk with him; and afterwards when she tried to console him. As long as he mourned for Nástenka, there was nothing in his feelings towards Viéra Pavlovna except a friendly feeling of gratefulness towards her.
But—the reader has already learned to know what I mean by but the same as he will always know beforehand what is going to follow the pages that he has already read—but, of course, Kirsánof’s feeling towards Nástenka had not been the same as Nástenka’s feelings towards him; he had long ceased to feel love for her; he only felt well disposed to her, as towards a woman whom he had loved long before. His former love towards her was only the thirst of a youth to love someone, no matter whom. Of course Nástenka was not his equal, because they were not equal in mental development. When he ceased to be a youth, he could only feel pity for Nástenka, and nothing more; possibly he could be tender to her, on account of old recollections and compassion, and that was all. His grief for her, in fact, was very soon appeased; but when his grief was a thing of the past, he imagined that he was still occupied with it; and after he saw that he did not really feel any grief, but only recollections of it, he saw himself in such relations with Viéra Pavlovna that he found that he was entrapped in a great misfortune.
Viéra Pavlovna tried to distract him, and he gave himself up to it, for he considered himself safe, or rather not realizing that he was falling in love with Viéra Pavlovna again, or realizing that, by giving himself up to her care, he was drifting towards misfortune. Well, and what happened now in two or three months, after Viéra Pavlovna began to console him for his
