“Ach! I think he might still come if we waited a little longer. Are you very hungry, Andrei Andreiech?”
“Say yes! Say yes!” cried the three sisters. I was amazed at this open display of hostility towards their own father, especially from Sonia. I understood the look in Fanny Ivanovna’s eyes.
“No, Fanny Ivanovna,” I said, “not at all.”
“Well, then we’ll wait just a little longer. He promised to come.”
There was a ring at the bell.
“It’s Nikolai Vasilievich!” cried Fanny Ivanovna.
But Nina shook her head. “Papa never rings so timidly. It must be Pàvel Pàvlovich.”
The three sisters sprang off their perches and dashed into the hall.
“Ah!” we heard Sonia’s voice.
“Who is it? … Kniaz?” shouted Fanny Ivanovna.
“No,” came the answer, “the other one.”
“Oh, the Baron. They are both Pàvel Pàvlovichi,” sighed Fanny Ivanovna as though the fact distressed her; but it was really because she disapproved of them both that she sighed.
Baron Wunderhausen as barons do in Russia, came from the Baltic Provinces, spoke Russian and German equally well, excelled in French, knew English, was polite, cunning and adaptable to any circumstances, had big calf’s eyes, was habitually somewhat overdressed, twenty-five years of age, and had a billet in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He came regularly every evening, made love with his eyes, and we danced. …
We danced, and then had supper, having given Nikolai Vasilievich up as we gave him up regularly every evening after waiting for him for two hours. His absence annoyed everybody, for they suspected where he was.
“I am going away,” said Nina as she danced with me.
“Going away? Where?”
“To Moscow,” she said, looking up. She had a wonderful way of looking up at you when she danced. She had a charming way of speaking quietly, enigmatically, half humorously, half lovingly.
“For always?” I cried in dismay.
In answer she held up two fingers behind my head which was supposed to give me the appearance of a horned devil, and laughed. I revelled in her laughter.
“For how long?” I asked.
“Two months.”
“Why?”
“To see Mama.”
“I didn’t know you had a Mama in Moscow.”
“I have,” she made the obvious answer and I smiled, and she laughed and again held up the devil’s horns.
“What is she doing in Moscow?” I asked, and felt it was a somewhat silly question.
“Living,” she replied. And it seemed to me that she blushed. And for some reason that blush seemed to tell me that there, too, there was trouble.
“Who are you going with?”
“Vera. She is going back for good. Mama wants to keep her.”
“Aren’t you sorry?”
“No.”
“Good God!” I cried.
“I am sorry to leave Sonia.”
“But you are coming back to her?” I asked anxiously.
“Yes, but I am sorry to leave her, all the same. I am sorry to leave Fanny Ivanovna,” she added.
“And Papa?”
She reflected a little. “No,” she whispered.
“And whom else?” I persisted, smiling into her eyes and trying to press my own claims.
“I won’t tell,” she said.
“When are you going?”
“Tomorrow morning. We only decided last night, Fanny Ivanovna and I,” she said quietly, “that I should go.”
“To take Vera to Moscow?”
She smiled enigmatically. We danced two rounds before she answered.
“That’s what we tell Papa.”
I looked at Sonia, as she passed us with her partner, “hesitating” marvellously. She made a moue at me and smiled. I knew that she was happy. The Baron danced with that characteristic air of his which conveyed that it gave him pleasure to give pleasure.
IV
I saw them off next morning in the desolating atmosphere of the Nicholas Station on a cold November morning. They were wrapped in heavy furs. The men had turned up the collars of their shubas against the biting frost. There was snow on the platform. We walked up and down quickly in order to warm our feet. Nikolai Vasilievich presented a pitiable sight with his pince-nez all blinded with snow, his moustache frozen, and his nose, reddened by the cold, protruding from his turned-up collar.
“Nina,” he said.
“Yes?” She turned round.
“Don’t go.”
“I must.”
“You won’t come back. She will keep you.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t go, Nina.”
“Don’t go,” I said.
She stood thoughtful, in indecision.
“Don’t, Nina,” cut in Nikolai Vasilievich.
She did not answer.
“Nina,” he said again.
“No, she must,” intervened Fanny Ivanovna. “This is all nonsense! She will go and come back quickly. Won’t you, Nina?”
“Yes,” said Nina.
She turned to me and slipped her hand under my arm. “I won’t let you go,” she said petulantly. “You’ll have to come with me.”
“You know I can’t.”
“I won’t let you go.”
“Nina,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Come here.”
I took her aside.
“Nina, will you marry me?”
She looked flippant and humorous and yet there was just a trace of seriousness in her look.
“Yes.”
I felt relieved—oddly as I might feel if I had just concluded a satisfactory business transaction.
The second whistle went, and with the other passengers they boarded the train, Nikolai Vasilievich came up to her to say goodbye and probably thought he might chance it once again.
“Don’t go, Nina. Nina!”
“I shall come back,” said Nina.
Then they all said goodbye to Vera, and no excess of emotion was displayed on either side.
“Goodbye!” was said again. Then the train moved, and they waved handkerchiefs.
V
I called on them one evening in Nina’s absence and chanced to find Fanny Ivanovna alone. Nikolai Vasilievich, as ever, was out. Sonia had gone to see a friend.
“Sit down, Andrei Andreiech,” she said. “I am always doing needlework, as you see. …”
I took a chair.
“I do it. … It is extraordinary, Andrei Andreiech. I thought I would do it so as not to think, but it’s just the very work to make you think. And so I gave it up and began reading in order to forget, in order not to think, and I found, Andrei Andreiech, that I could not read because I had to think. I think all day and night. Ach! Andrei Andreiech.”
And I knew that she was going to confide in me.
“Ach! Andrei Andreiech! Andrei Andreiech! If you only knew. …”
She glanced behind her at the door to make sure that nobody could hear her.
“Ach! Andrei
