invite visitors; so it is when in the midst of an easy careless life the police suddenly burst in at night and made a search, and it turns out that the head of the family has embezzled money or committed forgery -- and goodbye then to the easy careless life for ever!
Nadya went upstairs and saw the same bed, the same windows with naive white curtains, and outside the windows the same garden, gay and noisy, bathed in sunshine. She touched the table, sat down and sank into thought. And she had a good dinner and drank tea with delicious rich cream; but something was missing, there was a sense of emptiness in the rooms and the ceilings were so low. In the evening she went to bed, covered herself up and for some reason it seemed to her to be funny lying in this snug, very soft bed.
Nina Ivanovna came in for a minute; she sat down as people who feel guilty sit down, timidly, and looking about her.
'Well, tell me, Nadya,' she enquired after a brief pause, 'are you contented? Quite contented?'
'Yes, mother.'
Nina Ivanovna got up, made the sign of the cross over Nadya and the windows.
'I have become religious, as you see,' she said. 'You know I am studying philosophy now, and I am always thinking and thinking. . . . And many things have become as clear as daylight to me. It seems to me that what is above all necessary is that life should pass as it were through a prism.'
'Tell me, mother, how is Granny in health?'
'She seems all right. When you went away that time with Sasha and the telegram came from you, Granny fell on the floor as she read it; for three days she lay without moving. After that she was always praying and crying. But now she is all right again.'
She got up and walked about the room.
'Tick-tock,' tapped the watchman. 'Tick-tock, tick-tock. . . .'
'What is above all necessary is that life should pass as it were through a prism,' she said; 'in other words, that life in consciousness should be analyzed into its simplest elements as into the seven primary colours, and each element must be studied separately.'
What Nina Ivanovna said further and when she went away, Nadya did not hear, as she quickly fell asleep.
May passed; June came. Nadya had grown used to being at home. Granny busied herself about the samovar, heaving deep sighs. Nina Ivanovna talked in the evenings about her philosophy; she still lived in the house like a poor relation, and had to go to Granny for every farthing. There were lots of flies in the house, and the ceilings seemed to become lower and lower. Granny and Nina Ivanovna did not go out in the streets for fear of meeting Father Andrey and Andrey Andreitch. Nadya walked about the garden and the streets, looked at the grey fences, and it seemed to her that everything in the town had grown old, was out of date and was only waiting either for the end, or for the beginning of something young and fresh. Oh, if only that new, bright life would come more quickly -- that life in which one will be able to face one's fate boldly and directly, to know that one is right, to be light-hearted and free! And sooner or later such a life will come. The time will come when of Granny's house, where things are so arranged that the four servants can only live in one room in filth in the basement -- the time will come when of that house not a trace will remain, and it will be forgotten, no one will remember it. And Nadya's only entertainment was from the boys next door; when she walked about the garden they knocked on the fence and shouted in mockery: 'Betrothed! Betrothed!'
A letter from Sasha arrived from Saratov. In his gay dancing handwriting he told them that his journey on the Volga had been a complete success, but that he had been taken rather ill in Saratov, had lost his voice, and had been for the last fortnight in the hospital. She knew what that meant, and she was overwhelmed with a foreboding that was like a conviction. And it vexed her that this foreboding and the thought of Sasha did not distress her so much as before. She had a passionate desire for life, longed to be in Petersburg, and her friendship with Sasha seemed now sweet but something far, far away! She did not sleep all night, and in the morning sat at the window, listening. And she did in fact hear voices below; Granny, greatly agitated, was asking questions rapidly. Then some one began crying. . . . When Nadya went downstairs Granny was standing in the corner, praying before the ikon and her face was tearful. A telegram lay on the table.
For some time Nadya walked up and down the room, listening to Granny's weeping; then she picked up the telegram and read it.
It announced that the previous morning Alexandr Timofeitch, or more simply, Sasha, had died at Saratov of consumption.
Granny and Nina Ivanovna went to the church to order a memorial service, while Nadya went on walking about the rooms and thinking. She recognized clearly that her life had been turned upside down as Sasha wished; that here she was, alien, isolated, useless and that everything here was useless to her; that all the past had been torn away from her and vanished as though it had been burnt up and the ashes scattered to the winds. She went into Sasha's room and stood there for a while.
'Good-bye, dear Sasha,' she thought, and before her mind rose the vista of a new, wide, spacious life, and that life, still obscure and full of mysteries, beckoned her and attracted her.
She went upstairs to her own room to pack, and next morning said good-bye to her family, and full of life and high spirits left the town -- as she supposed for ever.
NOTES
title: a better translation is 'The Bride'
Komissarovsky school: a private school
watchman was tapping: watchmen in Russia tapped as they patrolled the grounds to let theives know that a watchman was actively on duty
homeopathy: homeopathy is a pseudoscience that treats disease by administering minute doses of drugs that in massive amounts produce symptoms in healthy individuals similar to the disease itself
Anna Karenin: the heroine of the novel by Tolstoy
vegetable soup: meatless borsch; a believer would not eat meat along with dairy products
patience: a card game
St. Peter's Day: June 29 (Julian Calendar)
