or he's not afraid himself and is only prompting me so that I'll denounce them all! Oh, scary, Lebyadkin, oh, just don't let me miss my mark! ...'
He fell to thinking so deeply that he even forgot to eavesdrop. Anyhow, eavesdropping was difficult; the door was a thick, single-leafed one, and they were speaking very softly; some indistinct sounds could be heard. The captain even spat and went back out, thoughtful, to whistle on the porch.
III
Marya Timofeevna's room was twice the size of the one occupied by the captain, and furnished with the same crude furniture; but the table in front of the sofa was covered with a bright, festive tablecloth; a lamp was burning on it; a beautiful carpet was spread over the whole floor; the bed was set apart behind a green curtain that ran the whole length of the room; and there was, besides, one big, soft armchair by the table, in which, however, Marya Timofeevna never sat. In the corner, as in her former lodgings, there was an icon with an icon lamp burning in front of it, and on the table the same indispensable little things were laid out: the deck of cards, the little mirror, the Songbook, even the sweet roll. In addition to which there had also appeared two books with colored pictures, one of extracts from popular travel writings adapted for young readers, the other a collection of light didactic tales, mostly about knights, intended for Christmases and boarding schools. There was also an album of various photographs. Marya Timofeevna was, of course, expecting her visitor, as the captain had said; but when Nikolai Vsevolodovich entered her room, she was asleep, half reclining on the sofa, leaning on an embroidered pillow. The visitor closed the door inaudibly behind him and, without moving from the spot, began to study the sleeping woman.
The captain had stretched things a bit when he said that she had seen to her toilette. She was wearing the same dark dress as on Sunday at Varvara Petrovna's. Her hair was done up in the same way, in a tiny knot at the nape; her long and dry neck was bared in the same way. The black shawl given her by Varvara Petrovna lay on the sofa, carefully folded. As usual, she was crudely made up with white and rouge. Nikolai Vsevolodovich had not been standing there even a minute when she suddenly awoke, as if she had felt his gaze on her, opened her eyes, and quickly sat up straight. But something strange must also have happened with the visitor: he went on standing in the same spot by the door; with a fixed and piercing look he stared silently and persistently into her face. Perhaps this look was excessively stern, perhaps it expressed loathing, even a malicious delight in her fear— unless the half- awake Marya Timofeevna was simply imagining it— but suddenly, after almost a minute-long pause, the poor woman's face took on an expression of complete horror; spasms ran across it, she raised her hands, shaking them, and suddenly began to cry, exactly like a frightened child; another moment and she would have screamed. But the visitor came to his senses; in an instant his face changed, and he approached the table with a most amiable and tender smile.
'I'm sorry I frightened you, Marya Timofeevna, by coming in unexpectedly while you were asleep,' he said, giving her his hand.
The sound of these tender words produced its effect, her fright vanished, though she still looked at him with fear, apparently trying to understand something. Fearfully, she also gave him her hand. At last a smile stirred timidly on her lips.
'Greetings, Prince,' she whispered, peering at him somehow strangely.
'You must have been having a bad dream?' he went on smiling with ever more amiability and tenderness.
'And how did you know I was dreaming
And she suddenly trembled again and recoiled, raising her hand in front of her as if to protect herself, and preparing to cry again.
'Pull yourself together, enough, there's nothing to fear, didn't you recognize me?' Nikolai Vsevolodovich tried to persuade her, but this time it took him some while to persuade her; she looked at him silently, with the same tormenting bewilderment, with a heavy thought in her poor head, still straining to think her way through to something. She would drop her eyes, then suddenly look him over with a quick, embracing glance. Finally, she seemed not so much to calm down as to reach a decision.
'Sit here, next to me, I beg you, so that I can have a good look at you afterwards,' she said quite firmly, with some new and obvious purpose. 'And don't worry now, I won't look at you, I'll look down. And don't you look at me either, until I myself ask you to. Do sit,' she added, even impatiently.
A new sensation seemed to be taking more and more possession of her.
Nikolai Vsevolodovich sat down and waited; there was quite a long silence.
'Hm! It seems all strange to me,' she muttered suddenly, almost in disgust. 'I am full of bad dreams, of course; only why should you come into my dreams in such a way?'
'Well, let's leave dreams out of it,' he said impatiently, turning to her despite her prohibition, and perhaps the former expression flashed in his eyes again. He saw that several times she would have liked, and liked very much, to glance at him, but that she stubbornly resisted and looked down.
'Listen, Prince,' she raised her voice suddenly, 'listen, Prince...'
'Why did you turn away, why don't you look at me, what is this comedy about?' he cried, unable to help himself.
But it was as if she had not heard him at all.
'Listen, Prince,' she repeated for the third time, in a firm voice, with an unpleasant, preoccupied look on her face. 'When you told me in the carriage then that the marriage would be announced, I felt afraid right then that the secret would be over. Now I really don't know; I kept thinking, and I see clearly that I'm not fit at all. I could dress up, I could receive people, too, perhaps—it's not so hard to invite people for a cup of tea, especially if there are servants. But, still, how will they look at it from outside? I noticed a lot in that house then, that Sunday morning. That pretty young lady watched me all the time, especially when you came in. It was you who came in then, eh? Her mother's just a funny little old society lady. My Lebyadkin also distinguished himself; so as not to burst out laughing, I had to keep looking up at the ceiling; the ceiling there is nicely decorated.
'Don't be afraid or worried,' Nikolai Vsevolodovich twisted his mouth.
'Anyway, for me it won't matter much even if he should be a little ashamed of me, because there's always more pity in it than shame, depending on the person, of course. He does know that I ought rather to pity them than they me.'
