“I do not receive visitors, prince. At least not at present.”
“But, though I have not deserved to be an exception ... I ...”
“Certainly, since you insist I shall be delighted. I live at — Street, in Klugen’s Buildings.”
“Klugen’s Buildings!” he cried, as though surprised something. “What! Have you . . . lived there long?”
“No, not long,” I answered, instinctively watching him. “I live at No. 44.”
“Forty-four ? You are living . . . alone?”
“Quite alone.”
“0-oh! I ask you because I think I know the house. So much the better. . . . I will certainly come and see you, certainly! I shall have much to talk over with you and I look for great things from you. You can oblige me in many ways. You see I am beginning straight off by asking you a favour. But good-bye! Shake hands again!”
He shook my hand and Alyosha’s, kissed Natasha’s hand again and went out without suggesting that Alyosha should follow him.
We three remained overwhelmed. It had all happened so unexpectedly, so casually. We all felt that in one instant everything had changed, and that something new and unknown was beginning. Alyosha without a word sat down beside Natasha and softly kissed her hand. From time to time he peeped into her face as though to see what she would say.
“Alyosha, darling, go and see Katerina Fyodorovna tomorrow,” she brought out at last.
“I was thinking of that myself,” he said, “I shall certainly go.”
“But perhaps it will be painful for her to see you. What’s to be done?”
“I don’t know, dear. I thought of that too. I’ll look round. I shall see . . . then I’ll decide. Well, Natasha, everything is changed for us now,” Alyosha said, unable to contain himself.
She smiled and gave him a long, tender look.
“And what delicacy he has. He saw how poor your lodging is and not a word ...”
“Of what?”
“Why . . . of your moving . . . or anything,” he added reddening.
“Nonsense, Alyosha, why ever should he?”
“That’s just what I say. He has such delicacy. And how he praised you! I told you so . . . I told you. Yes, he’s capable of understanding and feeling anything! But he talked of me as though I were a baby; they all treat me like that. But I suppose I really am.”
“You’re a child, but you see further than any of us. You’re good, Alyosha!”
“He said that my good heart would do me harm. How’s that? I don’t understand. But I say, Natasha, oughtn’t I to make haste and go to him? I’ll be with you as soon as it’s light tomorrow.”
“Yes, go, darling, go. You were right to think of it. And be sure to show yourself to him, do you hear? And come tomorrow as. early as you can. You won’t run away from me for five days now?” she added slyly, with a caressing glance.
We were all in a state of quiet, unruffled joy.
“Are you coming with me, Vanya?” cried Alyosha as he went out.
“No, he’ll stay a little. I’ve something more to say to you, Vanya. Mind, quite early tomorrow.”
“Quite early. Good-night, Mavra.”
Mavra was in great excitement. She had listened to all the prince said, she had overheard it all, but there was much she had not understood. She was Longing to ask questions, and make
surmises. But meantime she looked serious, and even proud. She, too, realized that much was changed.
We remained alone. Natasha took my hand, and for some time was silent, as though seeking for something to say.
“I’m tired,” she said at last in a weak voice. “ Listen, are you going to them tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
“Tell mamma, but don’t speak to him.”
“I never speak of you to him, anyway.”
“Of course; he’ll find out without that. But notice what he says. How he takes it. Good heavens, Vanya, will he really curse me for this marriage? No, impossible.”
“The prince will have to make everything right,” I put in hurriedly. “They must be reconciled and then everything will go smoothly.”
“My God! If that could only be! If that could only be!” she cried imploringly.
“Don’t worry yourself, Natasha, everything will come right. Everything points to it.”
She looked at me intently.
“Vanya, what do you think of the prince?”
“If he was sincere in what he said, then to my thinking he’s a really generous man.”
“Sincere in what he said? What does that mean? Surely he couldn’t have been speaking insincerely?”
“I agree with you,” I answered. “Then some idea did occur to her,” I thought. “That’s strange!”
“You kept looking at him . . . so intently.”
“Yes, I thought him rather strange.”
“I thought so too. He kept on talking so . . . my dear, I’m tired. You know, you’d better be going home. And come to me tomorrow as early as you can after seeing them. And one other thing: it wasn’t rude of me to say that I wanted to get fond of him, was it?”
“No, why rude?”
“And not . . . stupid? You see it was as much as to say that so far I didn’t like him.”
“On the contrary, it was very good, simple, spontaneous. You looked so beautiful at that moment! He’s stupid if he doesn’t understand that, with his aristocratic breeding!”
“You seem as though you were angry with him, Vanya. But how horrid I am, how suspicious, and vain! Don’t laugh at me; I hide nothing from you, you know. Ah, Vanya, my dear! If I am unhappy again, if more trouble comes, you’ll be here beside me, I know; perhaps you’ll be the only one! How can I repay you for everything! Don’t curse me ever, Vanya!”
Returning home, I undressed at once and went to bed. My room was as dark and damp as a cellar. Many strange thoughts and sensations were hovering in my mind, and it was long before I could get to sleep.
But how one man must have been laughing at us that moment as he fell asleep in his comfortable bed — that is, if he thought us worth laughing at! Probably he didn’t.
Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:26:21 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.
The Insulted and the Injured, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Chapter III
AT ten o’clock next morning as I was coming out of my lodgings hurrying off to the Ichmenyevs in Vassilyevsky Island, and meaning to go from them to Natasha, I suddenly came upon my yesterday’s visitor, Smith’s grandchild, at the door. She was coming to see me. I don’t know why, but I remember I was awfully pleased to see her. I had hardly had time to get a good look at her the day before, and by daylight she surprised me more than ever. And, indeed, it would have been difficult to have found a stranger or more original creature — in appearance, anyway. With her flashing black eyes, which looked somehow foreign, her thick, dishevelled, black hair, and her mute, fixed, enigmatic gaze, the little creature might well have attracted the notice of anyone who passed her in the street. The expression in her eyes was particularly striking. There was the light of intelligence in them, and at the same time an inquisitorial mistrust, even suspicion. Her dirty old frock looked even more hopelessly tattered by daylight. She seemed to me to be suffering from some wasting, chronic disease that was gradually and relentlessly destroying her. Her pale, thin face had an unnatural sallow, bilious tinge. But in spite of all the ugliness of poverty and illness, she was positively pretty. Her eyebrows were strongly marked, delicate and beautiful. Her broad, rather low brow was particularly beautiful, and her lips were exquisitely formed with a peculiar proud bold line, but they were pale and colourless.
“Ah, you again!” I cried. “Well, I thought you’d come! Come in!”
She came in, stepping through the doorway slowly just as before, and looking about her mistrustfully. She looked carefully round the room where her grandfather had lived, as though noting how far it had been changed by another inmate.
