“Vanya,” Ikhmenev began, as though coming out of a reverie, “you haven’t been ill, have you? Why haven’t you been to see us all this time? I owe you an apology myself, I’ve been meaning to look you up for some time now, but there was always something…” and he looked pensive again.
“I’ve been unwell,” I said.
“Hm! Unwell!” he repeated after a long pause. “Unwell! Didn’t I tell you so, didn’t I warn you – but did you listen? Hm! No, Vanya, old chap, from time immemorial the Muse has been forced to starve in the garret, and that’s how it’ll always be. You mark my words!”
Yes, the old man was out of sorts. If it hadn’t been for his own troubles, I don’t think he would have brought up the hungry Muse in our conversation. I studied his face. It had grown sallow, his eyes expressed bafflement; there lurked some kind of a thought in them in the form of a question to which he was unable to find an answer. He was abrupt and uncharacteristically ill tempered. His wife eyed him anxiously and kept shaking her head. When he happened to turn away from her briefly, she surreptitiously motioned with her head towards him.
“How’s Natalya Nikolayevna?” I asked. “Is she in?”
“Yes, she is, my dear, she is,” she answered, in a way that suggested my question had clearly put her in a quandary. “She’ll come and say hello to you in just a moment. Heavens! It’s been three weeks since you last saw each other! I sometimes worry about her – she’s been so strange lately. You can never tell with her if she’s well or ill, bless her!” And she glanced meekly at her husband.
“What do you mean?” Nikolai Sergeich struck in, haltingly and moodily. “There’s nothing the matter with her. “She’s perfectly all right. The girl’s entering womanhood, she’s no longer a child – that’s all there is to it. As if anyone could make head or tail of all these women’s moods and tantrums!”
“Tantrums indeed!” Anna Andreyevna retorted in an offended tone.
Ikhmenev didn’t say anything more, but drummed a tattoo on the table with his fingertips. My God, I thought fearfully, was there anything the matter between the two of them?
“Well, so how are things with you?” he began once more. “What about B., still writing his criticisms, is he?”
“Yes, he is,” I replied.
“Well, well, Vanya, my boy!” he concluded with a dismissive gesture of his hand. “Where will criticisms get you?”
The door opened, and Natasha entered the room.
7
She was holding her little hat in her hands and when she came into the room, put it down on the piano; then she approached me and offered her hand in silence. Her lips moved slightly as though she wanted to say something – a word of greeting perhaps – but she said nothing.
Three weeks – three weeks we hadn’t seen each other! I gazed at her in consternation and fear. How she had changed! I was mortified to see her pale sunken cheeks, her chapped lips as if she had a fever, and her eyes under her long, dark eyelashes flaming with passionate resolve.
But by God, she looked wonderful! Never, neither before nor since, have I seen her quite as lovely as she was on that fateful day. Was this really the same Natasha, the same girl who only a year previously had not been able to take her eyes off me, had moved her lips with mine as she listened to me reading my novel, and had been so carefree and cheerful as she laughed and joked with her father and me over supper? Was this the same Natasha who, in that room over there, head bowed and cheeks flushed, had once said yes to me?
The muted sound of the church bell ringing for vespers reached us. She shuddered, and the old lady crossed herself.
“You were going to church, Natasha, there’s the bell for you,” she said. “Go along, Natasha, my dear, I beg you – a prayer will do you a power of good! So will a little walk. Won’t do to stay indoors all the time! Just look how pale you are, as though you had the evil eye on you.”
“Perhaps… I… shan’t go tonight after all,” Natasha said slowly and softly, almost in a whisper. “I don’t… feel well,” she added, and turned as white as a sheet.
“You should, Natasha,” Anna Andreyevna pleaded, looking at her daughter timidly as though in fear of her. “You were so keen to go just now – and you brought your hat… Go and say a prayer, Natasha, my angel, for God to grant you good health.”
“Yes, why don’t you? A walk will do you good,” Ikhmenev added, also looking at his daughter with concern. “Mother’s right. There, Vanya will go with you.”
It seemed to me that a bitter smile flitted across Natasha’s face. She walked to the piano, took her hat and put it on; her hands were shaking. All her movements seemed somehow involuntary as though she were unsure what she was doing. Her mother and father watched her anxiously.
“Goodbye!” she said almost inaudibly.
“My angel, why say goodbye, you’re not going far, are you? A breath of fresh air is what you need. Look how pale you are! Goodness, I forgot all about it – I’m always forgetting things! I’ve made an amulet for you with a prayer in it, my angel. A nun from Kiev taught me it last year. It’s a lovely prayer – I stitched it in the other day. Put it round your neck, Natasha. Let’s pray that God will grant you good health. You’re all we’ve got.”
And the old lady took Natasha’s gold crucifix out of her workbox. The amulet was on the same ribbon.
“May it save and protect you!” she added, putting the crucifix round Natasha’s neck and making the sign of the cross over her. “Times were I’d make the sign of the cross over you and say a prayer every night before you went to sleep, and you’d repeat it after me. But you’ve changed, and the Lord has taken away your peace of mind. Oh, Natasha, Natasha! Not even your mother’s prayers can help you now!” And Anna Andreyevna began to cry.
Natasha kissed her hand in silence and took a step towards the door, but suddenly she turned back and went quickly up to her father. Her breast was heaving.
“Daddy! I want you too to make the sign of the cross over me… your daughter,” she said, her voice breaking as she knelt before him.
We were all thrown into confusion by her unexpected and, as it seemed then, over-solemn gesture. Her father looked at her for a few seconds in utter bewilderment.
“My darling Natasha, my child, my dearest daughter! What’s wrong?” he cried out, tears streaming from his eyes. “Why are you so sad? Why do you cry day and night? I’ve been watching you – I’ve not slept myself for nights on end, getting up to listen at your door!… Tell me everything, Natasha, confide in me, old man that I am, and we…”
He didn’t finish, but raised her to her feet and hugged her. She clung desperately to his chest and nestled her head against his shoulder.
“It’s all right, it’s all right – it’s just that… I’m not well…” she kept repeating, breathlessly suppressing a torrent of tears.
“May God bless you, as I am blessing you, my dear child, my precious one!” her father said. “May He send you peace of mind for ever and protect you from all sorrows. Pray to God, my child, that He may hear a sinner’s prayer!”
“And mine, my blessings on you too!” the old lady added, dissolving into tears.
“Goodbye!” Natasha whispered.
She stopped in the doorway, looked at them once more as if she were about to say something but couldn’t, and quickly left the room. I hurried after her with a heavy presentiment in my heart.
8
She walked along quickly, in silence, her head bowed, not looking at me. But at the end of the street, on reaching the embankment, she stopped and seized me by the hand.
“I can’t breathe!” she whispered. “My heart… I can’t breathe!”
“Go back, Natasha!” I exclaimed in alarm.
“Can’t you see, Vanya? I’ve left for good, I’ve left them and I’ll never return,” she said, looking at me in utter despondency.
My heart sank. I’d foreseen this while I was on my way to visit them – and I sensed it faintly, as through a mist, perhaps long before this day. Nevertheless, her words now struck me like a thunderbolt.
We walked downcast along the embankment. I was unable to speak; I kept turning things over in my mind, I thought about it all and became totally confused. My head was spinning. It seemed to me so monstrous, so unreasonable!
“Do you blame me, Vanya, for what I’ve done?” she asked after a long silence.
“No, but… but I don’t believe it. It can’t be true!…” I replied, only dimly aware of what I was saying.
“Yes, Vanya, it is true! I’ve left them, and I don’t know what will become of them… and I don’t know what will become of me!”
“You’re going to see him, Natasha, aren’t you?
“Yes!” she replied.
“But that’s impossible!” I exclaimed in desperation. “Don’t you realize it’s just not possible, Natasha, my poor darling! It’s sheer madness. Don’t you realize you’ll kill them and destroy yourself! Have you thought about that, Natasha?”
“I have, but what am I to do? I can’t help it,” she said, and her voice was full of despair, as though she were going to her death.
“Go back, go back before it’s too late,” I implored her, and the more passionate and insistent I became, the more aware I was of the utter futility and inappropriateness of my entreaties at that moment. “Do you understand, Natasha, what this will do to your father? Have you considered that? Don’t you know that Alyosha’s father is your father’s enemy? Have you forgotten that the Prince insulted your father, accused him of embezzling money, and called him a thief? That there’s a legal battle going on… But never mind that! There’s more to it, don’t you realize, Natasha?… (Oh God! It’s not as if you didn’t know all that!) Surely you know that the Prince accused your mother and father of deliberately bringing you and Alyosha together when Alyosha stayed at your house in the country? Think, just think what your father must have been going through because of this slander. He’s gone completely grey these last two years – haven’t you noticed? But the main thing is that you know all this, Natasha. Oh God! I daren’t even begin to think what would happen to them if they lost you for ever! You’re their treasure, all they have left in their old age. I don’t even want to talk about it – you should realize all this yourself. Don’t forget your father believes you’ve been deliberately vilified and slandered by all those arrogant people – and they’ve got away with it! But now, right now, everything’s blown up again, the old wound has been reopened, because you’ve been receiving Alyosha in your home. The Prince has insulted your father again, who’s still getting over this new shock and then suddenly finds all of it, all these accusations, justified after all! Everyone who knows about this will stop blaming the Prince and blame you and your father instead. Well, what’s going to happen to him? It will kill him! Humiliation, disgrace – and who is the cause? His daughter, his one and only precious child! And what about your mother? She won’t outlive your father… Natasha, Natasha!… What are you doing? Come to your senses! Go back!”
She didn’t say a word; finally she looked at me with reproach in her eyes, and I saw so much pain there, so much suffering, that I realized how deeply wounded she was, even without my making it worse. I knew what her decision must have cost her, and how I was hurting and tormenting her with my worthless and belated commentary; I knew all this, but nevertheless could not restrain myself, and went on.
“Didn’t you say to Anna Andreyevna just now that perhaps you wouldn’t go to… vespers? So you’d have liked to stay – you hadn’t quite made up your mind then, had you?”
Her only reply was a bitter smile. Why did I have to ask that? I ought to have known that everything had already been decided irrevocably. But I too was beside myself.
“Have you really fallen in love with him that much?” I demanded, staring at her with a sinking heart, and hardly aware of what I was asking.
“What can I say to you, Vanya? Can’t you see for yourself! He told me to come, and here I am, waiting for him,” she said with the same bitter smile.
“But listen, just listen to me,” I began to plead again catching at a straw. “All this can still be sorted out, there must be another way, there must be some other way out altogether! There’s no need to leave home. I’ll show you what to do, my darling Natasha. I’ll see to everything for you, everything, your meetings too, and all the rest of it… Only don’t leave home!… I’ll be your go-between. Why not? Anything’s better than this. Leave it all to me, I won’t let you down, you’ll see, I really won’t… And you won’t be distressing yourself, my darling, as you’re doing now… Just look at what you’re doing to yourself now! Come, Natasha, everything will turn out for the best, and you’ll be able to love each other as much as you want… And when your father and his father stop their feuding, as I’m sure they will, then…”
“That’s enough, Vanya, don’t go on,” she interrupted, squeezing my hand firmly, and smiling through tears. “My good, kind Vanya! How marvellous and honest you are! And you’ve not said a word about yourself! It was I who deserted you first, and you’ve forgiven me everything, all you think of is my happiness. You want to be our go-between…”
She burst into tears.
“I know, Vanya, how much you loved me, how much you still do, and not an angry word, not a single bitter word of reproach have I heard from you all this time! But I, I… My God, I feel so guilty! Do you remember, Vanya, do you remember our times together? Oh, if only I’d never seen or met him at all!… I’d have lived with you, Vanya, with you, my good darling boy!… No, I’m not worthy of you! You see what I’m like – even at a moment like this I’m reminding you of our happiness in the past, as though you hadn’t been hurt enough already! Now, you haven’t been to see us for three weeks. I swear to you though, Vanya, it never occurred to me that you might have cursed or hated me. I know why you stayed away – you didn’t want to be a burden and a living reproach to us. But surely you must have felt awful seeing us together! And how I waited for you, Vanya, how I waited for you! Listen, Vanya, even if I do love Alyosha – madly, insanely – perhaps I love you even more, as a friend. I feel it, I know I couldn’t survive without you. I need you, I need your heart of gold, your soul… Oh Vanya! What bitter, what hard times lie ahead of us!”
She broke down in a flood of tears. She was utterly distraught.
“Oh, how I was longing to see you!” she continued, suppressing her tears. “How thin, how sickly, how pale you look. Have you really been unwell, Vanya? There, I haven’t even asked after you! I go on and on about myself. Well, how have you been getting on with the critics? What about your new novel, is it coming along?”
“Never mind me and my novels, Natasha! You don’t want to hear about my affairs! They’re all right – who cares? But look here, Natasha, was it he who insisted you should go to him?”
“No, not just him, it was me for the most part. True, he did talk about it, but it was really me… Look, my darling, I’ll tell you everything. They’ve found him a fiancée who’s wealthy and comes from a very good family. She belongs to one of the best. His father definitely wants the marriage to go ahead, and of course you know what the man’s like – an awful schemer. He’s left no stone unturned. For him it’s the chance of a lifetime. Connections, money… And they say she’s very beautiful, well educated too, and kind – she’s a perfect match for him. Alyosha’s very fond of her. And besides, his father can’t wait to get him off his hands to pave the way for his own marriage – that’s why he’s so determined to put an end to our relationship, come what may. He’s afraid of me and the influence I have on Alyosha…”
“Surely,” I interrupted her in surprise, “surely the Prince doesn’t know you love each other! He might have had his suspicions, but he couldn’t have been certain.”
“H
e knows, he knows everything.”
“But who told him?”
“Alyosha did, not long ago. He said he’d told his father everything.”
“Good God! What on earth’s going on between you! Do you mean to say he told his father everything, at a time like this—”
Humiliated and Insulted Page 5