Little by little she fell silent, but still would not raise her face to me. Once or twice her eyes flitted across my face, and they were overflowing with mellowness and a quailing, reawakened animation. At last she blushed and smiled.
“Are you better, my sensitive Lenochka, my sick little child?” I asked.
“Not Lenochka, no…” she whispered, still hiding her face from me.
“Not Lenochka? What then?”
“Nelly.”
“Nelly? Why especially Nelly? I must say, it is a lovely name. I’ll call you that if it’s what you want.”
“That’s what Mummy called me… And no one else called me that, ever, except her… And I didn’t want anyone to call me that except Mummy… But it’s all right for you. I’d like you to… I’ll always love you, always…”
“My proud and loving little heart,” I thought, “that it should have taken me so long to earn the right to call you… Nelly.” But now I knew that her heart would be devoted to me for ever.
“Nelly, listen,” I said as soon as she had calmed down. “You said that it was only your mummy who loved you and no one else. But what about your granddad, did he really not love you?”
“He didn’t…”
“But you cried for him. Remember, here, on the stairs?”
She thought for a minute.
“No, he didn’t love me… He was evil.” And a pained expression crept over her face.
“But you couldn’t expect anything else of him, Nelly. I’m sure he was no longer in his right mind. He’d already lost his reason when he died. I did tell you how he died, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but it was only in the last month that he became forgetful. He’d sit here a whole day and if I hadn’t come to see him, he’d have sat a second and a third day with nothing to eat or drink. But before that he was much better.”
“When was that?”
“When Mummy was still alive.”
“So, it was you who brought him food and drink, Nelly?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you take it from, from Bubnova?”
“No, I never took anything from Bubnova,” she said emphatically, with a peculiar tremor in her voice.
“So where did you get it from? I mean, you had nothing of your own, had you?”
Nelly was silent and went terribly pale; then she gave me a long, protracted look.
“I used to go begging in the street… I’d get five kopecks and go and buy him some bread and snuff…”
“And he let you do it! Nelly! Nelly!”
“At first I went on my own without telling him. But when he found out, he forced me into it. I’d be standing on the bridge, asking the passers-by, while he’d be walking up and down nearby, watching. As soon as he’d see me get something, he’d pounce on me and take the money as if I’d wanted to keep it for myself rather than give it all to him anyway.”
Saying this she gave a bitter, caustic smile.
“All this was when Mummy was already dead,” she added. “After that he went completely dotty.”
“I take it he loved your mummy very much. How is it he didn’t live with her?”
“No, he didn’t love her… He was evil and wouldn’t forgive her… like that other nasty old man yesterday,” she said softly, almost in a whisper, growing paler and paler.
I shuddered. The plot of a whole novel flashed before my imagination. A poor woman dying in a coffin-maker’s basement; her orphaned daughter occasionally visiting her grandfather who had cursed her mother; a demented eccentric old man breathing his last in a coffee house after the death of his dog!…
“But you know, Azorka used to be Mummy’s dog,” Nelly said suddenly, smiling at some reminiscence. “Granddad loved Mummy a lot at one time, and when Mummy went away from him, she left Azorka behind. That’s just why he loved Azorka so much… He wouldn’t forgive Mummy, but when the dog died, so did he,” Nelly added sharply, and her smile vanished from her face.
“Nelly, what exactly was he before?” I asked after a pause.
“He was rich before… I don’t know what he did,” she replied. “He owned some kind of a factory… That’s what Mummy told me. She thought at first I was too young to understand and wouldn’t tell me everything. She used to cuddle me and say, ‘You’ll find out everything. Time will come you’ll find out, you poor, unfortunate thing!’ She kept calling me poor and unfortunate. And when she thought I was asleep in the night – but I wasn’t really: I was just pretending – she’d cry and kiss me and say, ‘You poor, unfortunate thing’!”
“What did your mummy die of then?”
“Consumption. It must’ve been six weeks ago.”
“And do you remember the time when your granddad was rich?”
“I wasn’t even born then. Mummy had left Granddad even before I was born.”
“Who with?”
“I don’t know,” Nelly replied softly and as though lost in thought. “She went abroad, and that’s where I was born.”
“Abroad? Where?”
“In Switzerland. I’ve been all over – in Italy and in Paris too.”
I was surprised.
“And do you remember it all, Nelly?”
“Most of it.”
“How come your Russian is so good, Nelly?”
“My mummy taught me Russian even while we were there. She was Russian, because her mummy was Russian, but Granddad was English – but just like a Russian really. And when we got back here a year and a half ago I learnt it really well. Mummy was already ill by then. Here we became poorer and poorer. Mummy kept on crying. At first she spent a long time looking for Granddad in St Petersburg and kept saying she had wronged him and wouldn’t stop crying… She just cried and cried! And when she found out that Granddad was poor, she cried even more. She wrote letters to him often, but he didn’t reply.”
“So why did your mummy come back here? Just to see your father?”
“I don’t know. Over there life was good for us,” and Nelly’s eyes began to sparkle. “It was just the two of us. She had a friend, he was kind, like you… He got to know her while she was still here. But he died over there, and so Mummy returned…”
“So it was him your mummy went away with when she left your grandfather?”
“No, not with him. Mummy went away with someone else, and he was the one who left her…”
“Who was that, Nelly?”
Nelly looked at me and did not reply. Evidently she knew with whom her mother had gone away and that in all probability he was her father. But she found it distressing to name him even to me…
I did not want to torment her with my questions. Hers was a strange, uneven, volatile temperament, with its excesses held in check, accommodating, yet singularly proud and defensive. All the time that I knew her she was, in spite of loving me with all her heart – with exalted, pure love, almost the equal of the love she bore for her mother, whose very memory caused her pain – in spite of all that she was seldom completely open with me and, with the exception of that one occasion, rarely felt the need to talk with me about her past, tending on the contrary to shy away from me, if anything rather brusquely. But on that day, in the course of a few hours, amidst the pain and the convulsive sobs which interrupted her story, she revealed to me everything that hurt and troubled her most in her recollections, and never shall I forget that terrible story. But the main part of it is yet to follow…
It was a fearful story indeed: the story of a forsaken woman who had outlived her happiness; sick, anguished and deserted by everybody; rejected by the very person on whom she might have relied – her father, who himself had at one time been offended by her and in his turn been driven to insanity by unbearable suffering and humiliation. It was the story of a mother who had been brought to the brink of despair; who with her little girl, a mere child in her eyes
, had tramped the cold, dirty St Petersburg streets, begging for alms; a woman who subsequently lay for months at death’s door in a damp basement, her father denying her his blessing and only at the last minute coming to his senses and hurrying to her with words of forgiveness, to arrive all too late and find a cold corpse in place of the one whom he loved above all else in the world. It was a strange story of a mysterious, in many respects barely credible relationship between a demented old man and his little granddaughter, who had fathomed him out thoroughly, mature beyond her years in the comprehension of what to other children, living in more stable and comfortable conditions, would remain a closed book till a much later age. It was a melancholy story, one of those dismal, heart-rending stories which are so often played out unnoticed, almost shrouded in mystery, under the heavy St Petersburg sky, in the dark hidden recesses of that huge city, amid the frenetic hustle and bustle of life with its unfeeling egoism, its conflicting interests, its sordid debauchery, clandestine crime, amidst all the infernally senseless and abnormal conditions of life…
But this story is yet to be told…
Part Three
1
It was evening, well after dusk, before I finally managed to shake off my oppressive nightmare and come back to reality.
“Nelly,” I said, “you’re sick and upset, but unfortunately I have to leave you, distraught though you are and in tears. My precious one! Listen to me carefully, there’s someone else dear to me who’s been hard done by, full of unrequited love, miserable, insulted and deserted. She’s expecting me. In any case, now I’ve heard your story I’m drawn to her myself so much that if I don’t see her now, this very minute, I’ll probably not endure it…”
I’m not at all sure Nelly understood me. I was still under the effect of my illness and of her story, but I hurried to Natasha regardless. It was already late, gone eight, when I at last reached her place.
On the street in front of the house where Natasha lived, I noticed a calash, which I took to be the Prince’s. The entrance to Natasha’s was from the courtyard. As soon as I entered the stairwell, I heard someone a flight above me groping his way up with great care, evidently unfamiliar with the layout. I reckoned it must be the Prince, but I soon began to have my doubts. The stranger who was making his way up was grunting and cursing ever more with each successive step. Of course the staircase was narrow, dirty, steep and abysmally dark, but such expletives as reached me from above I would never have attributed to the Prince. The gentleman ahead of me swore like a trooper. But on the second floor there was a light; a small lamp was burning by Natasha’s door. I caught up with the stranger right by the door, and my surprise was all the greater when I recognized the Prince. It looked as though he was pretty annoyed at my running into him so unexpectedly. For a moment he couldn’t place me, but suddenly his whole manner relaxed. His initial angry look of antipathy suddenly melted into a cheerful and friendly demeanour, and he held out both his hands to me with extraordinary delight.
“Oh, it’s you! I was just about to go down on my knees to offer thanks to God for having spared my neck. Did you hear me swear?” And he burst into the most endearing laughter. But suddenly his face assumed a grave and concerned look.
“But is this the best Alyosha could find for Natalya Nikolayevna?” he asked, shaking his head. “It’s precisely these so-called trifles that define the man. I’m worried about him. He’s kind, he’s got a good heart, but see for yourself – head over heels in love, and all he can do for the one he loves is put her in such a hole. I even heard they sometimes run out of bread,” he added in a whisper, groping for the bell handle. “I shudder every time I think of his future, I should say of Anna Nikolayevna’s future, when she becomes his wife…”
Although he called her by the wrong name, he didn’t notice it, and was clearly annoyed at not being able to find the bell. There was no bell. I rattled the handle of the lock, and Mavra immediately opened the door and welcomed us with a preoccupied air. In the kitchen, divided off from the tiny passage by a wooden partition, there were signs, as one looked through the open door, of some former activity. Everything had been wiped and scrubbed clean to an unaccustomed degree; there was a fire in the stove and the crockery on the table looked entirely new. It was evident that we were expected. Mavra rushed to take our coats.
“Is Alyosha here?” I asked.
“No,” she whispered somewhat conspiratorially.
We entered Natasha’s room. There were no visible signs of any special preparation; everything was as usual. As a matter of fact everything was always so neat and cosy in her room that there would have been no need for any tidying up. Natasha met us at the door. I was astonished by the extreme pallor and wasted look on her face, even though a flush of colour momentarily suffused her wan cheeks. Her eyes were feverish. Palpably ill at ease, flustered and without saying a word, she hurriedly held out her hand to the Prince. She did not even look my way. I stood and waited in silence.
“Here I am!” the Prince began amicably and cheerfully. “Only been back a few hours. You’ve never been out of my thoughts all this time (he kissed her hand gently), and there’s no end of things I’ve been turning over in my mind thinking about you! There’s so much to tell you, so much you must know… Well, we’ll be able to talk our hearts out, won’t we? First though, my ne’er-do-well son who, as I see, hasn’t arrived yet…”
“Excuse me, Prince,” Natasha interrupted him, blushing and confused, “I’ve got to say a few words to Ivan Petrovich. Vanya, would you mind?… A couple of words…”
She seized my hand and led me behind a screen.
“Vanya,” she said in a whisper, taking me into the darkest corner, “will you or won’t you forgive me?”
“Why, Natasha, what are you talking about?”
“No, Vanya, no, you have forgiven me too much and too often, but there must be a limit to everyone’s goodwill. You’ll never stop loving me, that much I know, but you’ll think I’m ungrateful, and yesterday and the day before I was ungrateful, selfish, cruel…”
She suddenly dissolved in a flood of tears and pressed her face against my shoulder.
“There now, Natasha,” I hastened to comfort her. “I’ve been very ill all night, I can hardly stand even as I speak, that’s why I didn’t come to see you last night or today, and there you are thinking I’m angry with you… My dearest, do you really imagine I don’t know what you’re going through now?”
“Well, that’s settled then… it means you’ve forgiven me, as always,” she said, smiling through tears and squeezing my hand till it hurt. “The rest can wait. I’ve lots to tell you, Vanya. Let’s go back…”
“Yes, let’s, Natasha! It was rude to leave him like that…”
“You just wait and see what happens,” she whispered to me hastily. “I know everything now, I’ve worked it all out. It’s all his fault. A lot is going to be settled tonight. Let’s go!”
I didn’t quite know what she meant, but there was no time to ask. Natasha approached the Prince with a radiant face. He was still standing with his hat in his hands. She good-humouredly offered her apologies, took his hat, brought up a chair for him herself, and all three of us sat round her little table.
“I was saying about my scapegrace,” the Prince continued, “I only saw him for a minute and on the street at that, when he was just off to see Countess Zinaida Fyodorovna. He was in a tearing hurry, and imagine, wouldn’t even stop to come into the house with me after four days of separation. Furthermore, I own, Natalya Nikolayevna, I’m probably to blame for the fact that he isn’t with you now and that we’ve arrived ahead of him. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it to the Countess’s today, so I took the liberty of sending him on an errand to her instead. But he should be here any minute.”
“He probably promised you he’d come today, did he?” Natasha enquired with the most innocent air, looking at the Prince.
“Goodness, of course, how could he not come! Why do you ask?” he exclaimed in surprise, looking hard at her. “On second thoughts, I know. You’re angry with him. Yes of course, it’s hardly the done thing for him to arrive last of all. But, I repeat, I’m to blame. Don’t be hard on him. He’s irresponsible, flighty. I’m not defending him, but there are some extraordinary factors which demand that not only should he not neglect to call on the Countess or fail to observe certain other courtesies, but on the contrary should visit her as frequently as possible. Well, seeing that he is with you virtually the whole time now and is quite oblivious of everything else on earth, please don’t blame me if I should occasionally usurp him for an hour or two, no more, for my own needs. I’m convinced he’s not been back once to see Princess K. since that evening, and more’s the pity I haven’t managed to question him about it yet!…”
I glanced at Natasha. She was listening to the Prince with a faintly derisive smile. But he spoke so candidly, so naturally. It seemed there were no grounds for suspecting him of anything.
“And did you really not know he’s not been to see me once all these days?” Natasha asked in a soft, calm voice as though speaking of the most habitual occurrence.
“What! Not been to see you once? Do you realize what you’re saying?” he said, apparently in utter amazement.
“You were here on Tuesday, late in the evening; he came the next morning for half an hour, and since then I haven’t seen him once.”
“But that’s incredible! (His amazement was getting more and more pronounced.) I was convinced he hardly left you. I’m sorry, this is so strange… it’s simply beyond me.”
“Nevertheless it’s true, and what a shame, because I was hoping you would come and tell me where he might be.”
“Oh, goodness me! I’m sure he’ll be here directly! But what you told me comes as such a surprise that… I must admit, I could have suspected him of anything but this… surely!…”
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