As for her severe and uncompromising attitude towards me, even though this distressed and pained me, I was confident of Natasha’s good nature, and could see how difficult it was for her and how upset she was. Any outside interference only irritated her and made her angry. In such cases interference, especially from close friends who know our secrets, becomes particularly burdensome. But I also knew very well that at the last moment Natasha would turn to me again for consolation.
Of course I made no mention to her of my conversation with the Prince, which would have agitated and upset her even more. I only told her in passing that I had been to see the Countess with him and was more than ever convinced that he was an out-and-out scoundrel. But she did not even question me about him, for which I was very grateful; on the other hand she listened avidly to everything I told her about my meeting with Katya. Having heard me out, she did not comment on that either, only her pale cheeks suddenly coloured, and all the rest of that day she was in a state of unusual agitation. I did not conceal anything regarding Katya and admitted that she had made a wonderful impression even on me. Anyway, why should I have concealed anything? Natasha would have guessed that I was hiding something and would only have been angry with me. And therefore I deliberately went into as much detail as possible, trying to anticipate all her questions, the more so since in her situation it was difficult for her to question me herself. Truly it could be no easy matter to enquire under the guise of indifference about the virtues of one’s rival!
I thought she still did not know that, on the Prince’s express orders, Alyosha was to accompany the Countess and Katya to the country, and was wondering how best to broach it to her, so as to soften the blow as much as possible. But what was my surprise when Natasha, after my very first words, stopped me short and said that there was no need to console her, that she’d already known about it these past five days.
“My goodness!” I exclaimed. “Who told you?”
“Alyosha.”
“What? He did?”
“Yes, and I’m ready for anything, Vanya,” she added in an exasperated tone clearly designed to put an end to all my attempts to continue the conversation.
Alyosha had been visiting Natasha quite often but always briefly, and only on one occasion did he stay for several hours, but that was in my absence. Normally he would turn up gloomy, look at her meekly and tenderly, but Natasha would welcome him so warmly, so gladly that he’d immediately forget everything and cheer up. He also began to visit me very frequently, nearly every day. There was no doubt that he was very distressed and unable to come to terms with his grief even for a moment, which was why he constantly came running to me for consolation.
What could I say to him? He accused me of being apathetic, indifferent, even of being hostile to him; he moped, shed tears and always went back to Katya’s to seek succour there.
On the day Natasha announced to me she knew about the trip to the country (this was about a week after my conversation with the Prince), he came running to me in despair, embraced me and fell upon my shoulder, crying like a child. I did not say a word and waited to hear what he’d have to say.
“I’m vile and objectionable, Vanya,” he began, “save me from myself! I’m not crying because I’m vile and a objectionable, but because Natasha will be miserable because of me. Let’s face it, I’m condemning her to unhappiness… Vanya, my friend, tell me, decide for me, which of the two I love more – Katya or Natasha?”
“That’s not something I can decide, Alyosha,” I replied, “you ought to know that better than I—”
“No, Vanya, that’s not it. You know I’m not so stupid as to be asking such questions, but the worst of it is, I’ve no idea myself. I keep on asking myself and cannot find an answer. But you’re looking at it from the outside, and perhaps you know more… Well, even if you don’t know, tell me all the same how you see it.”
“The way I see it, you love Katya more.”
“You think so! No, no, it’s not like that at all! You couldn’t be more wrong. I love Natasha beyond all measure. I can never see myself leaving her for whatever reason. I’ve told Katya as much, and she thoroughly agrees with me. Why don’t you say something? There, I saw you smile just now. Oh, Vanya, you never are any help to me when it is all too much for me like now… Goodbye!”
He ran out of the room, leaving Nelly, who had been listening to our conversation in silence, completely baffled. She was still ill at the time, lying in bed and taking her medicine. Alyosha never spoke to her during his visits, never paying her any attention whatsoever.
Two hours later he was back again, and I was astonished to see how happy he looked. He again fell round my neck and embraced me.
“Everything’s settled!” he exclaimed, “all misunderstandings have been resolved. After I left you, I went straight to Natasha’s. I was upset, I could not be without her. When I saw her, I fell to my knees before her and kissed her feet. I had to do it, I wanted to do it, I’d have died of sorrow if I hadn’t. She put her arms around me in silence and began to cry. That’s when I told her straight out I loved Katya more than her…”
“And what was her reaction?”
“She wouldn’t say a thing, she only kissed and comforted me – me, after I’d said that to her! She’s so understanding, Ivan Petrovich! Oh, I cried my heart out to her, I told her everything. I told her plainly that I loved Katya very much, but that no matter how much I loved her or whoever, I could nevertheless not do without her, Natasha, and would rather die. Yes, Vanya, I just can’t survive a day without her, I feel it, yes! And therefore we decided to get married immediately. But as it can’t be done before I go away, seeing as it’s still Lent and no one will marry us, it’ll have to be after my return, which will be about the first of June. Father won’t object, of that there can be no doubt. As regards Katya, so what! Let’s face it, I can’t live without Natasha… We’ll marry and then go off together to join Katya…”
Poor Natasha! That she should have been comforting this youth, this naive egoist, have sat by him, listened to his confessions and, just to put his mind at rest, invented the myth of the forthcoming wedding! For a few days Alyosha really seemed to have calmed down. He kept dashing over to Natasha’s because, weak-willed as he was, he could not endure sorrow on his own. Nevertheless, when the time for parting drew closer, he again became distraught, tearful and once more came running to me to pour out his woes. In the end he became so attached to Natasha that he could not leave her for a single day, let alone a month and a half. However, he was completely convinced right up to the last moment that he was leaving her only for a month and half, and that on his return they would get married. As for Natasha, she was well aware that her whole destiny was about to change, that Alyosha would never return to her, and that that was how it would all turn out.
The day of their parting was drawing near. Natasha was ill – pale, her eyes puffed, her lips parched – she would occasionally mutter something to herself; she would occasionally cast me a quick penetrating glance, but without crying, without responding to my questions, and would shudder as a leaf on a tree whenever Alyosha’s ringing voice announced his arrival. She would light up like the sky at sunrise and rush to welcome him, embrace him convulsively, cover him with kisses and laugh… Alyosha would gaze into her eyes, sometimes ask her anxiously if she was well, comfort her that he was not going away for long and that their wedding would follow. Natasha made every effort to suppress her feelings and overcome her tears. She never cried in front of him.
On one occasion he mentioned that he ought to leave her some money to tide her over in his absence, and that she needn’t worry, because his father had promised to give him a lot for the journey. Natasha frowned. When we were left on our own, I announced that I had a hundred and fifty roubles for her, just in case. She did not enquire where the money came from. This was two days before Alyosha’s departure and on the eve of Natasha’s firs
t and last meeting with Katya. Katya had sent a note with Alyosha, in which she asked for permission to visit Natasha the next day; in addition, she also wrote to me asking me too to be present at the meeting.
Even though I had more than enough on my plate, I decided come what may to be at Natasha’s at twelve o’clock (as stipulated by Katya). Nelly apart, I had recently had a lot of bother with the Ikhmenevs too.
It had started about a week earlier. One morning Anna Andreyevna sent for me, asking me to drop everything and hurry to her on a very important matter which brooked not the slightest delay. When I arrived I found her alone – she was walking up and down the room, shivering in fear and trepidation, anxiously awaiting Nikolai Sergeich’s return. As usual it took me a long time to learn from her what the matter was and why she was so alarmed, and at the same time every minute was evidently very precious. Finally, after a series of heated and irrelevant reprimands – “Why’ve you not been to see us, abandoning us to our fate in a moment of grief?” and even “God only knows what’ll happen next” – she announced that Nikolai Sergeich had been in such a state these past few days that “there are just no words for it”.
“He’s simply unrecognizable,” she said. “At night he’s feverish, he’s down on his knees praying in front of the icon when I’m not looking, he raves in his sleep, and when he’s awake, he’s like one demented. We sat down to a plate of shchi* yesterday and he couldn’t even find his spoon. You ask him one thing and he replies to something quite different. Lately he’s been going out nearly every minute – ‘On business,’ he says, ‘I must see my lawyer.’ This morning he locked himself in his study – ‘I’ve an important legal document on the lawsuit to write,’ he said. I thought to myself, ‘What kind of document could you be writing if you can’t even find your spoon next to your plate?’ All the same I peeped through the keyhole, and there he was writing away, and simply crying his heart out. ‘Whoever writes a business document like that?’ I thought. ‘Or perhaps he’s just grieving for our Ikhmenevka, which means we might as well kiss it goodbye!’ All this was going through my mind, when suddenly up he jumps, flings his pen on his writing desk, red in the face, eyes glinting, grabs his cap and rushes out. ‘I’ll be back soon, Anna Andreyevna,’ he says. So off he went, and I rushed straight to his desk. There’s such a heap of papers on our case there, but he won’t let me touch any of them. I’ve asked him a thousand times if I’ve asked him once to let me tidy up, so I could at least dust the table! ‘Don’t you dare!’ he’d shout and wave his arms about – he’s become so short-tempered here in St Petersburg, never stops shouting. So I went to his writing desk and started rummaging – where was that paper he was writing just now? Because I knew for a fact he never took it with him, but had stuck it under the others when he was getting up. Well, my dear Ivan Petrovich, this is what I found, look for yourself.”
And she handed me a sheet of notepaper half covered in writing, but so blotted that in some places it was impossible to make out the text.
Poor man! From the first lines it was immediately evident what and to whom he had been writing. The letter was to Natasha, his beloved Natasha. He began emotionally and tenderly – he offered her forgiveness and called on her to come back. It was difficult to decipher the whole letter, written in an awkward, cramped hand, with countless corrections. It was clear that the initial fervour, which had compelled him to take up the pen and dash off the first deeply felt lines, had soon transformed itself into something else – Ikhmenev went on to rebuke his daughter, depicting her transgression in vivid colours, indignantly reminding her of her stubbornness, scolding her for her callousness and that she hadn’t perhaps even once considered what it was she had inflicted upon her mother and father. He threatened to punish and curse her for her pride, and ended by insisting that she should return home submissively forthwith, and that then, only then, after a compliant and exemplary life “in the family bosom”, would they perhaps pardon her. Evidently after a few lines he’d taken his initial magnanimity for a sign of weakness, begun to feel embarrassed and finally, overcome with pangs of wounded pride, concluded on a defiantly threatening note. The good lady stood before me in a state of terror, her hands clasped, waiting to hear what I would say on perusing the letter.
I told her everything openly as I saw it. Namely that Nikolai Sergeich was no longer able to live without Natasha and that it was high time the two came to a reconciliation, but that all the same, everything depended on circumstances. At the same time I explained my surmise that the adverse outcome of the lawsuit had severely affected and upset him – quite apart from the extent to which his own self-esteem had been wounded by the Prince’s triumph over him and the indignation that was engendered in his heart by the way the case had been decided. At such moments a man’s soul cannot help but seek sympathy, and he felt ever more strongly drawn towards her whom he had always loved more than anything in the world. Finally, it could also be that he had heard (because he’d been spying on Natasha and knew all about her) that Alyosha was soon to leave her. He could well have been aware of what she had been going through and, judging by what he himself felt, could have known how badly in need of succour she was. All the same, he had been unable to control his emotions, regarding himself as insulted and humiliated by his daughter. It might also have occurred to him that it wasn’t she who was bending the knee first, that perhaps she wasn’t even giving them a second thought and felt no need for reconciliation. He must have thought along those lines, I concluded, and it was for this reason that he had failed to finish his letter, and maybe fresh embarrassments would flow from all this, which would be perceived even more keenly than the original ones and, who knows, the moment of reconciliation might be put off even further…
The good lady was crying as she listened to me. At last, when I said that I needed to see Natasha urgently and that I was already running late, she started and announced that she’d forgotten the main thing. When she was withdrawing the letter from beneath the papers, she had accidentally knocked the inkwell over. True enough, one corner was completely covered in ink, and Anna Andreyevna was terrified that her husband would know by the stain that someone had been going through his papers without his knowledge and that she had read his letter to Natasha. Her fear was quite justified – the very fact that we knew his secret, his embarrassment and frustration, could stoke his anger and cause him to stand on his dignity and refuse to grant his forgiveness.
But on reflection I persuaded the kind old lady not to worry. He had got up from his desk in such a state of agitation that he could well not have noticed all the details, and would no doubt blame himself for having smudged the letter. After I had thus put Anna Andreyevna’s mind at rest, we carefully replaced the letter in its original position and, before I left, I decided to talk things over seriously with her about Nelly. It occurred to me that the poor destitute orphan, whose mother too had been cursed by her own father, could move Ikhmenev to magnanimity with the sad, heart-rending story of her life and her mother’s death. In his heart of hearts, he was already reconciled; the longing for his daughter was already gaining over his pride and wounded self-esteem. All that was needed was an impetus, a final favourable opportunity, and this favourable opportunity could well be provided by Nelly. Anna Andreyevna listened to me with rapt attention – her whole face was lit up with hope and excitement. She immediately began to scold me for not having told her this long before. She showered me with anxious questions about Nelly and ended up with a solemn promise that she herself would ask her husband to take the orphan into their house. She had already started to love Nelly genuinely, was truly sorry she was ill, questioned me about her, dashed off to the larder for a jar of preserves, which she forced upon me to take to her, then, thinking I had no money to pay the doctor, brought me five roubles and, when I refused to take it, reluctantly allowed herself to be consoled by the knowledge that Nelly was still in need of clothing and underwear, and that consequently there was still s
cope for helping her – whereupon she immediately began to turn out her chest of drawers and lay out all her dresses, picking out those which could be spared for “the little orphan girl”.
I, however, went to Natasha’s. When I was about to negotiate the last flight of the staircase – which, as I have noted before was a spiral one – I caught sight of someone at her door and on the point of knocking, but who, on hearing my steps, checked himself. Finally, after some hesitation, the person changed his mind and began to hurry down. I bumped into him on the last step of the landing, and imagine my surprise when I recognized Ikhmenev. On the stairs it was dark at the best of times. He pressed himself against the wall to let me pass, and I remember the strange glint in his eyes as he looked at me intently. I had the impression he went very red; in any case he seemed very much at a loss and even nonplussed.
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