Netochka Nezvanova (Penguin ed.)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  I was quite beside myself. I knew neither what was happening to me nor what had come over Katya. But, thank God, our walk was soon over. If it had lasted much longer I doubt whether I could have refrained from rushing over to kiss her in the street. However, as we went upstairs, I managed to give her a stealthy kiss on the shoulder. She noticed, quivered but did not say a word. In the evening she was dressed up and taken downstairs to the Princess, who had visitors. But that night there was a terrible commotion in the house.

  Katya was struck by one of her attacks of nerves, and her mother was beside herself with fright. The doctor came and did not know what to say. Everything was put down to children’s illnesses and, of course, to Katya’s age – but I thought otherwise. In the morning she appeared again upstairs looking rosy, cheerful and incredibly healthy, but she was full of whims and fancies that were not very typical of her.

  In the first place, she refused to listen to Madame Léotard throughout the morning. Then she suddenly took it into her head to go and see the old Princess. Contrary to her usual practice, the old lady – who loathed her grand-niece, was always at odds with her, and never wished to see her – on this occasion consented to her visit. It started off all right, and they managed to get along harmoniously for an hour. First of all, the little rascal had decided to beg forgiveness for all her misdemeanours, for her noisy play, and for shouting and disturbing her aunt. With tears in her eyes, the old Princess solemnly forgave her. But then the imp went too far. She took it into her head to tell her aunt about pranks which were as yet no more than schemes and projects for the future, and then meekly and piously pretended to have repented of them. The narrow-minded old lady was most delighted. Her vanity was flattered by the prospect of victory over Katya, the pet and idol of the entire household, who was even capable of making her mother succumb to her whims. And thus the little Princess admitted that first she had intended to pin a visiting card to the Princess’s dress; then to hide Falstaff under the bed; then to break her spectacles; then to remove all her books and replace them with her mother’s French novels; then to scatter bits of wool all over the floor; then to hide a pack of cards in the old lady’s pocket, and so on. In short, each prank grew worse than the last. The old lady was at last beside herself, and her face went from red to white with rage. At last Katya could keep it up no longer, burst into giggles and ran away from her. The Princess lost no time in sending for Katya’s mother. There was a fearful to-do, and the mother spent a couple of hours pleading tearfully with her aunt to forgive Katya on account of her being ill. At first the old lady refused to listen to her; she declared that she was leaving the house the next day, and only relented when Katya’s mother promised she would postpone her punishment until her daughter was recovered, but that she would then satisfy the old lady’s indignation. Katya, however, was severely reprimanded and taken downstairs to her mother.

  But, after dinner, the rascal shot off. Creeping downstairs, I met her on the staircase. She had opened the door and was calling Falstaff. Instantly I suspected her of plotting some kind of terrible revenge, which was precisely what she was doing. The old Princess had no more irreconcilable enemy than Falstaff. He was not friendly to anyone; he loved nobody and was aloof, proud and extremely conceited. Although he loved no one, he demanded respectful treatment from everyone, and all were aware of this, while at the same time feeling justifiably frightened by him. But with the sudden arrival of the old Princess in the house, everything had changed. Falstaff was dreadfully insulted, for he was absolutely forbidden to go upstairs. This made him frantic with resentment, and for a whole week he continually scratched at the door at the foot of the stairs leading to the little room above. However, he soon guessed the reason for his banishment and, on the first Sunday, as soon as his mistress had gone to church, Falstaff made for the old lady, barking and yelping. It was with difficulty that they rescued her from the cruel vengeance of the offended dog. From that day onwards Falstaff was strictly forbidden to go upstairs, and whenever the Princess came down he was banished to a remote room. The servants were held strictly responsible for seeing to this. But the avenging creature had managed to break into the upstairs rooms on three occasions. As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, he tore through the whole suite of rooms, making straight for the old Princess’s bedroom. Nothing could stop him. Fortunately her door was always kept shut, so all Falstaff could do was to howl madly in front of it, which he would do until the servants ran up and chased him downstairs. During these visits from the fearsome dog, the old Princess screamed as if she were being devoured by him, and on each occasion the fright made her ill. Several times she presented her niece with an ultimatum, and once she went so far as to declare that either Falstaff or she must leave the house. But Katya’s mother refused to part with the dog.

  The Princess was not fond of many people and, after her children, Falstaff was dearer to her than anyone in the world, and with reason. One day, six years earlier, the Prince had returned from a walk bringing with him a sick, dirty, sorrowful-looking little puppy, though he was a bulldog of excellent pedigree. The Prince had in some way saved the dog’s life. The newcomer had behaved in such a gross and unseemly manner that the Princess insisted on his being consigned to the backyard, where he was kept tied to the end of a rope. The Prince did not object. Two years later, while the family was at the Prince’s summer villa, little Sasha, Katya’s younger brother, fell into the river Neva. The Princess screamed, and her first thought was to throw herself into the water after her son. She was only held back from the risk of death with great difficulty. In the meantime her son was being rapidly carried away by a strong current, with only his clothes still visible on the surface of the water. They quickly untied the boat, but his rescue would have been a miracle. Suddenly an enormous bulldog plunged into the water just in front of the drowning child, grabbed him with his teeth and swam triumphantly with him to the bank. The Princess threw her arms around the wet, muddy dog and kissed him. Falstaff, who at that time bore the prosaic and very ordinary name of Friska, hated being kissed by anyone, and responded to the Princess’s kisses and embraces by biting her shoulder. The Princess suffered from the wound for the rest of her life, but her gratitude was boundless. Falstaff was brought to live inside the house, brushed, washed and adorned with an intricately carved silver collar. He was enthroned on a magnificent bearskin rug in the Princess’s sitting-room, and before long she was able to stroke him without being frightened of instant retaliation. She had been horrified to learn that her pet had been called Friska and immediately began the quest for another name, one that was as old as possible. But names like Hector and Cerebus were already too commonplace, and a name more appropriate to the household pet was needed. In the end, the Prince, with Friska’s phenomenal voracity in mind, suggested calling him Falstaff. The suggestion was eagerly accepted, and this became the bulldog’s name. Falstaff behaved very well. Like a true Englishman, he was taciturn and morose, and never attacked anyone unprovoked; he only insisted that everyone should respect his bearskin rug as sacred and that he was treated with equal courtesy.

  Occasionally, Falstaff was apparently overcome by an attack of spleen as he remembered that his enemy, his irreconcilable enemy who had encroached on his rights, remained unpunished. Thus Falstaff made his way stealthily to the foot of stairs that led to the upper floor. Finding the door closed as usual, he lay down somewhere near by, hiding in a corner and craftily waiting for someone inadvertently to leave the door open. At times the vengeful animal could lie in wait as long as three days, but strict orders had been given to watch the door, and it had been three months since he had last managed to get upstairs.

  ‘Falstaff, Falstaff!’ called Katya, as she opened the door and started to beckon and coax him to us, over on the stairs. This time Falstaff, sensing that the door was about to be opened, prepared to leap across his Rubicon. But it was improbable to him that Katya’s calls could be real, and he refused to believe his ears. He was as wily as a
fox and, so as not to reveal that he had noticed the careless opening of the door, he went over to the window, put his mighty paws on the windowsill and gazed out at the building opposite. In short, he behaved as disinterestedly as a man who has gone out for a walk and stops for a minute to admire the architecture of a neighbouring building. Meanwhile his heart throbbed as he waited in sweet expectation. And what astonishment and frantic joy when not only was the door opened wide before him, but he was beckoned, invited, implored to go upstairs and wreak his vengeance without delay! Yelping with delight and baring his teeth, he shot fiercely and triumphantly up the stairs like an arrow. His impetus was so great that a chair which happened to be in the way was overturned and catapulted seven feet away. Falstaff flew like a cannonball. Madame Léotard screamed in horror, but by then he had already reached the forbidden door and, scratching it ferociously with his front paws, was howling like a lost soul. In response came a fearful shriek from the old maid inside. A whole legion of his enemies was flocking from all quarters; the entire household was moving upstairs, and Falstaff, the terrible Falstaff, with a muzzle clapped deftly over his jaw and his four paws tied in a noose, was ignominously withdrawn from the field of battle and dragged downstairs on the end of a rope.

  An envoy was sent to the old Princess.

  On this occasion Katya’s mother was not so ready to forgive and show mercy – but whom could she punish? She guessed at once, and her glance fell on Katya. So, it was her! Katya stood pale and trembling with fear. Not until then had the poor thing thought about the consequences of her prank. Suspicion might have fallen on one of the servants or an innocent person; but Katya was prepared to tell the whole truth.

  ‘Are you responsible?’ the Princess asked sternly.

  Seeing Katya’s deathly pallor, I stepped forward and firmly declared: ‘I let Falstaff go up… by accident,’ I added, my courage suddenly disappearing before the Princess’s ominous gaze.

  ‘Madame Léotard! See that she is properly punished!’ said the Princess, and she left the room. I glanced at Katya. She stood there stunned, her arms hanging limply at her side and her pale little face looking down at the floor.

  The only punishment administered to the Prince’s children was to shut them up in an empty room. It was nothing to sit in an empty room for a couple of hours. But when a child is forcibly confined there, against her will, and told that she is deprived of her freedom, the punishment is considerable. Normally Katya and her brother were shut up for two hours. In view of the gravity of my offence, I was shut up for four. I went into my dungeon dizzy with joy. I thought about the little Princess. I knew that I had scored a victory. But instead of four hours later, it was four o’clock in the morning before I was freed. This is what happened.

  Two hours after my imprisonment, Madame Léotard learnt that her daughter had arrived from Moscow, but had suddenly fallen ill and wished to see her. Madame Léotard went at once, forgetting all about me. The maid who looked after us probably thought I had been released. Katya had been sent for by her mother and was obliged to sit with her until eleven o’clock. When she returned upstairs, she was extremely surprised to discover that I was not in bed. The maid undressed her and put her to bed but the Princess had her own reasons for not asking after me. She lay down and waited for me, knowing that my confinement should last for four hours and presuming that Nastya, our nanny, would bring me back. But Nastya had also forgotten about me, chiefly because I always undressed myself. Thus I was left to spend the night in prison.

  At four o’clock in the night I heard someone knocking at the door and trying to force it open. I was asleep, having somehow curled up on the floor. I cried out in alarm as I was woken. But I instantly recognized Katya’s voice ringing out above the rest; then the voices of Madame Léotard, the terrified Nastya and the housekeeper. At last the door opened and, with tears in her eyes, Madame Léotard took me in her arms and begged me to forgive her for having forgotten me. I flung myself around her neck, weeping. I was shivering with cold and my bones ached from lying on the bare floor. I searched for Katya, but she had run back to our bedroom and leapt into bed; when I returned she was already asleep, or pretending to be. She had been waiting for me all night, but had involuntarily fallen asleep and woken up at four. She raised a commotion, a real uproar, waking up Madame Léotard, who had returned, the nanny, and all the servants. She then obtained my release. By morning the whole household knew about my adventure; even the Princess said that I had been treated too severely. As for the Prince, I saw him, for the first time, moved to anger. He came upstairs at ten o’clock in the morning in great excitement.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he began, addressing Madame Léotard. ‘What are you doing here? What a way to treat a poor child! It’s barbarous, simply barbarous! Savage! A weak, sick child – such a dreamy little girl, so imaginative – and to put her alone in a dark room and leave her there all night! Why, it could kill her! Don’t you know her background? It’s barbaric, it’s inhuman, I’m telling you, Madame! And how is such a punishment possible? Whose idea was it? Who could think up such a dreadful thing?’

  Poor Madame Léotard, reduced to tears, tried, in her confusion, to explain the whole affair to him: how she had forgotten about me because of her daughter’s arrival; that in itself the punishment is not a bad one if it does not go on for too long, and that Jean-Jacques Rousseau indeed spoke of something similar.

  ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Madame! But Jean-Jacques could not have said that. Jean-Jacques is no authority on the upbringing of children, he has no right. Jean-Jacques renounced his own children. Jean-Jacques was an evil man, Madame!’

  ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau! Jean-Jacques evil? Prince! Prince! What are you saying?’ Madame Léotard was quite incensed. She was a fine woman and, above all, did not take offence easily. But to touch one of her idols, to wound the classical shades of Corneille or Racine, to insult Voltaire, to call Jean-Jacques an evil man, a barbarian… goodness gracious! Her eyes brimmed with tears, and the poor woman was so upset that she shook from head to foot. ‘You are forgetting yourself, Prince!’ she said finally, beside herself with agitation.

  The Prince collected himself and begged her forgiveness; then he came up to me, kissed me with great feeling, made the sign of the cross over me, and left the room.

  ‘Pauvre Prince!’ said Madame Léotard, who in her turn was very touched. Later, we all sat down at the school table, but the little Princess was extremely preoccupied. Before we went in to dinner, she came over to me quite flushed and, with a laugh on her lips, stopped in front of me, grabbed me by the shoulders and said hurriedly, as if ashamed of something: ‘Well then, you took my punishment for me yesterday!… Shall we go and play in the reception room after dinner?’ At that moment someone walked past us, and the Princess quickly turned away from me.

  After dinner, at dusk, we went downstairs to the big room, hand in hand. The little Princess was profoundly upset, and breathing heavily. I was overjoyed, happier than ever before in my life.

  ‘Do you want to play ball?’ she asked me, ‘Wait here.’ She stood me in a corner of the room but, instead of walking away and throwing the ball to me, she stopped after a couple of steps, glanced at me, blushed and, falling on to the sofa, buried her face in her hands. I started moving towards her; she thought I was leaving.

  ‘Don’t go, Netochka, stay with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’ She sprang up from the sofa, flushed and tearful, and threw her arms around my neck. Her cheeks were moist, her lips as swollen as cherries, and her curls in disarray. She began kissing me wildly; my face, eyes, lips, neck and hands. She was sobbing hysterically. I clung tightly to her, and we embraced sweetly and joyfully like two lovers after a long separation. Katya’s heart was racing so hard that I could hear each beat.

  A voice came from the next room, summoning Katya to her mother. ‘Oh, Netochka! Ah! Until this evening, until tonight! Go upstairs and wait for me.’ She kissed me, sweetly, silently and fervently for the last t
ime, and then ran off in response to Nastya’s call. I ran upstairs like one resurrected from the dead, threw myself on to the sofa and, burying my head in the cushions, wept for joy. My heart was beating so hard that I felt my chest would burst, and I do not know how I survived until night-time. At last the clock struck eleven, and I went to bed. The Princess did not return till twelve; she smiled at me from the other side of the room, but said nothing. Nastya began to undress her, dawdling as if on purpose.

  ‘Hurry, hurry! Nastya!’ muttered Katya.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Princess, you must have run all the way upstairs, your heart is beating so fast!’

  ‘Oh, goodness, Nastya, how tedious you are! Hurry, do be quick!’ said Katya, stamping her little foot on the floor in vexation.

  ‘Ah, my dearest,’ said Nastya, kissing Katya’s foot as she took off the shoe.

  Eventually, when her night-time preparations were complete, the Princess was put to bed, and Nastya left. She instantly leapt out of bed and rushed over to me. I cried out in greeting.

  ‘Come here, come and lie with me,’ she said, pulling me off the bed. A moment later I was in her bed, and we were embracing, hugging each other eagerly. Katya almost stifled me with her kisses.

  ‘You see, I remember how you used to kiss me in the night!’ she said, blushing red as a poppy.

  I was sobbing.

  ‘Netochka,’ whispered Katya through her tears, ‘my angel, really I’ve loved you for such ages, such a long time. Do you know when it began?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When Papa made me ask for forgiveness and afterwards you stood up for your own father. Netochka… Oh, my little, little orphan!’ She dragged the words out, still showering kisses on me. She was crying and laughing at the same time.