In the meantime Yelena had fallen asleep again. In her sleep she occasionally groaned and shuddered a little. The doctor was right – she had a severe headache. Sometimes she would utter a stifled cry and wake up. Every now and again she cast me a pained look as though my attention was particularly burdensome to her. I have to admit this hurt me very much.
At eleven o’clock Masloboyev arrived. He was preoccupied and somehow distracted; he dropped in only for a minute and was in a great hurry.
“Well, my dear fellow, I knew you wouldn’t be living in the lap of luxury,” he remarked, looking around, “but honestly I didn’t expect to find you in such a shoebox. You call this a room! Well, that’s as may be, but the main trouble is all these incidental matters only keep you away from your work. I was thinking about this just yesterday on our way to Bubnova’s. You see, old fellow, by nature and by social position I belong to the class of people who themselves contribute nothing useful, but lecture others that they should. Now listen – I might drop in on you tomorrow or the day after; and as for you, be sure you come to see me Sunday morning. By that time I’m hoping everything will be settled with this little girl here. While we’re at it, I’ll have a good chat with you, because the time’s come for you to be taken in hand seriously. You can’t go on living like this. I only mentioned it yesterday, now I’m going to spell it out. And tell me another thing: what’s so bad about you borrowing some money from me for a time?…”
“Steady on!” I interrupted him. “You’d better tell me instead how it all ended there yesterday.”
“Nothing much to tell, it ended in a most civil fashion, mission accomplished, you understand? But I must be off. I only dropped in for a minute to inform you that I’m pressed for time and have more important fish to fry. And incidentally, are you going to place her somewhere or keep her with you? That needs to be thought through and settled.”
“I’m not sure yet, and as matter of fact I was going to ask for your advice. For instance, I wonder on what basis would I keep her at my place?”
“Heh, that’s easy, as a servant girl if you like…”
“Please keep your voice down. She may be ill, but she’s fully alert, and when she saw you, I noticed she appeared to shudder. She seems to remember what happened yesterday…”
Here I told him about her character and everything that I had observed about her. Masloboyev listened with interest. I added that I might place her with some people I knew, and I told him a little about the old couple. To my surprise, he already knew Natasha’s story in part, and when I questioned him replied, “I heard about it some time ago in connection with another case. I did tell you, I knew Prince Valkovsky, didn’t I? It’s good you’re thinking of packing her off to the old people. Else she’d only be in your way. One other thing – she’ll need some papers. Don’t worry about that – leave it to me. Bye, come and see me soon. What is she doing, is she asleep?”
“Looks like it,” I replied.
But no sooner had he left than Yelena called me.
“Who was that?” she asked. Her voice shook, but she still regarded me with the same intent and somehow supercilious gaze. That’s the only way I can put it.
I mentioned Masloboyev’s name and added that it was precisely because of him that we had managed to get her out of Bubnova’s clutches, and that Bubnova was very afraid of him. Her cheeks suddenly flushed crimson, probably as her memories flooded back.
“And she is never going to come here, is she?” Yelena asked, looking at me inquisitively.
I hastened to reassure her. She went silent, took my hand in her burning little fingers, but cast it aside immediately, as though shocked at what she had done. “Was she really so repelled by me?” I thought to myself. “It’s just her way, or… or the poor child has seen so much grief, she no longer trusts anyone in the world.”
At the appointed hour I went to get the medicine, and at the same time called in at a hostelry I knew, where I occasionally used to have my meals and was allowed credit. Before I left home I took a saucepan with me and bought a portion of chicken broth for Yelena. But she didn’t want to eat and the soup was left standing in the oven.
Having given her the medicine, I sat down to work. I thought she had fallen asleep, but when I happened to glance in her direction, I suddenly noticed that she had raised her head and was watching me intently as I wrote. I pretended I hadn’t noticed her.
Finally she fell fast asleep – and, to my extreme delight, calmly, without thrashing about or groaning. I was plunged into thought; Natasha, not knowing what had happened, might not only be angry with me for not visiting her today, but would most likely be upset at my neglecting her, especially at a time when she probably needed me most. She might easily have got into some difficulties, or have some matter for me to attend to, and I was simply not at hand.
As regards Anna Andreyevna, I had no idea how I would justify myself to her the next day. I thought and thought and suddenly decided to go and see them both. In all I was likely to be away two hours at the most. As for Yelena, she was asleep and wouldn’t hear me go. I jumped to my feet, slung my coat on, took my cap, but just as I was about to leave, Yelena suddenly called me. I was astonished – had she only been pretending to be asleep?
Incidentally, I might add that, though Yelena was apparently reluctant to speak to me, these fairly frequent attempts to catch my attention, this need to turn to me with all her problems, were proof enough to the contrary and, I must admit, I found this rather gratifying.
“Where do you want to send me?” she asked, as I approached her. She had a habit of asking me questions straight out, for which I was quite unprepared. On this occasion it took me quite a while to realize what she meant.
“Just now you were telling your visitor you wanted to place me with some people. I don’t want to go anywhere.”
I leant across to her – she was all hot and flushed again; she seemed to be once more in a critical state. I began to comfort and console her; I assured her that if she wanted to stay with me, I’d never send her anywhere. While saying this, I took off my cap and coat. I was not prepared to leave her on her own in that condition.
“No, you must go!” she said, realizing immediately that I had decided to stay. “I’m sleepy. I’ll soon fall asleep.”
“But how are you going to manage on your own?…” I said anxiously. “Of course, I should be back in a couple of hours or so…”
“Well, off you go then. If I was to be ill for a whole year, you wouldn’t want to be stuck indoors for a whole year, would you?” and she made as if to smile and looked somehow oddly at me, as though struggling to call forth some emotion of gratitude from the bottom of her heart. The poor thing! Her gentle, loving nature was all too evident, in spite of all her unsociability and apparent animosity.
First I dashed over to Anna Andreyevna’s. She had been waiting for me in feverish excitement and greeted me with a host of reprimands, which only served to emphasize her own state of utmost agitation. Nikolai Sergeich had left the house straight after dinner, but where to – no one knew. I had a feeling the old lady had not been able to resist and had told him everything – but, as was her wont, by innuendo. In fact, she admitted as much to me, saying she’d been unable to resist sharing with him such happy tidings, but that Nikolai Sergeich, to quote her own words, “went as dark as a storm cloud, wouldn’t say a thing, not even to reply to my questions, and after dinner suddenly got ready and was off…” While recounting this, Anna Andreyevna was fairly shaking with fright and implored me to stay with her and wait for Nikolai Sergeich to return. I managed to extricate myself from such a commitment and told her, almost sharply, that I might not even come the next day, and as a matter of fact that was precisely what I had popped in to warn her about. On this occasion it nearly came to a quarrel between us. She burst into tears, said some very harsh and bitter words to me, and it was not until I was just about
to leave that she flung her arms around my neck, hugged me tightly, begged me not to be too hard on her – “orphan” woman that she was – and not take offence at what she had said.
Contrary to expectation, I found Natasha on her own again, and – strange to say – on this occasion it seemed she was not at all as pleased to see me as she had been the day before – or, for that matter, at other times. It was as though I had done her a bad turn or upset her plans. In answer to my question whether Alyosha had been to see her, she replied that of course he had, but not for long. “He promised to come tonight,” she added, as though as an afterthought.
“And what about last night?”
“N-no. He got held up,” she added hastily. “Well then, Vanya, how are things with you?”
I could see she was anxious to drop the subject and talk about something else. I took a good look at her; she was clearly upset. However, noticing that I was watching her closely and with interest, she cast me a sudden and, it seemed, angry glance, fairly scolding me with her eyes. “She’s wretched again,” I thought, “only she doesn’t want to tell me about it.”
In reply to her question about how things were with me, I told her Yelena’s story in every detail. She found it fascinating and was somewhat surprised.
“My God! How could you leave her on her own in her state!” she exclaimed.
I explained that I had a mind not to come to her at all that day, but thought she would have been be angry with me if I hadn’t, and that there might just be something that needed doing.
“Something that needed doing?” she repeated to herself, turning something over in her mind. “It just so happens there is, Vanya, but best some other time. Have you seen my parents?”
I told her everything.
“Yes. God only knows how father will take all this news. Anyway, what’s all the fuss?…”
“Fuss?” I asked. “With such a turn of events!”
“Come, come… so where could he have gone this time? Previously you all thought he’d gone to see me. Look, Vanya, if you can make it, pop in to see me tomorrow. It’s just possible I will have something to tell you… Only I’m embarrassed to keep bothering you. As for now, why don’t you go home to your young friend? It must surely be about two hours since you left the house.”
“You’re right. Goodbye, Natasha. Well, and what did Alyosha have to say for himself today?”
“Not Alyosha again! Nothing much… I wonder you should even ask.”
“Au revoir, my darling.”
“Goodbye.” She shook my hand somewhat casually and averted her face to avoid the farewell eye contact with me. I left her place somewhat puzzled. “On second thoughts,” I argued, “she’s got enough on her mind. It’s no laughing matter. Come tomorrow, though, she’ll be the first to tell me everything.”
I returned home in low spirits and, as I opened the door, was overcome with astonishment. It was already dark. I could make out that Yelena was sitting on the settee, her head hung down on her chest as though lost in deep thought. She didn’t even look up at me, as though in a brown study. I approached her; she was whispering something to herself. “Is she raving?” the thought crossed my mind.
“Yelena, my darling girl, what’s the matter with you?” I asked, sitting down beside her and putting my arm around her.
“I don’t want to stay here… I’d rather go to her,” she said without raising her head.
“Where? To whom?” I asked in surprise.
“To her, to Bubnova. She keeps saying I owe her loads of money and that she buried Mummy at her own expense… I don’t want her to blame Mummy, I want to work at her place and pay her everything back… Then I’ll go and leave her myself. But now I’m going back to her again.”
“Calm down, Yelena, you can’t go to her,” I said. “She’ll torture you to death. She’ll finish you off…”
“Let her, let her torture me,” Yelena echoed with ardour. “I shan’t be the first. Others who are better than me haven’t got it any easier. That’s what a beggar woman in the street told me once. I’m poor and I want to stay poor. I’ll be poor all my life – that’s how my mother wanted it when she was dying. I’ll work… I don’t want to wear this dress…”
“I’ll buy you a different one tomorrow, first thing. I’ll get you your books too. You’ll stay with me. I shan’t let anyone take you away, unless you yourself decide to go. Calm down…”
“I’ll go and get a job.”
“All right, all right! Just settle down, lie down, have a little nap!”
But the poor girl burst into tears. Little by little her tears turned to sobbing. I didn’t know what to do with her; I kept bringing her water, mopping her brow and head… Finally she collapsed on the settee in complete exhaustion, and was again overcome by a feverish fit of shaking. I tucked her in whatever came to hand, and she fell into a restless sleep, constantly tossing and turning and waking up with a start. Though I hadn’t walked much at all that day, I was nevertheless terribly tired and decided to lie down myself as early as possible. My head was buzzing with cares and worries. I had a feeling I would have lots of problems with this girl. But what worried me most was Natasha and her circumstances. As I recall now, I had rarely been so depressed in spirits as when falling asleep that hapless night.
9
It was late, about ten in the morning, when I woke up feeling ill. My head was aching and spinning. I glanced at Yelena’s couch – it was empty. At the same instant the sound of someone going over the floor with a broom reached me from the adjoining little room on my right. I got up to investigate. Yelena, broom in one hand and holding up her pretty frock – which she was still wearing since that evening – with the other, was sweeping the floor. The firewood, ready for use, was stacked up in a corner; the table was wiped clean, the kettle polished – in a word, Yelena was busy housekeeping.
“Listen, Yelena,” I exclaimed, “no one’s forcing you to sweep the floor! I don’t want you to do it, you’re ill. You haven’t come here to work, you know!”
“Who’s going to sweep the floor then?” she said, straightening up and looking directly at me. “I feel all right now.”
“But I haven’t brought you here to do work, Yelena. It’s as though you’re afraid I’m going to pester you, like Bubnova, for not earning your keep. And where on earth did you get that horrible broom from? I didn’t have a broom,” I added, looking at her in surprise.
“It’s my broom. I brought it here myself. I swept the floor for Granddad too. And the broom’s been lying here under the stove ever since.”
I went back to my room, lost in thought. I could be wrong, but it seemed very much as though my hospitality was weighing upon her and she was making every effort to prove she could earn her keep. “In that case, how hostile she must be deep down!” I thought. A couple of minutes later she came back into the room and, without a word, resumed her seat on the settee – where she had sat the night before – and took to probing me with her glances. In the meantime I boiled the kettle, made some tea, poured her a cup and offered it to her with a piece of white bread. She took it in submissive silence. She had hardly eaten anything for the last twenty-four hours.
“There now, see what you’ve done to your pretty frock with the broom,” I said, noticing a long smudge across the front of her skirt.
She looked around and suddenly, to my utter surprise, set her cup aside, calmly and deliberately pinched the muslin fabric of her skirt between the fingers of both hands, and with one fell action ripped it clean apart from top to bottom. Then without a word, she raised her eyes and fixed me with an intense, provocative gaze. Her face was pale.
“What are you doing, Yelena?” I exclaimed, convinced that I was looking at a mad thing.
“It’s not a pretty frock,” she said, gasping with agitation. “Why did you say it was pretty? I don’t want to wear it!” she exclaimed
suddenly, jumping to her feet. “I’ll tear it to shreds. I didn’t ask her to dress me in it. She forced me to put it on. I tore up one frock already, I’ll tear this one up too! I will! I will!…”
And she fell furiously upon her poor little frock. In a trice she had torn it almost to shreds. When she had done, she was so agitated she could hardly stand on her feet. I looked with surprise on such a display of frenzy. She gazed at me defiantly though, as if I too was in some way to blame. But I already knew what I had to do.
I determined to buy a new frock for her that very morning, without delay. This wild, brutalized creature definitely had to be approached with kindness. She gave the impression she had never even met a kind person in her life. If, braving severe punishment, she had once before torn to shreds her first and similar frock, what must have been her rage now at the sight of this one, which had such terrible associations for her?
On the flea market it was possible to buy a plain pretty frock very cheaply. The only trouble was I was almost completely out of money at that moment. But the night before, as I was going to bed, I had made up my mind to visit a certain place in the morning where I was hoping to get some, and it just happened to be on the way to the market. I picked up my hat. Yelena was watching me intently as though wary of something.
“Are you going to lock me up again?” she asked, as I reached for the key in order to lock the door behind me, as on the previous day and the day before that.
“My darling girl,” I said, approaching her, “don’t be angry. I’m locking the door just in case someone comes. After all you’re ill and might take fright. Heavens, there’s no telling who might come. Supposing Bubnova were to pay you a visit?…”
Humiliated and Insulted Page 19
