five-kopeck piece, but I picked it up for him. He let me keep it and gave me the gingerbread, stroked me on the head, but again didn’t say anything and just walked off.
“Then I went back to Mummy and told her everything about Granddad, and that I was scared of him at first and didn’t want him to see me. Mummy wouldn’t believe me at first, but then she became so happy she asked me questions the whole evening, kissed me and cried, and after I told her everything, she said I should never be afraid of Granddad and that it was clear he loved me if he came specially to see me. And she told me to be nice to Granddad and to talk to him. Next day she sent me out several times in the morning, even though I told her that Granddad never came except towards evening time. She herself followed me at a distance and was hiding behind corners, and she did that the next day too, but Granddad never came, and it rained every day then and Mummy caught a bad cold, because she always came with me past the house gate, and she took to her bed again.
“But Granddad came a week later and again bought me one little gingerbread fish and an apple and still didn’t say anything. But when he walked off, I followed him on the sly, because I’d decided earlier I was going to find out where he lived and tell Mummy. I walked at a distance on the other side of the street so that Granddad wouldn’t see me. He lived a long way away, not where he lived afterwards and died, but in Gorokhovaya Street, also in a large house, on the third floor. I found out all this and got back home late. Mummy was very frightened, because she didn’t know where I’d been. But after I told her, she was very happy again and wanted to go to him the very next day. But the next day she started thinking about it and got frightened and she kept being frightened three days in a row, and in the end didn’t go at all. And after that she called me over and said, ‘It’s like this, Nelly, I’m ill now and can’t go, but I’ve written your granddad a letter, go and give it to him. And after he’s read it, be sure, Nelly, you note what he says and does, and you go down on your knees, kiss him, and ask him to forgive your mother…’ And Mummy was crying a lot, and kissing me all the time, and making the sign of the cross over me to speed me on my way and praying to God, and she made me kneel in front of the icon with her and, even though she was sick, she came to the gate to see me off, and when I looked back, I could see her watching me as I went on my way…
“I came to Granddad’s and opened the door, which didn’t have a latch. Granddad was sitting at the table, eating bread and potatoes, but Azorka stood next to him, watching him eat and wagging his tail. In that room too the windows were low and dark, and there was only one table and a chair. He lived on his own. I walked in, and he was so frightened he went pale and began to shake. I also got frightened and didn’t say a thing. I just walked up to the table and put the letter down. As soon as Granddad saw the letter, he got so angry, he jumped to his feet, grabbed his stick and threatened me with it, but didn’t hit me, he only took me out into the passage and gave me a push. I hadn’t reached the bottom of the first flight when he opened the door again and threw the letter after me, unopened. I went back home and told Mummy all about it. That’s when she took to her bed again…”
8
At that instant a fairly loud clap of thunder resounded, and torrential rain began to beat heavily against the window panes; it went dark in the room. The good lady started and crossed herself. We all suddenly froze.
“It’ll soon blow over,” Ikhmenev said, glancing through the windows; then he got up and strode up and down the room. Nelly was following him out of the corner of her eye. She was in an extraordinary, feverish state. I could see it, but somehow she avoided looking at me.
“Well, what happened then?” he enquired, returning to his armchair.
Nelly cast a frightened look around the room.
“So you never saw your granddad again after that?”
“Yes, I did—”
“Go on, go on then! Don’t stop, my poppet, carry on,” Anna Andreyevna intervened.
“I didn’t see him for three weeks,” Nelly began, “not until it was already winter. Then winter came and it snowed. When I met Granddad at the usual place again, I was very glad… because Mummy was upset that he had stopped coming. When I saw him, I ran across the street on purpose for him to see that I was running away from him. But as soon as I looked back, I saw that at first he started walking quickly after me, and then he ran to catch up, and he was calling out, ‘Nelly, Nelly!’ And Azorka was following him. I felt sorry for him and stopped. Granddad came up, took my hand and we started walking, but when he saw I was crying, he bent down and kissed me. That’s when he saw that my shoes were full of holes and he asked if I didn’t have another pair. I told him straight away that Mummy had no money at all and that the people in the house gave us some food only because they felt sorry for us. Granddad didn’t say anything, but took me to the market and bought me some shoes and told me to put them on straight away, and then he took me back to his place on Gorokhovaya Street, but first he went into a shop and bought me a pie and a couple of sweets, and when we got back, he said I should eat the pie and he watched me eating it, and then he gave me the sweets. But Azorka put his paws on the table and also begged for some pie, so I gave him a piece and Granddad began to laugh. Then he made me stand in front of him and began to stroke my head, and asked if I attended school and what I knew. I told him, and he made me promise to come to him if I could every day at three o’clock, and he’d teach me himself. Then he told me to turn away and look out of the window until he told me to turn round again. I stood like I was told, but turned round without him noticing and saw him unpick the bottom corner of his pillow and take out four roubles. After he had taken them out, he came up to me and said, ‘This is just for you.’ I was going to take them, but then thought about it and said, ‘If it’s just for me, I won’t take them.’ Granddad suddenly got angry and said to me, ‘Well then, do what you want with them. Be off!’ I left, and he never kissed me.
“When I came home, I told Mummy everything. But Mummy was getting worse and worse. There was a medical student who used to come to the coffin-maker’s. He looked after Mummy and made her take medicine.
“But I went to see Granddad a lot – Mummy made me. Granddad bought a New Testament and a geography book and began to teach me. And sometimes he used to tell me what countries there are in the world, and about the people that live there, and all the seas, and what it was like before, and how Christ had forgiven us all. When I asked him questions, he was very pleased. That’s why I started asking him a lot, and he always used to tell me things, and also a lot about God. And sometimes we didn’t have any lessons, but played with Azorka. Azorka got very friendly with me, and I taught him to jump over a stick and Granddad laughed and patted me on the head. Only Granddad didn’t really laugh much. Sometimes he’d talk a lot, but all of a sudden he’d stop and just sit there, as if asleep, his eyes wide open. It’d be dark and he would still be sitting there, and when it got really dark he looked so dreadful, so old… Some other times I’d go to him, and he’d be sitting in his chair, thinking and not hearing anything, with Azorka lying by him. I’d wait and wait, and then I’d cough. Granddad still wouldn’t turn round to look. I’d just leave then. Mummy would always be waiting eagerly for me at home – she’d be lying there and I’d be telling her everything, everything, and so night would come, and me still talking about Granddad all the time – what he’d been doing that day, what stories he’d told me and what homework he’d set me – and her listening. And every time I started talking about Azorka, how I’d made him jump over a stick and how Granddad had laughed, she’d suddenly begin to laugh too and not stop for a long time, and would carry on laughing happily and would ask me to repeat everything all over again, and then she’d start praying. And I’d think – why was it Mummy loved Granddad so much, but he didn’t love her? And one day I went to Granddad’s and I started telling him on purpose how much Mummy loved him. He kept listening, all cross and everyt
hing, but just listened and wouldn’t say a word. Then I asked him, why was it Mummy loved him so much and never stopped asking after him, but he never asked after Mummy? Granddad got angry and turned me out of the room. I stood outside the door a while, and suddenly he opened it again and called me in, still very angry and not saying a word. But later, when we started reading the Bible, I asked him again, why was it Jesus Christ had said, ‘Love and forgive one another,’ but he didn’t want to forgive Mummy? Then he jumped up and cried that it was Mummy who had taught me to say that, and pushed me out of the room a second time and said I should never dare to come to him again. And I said I wouldn’t anyway, and I left him… But the next day Granddad had already moved…”
“Didn’t I say the rain would soon stop!” Nikolai Sergeich said, turning to face the window. “And so it has, and the sun’s come out too… look, Vanya!”
Anna Andreyevna looked at him in extreme puzzlement, and suddenly indignation glinted in the eyes of the hitherto indulgent, timorous old lady. Without a word, she took Nelly by the hand and seated her on her knee.
“Go on, my angel,” she said, “I’m listening to you. Let those who are hard of heart…”
She didn’t finish but burst out crying. Nelly shot me a puzzled look, as though perplexed and frightened. Ikhmenev glanced at me, shrugged his shoulders awkwardly, but turned away immediately.
“Go on, Nelly,” I said.
“I didn’t go to Granddad’s for three days,” Nelly commenced again. “At that time Mummy started feeling worse. All our money had run out, and we had nothing to buy her medicine with, and we didn’t eat anything either, nor did our landlords have anything to spare, and they started saying we were sponging off them. Then on the morning of the third day I got up and started dressing. Mummy asked me where was I going. I said to Granddad’s to ask for money, and she was pleased, because I’d already told her everything, that he’d thrown me out, and because I’d also told her before that I didn’t want to go back to him even though she had cried and begged me to. I went and found out that Granddad had moved, and I went to look for him in the new house. As soon as I entered his new lodgings, he jumped to his feet, came at me fuming and raging, and I told him straight away that Mummy was very sick, that we needed fifty kopecks for her medicine, and we had nothing to eat. Granddad began to shout and pushed me out on the stairs and put the door on the latch behind me. But when he was pushing me out, I said I’d be sitting on the stairs and wouldn’t go away till he gave me some money. And I did too. A little later he opened the door and saw me sitting there, and he shut it again. Then a long time went by, he opened the door again, saw I was still there and shut it again. And he kept opening the door many more times to look. At last he came out with Azorka, locked the door and walked past me and out across the yard without so much as saying a word. I didn’t say anything either and stayed there till it got dark.”
“You poor thing,” Anna Andreyevna exclaimed, “it must have been ever so cold for you on the stairs!”
“I had my fur coat,” Nelly replied.
“Fur coat, she says!… You little, poppet, how you must have suffered! So what about that Granddad of yours?”
Nelly’s lips were about to start quivering, but she made an extraordinary effort and pulled herself together.
“He came back after it was really dark, and as he walked past he bumped into me and cried out, ‘Who’s here?’ I said it was me. He probably thought I’d left long ago, and when he realized I was still there, he was very surprised and just stood there facing me. Suddenly he struck the stairs with his stick, hurried off, opened his door and a minute later brought me some copper coins, all five-kopeck pieces that he threw on the stairs for me. ‘There you are,’ he shouted, ‘take this money, that’s all I’ve got, and tell your mother I curse her!’ and he slammed the door shut. The coins rolled down the steps. I started picking them up in the dark, and Granddad, probably realizing he had scattered the coins and it would be difficult for me to find them in the dark, opened the door and brought out a candle, and by candlelight I soon gathered them up. And Granddad himself helped me, and he told me there should be seventy kopecks altogether, and then he went away. When I came home, I gave Mummy the money and told her everything, and Mummy began to feel worse, and I myself was sick all night, and the next day I was hot with fever, but I was thinking of one thing only. I was so angry with Granddad, and when Mummy fell asleep, I went out to go to Granddad’s lodgings, but just before I got there, I stopped on a bridge, and just then that one walked past…”
“She means Arkhipov,” I said, “the fellow I told you about, Nikolai Sergeich, who was at Bubnova’s with the young merchant, where he came in for a drubbing. That was the first time Nelly met him… Go on, Nelly.”
“I stopped him and asked him for some money, a rouble in silver. He looked at me and said, ‘A rouble in silver?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘Come with me.’ I didn’t know if I should. Suddenly an old gentleman in gold-rimmed spectacles came up – he heard me ask for the money. He leant over to me and asked why I needed precisely that amount. I told him my mummy was sick and that we needed that much for her medicine. He asked me where we lived, wrote it down and he gave me a rouble note. And when the other one saw the gentleman in the spectacles, he stalked off and didn’t ask me to go with him any more. I went to a shop and changed the rouble into copper coins. I wrapped thirty kopecks in a piece of paper for Mummy, but the other seventy I didn’t wrap up, but held in my hand on purpose and went to Granddad’s. When I came to his place, I opened the door, stood in the doorway and threw all the money at him as hard as I could so that it rolled all over the floor.
“‘There, take your money!’ I said to him. ‘Mummy doesn’t need it from you, because you have cursed her.’ I slammed the door and ran away quickly.”
Her eyes flashed, and she threw Ikhmenev a naively defiant glance.
“Well done,” Anna Andreyevna said, not looking at her husband and hugging Nelly tightly, “serves him right. Your granddad was a bad, hard-hearted—”
“Hm!” Nikolai Sergeich responded.
“So what next, what next?” Anna Andreyevna asked with impatience.
“I stopped going to Granddad’s and he stopped coming to see me,” Nelly replied.
“Well, how did the two of you, Mummy and yourself, manage then? Oh, you poor, poor things!”
“Mummy got much worse, and she hardly got up from her bed any more,” Nelly continued, and her voice shook and broke. “All our money had run out, and I started going around with the captain’s widow. The captain’s widow used to go from house to house, but she also stopped well-dressed people in the street and begged, that’s how she survived. She used to say to me she was no pauper, but had papers to prove her rank and where it said she was poor. She used to show people these papers, and she got money for it. It was she who told me there’s nothing shameful in begging off everybody. And so I walked with her and people gave us money, and that’s how we got by. Mummy found out about this, because the other lodgers started complaining that she was a pauper, and Bubnova came to Mummy and said she’d better let me go to her rather than be a street beggar. She’d been to see Mummy before to offer her money. And when Mummy wouldn’t take it, Bubnova used to ask why we should be so proud, and she used to send us food. But when she said this about me, Mummy began to cry with fright, but Bubnova started calling her names, because she was drunk, and said I was a pauper girl anyway, going around with the captain’s widow, and she turned the widow out of the house the same day. When Mummy found out about everything, she began to cry, then she suddenly got out of bed, dressed, grabbed me by the hand and made me follow her. Ivan Alexandrych tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen, and we went out. Mummy could hardly walk and had to sit down in the street every few minutes, and I kept supporting her. Mummy said she was going to see Granddad and that I should take her to him, and it w
as already late in the night. Suddenly we came out into a big street. There were lots of carriages stopping in front of one house with lots of people coming out, and there were lights in all the windows, and you could hear music playing. Mummy stopped, grabbed me and said to me then, ‘Nelly, be poor, be poor all your life, don’t you go to them, whoever might ask you to or come to take you. You could have been there too, rich and in a fine dress, but I don’t want it. They’re evil and cruel, and here’s what I’m going to say to you – stay poor, keep working and beg for alms, and if anyone comes to take you, just say, “I don’t want to go with you!”’ That’s what Mummy said I should do when she was ill, and I want to do as she told me all my life,” Nelly added, shaking with emotion, her cheeks flushed, “and I shall serve and work all life long, and that’s why I came here too to serve and to work, and I don’t want to be your daughter…”
“Hush, hush, my poppet, hush!” the good lady exclaimed, giving Nelly a big hug. “You mustn’t forget, your mummy was ill when she said that.”
Humiliated and Insulted Page 41
