“You … are angry that I’m horrid,” she tried to say, but could not finish; she ducked under the quilt, hid her head and burst into loud, hysterical sobs.
“Oh, my child, don’t weep! … It is nothing … It’s nerves, drink some water.”
But Nellie did not hear.
“Be comforted … don’t upset yourself,” he went on, almost whimpering over her, for he was a very sensitive man. “I’ll forgive you and be married to you if, like a good, well-brought-up girl, you’ll….”
“Take my powders,” came from under the quilt with a little nervous laugh that tinkled like a bell, and was broken by sobs — a laugh I knew very well.
“A good-hearted, grateful child!” said the doctor triumphantly, almost with tears in his eyes. “Poor girl!”
And a strange and wonderful affection sprang up from that day between him and Nellie. With me, on the contrary, Nellie became more and more sullen, nervous, and irritable. I didn’t know what to ascribe this to, and wondered at her, especially as this change in her seemed to happen suddenly. During the first days of her illness she was particularly tender and caressing with me; it seemed as though she could not take her eyes off me; she would not let me leave her side, clutched my hand in her feverish little hand and made me sit beside her, and if she noticed that I was gloomy and anxious she tried to cheer me up, made jokes, played with me and smiled at me, evidently making an effort to overcome her own sufferings. She did not want me to work at night, or to sit up to look after her, and was grieved because I would not listen to her. Sometimes I noticed an anxious look in her face; she began to question me, and tried to find out why I was sad, what was in my mind. But strange to say, when Natasha’s name was mentioned she immediately dropped the conversation or began to speak of something else. She seemed to avoid speaking of Natasha, and that struck me. When I came home she was delighted. When I took up my hat she looked at me dejectedly and rather strangely, following me with her eyes, as it were reproachfully.
On the fourth day of her illness, I spent the whole evening with Natasha and stayed long after midnight. There was something we had to discuss. As I went out I said to my invalid that I should be back very soon, as indeed I reckoned on being. Being detained almost unexpectedly at Natasha’s, I felt quite easy in my mind about Nellie. Alexandra Semyonovna was sitting up with her, having heard from Masloboev, who came in to see me for a moment, that Nellie was ill and that I was in great difficulties and absolutely without help. Good heavens, what a fuss kind-hearted Alexandra Semyonovna was in!
“So of course he won’t come to dinner with us now! Ach, mercy on us! And he’s all alone, poor fellow, all alone! Well, now we can show how kindly we feel to him. Here’s the opportunity. We mustn’t let it slip.”
She immediately appeared at my flat, bringing with her in a cab a regular hamper. Declaring at the first word that she was going to stay and had come to help me in my trouble, she undid her parcels. In them there were syrups and preserves for the invalid, chickens and a fowl in case the patient began to be convalescent, apples for baking, oranges, dry Kiev preserves (in case the doctor would allow them) and finally linen, sheets, dinner napkins, nightgowns, bandages, compresses — an outfit for a whole hospital.
“We’ve got everything,” she said to me, articulating every word as though in haste, “and, you see, you live like a bachelor. You’ve not much of all this. So please allow me … and Filip Filippovitch told me to. Well, what now … make haste, make haste, what shall I do now? How is she? Conscious? Ah, how uncomfortably she is lying! I must put her pillow straight that she may lie with her head low, and, what do you think, wouldn’t a leather pillow be better? The leather is cooler. Ah, what a fool I am! It never occurred to me to bring one. I’ll go and get it. Oughtn’t we to light a fire? I’ll send my old woman to you. I know an old woman. You’ve no servant, have you?…Well, what shall I do now? What’s that? Herbs…did the doctor prescribe them? For some herb tea, I suppose? I’ll go at once and light the fire.”
But I reassured her, and she was much surprised and even rather chagrined that there turned out to be not so very much to do. But this did not discourage her altogether. She made friends with Nellie at once and was a great help to me all through her illness. She visited us almost every day and she always used to come in looking as though something had been lost or had gone astray and she must hasten to catch it up. She always added that Filip Filippovitch had told her to come. Nellie liked her very much. They took to each other like two sisters, and I fancy that in many things Alexandra Semyonovna was as much of a baby as Nellie. She used to tell the child stories and amuse her, and Nellie often missed her when she had gone home. Her first appearance surprised my invalid, but she quickly guessed why the uninvited visitor had come, and as usual frowned and became silent and ungracious.
“Why did she come to see us?” asked Nellie, with an air of displeasure after Alexandra Semyonovna had gone away.
“To help you Nellie, and to look after you.”
“Why? What for? I’ve never done anything like that for her.”
“Kind people don’t wait for that, Nellie. They like to help people who need it, without that. That’s enough, Nellie; there are lots of kind people in the world. It’s only your misfortune that you haven’t met them and didn’t meet them when you needed them.”
Nellie did not speak. I walked away from her. But a quarter of an hour later she called me to her in a weak voice, asked for something to drink, and all at once warmly embraced me and for a long while would not let go of me. Next day, when Alexandra Semyonovna appeared, she welcomed her with a joyful smile I though she still seemed for some reason shamefaced with her.
CHAPTER III
IT WAS ON THAT DAY that I was the whole evening at Natasha’s I arrived home late. Nellie was asleep. Alexandra Semyonovna was sleepy too, but she was still sitting up with the invalid waiting for me to come in. At once in a hurried whisper she began to tell me that Nellie had at first been in very good spirits, even laughing a great deal, but afterwards she was depressed and, as I did not come back, grew silent and thoughtful. “Then she began complaining that her head ached, began to cry, and sobbed so that I really didn’t know what to do with her,” Alexandra Semyonovna added. “She began talking to me about Natalya Nikolaevna, but I could not tell her anything. She left off questioning me but went on crying afterwards, so that she fell asleep in tears. Well, good-bye, Ivan Petrovitch. She’s better anyway, I can see that, and I must go home. Filip Filippovitch told me to. I must confess that this time he only let me come for two hours but I stayed on of myself. But never mind, don’t worry about me. He doesn’t dare to be angry…. Only perhaps…. Ach, my goodness, Ivan Petrovitch, darling, what am I to do? He always comes home tipsy now! He’s very busy over something, he doesn’t talk to me, he’s worried, he’s got some important business in his mind; I can see that; but yet he is drunk every evening…. What I’m thinking is, if he has come home, who will put him to bed? Well, I’m going, I’m going, good-bye. Good-bye Ivan Petrovitch. I’ve been looking at your books here. What a lot of books you’ve got, and they must all be clever. And I’m such a fool I’ve never read anything… Well, till to-morrow…” But next morning Nellie woke up depressed and sullen, and answered me unwillingly. She did not speak to me of her own accord, but seemed to be angry with me. Yet I noticed some looks bent upon me stealthily, as it were, on the sly; in those looks there was so much concealed and heart-felt pain, yet there was in them an unmistakable tenderness which was not apparent when she looked at me directly. It was on that day that the scene over the medicine took place with the doctor. I did not know what to think.
But Nellie was entirely changed to me. Her strange ways, her caprices, at times almost hatred for me, continued up to the day when she ceased to live with me, till the catastrophe which was the end of our romance, But of that later.
It happened, however, sometimes that she would be for an hour as affectionate to me as at first. Her tende
rness was redoubled at such moments; most often at such times she wept bitterly. But these hours soon passed and she sank back into the same misery as before, and looked at me with hostility again or was as capricious as she had been with the doctor, or suddenly noticing that I did not like some new naughtiness on her part, she would begin laughing, and almost always end in tears.
She once quarrelled even with Alexandra Semyonovna, and told her that she wanted nothing from her. When I began to scold her in Alexandra Semyonovna’s presence she grew angry, answered with an outburst of accumulated spite, but suddenly relapsed into silence and did not say another word to me for two days, would not take one of her medicines, was unwilling even to eat and drink and no one but the old doctor was able to bring her round and make her ashamed.
I have mentioned already that from the day of the scene over the medicine a surprising affection had sprung up between the doctor and her. Nellie was very fond of him and always greeted him with a good-humoured smile however sad she had been before he came. For his part the old man began coming to us every day and sometimes even twice a day even when Nellie had begun to get up and had quite recovered, and she seemed to have so bewitched him that he could not spend a day without hearing her laugh and make fun of him, sometimes very amusingly. He began bringing her picture-books, always of an edifying character. One of them he bought on purpose for her. Then he began bringing her dainties, sweetmeats in pretty boxes. On such occasions he would come in with an air of triumph, as though it were his birthday, and Nellie guessed at once that he had come with a present. But he did not display the presents, but only laughed slyly, seated himself beside Nellie, hinting that if a certain young lady knew how to behave herself and had been deserving of commendation in his absence the young lady in question would merit a handsome reward. And all the while he looked at her so simply and good-naturedly that though Nellie laughed at him in the frankest way, at the same time there was a glow of sincere and affectionate devotion in her beaming eyes at that moment. At last the old man solemnly got up from his chair, took out a box of sweets and as he handed it to Nellie invariably added: “To my future amiable spouse.” At that moment he was certainly even happier than Nellie. Then they began to talk, and every time he earnestly and persuasively exhorted her to take care of her health and gave her impressive medical advice.
“Above all one must preserve one’s health,” he declared dogmatically, “firstly and chiefly in order to remain alive, and secondly in order to be always healthy and so to attain happiness in life. If you have any sorrows, my dear child, forget them, and best of all try not to think of them. If you have no sorrows…well, then too, don’t think about them, but try to think only of pleasant things … of something cheerful and amusing.”
“And what shall I think of that’s cheerful and amusing?” Nellie would ask.
The doctor was at once nonplussed.
“Well…of some innocent game appropriate to your age or, well…something of that….”
“I don’t want to play games, I don’t like games,” said Nellie. “I like new dresses better.”
“New dresses! Hm! Well, that’s not so good. We should in all things be content with a modest lot in life. However… maybe…there’s no harm in being fond of new dresses.”
“And will you give me a lot of dresses when I’m married to you?”
“What an idea!” said the doctor and he could not help frowning. Nellie smiled slyly and, even forgetting herself for a minute, glanced at me.
“However, I’ll give you a dress if you deserve it by your conduct,” the doctor went on.
“And must I take my medicine every day when I’m married to you?”
“Well, then, perhaps you may not have to take medicine always.”
And the doctor began to smile.
Nellie interrupted the conversation by laughing. The old man laughed with her, and watched her merriment affectionately.
“A playful sportive mind!” he observed, turning to me. “But still one can see signs of caprice and a certain whimsicalness and irritability.”
He was right. I could not make out what was happening to her. She seemed utterly unwilling to speak to me, as though I had treated her badly in some way. This was very bitter to me. I frowned myself, and once I did not speak to her for a whole day, but next day I felt ashamed. She was often crying and I hadn’t a notion how to comfort her. On one occasion, however, she broke her silence with me.
One afternoon I returned home just before dusk and saw Nellie hurriedly hide a book under the pillow. It was my novel which she had taken from the table and was reading in my absence. What need had she to hide it from me?” just as though she were ashamed,” I thought, but I showed no sign of having noticed anything. A quarter of an hour later when I went out for a minute into the kitchen she quickly jumped out of bed and put the novel back where it had been before; when I came back I saw it lying on the table. A minute later she called me to her; there was a ring of some emotion in her voice. For the last four days she had hardly spoken to me.
“Are you … to-day … going to see Natasha?” she asked me in a breaking voice,
“Yes, Nellie. It’s very necessary for me to see her to-day.” Nellie did not speak.
“You…are very…fond of her?” she asked again, in a faint voice.
“Yes, Nellie, I’m very fond of her.”
“I love her too,” she added softly.
A silence followed again.
“I want to go to her and to live with her,” Nellie began again, looking at me timidly.
“That’s impossible, Nellie,” I answered, looking at her with some surprise. “Are you so badly off with me?”
“Why is it impossible?” And she flushed crimson. “Why, you were persuading me to go and live with her father; I don’t want to go there. Has she a servant?
“Yes.”
“Well, let her send her servant away, and I’ll be her servant. I’ll do everything for her and not take any wages. I’ll love her, and do her cooking. You tell her so to-day.”
“But what for? What a notion, Nellie! And what an idea you must have of her; do you suppose she would take you as a cook? If she did take you she would take you as an equal, as her younger sister.”
“No, I don’t want to be an equal. I don’t want it like that….”
“Why?”
Nellie was silent. Her lips were twitching. She was on the point of crying.
“The man she loves now is going away from her and leaving her alone now?” she asked at last.
I was surprised.
“Why, how do you know, Nellie?”
“You told me all about it yourself; and the day before yesterday when Alexandra Semyonovna’s husband came in the morning I asked him; he told me everything.”
“Why, did Masloboev come in the morning?”
“Yes,” she answered, dropping her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me he’d been here?”
“I don’t know….”
I reflected for a moment. “Goodness only knows why Masloboev is turning up with his mysteriousness. What sort of terms has he got on to with her? I ought to see him,” I thought.
“Well, what is it to you, Nellie, if he does desert her?”
“Why, you love her so much,” said Nellie, not lifting her eyes to me. “And if you love her you’ll marry her when he goes away.”
“No, Nellie, she doesn’t love me as I love her, and I … no, that won’t happen, Nellie.”
“And I would work for you both as your servant and you’d live and be happy,” she said, almost in a whisper, not looking at me.
“What’s the matter with her? What’s the matter with her?” I thought, and I had a disturbing pang at my heart. Nellie was silent and she didn’t say another word all the evening. When I went out she had been crying, and cried the whole evening, as Alexandra Semyonovna told me, and so fell asleep, crying. She even cried and kept saying something at night in her sleep. But from that day she b
ecame even more sullen and silent, and didn’t speak to me at all. It is true I caught two or three glances stolen at me on the sly, and there was such tenderness in those glances. But this passed, together with the moment that called forth that sudden tenderness, and as though in opposition to this impulse Nellie grew every hour more gloomy even with the doctor, who was amazed at the change in her character. Meanwhile she had almost completely recovered, and the doctor, at last allowed her to go for a walk in the open air, but only for a very short time. It was settled weather, warm and bright. It was Passion Week, which fell that year very late; I went out in the morning; I was obliged to be at Natasha’s and I intended to return earlier in order to take Nellie out for a walk. Meantime I left her alone at home.
I cannot describe what a blow was awaiting me at home. I hurried back. When I arrived I saw that the key was sticking in the outside of the lock. I went in. There was no one there. I was numb with horror. I looked, and on the table was a piece of paper, and written in pencil in a big, uneven handwriting:
“I have gone away, and I shall never come back to you. But I love you very much. — Your faithful Nellie.”
I uttered a cry of horror and rushed out of the flat.
CHAPTER IV
BEFORE I HAD TIME to run out into the street, before I had time to consider how to act, or what to do, I suddenly saw a droshky standing at the gate of our buildings, and Alexandra Semyonovna getting out of it leading Nellie by the arm. She was holding her tightly as though she were afraid she might run away again. I rushed up to them.
“Nellie, what’s the matter?” I cried, “where have you been, why did you go?”
“Stop a minute, don’t be in a hurry; let’s make haste upstairs. There you shall hear all about it,” twittered Alexandra Semyonovna. “The things I have to tell you, Ivan Petrovitch,” she whispered hurriedly on the way. “One can only wonder …Come along, you shall hear immediately.”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 127
