“Natasha,” I said, “there’s only one thing I don’t understand. How can you love him after what you’ve just said about him yourself? You don’t respect him, you don’t even believe in his love, and you’re going to him irrevocably and are ruining everyone for his sake. What’s the meaning of it? He’ll torture you so as to spoil your whole life; yes, and you his, too. You love him too much, Natasha, too much! I don’t understand such love!”
“Yes, I love him as though I were mad,” she answered, turning pale as though in bodily pain. “I never loved you like that, Vanya. I know I’ve gone out of my mind, and don’t love him as I ought to. I don’t love him in the right way…. Listen, Vanya, I knew beforehand, and even in our happiest moments I felt that he would bring me nothing but misery. But what is to be done if even torture from him is happiness to me now? Do you suppose I’m going to him to meet joy? Do you suppose I don’t know beforehand what’s in store for me, or what I shall have to bear from him? Why, he’s sworn to love me, made all sorts of promises; but I don’t trust one of his promises. I don’t set any value on them, and I never have, though I knew he wasn’t lying to me, and can’t lie. I told him myself, myself, that I don’t want to bind him in any way. That’s better with him; no one likes to be tied — I less than any,. And yet I’m glad to be his slave, his willing slave; to put up with anything from him, anything, so long as he is with me, so long as I can look at him! I think he might even love another woman if only I were there, if only I might be near. Isn’t it abject, Vanya?” she asked, suddenly looking at me with a sort of feverish, haggard look. For one instant it seemed to me she was delirious. “Isn’t it abject, such a wish? What if it is? I say that it is abject myself. Yet if he were to abandon me I should run after him to the ends of the earth, even if he were to repulse me, even if he were to drive me away. You try to persuade me to go back — but what use is that? If I went back I should come away tomorrow. He would tell me to and I should come; he would call, would whistle to me like a dog, and I should run to him…. Torture! I don’t shrink from any torture from him! I should know it was at his hands I was suffering! … Oh, there’s no telling it, Vanya!”
“And her father and mother?” I thought. She seemed to have already forgotten them.
“Then he’s not going to marry you, Natasha?”
“He’s promised to. He’s promised everything. It’s for that he’s sent for me now; to be married tomorrow, secretly, out of town. But you see, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Very likely he doesn’t know how one gets married. And what a husband! It’s absurd really. And if he does get married he won’t be happy; he’ll begin to reproach me…. I don’t want him to reproach me with anything, ever. I’ll give up everything for him, and let him do nothing for me! If he’s going to be unhappy from being married, why make him unhappy?”
“Yes, this is a sort of frenzy, Natasha,” said I. “Well, are you going straight to him now?”
“No, he promised to come here to fetch me. We agreed.”
And she looked eagerly into the distance, but as yet there was no one.
“And he’s not here yet. And you’ve come first!” I cried with indignation.
Natasha staggered as though from a blow. Her face worked convulsively.
“He may not come at all,” she said with bitter mockery. The day before yesterday he wrote that if I didn’t give him my word that I’d come, he would be obliged to put off his plan — of going away and marrying me; and his father will take him with him to the young lady. And he wrote it so simply, so naturally, as if it were nothing at all…. What if he really has gone to her, Vanya?”
I did not answer. She squeezed my hand tight, and her eyes glittered.
“He is with her,” she brought out, scarcely audibly. “He hoped I would not come here, so that he might go to her, and say afterwards that he was in the right, that he told me beforehand I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. He’s tired of me, so he stays away. Ach, my God! I’m mad! Why, he told me himself last time that I wearied him…. What am I waiting for?”
“Here he is,” I cried, suddenly catching sight of him on the embankment in the distance.
Natasha started, uttered a shriek, gazed intently at Alyosha’s approaching figure, and suddenly, dropping my hand, rushed to meet him. He, too, quickened his pace, and in a minute she was in his arms.
There was scarcely anyone in the street but ourselves. They kissed each other, laughed; Natasha laughed and cried both together, as though they were meeting after an endless separation. The colour rushed into her pale cheeks. She was like one possessed…. Alyosha noticed me and at once came up to me.
CHAPTER IX
I looked at him eagerly, although I had seen him many times before that minute. I looked into his eyes, as though his expression might explain all that bewildered me, might explain how this boy could enthral her, could arouse in her love so frantic that it made her forget her very first duty and sacrifice all that had been till that moment most holy to her. The prince took both my hands and pressed them warmly, and the look in his eyes, gentle and candid, penetrated to my heart.
I felt that I might be mistaken in my conclusions about him if only from the fact that he was my enemy. Yes, I was not fond of him; and I’m sorry to say I never could care for him — and was perhaps alone among his acquaintances in this. I could not get over my dislike of many things in him, even of his elegant appearance, perhaps, indeed, because it was too elegant. After wards I recognized that I had been prejudiced in my judgement.
He was tall, slender and graceful; his face was rather long and always pale; he had fair hair, large, soft, dreamy, blue eyes, in which there were occasional flashes of the most spontaneous, childish gaiety. The full crimson lips of his small, exquisitely modelled mouth almost always had a grave expression, and this gave a peculiarly unexpected and fascinating charm to the smile which suddenly appeared on them, and was so naive and candid that, whatever mood one was in, one felt instantly tempted to respond to it with a similar smile. He dressed not over-fashionably, but always elegantly; it was evident that this elegance cost him no effort whatever, that it was innate in him.
It is true that he had some unpleasant traits, some of the bad habits characteristic of aristocratic society: frivolity, self-complacency, and polite insolence. But he was so candid and simple at heart that he was the first to blame himself for these defects, to regret them and mock at them. I fancy that this boy could never tell a lie even in jest, or if he did tell one it would be with no suspicion of its being wrong. Even egoism in him was rather her attractive, just perhaps because it was open and not concealed. There was nothing reserved about him. He was weak, confiding, and fainthearted; he had no will whatever. To deceive or injure him would have been as sinful and cruel as deceiving and injuring a child. He was too simple for his age and had scarcely any notion of real life; though, indeed, I believe he would not have any at forty. Men like him are destined never to grow up. I fancy that hardly any man could have disliked him; he was as affectionate as a child. Natasha had spoken truly; he might have been guilty of an evil action if driven to it by some strong influence, but if he had recognized the result of the action afterwards, I believe he would have died of regret. Natasha instinctively felt that she would have mastery and dominion over him that he would even be her victim. She had had a foretaste of the joys of loving passionately and torturing the man that she loved simply because she loved him, and that was why, perhaps, she was in haste to be the first to sacrifice herself. But his eyes, too, were bright with love, and he looked at her rapturously. She looked at me triumphantly. At that instant she forgot