At first when they lived together, there had been a violent quarrel between Alyosha and his father. Prince Valkovsky’s designs at the time to marry his son to Katerina Fyodorovna Filimonov, the countess’s stepdaughter, were so far only a project. But the project was a cherished one. He took Alyosha to see the young lady, coaxed him to try and please her, and attempted to persuade him by arguments and severity. But the plan fell through owing to the countess. Then Alyosha’s father began to shut his eyes to his son’s affair with Natasha, leaving it to time. Knowing Alyosha’s fickleness and frivolity he hoped that the love affair would soon be over. As for the possibility of his marrying Natasha, the prince had till lately ceased to trouble his mind about it. As for the lovers they put off the question till a formal reconciliation with his father was possible, or vaguely till some change of circumstances. And Natasha was evidently unwilling to discuss the subject. Alyosha told me in secret that his father was in a way rather pleased at the whole business. He was pleased at the humiliation of Ichmenyev. For form’s sake, he kept up a show of displeasure with his son, decreased his by no means liberal allowance (he was exceedingly stingy with him), and threatened to stop even that. But he soon went away to Poland in pursuit of the countess, who had business there. He was still as actively set on his project of the match. For though Alyosha was, it is true, rather young to be married, the girl was very wealthy, and it was too good a chance to let slip. The prince at last attained his object. The rumour reached us that the match was at last agreed upon. At the time I am describing, the prince had only just returned to Petersburg. He met his son affectionately, but the persistence of Alyosha’s connexion with Natasha was an unpleasant surprise to him. He began to have doubts, to feel nervous. He sternly and emphatically insisted on his son’s breaking it off, but soon hit upon a much more effectual mode of attack, and carried off Alyosha to the countess. Her step-daughter, though she was scarcely more than a child, was almost a beauty, gay, clever, and sweet, with a heart of rare goodness and a candid, uncorrupted soul. The prince calculated that the lapse of six months must have had some effect, that Natasha could no longer have the charm of novelty, and that his son would not now look at his proposed fiancee with the same eyes as he had six months before. He was only partly right in his reckoning... Alyosha certainly was attracted. I must add that the father became all at once extraordinarily affectionate to him (though he still refused to give him money). Alyosha felt that his father’s greater warmth covered an unchanged, inflexible determination, and he was unhappy-but not so unhappy as he would have been if he had not seen Katerina Fyodorovna every day. I knew that he had not shown himself to Natasha for five days. On my way to her from the Ichmenyevs I guessed uneasily what she wanted to discuss with me. I could see a light in her window a long way off. It had long been arranged between us that she should put a candle in the window if she were in great and urgent need of me, so that if I happened to pass by (and this did happen nearly every evening) I might guess from the light in the window that I was expected and she needed me. Of late she had often put the candle in the window...
Chapter 15
I found Natasha alone. She was slowly walking up and down the room, with her hands clasped on her bosom, lost in thought. A samovar stood on the table almost burnt out. It had been got ready for me long before. With a smile she held out her hand to me without speaking. Her face was pale and had an expression of suffering. There was a look of martyrdom, tenderness, patience, in her smile. Her clear blue eyes seemed to have grown bigger, her hair looked thicker from the wanness and thinness of her face.
“I began to think you weren’t coming,” she said, giving me her hand. “I was meaning to send Mavra to inquire; I was afraid you might be ill again.”
“No, I’m not ill. I was detained. I’ll tell you directly. But what’s the matter, Natasha, what’s happened?”
“Nothing’s happened,” she answered, surprised. “Why?”
“Why, you wrote... you wrote yesterday for me to come, and fixed the hour that I might not come before or after; and that’s not what you usually do.”
“Oh, yes! I was expecting him yesterday.”
“Why, hasn’t be been here yet?”
“No. I thought if he didn’t come I must talk things over with you,” she added, after a pause
“And this evening, did you expect him?”
“No, this evening he’s there.”
“What do you think, Natasha, won’t he come back at all?”
“Of course he’ll come,” she answered, looking at me with peculiar earnestness. She did not like the abruptness of my question. We lapsed into silence, walking up and down the room.
“I’ve been expecting you all this time, Vanya”, she began again with a smile. “And do you know what I was doing? I’ve been walking up and down, reciting poetry. Do you remember the bells, the winter road, ‘My samovar boils on the table of oak’...? We read it together:
“The snowstorm is spent; there’s a glimmer of light
From the millions of dim watching eyes of the night.
“And then:
“There’s the ring of a passionate voice in my ears
In the song of the bell taking part;
Oh, when will my loved one return from afar
To rest on my suppliant heart?
My life is no life! Rosy beams of the Dawn
Are at play on the pane’s icy screen;
My samovar boils on my table of oak,
With the bright crackling fire the dark corner awoke,
And my bed with chintz curtains is seen.
“How fine that is. How tormenting those verses are, Vanya. And what a vivid, fantastic picture! It’s just a canvas with a mere pattern chalked on it. You can embroider what you like! Two sensations: the earliest, and the latest. That samovar, that chintz curtain — how homelike it all is. It’s like some little cottage in our little town at home; I feel as though I could see that cottage: a new one made of logs not yet weather-boarded... And then another picture:
“Of a sudden I hear the same voice ringing out
With the bell; its sad accents I trace;
Oh, where’s my old friend? And I fear he’ll come in
With eager caress and embrace.
What a life, I endure! But my tears are in vain.
Oh, how dreary my room! Through the chinks the wind blows
And outside the house but one cherry-tree grows,
Perhaps that has perished by now though — who knows?
It’s hid by the frost on the pane.
The flowers on the curtain have lost their gay tone,
And I wander sick; all my kinsfolk I shun,
There’s no one to scold me or love me, not one,
The old woman grumbles alone...
‘I wander sick.’ That sick is so well put in. ‘There’s no one to scold me.’ That tenderness,