A new idea had dawned upon me. I begged the doctor to remain with Natasha for another two or three hours, and made him promise not to leave her for one minute. He promised me and I ran home.
Nellie was sitting in a corner, depressed and uneasy, and she looked at me strangely. I must have looked strange myself.
I took her hand, sat down on the sofa, took her on my knee, and kissed her warmly. She flushed.
“Nellie, my angel!” I said to her, “would you like to be our salvation? Would you like to save us all?”
She looked at me in amazement.
“Nellie, you are my one hope now! There is a father, you’ve seen him and know him. He has cursed his daughter, and he came yesterday to ask you to take his daughter’s place. Now she, Natasha (and you said you loved her), has been abandoned by the man she loved, for whose sake she left her father. He’s the son of that prince who came, do you remember one evening, to see me, and found you alone, and you ran away from him and were ill afterwards…you know him, don’t you? He’s a wicked man!”
“I know,” said Nellie, trembling and turning pale.
“Yes, he’s a wicked man. He hates Natasha because his son Alyosha wanted to marry her. Alyosha went away to-day, and an hour later his father went to Natasha and insulted her, and threatened to put her in a penitentiary, and laughed at her. Do you understand me, Nellie?”
Her black eyes flashed, but she dropped them at once.
“I understand,” she whispered, hardly audibly.
“Now Natasha is alone, ill. I’ve left her with our doctor while I ran to you myself. Listen, Nellie, let us go to Natasha’s father. You don’t like him, you didn’t want to go to him. But now let us go together. We’ll go in and I’ll tell them that you want to stay with them now and to take the place of their daughter Natasha. Her father is ill now, because he has cursed Natasha, and because Alyosha’s father sent him a deadly insult the other day. He won’t hear of his daughter now, but he loves her, he loves her, Nellie, and wants to make peace with her. I know that. I know all that! That is so. Do you hear, Nellie?”
“I hear,” she said in the same whisper.
I spoke to her with my tears flowing. She looked timidly at me.
“Do you believe it?”
“Yes.”
“So I’ll go in with you, I’ll take you in and they’ll receive you, make much of you and begin to question you. Then I’ll turn the conversation so that they will question you about your past life; about your mother and your grandfather. Tell them, Nellie, everything, just as you told it to me. Tell them simply, and don’t keep anything back. Tell them how your mother was abandoned by a wicked man, how she died in a cellar at Mme. Bubnov’s, how your mother and you used to go about the streets begging, what she said, and what she asked you to do when she was dying… Tell them at the same time about your grandfather, how he wouldn’t forgive your mother, and how she sent you to him just before her death how she died. Tell them everything, everything! And when you tell them all that, the old man will feel it all, in his heart, too. You see, he knows Alyosha has left her to-day and she is left insulted and injured, alone and helpless, with no one to protect her from the insults of her enemy. He knows all that … Nellie, save Natasha! Will you go?”
“Yes,” she answered, drawing a painful breath, and she looked at me with a strange, prolonged gaze. There was something like reproach in that gaze, and I felt it in my heart.
But I could not give up my idea. I had too much faith in it. I took Nellie by the arm and we went out. It was past two o’clock in the afternoon. A storm was coming on. For some time past the weather had been hot and stifling, but now we heard in the distance the first rumble of early spring thunder. The wind swept through the dusty streets.
We got into a droshky. Nellie did not utter a word all the way, she only looked at me from time to time with the same strange and enigmatic eyes. Her bosom was heaving, and, holding her on the droshky, I felt against my hand the thumping of her little heart, which seemed as though it would leap out of her body.
CHAPTER VII
THE WAY SEEMED endless to me. At last we arrived and I went in to my old friends with a sinking at my heart. I did not know what my leave-taking would be like, but I knew that at all costs I must not leave their house without having won forgiveness and reconciliation.
It was by now past three. My old friends were, as usual, sitting alone. Nikolay Sergeyitch was unnerved and ill, and lay pale and exhausted, half reclining in his comfortable easy-chair, with his head tied up in a kerchief. Anna Andreyevna was sitting beside him, from time to time moistening his forehead with vinegar, and continually peeping into his face with a questioning and commiserating expression, which seemed to worry and even annoy the old man. He was obstinately silent, and she dared not be the first to speak. Our sudden arrival surprised them both. Anna Andreyevna, for some reason, took fright at once on seeing me with Nellie, and for the first minute looked at us as though she suddenly felt guilty.
“You see, I’ve brought you my Nellie,” I said, going in.
She has made up her mind, and now she has come to you of her own accord. Receive her and love her….”
The old man looked at me suspiciously, and from his eyes alone one could divine that he knew all, that is that Natasha was now alone, deserted, abandoned, and by now perhaps insulted. He was very anxious to learn the meaning of our arrival, and he looked inquiringly at both of us. Nellie was trembling, and tightly squeezing my hand in hers she kept her eyes on the ground and only from time to time stole frightened glances about her like a little wild creature in a snare. But Anna Andreyevna soon recovered herself and grasped the situation. She positively pounced on Nellie, kissed her, petted her, even cried over her, and tenderly made her sit beside her, keeping the child’s hand in hers. Nellie looked at her askance with curiosity and a sort of wonder. But after fondling Nellie and making her sit beside her, the old lady did not know what to do next and began looking at me with naive expectation. The old man frowned, almost suspecting why I had brought Nellie. Seeing that I was noticing his fretful expression and frowning brows, he put his hand to his head and said:
“My head aches, Vanya.”
All this time we sat without speaking. I was considering how to begin. It was twilight in the room, a black storm-cloud was coming over the sky, and there came again a rumble of thunder in the distance.
“We’re getting thunder early this spring,” said the old man. But I remember in ‘37 there were thunderstorms even earlier.”
Anna Andreyevna sighed.
“Shall we have the samovar?” she asked timidly, but no one answered, and she turned to Nellie again.
“What is your name, my darling?” she asked.
Nellie uttered her name in a faint voice, and her head drooped lower than ever. The old man looked at her intently.
“The same as Elena, isn’t it?” Anna Andreyevna went on with more animation.
“Yes,” answered Nellie.
And again a moment of silence followed.
“Praskovya Andreyevna’s sister had a niece whose name was Elena; and she used to be called Nellie, too, I remember,” observed Nikolay Sergeyitch.
“And have you no relations, my darling, neither father nor mother?” Anna Andreyevna asked again.
“No,” Nellie jerked out in a timid whisper.
“I’d heard so, I’d heard so. Is it long since your mother died?”
“No,