No More Learning

You want to
know why I lost my head and was upset for the whole day by the
unexpected visit of a friend? You want to know why I was so startled,
why I blushed when the door of my room was opened, why I was not able to
entertain my visitor, and why I was crushed under the weight of my own
hospitality? "

"Why, yes, yes," answered Nastenka, "that's the point. Listen. You
describe it all splendidly, but couldn't you perhaps describe it a
little less splendidly? You talk as though you were reading it out of a
book. "

"Nastenka," I answered in a stern and dignified voice, hardly able to
keep from laughing, "dear Nastenka, I know I describe splendidly, but,
excuse me, I don't know how else to do it. At this moment, dear
Nastenka, at this moment I am like the spirit of King Solomon when,
after lying a thousand years under seven seals in his urn, those seven
seals were at last taken off. At this moment, Nastenka, when we have met
at last after such a long separation--for I have known you for ages,
Nastenka, because I have been looking for some one for ages, and that is
a sign that it was you I was looking for, and it was ordained that we
should meet now--at this moment a thousand valves have opened in my
head, and I must let myself flow in a river of words, or I shall choke.
And so I beg you not to interrupt me, Nastenka, but listen humbly and
obediently, or I will be silent. "

"No, no, no! Not at all. Go on! I won't say a word! "

"I will continue. There is, my friend Nastenka, one hour in my day which
I like extremely. That is the hour when almost all business, work and
duties are over, and every one is hurrying home to dinner, to lie down,
to rest, and on the way all are cogitating on other more cheerful
subjects relating to their evenings, their nights, and all the rest of
their free time. At that hour our hero--for allow me, Nastenka, to tell
my story in the third person, for one feels awfully ashamed to tell it
in the first person--and so at that hour our hero, who had his work too,
was pacing along after the others. But a strange feeling of pleasure set
his pale, rather crumpled-looking face working. He looked not with
indifference on the evening glow which was slowly fading on the cold
Petersburg sky. When I say he looked, I am lying: he did not look at it,
but saw it as it were without realizing, as though tired or preoccupied
with some other more interesting subject, so that he could scarcely
spare a glance for anything about him. He was pleased because till next
day he was released from business irksome to him, and happy as a
schoolboy let out from the class-room to his games and mischief. Take a
look at him, Nastenka; you will see at once that joyful emotion has
already had an effect on his weak nerves and morbidly excited fancy. You
see he is thinking of something. . . . Of dinner, do you imagine? Of the
evening? What is he looking at like that? Is it at that gentleman of
dignified appearance who is bowing so picturesquely to the lady who
rolls by in a carriage drawn by prancing horses? No, Nastenka; what are
all those trivialities to him now! He is rich now with his _own
individual_ life; he has suddenly become rich, and it is not for
nothing that the fading sunset sheds its farewell gleams so gaily before
him, and calls forth a swarm of impressions from his warmed heart. Now
he hardly notices the road, on which the tiniest details at other times
would strike him. Now 'the Goddess of Fancy' (if you have read
Zhukovsky, dear Nastenka) has already with fantastic hand spun her
golden warp and begun weaving upon it patterns of marvellous magic
life--and who knows, maybe, her fantastic hand has borne him to the
seventh crystal heaven far from the excellent granite pavement on which
he was walking his way? Try stopping him now, ask him suddenly where he
is standing now, through what streets he is going--he will, probably
remember nothing, neither where he is going nor where he is standing
now, and flushing with vexation he will certainly tell some lie to save
appearances. That is why he starts, almost cries out, and looks round
with horror when a respectable old lady stops him politely in the middle
of the pavement and asks her way. Frowning with vexation he strides on,
scarcely noticing that more than one passer-by smiles and turns round to
look after him, and that a little girl, moving out of his way in alarm,
laughs aloud, gazing open-eyed at his broad meditative smile and
gesticulations. But fancy catches up in its playful flight the old
woman, the curious passers-by, and the laughing child, and the peasants
spending their nights in their barges on Fontanka (our hero, let us
suppose, is walking along the canal-side at that moment), and
capriciously weaves every one and everything into the canvas like a fly
in a spider's web. And it is only after the queer fellow has returned to
his comfortable den with fresh stores for his mind to work on, has sat
down and finished his dinner, that he comes to himself, when Matrona who
waits upon him--always thoughtful and depressed--clears the table and
gives him his pipe; he comes to himself then and recalls with surprise
that he has dined, though he has absolutely no notion how it has
happened. It has grown dark in the room; his soul is sad and empty; the
whole kingdom of fancies drops to pieces about him, drops to pieces
without a trace, without a sound, floats away like a dream, and he
cannot himself remember what he was dreaming. But a vague sensation
faintly stirs his heart and sets it aching, some new desire temptingly
tickles and excites his fancy, and imperceptibly evokes a swarm of fresh
phantoms. Stillness reigns in the little room; imagination is fostered
by solitude and idleness; it is faintly smouldering, faintly simmering,
like the water with which old Matrona is making her coffee as she moves
quietly about in the kitchen close by. Now it breaks out spasmodically;
and the book, picked up aimlessly and at random, drops from my dreamer's
hand before he has reached the third page. His imagination is again
stirred and at work, and again a new world, a new fascinating life opens
vistas before him. A fresh dream--fresh happiness! A fresh rush of
delicate, voluptuous poison! What is real life to him! To his corrupted
eyes we live, you and I, Nastenka, so torpidly, slowly, insipidly; in
his eyes we are all so dissatisfied with our fate, so exhausted by our
life! And, truly, see how at first sight everything is cold, morose, as
though ill-humoured among us. . . . Poor things! thinks our dreamer. And it
is no wonder that he thinks it! Look at these magic phantasms, which so
enchantingly, so whimsically, so carelessly and freely group before him
in such a magic, animated picture, in which the most prominent figure in
the foreground is of course himself, our dreamer, in his precious
person. See what varied adventures, what an endless swarm of ecstatic
dreams. You ask, perhaps, what he is dreaming of. Why ask that? --why, of
everything . . . of the lot of the poet, first unrecognized, then crowned
with laurels; of friendship with Hoffmann, St. Bartholomew's Night, of
Diana Vernon, of playing the hero at the taking of Kazan by Ivan
Vassilyevitch, of Clara Mowbray, of Effie Deans, of the council of the
prelates and Huss before them, of the rising of the dead in 'Robert the
Devil' (do you remember the music, it smells of the churchyard! ), of
Minna and Brenda, of the battle of Berezina, of the reading of a poem at
Countess V. D. 's, of Danton, of Cleopatra _ei suoi amanti_, of a
little house in Kolomna, of a little home of one's own and beside one a
dear creature who listens to one on a winter's evening, opening her
little mouth and eyes as you are listening to me now, my angel. . . . No,
Nastenka, what is there, what is there for him, voluptuous sluggard, in
this life, for which you and I have such a longing? He thinks that this
is a poor pitiful life, not foreseeing that for him too, maybe, sometime
the mournful hour may strike, when for one day of that pitiful life he
would give all his years of phantasy, and would give them not only for
joy and for happiness, but without caring to make distinctions in that
hour of sadness, remorse and unchecked grief. But so far that
threatening has not arrived--he desires nothing, because he is superior
to all desire, because he has everything, because he is satiated,
because he is the artist of his own life, and creates it for himself
every hour to suit his latest whim. And you know this fantastic world of
fairyland is so easily, so naturally created! As though it were not a
delusion! Indeed, he is ready to believe at some moments that all this
life is not suggested by feeling, is not mirage, not a delusion of the
imagination, but that it is concrete, real, substantial! Why is it,
Nastenka, why is it at such moments one holds one's breath? Why, by what
sorcery, through what incomprehensible caprice, is the pulse quickened,
does a tear start from the dreamer's eye, while his pale moist cheeks
glow, while his whole being is suffused with an inexpressible sense of
consolation? Why is it that whole sleepless nights pass like a flash in
inexhaustible gladness and happiness, and when the dawn gleams rosy at
the window and daybreak floods the gloomy room with uncertain, fantastic
light, as in Petersburg, our dreamer, worn out and exhausted, flings
himself on his bed and drops asleep with thrills of delight in his
morbidly overwrought spirit, and with a weary sweet ache in his heart?
Yes, Nastenka, one deceives oneself and unconsciously believes that real
true passion is stirring one's soul; one unconsciously believes that
there is something living, tangible in one's immaterial dreams! And is
it delusion? Here love, for instance, is bound up with all its
fathomless joy, all its torturing agonies in his bosom. . . . Only look at
him, and you will be convinced! Would you believe, looking at him, dear
Nastenka, that he has never known her whom he loves in his ecstatic
dreams? Can it be that he has only seen her in seductive visions, and
that this passion has been nothing but a dream? Surely they must have
spent years hand in hand together--alone the two of them, casting off
all the world and each uniting his or her life with the other's? Surely
when the hour of parting came she must have lain sobbing and grieving on
his bosom, heedless of the tempest raging under the sullen sky, heedless
of the wind which snatches and bears away the tears from her black
eyelashes? Can all of that have been a dream--and that garden, dejected,
forsaken, run wild, with its little moss-grown paths, solitary, gloomy,
where they used to walk so happily together, where they hoped, grieved,
loved, loved each other so long, "so long and so fondly? " And that queer
ancestral house where she spent so many years lonely and sad with her
morose old husband, always silent and splenetic, who frightened them,
while timid as children they hid their love from each other? What
torments they suffered, what agonies of terror, how innocent, how pure
was their love, and how (I need hardly say, Nastenka) malicious people
were! And, good Heavens! surely he met her afterwards, far from their
native shores, under alien skies, in the hot south in the divinely
eternal city, in the dazzling splendour of the ball to the crash of
music, in a _palazzo_ (it must be in a _palazzo_), drowned in
a sea of lights, on the balcony, wreathed in myrtle and roses, where,
recognizing him, she hurriedly removes her mask and whispering, 'I am
free,' flings herself trembling into his arms, and with a cry of
rapture, clinging to one another, in one instant they forget their
sorrow and their parting and all their agonies, and the gloomy house and
the old man and the dismal garden in that distant land, and the seat on
which with a last passionate kiss she tore herself away from his arms
numb with anguish and despair. . . . Oh, Nastenka, you must admit that one
would start, betray confusion, and blush like a schoolboy who has just
stuffed in his pocket an apple stolen from a neighbour's garden, when
your uninvited visitor, some stalwart, lanky fellow, a festive soul fond
of a joke, opens your door and shouts out as though nothing were
happening: 'My dear boy, I have this minute come from Pavlovsk. ' My
goodness! the old count is dead, unutterable happiness is close at
hand--and people arrive from Pavlovsk! "

Finishing my pathetic appeal, I paused pathetically. I remembered that I
had an intense desire to force myself to laugh, for I was already
feeling that a malignant demon was stirring within me, that there was a
lump in my throat, that my chin was beginning to twitch, and that my
eyes were growing more and more moist.

I expected Nastenka, who listened to me opening her clever eyes, would
break into her childish, irrepressible laugh; and I was already
regretting that I had gone so far, that I had unnecessarily described
what had long been simmering in my heart, about which I could speak as
though from a written account of it, because I had long ago passed
judgment on myself and now could not resist reading it, making my
confession, without expecting to be understood; but to my surprise she
was silent, waiting a little, then she faintly pressed my hand and with
timid sympathy asked--

"Surely you haven't lived like that all your life? "

"All my life, Nastenka," I answered; "all my life, and it seems to me I
shall go on so to the end. "

"No, that won't do," she said uneasily, "that must not be; and so,
maybe, I shall spend all my life beside grandmother. Do you know, it is
not at all good to live like that? "

"I know, Nastenka, I know! " I cried, unable to restrain my feelings
longer. "And I realize now, more than ever, that I have lost all my best
years! And now I know it and feel it more painfully from recognizing
that God has sent me you, my good angel, to tell me that and show it.
Now that I sit beside you and talk to you it is strange for me to think
of the future, for in the future--there is loneliness again, again this
musty, useless life; and what shall I have to dream of when I have been
so happy in reality beside you! Oh, may you be blessed, dear girl, for
not having repulsed me at first, for enabling me to say that for two
evenings, at least, I have lived. "

"Oh, no, no! " cried Nastenka and tears glistened in her eyes. "No, it
mustn't be so any more; we must not part like that! what are two
evenings? "

"Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! Do you know how far you have reconciled me to
myself? Do you know now that I shall not think so ill of myself, as I
have at some moments? Do you know that, maybe, I shall leave off
grieving over the crime and sin of my life? for such a life is a crime
and a sin. And do not imagine that I have been exaggerating
anything--for goodness' sake don't think that, Nastenka: for at times
such misery comes over me, such misery. . . . Because it begins to seem to
me at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in real life,
because it has seemed to me that I have lost all touch, all instinct for
the actual, the real; because at last I have cursed myself; because
after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sobriety, which
are awful! Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in the
vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men living in reality; you
see that life for them is not forbidden, that their life does not float
away like a dream, like a vision; that their life is being eternally
renewed, eternally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as
another; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to vulgarity and
easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the idea, the slave of the first
cloud that shrouds the sun, and overcasts with depression the true
Petersburg heart so devoted to the sun--and what is fancy in depression!
One feels that this _inexhaustible_ fancy is weary at last and worn
out with continual exercise, because one is growing into manhood,
outgrowing one's old ideals: they are being shattered into fragments,
into dust; if there is no other life one must build one up from the
fragments. And meanwhile the soul longs and craves for something else!
And in vain the dreamer rakes over his old dreams, as though seeking a
spark among the embers, to fan them into flame, to warm his chilled
heart by the rekindled fire, and to rouse up in it again all that was so
sweet, that touched his heart, that set his blood boiling, drew tears
from his eyes, and so luxuriously deceived him! Do you know, Nastenka,
the point I have reached? Do you know that I am forced now to celebrate
the anniversary of my own sensations, the anniversary of that which was
once so sweet, which never existed in reality--for this anniversary is
kept in memory of those same foolish, shadowy dreams--and to do this
because those foolish dreams are no more, because I have nothing to earn
them with; you know even dreams do not come for nothing! Do you know
that I love now to recall and visit at certain dates the places where I
was once happy in my own way? I love to build up my present in harmony
with the irrevocable past, and I often wander like a shadow, aimless,
sad and dejected, about the streets and crooked lanes of Petersburg.
What memories they are! To remember, for instance, that here just a year
ago, just at this time, at this hour, on this pavement, I wandered just
as lonely, just as dejected as to-day. And one remembers that then one's
dreams were sad, and though the past was no better one feels as though
it had somehow been better, and that life was more peaceful, that one
was free from the black thoughts that haunt one now; that one was free
from the gnawing of conscience--the gloomy, sullen gnawing which now
gives me no rest by day or by night. And one asks oneself where are
one's dreams. And one shakes one's head and says how rapidly the years
fly by! And again one asks oneself what has one done with one's years.
Where have you buried your best days? Have you lived or not? Look, one
says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years
will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old
age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation. Your
fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will
fall like the yellow leaves from the trees. . . . Oh, Nastenka! you know it
will be sad to be left alone, utterly alone, and to have not even
anything to regret--nothing, absolutely nothing . . . for all that you
have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple nullity, there has
been nothing but dreams! "

"Come, don't work on my feelings any more," said Nastenka, wiping away a
tear which was trickling down her cheek. "Now it's over! Now we shall be
two together. Now, whatever happens to me, we will never part. Listen; I
am a simple girl, I have not had much education, though grandmother did
get a teacher for me, but truly I understand you, for all that you have
described I have been through myself, when grandmother pinned me to her
dress. Of course, I should not have described it so well as you have; I
am not educated," she added timidly, for she was still feeling a sort of
respect for my pathetic eloquence and lofty style; "but I am very glad
that you have been quite open with me. Now I know you thoroughly, all of
you. And do you know what? I want to tell you my history too, all
without concealment, and after that you must give me advice. You are a
very clever man; will you promise to give me advice? "

"Ah, Nastenka," I cried, "though I have never given advice, still less
sensible advice, yet I see now that if we always go on like this that it
will be very sensible, and that each of us will give the other a great
deal of sensible advice! Well, my pretty Nastenka, what sort of advice
do you want? Tell me frankly; at this moment I am so gay and happy, so
bold and sensible, that it won't be difficult for me to find words. "

"No, no! " Nastenka interrupted, laughing. "I don't only want sensible
advice, I want warm brotherly advice, as though you had been fond of me
all your life! "

"Agreed, Nastenka, agreed! " I cried delighted; "and if I had been fond
of you for twenty years, I couldn't have been fonder of you than I am
now. "

"Your hand," said Nastenka.

"Here it is," said I, giving her my hand.

"And so let us begin my history! "


NASTENKA'S HISTORY

"Half my story you know already--that is, you know that I have an old
grandmother. . . . "

"If the other half is as brief as that . . . " I interrupted, laughing.

"Be quiet and listen. First of all you must agree not to interrupt me,
or else, perhaps I shall get in a muddle! Come, listen quietly.

"I have an old grandmother. I came into her hands when I was quite a
little girl, for my father and mother are dead. It must be supposed that
grandmother was once richer, for now she recalls better days. She taught
me French, and then got a teacher for me. When I was fifteen (and now I
am seventeen) we gave up having lessons. It was at that time that I got
into mischief; what I did I won't tell you; it's enough to say that it
wasn't very important. But grandmother called me to her one morning and
said that as she was blind she could not look after me; she took a pin
and pinned my dress to hers, and said that we should sit like that for
the rest of our lives if, of course, I did not become a better girl. In
fact, at first it was impossible to get away from her: I had to work, to
read and to study all beside grandmother. I tried to deceive her once,
and persuaded Fekla to sit in my place. Fekla is our charwoman, she is
deaf. Fekla sat there instead of me; grandmother was asleep in her
armchair at the time, and I went off to see a friend close by. Well, it
ended in trouble. Grandmother woke up while I was out, and asked some
questions; she thought I was still sitting quietly in my place.
Fekla
saw that grandmother was asking her something, but could not tell what
it was; she wondered what to do, undid the pin and ran away. . . . "

At this point Nastenka stopped and began laughing. I laughed with her.
She left off at once.

"I tell you what, don't you laugh at grandmother. I laugh because it's
funny. . . . What can I do, since grandmother is like that; but yet I am
fond of her in a way. Oh, well, I did catch it that time. I had to sit
down in my place at once, and after that I was not allowed to stir.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that our house belongs to us, that is to
grandmother; it is a little wooden house with three windows as old as
grandmother herself, with a little upper storey; well, there moved into
our upper storey a new lodger. "

"Then you had an old lodger," I observed casually.

"Yes, of course," answered Nastenka, "and one who knew how to hold his
tongue better than you do. In fact, he hardly ever used his tongue at
all. He was a dumb, blind, lame, dried-up little old man, so that at
last he could not go on living, he died; so then we had to find a new
lodger, for we could not live without a lodger--the rent, together with
grandmother's pension, is almost all we have. But the new lodger, as
luck would have it, was a young man, a stranger not of these parts. As
he did not haggle over the rent, grandmother accepted him, and only
afterwards she asked me: 'Tell me, Nastenka, what is our lodger like--is
he young or old? ' I did not want to lie, so I told grandmother that he
wasn't exactly young and that he wasn't old.

"'And is he pleasant looking? ' asked grandmother.

"Again I did not want to tell a lie: 'Yes, he is pleasant looking,
grandmother,' I said. And grandmother said: 'Oh, what a nuisance, what a
nuisance! I tell you this, grandchild, that you may not be looking after
him. What times these are! Why a paltry lodger like this, and he must be
pleasant looking too; it was very different in the old days! '"

"Grandmother was always regretting the old days--she was younger in old
days, and the sun was warmer in old days, and cream did not turn so sour
in old days--it was always the old days! I would sit still and hold my
tongue and think to myself: why did grandmother suggest it to me? Why
did she ask whether the lodger was young and good-looking? But that was
all, I just thought it, began counting my stitches again, went on
knitting my stocking, and forgot all about it.

"Well, one morning the lodger came in to see us; he asked about a
promise to paper his rooms. One thing led to another. Grandmother was
talkative, and she said: 'Go, Nastenka, into my bedroom and bring me my
reckoner. ' I jumped up at once; I blushed all over, I don't know why,
and forgot I was sitting pinned to grandmother; instead of quietly
undoing the pin, so that the lodger should not see--I jumped so that
grandmother's chair moved. When I saw that the lodger knew all about me
now, I blushed, stood still as though I had been shot, and suddenly
began to cry--I felt so ashamed and miserable at that minute, that I
didn't know where to look! Grandmother called out, 'What are you waiting
for? ' and I went on worse than ever. When the lodger saw, saw that I was
ashamed on his account, he bowed and went away at once!

"After that I felt ready to die at the least sound in the passage. 'It's
the lodger,' I kept thinking; I stealthily undid the pin in case. But it
always turned out not to be, he never came. A fortnight passed; the
lodger sent word through Fyokla that he had a great number of French
books, and that they were all good books that I might read, so would not
grandmother like me to read them that I might not be dull? Grandmother
agreed with gratitude, but kept asking if they were moral books, for if
the books were immoral it would be out of the question, one would learn
evil from them. "

"'And what should I learn, grandmother? What is there written in them? '

"'Ah,' she said, 'what's described in them, is how young men seduce
virtuous girls; how, on the excuse that they want to marry them, they
carry them off from their parents' houses; how afterwards they leave
these unhappy girls to their fate, and they perish in the most pitiful
way. I read a great many books,' said grandmother, 'and it is all so
well described that one sits up all night and reads them on the sly. So
mind you don't read them, Nastenka,' said she. 'What books has he sent? '

"'They are all Walter Scott's novels, grandmother. '

"'Walter Scott's novels! But stay, isn't there some trick about it?
Look, hasn't he stuck a love-letter among them? '

"'No, grandmother,' I said, 'there isn't a love-letter. '

"'But look under the binding; they sometimes stuff it under the
bindings, the rascals! '

"'No, grandmother, there is nothing under the binding. '

"'Well, that's all right. '

"So we began reading Walter Scott, and in a month or so we had read
almost half. Then he sent us more and more. He sent us Pushkin, too; so
that at last I could not get on without a book and left off dreaming of
how fine it would be to marry a Chinese Prince.

"That's how things were when I chanced one day to meet our lodger on the
stairs. Grandmother had sent me to fetch something. He stopped, I
blushed and he blushed; he laughed, though, said good-morning to me,
asked after grandmother, and said, 'Well, have you read the books? ' I
answered that I had. 'Which did you like best? ' he asked. I said,
'Ivanhoe, and Pushkin best of all,' and so our talk ended for that time.

"A week later I met him again on the stairs. That time grandmother had
not sent me, I wanted to get something for myself. It was past two, and
the lodger used to come home at that time. 'Good-afternoon,' said he. I
said good-afternoon, too.

"'Aren't you dull,' he said, 'sitting all day with your grandmother? '

"When he asked that, I blushed, I don't know why; I felt ashamed, and
again I felt offended--I suppose because other people had begun to ask
me about that. I wanted to go away without answering, but I hadn't the
strength.

"'Listen,' he said, 'you are a good girl. Excuse my speaking to you like
that, but I assure you that I wish for your welfare quite as much as
your grandmother. Have you no friends that you could go and visit? '

"I told him I hadn't any, that I had had no friend but Mashenka, and she
had gone away to Pskov.

"'Listen,' he said, 'would you like to go to the theatre with me? '

"'To the theatre. What about grandmother? '

"'But you must go without your grandmother's knowing it,' he said.

"'No,' I said, 'I don't want to deceive grandmother. Good-bye. '

"'Well, good-bye,' he answered, and said nothing more.

"Only after dinner he came to see us; sat a long time talking to
grandmother; asked her whether she ever went out anywhere, whether she
had acquaintances, and suddenly said: 'I have taken a box at the opera
for this evening; they are giving _The Barber of Seville_. My friends
meant to go, but afterwards refused, so the ticket is left on my hands. '
'_The Barber of Seville_,' cried grandmother; 'why, the same they used
to act in old days? '

"'Yes, it's the same barber,' he said, and glanced at me. I saw what it
meant and turned crimson, and my heart began throbbing with suspense.

"'To be sure, I know it,' said grandmother; 'why, I took the part of
Rosina myself in old days, at a private performance! '

"'So wouldn't you like to go to-day? ' said the lodger. 'Or my ticket
will be wasted. '

"'By all means let us go,' said grandmother; why shouldn't we? And my
Nastenka here has never been to the theatre. '

"My goodness, what joy! We got ready at once, put on our best clothes,
and set off. Though grandmother was blind, still she wanted to hear the
music; besides, she is a kind old soul, what she cared most for was to
amuse me, we should never have gone of ourselves.

"What my impressions of _The Barber of Seville_ were I won't tell you;
but all that evening our lodger looked at me so nicely, talked so
nicely, that I saw at once that he had meant to test me in the morning
when he proposed that I should go with him alone. Well, it was joy! I
went to bed so proud, so gay, my heart beat so that I was a little
feverish, and all night I was raving about _The Barber of Seville_.

"I expected that he would come and see us more and more often after
that, but it wasn't so at all. He almost entirely gave up coming. He
would just come in about once a month, and then only to invite us to the
theatre. We went twice again. Only I wasn't at all pleased with that; I
saw that he was simply sorry for me because I was so hardly treated by
grandmother, and that was all. As time went on, I grew more and more
restless, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't read, I couldn't work;
sometimes I laughed and did something to annoy grandmother, at another
time I would cry. At last I grew thin and was very nearly ill. The opera
season was over, and our lodger had quite given up coming to see us;
whenever we met--always on the same staircase, of course--he would bow
so silently, so gravely, as though he did not want to speak, and go down
to the front door, while I went on standing in the middle of the stairs,
as red as a cherry, for all the blood rushed to my head at the sight of
him.

"Now the end is near. Just a year ago, in May, the lodger came to us and
said to grandmother that he had finished his business here, and that he
must go back to Moscow for a year. When I heard that, I sank into a
chair half dead; grandmother did not notice anything; and having
informed us that he should be leaving us, he bowed and went away.

"What was I to do? I thought and thought and fretted and fretted, and at
last I made up my mind. Next day he was to go away, and I made up my
mind to end it all that evening when grandmother went to bed. And so it
happened. I made up all my clothes in a parcel--all the linen I
needed--and with the parcel in my hand, more dead than alive, went
upstairs to our lodger. I believe I must have stayed an hour on the
staircase. When I opened his door he cried out as he looked at me. He
thought I was a ghost, and rushed to give me some water, for I could
hardly stand up. My heart beat so violently that my head ached, and I
did not know what I was doing. When I recovered I began by laying my
parcel on his bed, sat down beside it, hid my face in my hands and went
into floods of tears. I think he understood it all at once, and looked
at me so sadly that my heart was torn.

"'Listen,' he began, 'listen, Nastenka, I can't do anything; I am a poor
man, for I have nothing, not even a decent berth. How could we live, if
I were to marry you? '

"We talked a long time; but at last I got quite frantic, I said I could
not go on living with grandmother, that I should run away from her, that
I did not want to be pinned to her, and that I would go to Moscow if he
liked, because I could not live without him. Shame and pride and love
were all clamouring in me at once, and I fell on the bed almost in
convulsions, I was so afraid of a refusal.

"He sat for some minutes in silence, then got up, came up to me and took
me by the hand.

"'Listen, my dear good Nastenka, listen; I swear to you that if I am
ever in a position to marry, you shall make my happiness. I assure you
that now you are the only one who could make me happy. Listen, I am
going to Moscow and shall be there just a year; I hope to establish my
position. When I come back, if you still love me, I swear that we will
be happy. Now it is impossible, I am not able, I have not the right to
promise anything. Well, I repeat, if it is not within a year it will
certainly be some time; that is, of course, if you do not prefer any one
else, for I cannot and dare not bind you by any sort of promise. '

"That was what he said to me, and next day he went away. We agreed
together not to say a word to grandmother: that was his wish. Well, my
history is nearly finished now. Just a year has past. He has arrived; he
has been here three days, and, and----"

"And what? " I cried, impatient to hear the end.

"And up to now has not shown himself! " answered Nastenka, as though
screwing up all her courage. "There's no sign or sound of him. "

Here she stopped, paused for a minute, bent her head, and covering her
face with her hands broke into such sobs that it sent a pang to my heart
to hear them. I had not in the least expected such a _dénouement_.

"Nastenka," I began timidly in an ingratiating voice, "Nastenka! For
goodness' sake don't cry! How do you know? Perhaps he is not here
yet. . . . "

"He is, he is," Nastenka repeated. "He is here, and I know it. We _made
an agreement_ at the time, that evening, before he went away: when we
said all that I have told you, and had come to an understanding, then we
came out here for a walk on this embankment. It was ten o'clock; we sat
on this seat. I was not crying then; it was sweet to me to hear what he
said. . . . And he said that he would come to us directly he arrived, and
if I did not refuse him, then we would tell grandmother about it all.
Now he is here, I know it, and yet he does not come! "

And again she burst into tears.

"Good God, can I do nothing to help you in your sorrow? " I cried jumping
up from the seat in utter despair. "Tell me, Nastenka, wouldn't it be
possible for me to go to him? "

"Would that be possible? " she asked suddenly, raising her head.

"No, of course not," I said pulling myself up; "but I tell you what,
write a letter. "

"No, that's impossible, I can't do that," she answered with decision,
bending her head and not looking at me.

"How impossible--why is it impossible? " I went on, clinging to my idea.
"But, Nastenka, it depends what sort of letter; there are letters and
letters and. . . . Ah, Nastenka, I am right; trust to me, trust to me, I
will not give you bad advice. It can all be arranged! You took the first
step--why not now? "

"I can't. I can't! It would seem as though I were forcing myself on
him. . . . "

"Ah, my good little Nastenka," I said, hardly able to conceal a smile;
"no, no, you have a right to, in fact, because he made you a promise.
Besides, I can see from everything that he is a man of delicate feeling;
that he behaved very well," I went on, more and more carried away by the
logic of my own arguments and convictions. "How did he behave? He bound
himself by a promise: he said that if he married at all he would marry
no one but you; he gave you full liberty to refuse him at once. . . . Under
such circumstances you may take the first step; you have the right; you
are in the privileged position--if, for instance, you wanted to free him
from his promise. . .