LITMIR.BIZ

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8

      She walked with her head down, rapidly, in silence, without looking at me. But as she came out of the street on to the embankment she stopped short, and took my arm.

      “I’m stifling,” she whispered. “My heart grips me... I’m stifling.”

      “Come back, Natasha,” I cried in alarm.

      “Surely you must have seen, Vanya, that I’ve gone away for ever, left them for ever, and shall never go back,” she said, looking at me with inexpressible anguish.

      My heart sank. I had foreseen all this on my way to them. I had seen it all as it were in a mist, long before that day perhaps, yet now her words fell upon me like a thunderbolt.

      We walked miserably along the embankment. I could not speak. I was reflecting, trying to think, and utterly at a loss. My heart was in a whirl. It seemed so hideous, so impossible!

      “You blame me, Vanya?” she said at last.

      “No... but... but I can’t believe it; it cannot be!” I answered, not knowing what I was saying.

      “Yes, Vanya, it really is so! I have gone away from them and I don’t know what will become of them or what will become of me!”

      “You’re going to him, Natasha? Yes?”

      “Yes,” she answered.

      “But that’s impossible!” I cried frantically. “Don’t you

      understand that it’s impossible, Natasha, my poor girl! Why, it’s madness. Why you’ll kill them, and ruin yourself! Do you understand that, Natasha?”

      “I know; but what am I to do? I can’t help it,” she said and her voice was as full of anguish as though she were facing the scaffold.

      “Come back, come back, before it’s too late,” I besought her; and the more warmly, the more emphatically I implored her, the more I realized the uselessness of my entreaties, and the absurdity of them at that moment. “Do you understand, Natasha, what you are doing to your father? Have you thought of that? You know his father is your father’s enemy. Why, the prince has insulted your father, has accused him of stealing money; why, he called him a thief. You know why they’ve gone to law with one another... Good heavens! and that’s not the worst. Do you know, Natasha (Oh, God, of course you know it all!)... do you know that the prince suspected your father and mother of having thrown you and Alyosha together on purpose, when Alyosha was staying in the country with you? Think a minute, only fancy what you father went through then owing to that slander; why, his hair has turned grey in these two years! Look at him! And what’s more, you know all this, Natasha. Good heavens! To say nothing of what it will mean to them both to lose you for ever. Why, you’re their treasure, all that is left them in their old age. I don’t want to speak of that, you must know it for yourself. Remember that your father thinks you have been slandered without cause, insulted by these snobs, unavenged! And now, at this very time, it’s all flared up again, all this old rankling enmity has grown more bitter than ever, because you have received Alyosha. The prince has insulted your father again. The old man’s anger is still hot at this fresh affront, and suddenly now all this, all this, all these accusations will turn out to be true! Everyone who knows about it will justify the prince now, and throw the blame on you and your father. Why, what will become of him now? It will kill him outright! Shame, disgrace, and through whom? Through you, his daughter, his one precious child! And your mother? Why, she won’t outlive your old father, you know. Natasha, Natasha! What are you about? Turn back! Think what you are doing!”

      She did not speak. At last she glanced at me, as it were, reproachfully. And there was such piercing anguish, such suffering in her eyes that I saw that apart from my words her wounded heart was bleeding already. I saw what her decision was costing her, and how I was torturing her, lacerating her with my useless words that came too late. I saw all that, and yet I could not restrain myself and went on speaking.

      “Why, you said yourself just now to Anna Andreyevna that perhaps you would not go out of the house... to the service, So you meant to stay; so you were still hesitating?”

      She only smiled bitterly in reply. And why did I ask that? I might have understood that all was irrevocably settled. But I was beside myself, too.

      “Can you love him so much?” I cried, looking at her with a sinking at the heart, scarcely knowing what I was asking.

      “What can I say to you, Vanya? You see, he told me to come, and here I am waiting for him,” she said with the same bitter smile.

      “But listen, only listen,” I began again, catching at a straw; “this can all be arranged differently, quite differently; you need not go away from the house. I’ll tell you how to manage, Natasha. I’ll undertake to arrange it all for you, meetings, and everything. Only don’t leave home. I will carry your letters; why not? It would be better than what you’re doing. I know how to arrange it; I’ll do anything for both of you. You’ll see. And then you won’t ruin yourself, Natasha, dear, as you’re doing... For you’ll ruin yourself hopelessly, as it is, hopelessly. Only agree, Natasha, and everything will go well and happily, and you can love each other as much as you like. And when your fathers have left off quarrelling (for they’re bound to leave off some day) — then...”

      “Enough, Vanya, stop!” she interrupted, pressing my hand tightly, and smiling through her tears. “Dear, kind Vanya! You’re a good, honourable man! And not one word of yourself! I’ve deserted you, and you forgive everything, you think of nothing but my happiness. You are ready to carry letters for us.”

      She burst into tears.

      “I know how you loved me, Vanya, and how you love me still, and you’ve not reproached me with one bitter word all this time, while I, I... my God I how badly I’ve treated you! Do you remember, Vanya, do you remember our time together? It would have been better if I’d never met him; never seen him! I could have lived with you, with you, dear, kind Vanya, my dear one. No, I’m not worthy of you! You see what I am; at such a minute I remind you of our past happiness, though you’re wretched enough without that! Here you’ve not been to see us for three weeks: I swear to you, Vanya, the thought never once entered my head that you hated me and had cursed me. I knew why you did not come! You did not want to be in our way and to be a living reproach to us. And wouldn’t it have been painful for you to see us? And how I’ve missed you, Vanya, how I’ve missed you! Vanya, listen, if I love Alyosha madly, insanely, yet perhaps I love you even more as a friend. I feel, I know that I couldn’t go on living without you. I need you. I need your soul, your heart of gold... Oh, Vanya, what a bitter, terrible time is before us!”

      She burst into a flood of tears; yes, she was very wretched.

      “Oh, how I have been longing to see you,” she went on, mastering her tears. “How thin you’ve grown, how ill and pale you are. You really have been ill, haven’t you, Vanya? And I haven’t even asked! I keep talking of myself. How are you getting on with the reviewers now? what about your new novel? Is it going well?”

      “As though we could talk about novels, as though we could talk about me now, Natasha! As though my work mattered. That’s all right, let it be! But tell me, Natasha, did he insist himself that you should go to him?”

      “No, not only he, it was more I. He did say so, certainly, but I too... You see, dear, I’ll tell you everything; they’re making a match for him with a very rich girl, of very high rank and related to very grand people. His father absolutely insists on his marrying her, and his father, as you know, is an awful schemer; he sets every spring working; and it’s a chance that wouldn’t come once in ten years... Connexions, money... and they say she’s very pretty, and she has education, a good heart, everything good; Alyosha’s attracted by her already, and what’s more his father’s very anxious to get it over, so as to get married himself. And so he’s determined to break it off between us. He’s afraid of me and my influence on Alyosha...”

      “But do you mean to say that the prince knows of your love?” I interrupted in surprise. “Surely he only suspects it;

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