LITMIR.BIZ

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she came to inquire after my health, Katya usually sat on a chair opposite me and began scrutinising me with her black eyes. And when first she made my acquaintance, she was continually looking me up and down from head to foot with the most naive astonishment. But conversation between us made little progress. I was intimidated by Katya and her abrupt sallies, though I was dying with desire to talk to her.

      “Why don’t you talk?” Katya began after a brief silence.

      “What is your father doing?” I asked, delighted that there was a sentence with which I could always begin a conversation.

      “Nothing. Father’s all right. I had two cups of tea this morning instead of one. How many did you have?”

      “One.”

      Silence again.

      “Falstaff tried to bite me to-day.”

      “Is that the dog?”

      “Yes, the dog. Haven’t you seen him?”

      “Yes, I have seen him.”

      And as again I did not know what to say, Katya stared at me in amazement.

      “Well? Does it cheer you up when I talk to you?”

      “Yes, very much; come oftener.”

      “They told me that it would cheer you up for me to come and see you. But do make haste and get up. I will bring you a cake to-day…. Why are you always silent?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “I suppose you are always thinking?”

      “Yes, I think a lot.”

      “They tell me I talk a lot and don’t think much. There is no harm in talking, is there?”

      “No. I am glad when you talk.”

      “H’m, I will ask Madame Leotard, she knows everything. And what do you think about?”

      “I think about you,” I answered after a brief pause.

      “Does that cheer you up?”

      “Yes.”

      “So you like me, then?”

      “Yes.”

      “Well, I don’t like you yet. You are so thin. But I will bring you some cakes. Well, goodbye.”

      And Katya, kissing me almost in the act of darting away, vanished from the room.

      But after dinner the cake really did make its appearance. She ran in as though she were crazy, laughing with glee at having brought me something to eat which was forbidden.

      “Eat more, eat well. That’s my cake, I did not eat it myself. Well, goodbye!” And she was gone in a flash.

      Another time she suddenly flew in to see me after dinner, not at her usual hour. Her black curls were flying in all directions, her cheeks glowed crimson, her eyes were sparkling; she must have been racing and skipping about for the last hour.

      “Can you play battledore and shuttlecock?” she cried, panting for breath, and speaking quickly in haste to be off again.

      “No,” I answered, deeply regretting that I could not say yes.

      “What a girl! Get well and I’ll teach you. That’s all I came for. I am just having a game with Madame Leotard. Goodbye, they are waiting for me.”

      At last I got up for good, though I was still weak and frail. My first idea was never to be parted from Katya again. Some irresistible force seemed to draw me to her. I could not take my eyes off her, and that surprised Katya. The attraction to her was so powerful, I became so increasingly ardent in my new feeling, that she could not avoid noticing it, and at first it struck her as incredibly strange. I remember that once, in the middle of some game, I could not refrain from throwing myself on her neck and kissing her. She extricated herself from my arms, caught hold of my hands, and frowning at me as though I had offended her in some way, asked me:

      “What is the matter with you? Why are you kissing me?”

      I was confused as though I were in fault, started at her sudden question and made no answer. Katya shrugged her shoulders in token of perplexity (a gesture that was habitual with her), compressed her pouting lips, gave up the game and sat down on the sofa in the corner, whence she scrutinised me for a long time, pondering over something as though considering a new question which had suddenly arisen in her mind. That was her habit, too, when any difficulty arose. On my side, too, I could not for a long while get used to these harsh and abrupt traits of her character.

      At first I blamed myself, and thought that there really must be much that was strange in me. But though that was true, yet I was worried by not understanding why I could not be friends with Katya from the first, and make her like me once and for all. My failure to do so mortified me bitterly, and I was ready to shed tears at every hasty word from Katya, at every mistrustful glance she bent upon me. But my trouble grew not from day to day, but from hour to hour, for with Katya everything moved quickly. A few days later I began to notice that she had not taken to me at all, and was even beginning to feel an aversion for me. Everything in that child took place quickly, abruptly — some might have said roughly, if there had not been a genuine and noble grace in the rapid manifestations of her direct, naively open nature. It began by her feeling at first mistrust and then contempt for me. I think it arose from my complete inability to play any kind of game. Katya was fond of frolicking and racing about, she was strong, lively, agile; I was just the opposite. I was still weak from illness, quiet and dreamy; I did not enjoy playing. In short, I was entirely without the qualities that Katya liked. Moreover, I could not bear people to be displeased with me for anything, I became sad and dispirited at once, so that I had not the energy to smoothe over my offence and alter for the better the unfavourable impression I had made; in fact, I was in a hopeless plight. That Katya could not understand. At first she frightened me; in fact, she would stare at me in amazement, as her habit was after she had sometimes been struggling for a whole hour with me, showing me how to play battledore and shuttlecock without making any progress. And as I immediately became dejected, as tears were ready to gush from my eyes, she would, after considering me two or three times without arriving at any explanation either from me or her reflections, abandon me altogether and begin playing alone, and would give up asking me to join her, and not even say a word to me for days together. This made such an impression on me that I could hardly endure her scorn. My new sort of loneliness seemed almost more unbearable than the old, I began to be sad and brooding, and dark thoughts clouded my soul again.

      Madame Leotard, who looked after us, noticed this change in our relations. And as first of all she noticed me and was struck by my enforced loneliness, she went straight to the little princess and scolded her for not treating me properly. Katya scowled, shrugged her little shoulders, and declared that there was nothing she could do with me — that I didn’t know how to play, that I was always thinking about something, and that she had better wait till her brother Sasha came back from Moscow, and then it would be much livelier for both of them.

      But Madame Leotard was not satisfied with such an answer, and said that Katya was leaving me alone, though I was still ill; that I could not be as merry and playful as Katya; that that was all the better, however, since Katya was too full of mischief; that she was always up to some prank; that the day before yesterday the bulldog had almost bitten her — in fact, Madame Leotard gave her a merciless scolding. She ended by sending her to me, bidding her make it up with me at once.

      Katya listened to Madame Leotard with great attention, as though she really understood something new and just from her observations. Abandoning a hoop which she had been trundling about, she came up to me and, looking at me gravely, asked wonderingly —

      “Do you want to play?”

      “No,” I answered. I had been frightened for myself and for Katya while Madame Leotard was scolding her.

      “What do you want to do?”

      “I will sit still a little; it’s tiring for me to run.

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