It was nearly one O’clock by the time I got home.
Nellie opened the door to me with a sleepy face.
She smiled and looked at me brightly.
The poor child was very much vexed with herself for having fallen asleep.
She had been very anxious to sit up for me.
She told me someone had been and inquired for me, had sat and waited for a time, and had left a note on the table for me.
The note was from Masloboev.
He asked me to go to him next day between twelve and one.
I wanted to question Nellie, but I put it off till next morning, insisting that she should go to bed at once. The poor child was tired as it was with sitting up for me, and had only fallen asleep half an hour before I came in.
Chapter V
IN the morning Nellie told me some rather strange details about the visit of the previous evening.
Indeed, the very fact that Masloboev had taken it into his head to come that evening at all was strange. He knew for a fact that I should not be at home. I had warned him of it myself at our last meeting, and I remembered it distinctly.
Nellie told me that at first she had been unwilling to open the door, because she was afraid – it was eight o’clock in the evening.
But he persuaded her to do so through the door, assuring her that if he did not leave a note for me that evening it would be very bad for me next day.
When she let him in he wrote the note at once, went up to her, and sat down beside her on the sofa.
“I got up, and didn’t want to talk to him,” said Nellie. “I was very much afraid of him; he began to talk of Mme. Bubnov, telling me how angry she was, that now she wouldn’t dare to take me, and began praising you; said that he was a great friend of yours and had known you as a little boy.
Then I began to talk to him.
He brought out some sweets, and asked me to take some. I didn’t want to; then he began to assure me he was a goodnatured man, and that he could sing and dance. He jumped up and began dancing.
It made me laugh.
Then he said he’d stay a little longer – ‘I’ll wait for Vanya, maybe he’ll come in’; and he did his best to persuade me not to be afraid of him, but to sit down beside him.
I sat down, but I didn’t want to say anything to him.
Then he told me he used to know mother and grandfather and then I began to talk, And he stayed a long time ...”
“What did you talk about?”
“About mother ... Mme. Bubnov ... grandfather.
He stayed two hours.”
Nellie seemed unwilling to say what they had talked about.
I did not question her, hoping to hear it all from Masloboev.
But it struck me that Masloboev had purposely come when I was out, in order to find Nellie alone.
“What did he do that for?” I wondered.
She showed me three sweetmeats he had given her.
They were fruitdrops done up in green and red paper, very nasty ones, probably bought at a greengrocer’s shop.
Nellie laughed as she showed me them.
“Why didn’t you eat them?” I asked.
“I don’t want to,” she answered seriously, knitting her brows.
“I didn’t take them from him; he left them on the sofa himself. . . .”
I had to run about a great deal that day.
I began saying goodbye to Nellie.
“Will you be dull all alone?” I asked her as I went away.
“Dull and not dull.
I shall be dull because you won’t be here for a long while.”
And with what love she looked at me as she said this.
She had been looking at me tenderly all that morning, and she seemed so gay, so affectionate, and at the same time there was something shamefaced, even timid, in her manner, as though she were afraid of vexing me in some way, and losing my affection and ... and of showing her feelings too strongly, as though she were ashamed of them.
“And why aren’t you dull then?
You said you were ‘dull and not dull.’” I could not help asking, smiling to her – she had grown sweet and precious to me.
“I know why,” she answered laughing and for some reason abashed again.
We were talking in the open doorway.
Nellie was standing before me with her eyes cast down, with one hand on my shoulder, and with the other pinching my sleeve.
“What is it, a secret?” I asked.
“No ... it’s nothing.... I’ve ... I’ve begun reading your book while you were away.” she brought out in a low voice, and turning a tender, penetrating look upon me she flushed crimson.
“Ah, that’s it!