“The court, indeed!” said Anna Andreyevna with an offended air.
“In another minute you’ll be making me a general,” I answered, laughing heartily.
The old man laughed too.
He was exceedingly pleased.
“Your excellency, won’t you have something to eat?” cried Natasha playfully. – she had meantime been getting supper for us.
She laughed, ran to her father and flung her warm arms round him.
“Dear, kind daddy!”
The old man was moved,
“Well, well, that’s all right!
I speak in the simplicity of my heart.
General or no general, come to supper.
Ah, you sentimental girl!” he added, patting his Natasha on her flushed cheek, as he was fond of doing on every convenient occasion. “I spoke because I love you, Vanya, you know.
But even if not a general (far from it!) you’re a distinguished man, an author.”
“Nowadays, daddy, they call them writers.”
“Not authors?
I didn’t know.
Well, let it be writers then, but I tell you what I wanted to say: people are not made kammerherrs, of course, because they write novels; it’s no use to dream of that; but anyway you can make your mark; become, an attache of some sort.
They may send you abroad, to Italy, for the sake of your health, or somewhere to perfect yourself in, your studies; you’ll be helped with money.
Of course it must all be honourable on your side; you must get money and honour by work, by real good work, and not through patronage of one sort or another.”
“And don’t you be too proud then, Ivan Petrovich,” added Anna Andreyevna, laughing.
“You’d better give him a star, at once, daddy; after all, what’s the good of an attache?”
And she pinched my arm again.
“This girl keeps making fun of me,” said the old man, looking delightedly at Natasha, whose cheeks were glowing and whose eyes were shining like stars.
“I think I really may have overshot the mark, children; but I’ve always been like that... But do you know, Vanya, I keep wondering at you: how perfectly simple you are. . .”
“Why, good heavens, daddy, what else could he be?”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean that.
Only, Vanya, you’ve a face that’s not what one would call a poet’s. They’re pale, they say, you know, the poets, and with hair like this, you know, and a look in their eyes ... like Goethe, you know, and the rest of them, I’ve read that in Abaddon ... well?
Have I put my foot in it again?
Ah, the rogue, she’s giggling at me!
I’m not a scholar, my dears, but I can feel.
Well, face or no face, that’s no great matter, yours is all right for me, and I like it very much. I didn’t mean that. . . . Only be honest, Vanya, be honest. That’s the great thing, live honestly, don’t be conceited!
The road lies open before you.
Serve your work honestly, that’s what I meant to say; yes, that’s just what I wanted to say!”
It was a wonderful time.
Every evening, every free hour I spent with them.
I brought the old man news of the literary world and of writers, in whom he began, I don’t know why, to take an intense interest. He even began to read the critical articles of B., about whom I talked a great deal. He praised him enthusiastically, though he scarcely understood him, and inveighed against his enemies who wrote in the Northern Drone.
Anna Andreyevna kept a sharp eye on me and Natasha, but she didn’t see everything.
One little word had been uttered between us already, and I heard at last Natasha, with her little head drooping, and her lips half parted, whisper “Yes.”
But the parents knew of it later on. They had their thoughts, their conjectures. Anna Andreyevna shook her head for a long time.
It seemed strange and dreadful to her.
She had no faith in me.
“Yes, it’s all right, of course, when it’s successful, Ivan Petrovitch,” she said, “but all of a sudden there’ll be a failure or something of the sort; and what then?
If only you had a post somewhere!”
“I’ve something I want to say to you, Vanya,” said the old man, making up his mind. “I’ve seen for myself, I’ve noticed it and I confess I’m delighted that you and Natasha . . . you know what I mean.
You see, Vanya, you’re both very young, and my Anna Andreyevna is right.
Let us wait a bit.
Granted you have talent, remarkable talent perhaps . . . not genius, as they cried out about you at first, but just simply talent (I read you that article in the Drone today; they handle you too roughly, but after all, it’s not much of a paper).
Yes! You see talent’s not money in the bank, and you’re both poor.
Let’s wait a little, for a year and a half, or a year anyway. If you get on all right, get a firm footing, Natasha shall be yours. If you don’t get on – judge for yourself.
You’re an honest man, think things over....”