His wife looked at his uneasily and shook her head.
When he turned away she stealthily nodded to me.
“How is Natalya Nikolaevna?
Is she at home I inquired of the anxious lady.
“She’s at home, my dear man, she’s at home,” she answered as though perturbed by my question.
“She’ll come in to see you directly.
It’s a serious matter!
Not a sight of you for three weeks!
And she’s become so queer ... there’s no making her out at all. I don’t know whether she’s well or ill, God bless her!
And she looked timidly at her husband.
“Why, there’s nothing wrong with her,” Nikolay Sergeyitch responded jerkily and reluctantly, “she’s quite well.
The girl’s beginning to grow up, she’s left off being a baby, that’s all.
Who can understand girlish moods and caprices?”
“Caprices, indeed!” Anna Andreyevna caught him up in an offended voice.
The old man said nothing and drummed on the table with his fingertips.
“Good God, is there something between them already?” I wondered in a panic.
“Well, how are you getting on?” he began again.
“Is B. still writing reviews?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Ech, Vanya, Vanya,” he ended up, with a wave of his hand.
“What can reviews do now?”
The door opened and Natasha walked in.
Chapter VII
She held her hat in her hand and laid it down on the piano; then she came up to me and held out her hand without speaking.
Her lips faintly quivered, as though she wanted to utter something, some greeting to me, but she said nothing.
It was three weeks since we had seen each other.
I looked at her with amazement and dread.
How she had changed in those three weeks!
My heart ached as I looked at those pale, hollow cheeks, feverishly parched lips, and eyes that gleamed under the long dark lashes with a feverish fire and a sort of passionate determination.
But, my God, how lovely she was!
Never before, or since, have I seen her as she was on that fatal day.
Was it the same, the same Natasha, the same girl who only a year ago had listened to my novel with her eyes fixed on me and her lips following mine, who had so gaily and carelessly laughed and jested with her father and me at supper afterwards; was it the same Natasha who in that very room had said “Yes” to me, hanging her head and flushing all over?
We heard the deep note of the bell ringing for vespers.
She started. Anna Andreyevna crossed herself.
“You’re ready for church, Natasha, and they’re ringing for the service.
Go, Natasha, go and pray. It’s a good thing it’s so near.
And you’ll get a walk, too, at the same time.
Why sit shut up indoors?
See how pale you are, as though you were bewitched.”
“Perhaps ... I won’t go . . . today,” said Natasha slowly, in a low voice, almost a whisper.
“I’m . . . not well,” she added, and turned white as a sheet.
“You’d better go, Natasha. You wanted to just now and fetched your hat.
Pray, Natasha, pray that God may give you good health,” Anna Andreyevna persuaded her daughter, looking timidly at her, as though she were afraid of her.
“Yes, go, and it will be a walk for you, too,” the old man added, and he, too, looked uneasily at his daughter. “Mother is right.
Here, Vanya will escort you.”
I fancied that Natasha’s lips curled in a bitter smile.
She went to the piano, picked up her hat and put it on. Her hands were trembling.
All her movements seemed as it were unconscious, as though she did not know what she were doing.
Her father and mother watched her attentively.
“Goodbye,” she said, hardly audibly.