“My angel, why ‘goodbye’? Is it so faraway?
A blow in the wind will do you good. See how pale you are.
Ah, I forgot (I forget everything), I’ve finished a scapular for you; there’s a prayer sewn into it, my angel; a nun from Kiev taught it to me last year; a very suitable prayer. I sewed it in just now.
Put it on, Natasha.
Maybe God will send you good health.
You are all we have.”
And the mother took out of her workdrawer a golden cross that Natasha wore round her neck; on the same ribbon was hung a scapular she had just finished.
“May it bring you health,” she added, crossing her daughter and putting the cross on. “At one time I used to bless you every night before you slept, and said a prayer, and you repeated it after me.
But now you’re not the same, and God does not vouchsafe you a quiet spirit.
Ach, Natasha, Natasha!
Your mother’s prayer is no help to you. . . .”
And the mother began crying.
Natasha kissed her mother’s hand without speaking, and took a step towards the door. But suddenly she turned quickly back and went up to her father.
Her bosom heaved.
“Daddy, you cross ... your daughter, too,” she brought out in a gasping voice, and she sank on her knees before him.
We were all perplexed at this unexpected and too solemn action.
For a few seconds her father looked at her quite at a loss.
“Natasha, my little one, my girl, my darling, what’s the matter with you?” he cried at last, and tears streamed from his eyes.
“Why are you grieving?
Why are you crying day and night?
I see it all, you know. I don’t sleep, it night, but stand and listen at your door.
Tell me everything, Natasha, tell me all about it. I’m old, and we . . .”
He did not finish; he raised her and embraced her, and held her close.
She pressed convulsively against his breast, and hid her head on his shoulder.
“It’s nothing, nothing, it’s only . . . I’m not well”, she kept repeating, choking with suppressed tears.
“May God bless you as I bless you, my darling child, my precious child!” said the father.
“May He send you peace of heart for ever, and protect you from all sorrow.
Pray to God, my love, that my sinful prayer may reach Him.”
“And my blessing, my blessing, too, is upon you,” added the mother, dissolving into tears.
“Goodbye,” whispered Natasha.
At the door she stood still again, took one more look at them, tried to say something more, but could not and went quickly out of the room.
I rushed after her with a foreboding of evil.
Chapter VIII
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?”