“Yes, Nellie, I’m very fond of her.”
“I love her too,” she added softly.
A silence followed again.
“I want to go to her and to live with her,” Nellie began again, looking at me timidly.
“That’s impossible, Nellie,” I answered, looking at her with some surprise.
“Are you so badly off with me?”
“Why is it impossible?” And she flushed crimson.
“Why, you were persuading me to go and live with her father; I don’t want to go there.
Has she a servant?
“Yes.”
“Well, let her send her servant away, and I’ll be her servant.
I’ll do everything for her and not take any wages. I’ll love her, and do her cooking.
You tell her so today.”
“But what for? What a notion, Nellie!
And what an idea you must have of her; do you suppose she would take you as a cook?
If she did take you she would take you as an equal, as her younger sister.”
“No, I don’t want to be an equal.
I don’t want it like that . . .”
“Why?”
Nellie was silent.
Her lips were twitching. She was on the point of crying.
“The man she loves now is going away from her and leaving her alone now?” she asked at last.
I was surprised.
“Why, how do you know, Nellie?”
“You told me all about it yourself; and the day before yesterday when Alexandra Semyonovna’s husband came in the morning I asked him; he told me everything.”
“Why, did Masloboev come in the morning?”
“Yes,” she answered, dropping her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me he’d been here?”
“I don’t know ... ”
I reflected for a moment.
“Goodness only knows why Masloboev is turning up with his mysteriousness.
What sort of terms has he got on to with her?
I ought to see him,” I thought.
“Well, what is it to you, Nellie, if he does desert her?”
“Why, you love her so much,” said Nellie, not lifting her eyes to me.
“And if you love her you’ll marry her when he goes away.”
“No, Nellie, she doesn’t love me as I love her, and I ... no, that won’t happen, Nellie.”
“And I would work for you both as your servant and you’d live and be happy,” she said, almost in a whisper, not looking at me.
“What’s the matter with her? What’s the matter with her?” I thought, and I had a disturbing pang at my heart.
Nellie was silent and she didn’t say another word all the evening.
When I went out she had been crying, and cried the whole evening, as Alexandra Semyonovna told me, and so fell asleep, crying.
She even cried and kept saying something at night in her sleep.
But from that day she became even more sullen and silent, and didn’t speak to me at all.
It is true I caught two or three glances stolen at me on the sly, and there was such tenderness in those glances.
But this passed, together with the moment that called forth that sudden tenderness, and as though in opposition to this impulse Nellie grew every hour more gloomy even with the doctor, who was amazed at the change in her character.
Meanwhile she had almost completely recovered, and the doctor, at last allowed her to go for a walk in the open air, but only for a very short time.
It was settled weather, warm and bright.
It was Passion Week, which fell that year very late; I went out in the morning; I was obliged to be at Natasha’s and I intended to return earlier in order to take Nellie out for a walk. Meantime I left her alone at home.
I cannot describe what a blow was awaiting me at home.
I hurried back.