On the way Alexandra Semyonovna had kissed and embraced her, which had made Nellie cry more than ever.
Looking at her, Alexandra Semyonovna too had shed tears.
So both of them had been crying all the way in the cab.
“But why, Nellie, why don’t you want to go on staying with him? What has he done. Is he unkind to you?” Alexandra Semyonovna asked, melting into tears.
“No.”
“Well, why then?”
“Nothing ... I don’t want to stay with him ... I’m always so nasty with him and he’s so kind ... but with you I won’t be nasty, I’ll work,” she declared, sobbing as though she were in hysterics.
“Why are you so nasty to him, Nellie?”
“Nothing ...”
And that was all I could get out of her,” said Alexandra Semyonovna, wiping her tears. “Why is she such an unhappy little thing?
Is it her fits?
What do you think, Ivan Petrovitch?”
We went in to Nellie. She lay with her face hidden in the pillow, crying.
I knelt down beside her, took her hands, and began to kiss them.
She snatched her hands from me and sobbed more violently than ever.
I did not know what to say.
At that moment old Ichmenyev walked in.
“I’ve come to see you on business, Ivan, how do you do? he said, staring at us all, and observing with surprise that I was on my knees.
The old man had been ill of late.
He was pale and thin, but as though in defiance of someone, he neglected his illness, refused to listen to Anna Andreyevna’s exhortations, went about his daily affairs as usual, and would not take to his bed.
“Goodbye for the present,” said Alexandra Semyonovna, staring at the old man.
“Filip Filippovitch told me to be back as quickly as possible.
We are busy.
But in the evening at dusk I’ll look in on you, and stay an hour or two.”
“Who’s that?” the old man whispered to me, evidently thinking of something else.
I explained.
“Hm!
Well, I’ve come on business, Ivan.”
I knew on what business he had come, and had been expecting his visit.
He had come to talk to me and Nellie and to beg her to go to them.
Anna Andreyevna had consented at last to adopt an orphan girl.
This was a result of secret confabulations between us. I had persuaded the old lady, telling her that the sight of the child, whose mother, too, had been cursed by an unrelenting father, might turn our old friend’s heart to other feelings.
I explained my plan so clearly that now she began of herself to urge her husband to take the child.
The old man readily fell in with it; in the first place he wanted to please his Anna Andreyevna, and he had besides motives of his own ... But all this I will explain later and more fully.
I have mentioned already that Nellie had taken a dislike to the old man at his first visit.
Afterwards I noticed that there was a gleam almost of hatred in her face when Ichmenyev’s name was pronounced in her presence.
My old friend began upon the subject at once, without beating about the bush.
He went straight up to Nellie, who was still lying down, hiding her head in the pillow, and taking her by the hand asked her whether she would like to come and live with him and take the place of his daughter.
“I had a daughter. I loved her more than myself,” the old man finished up, “but now she is not with me.
She is dead.
Would you like to take her place in my house and . . . in my heart?”
And in his eyes that looked dry and inflamed from fever there gleamed a tear.
“No, I shouldn’t,” Nellie answered, without raising her head.
“Why not, my child?
You have nobody belonging to you.
Ivan cannot keep you with him for ever, and with me you’d be as in your own home.”
“I won’t, because you’re wicked.
Yes, wicked, wicked,” she added, lifting up her head, and facing the old man.
“I am wicked, we’re all wicked, but you’re more wicked than anyone.”
As she said this Nellie turned pale, her eyes flashed; even her quivering lips turned pale, and were distorted by a rush of strong feeling.