I’ve deserted you, and you forgive everything, you think of nothing but my happiness.
You are ready to carry letters for us.”
She burst into tears.
“I know how you loved me, Vanya, and how you love me still, and you’ve not reproached me with one bitter word all this time, while I, I ... my God I how badly I’ve treated you!
Do you remember, Vanya, do you remember our time together ?
It would have been better if I’d never met him; never seen him!
I could have lived with you, with you, dear, kind Vanya, my dear one.
No, I’m not worthy of you!
You see what I am; at such a minute I remind you of our past happiness, though you’re wretched enough without that!
Here you’ve not been to see us for three weeks: I swear to you, Vanya, the thought never once entered my head that you hated me and had cursed me.
I knew why you did not come! You did not want to be in our way and to be a living reproach to us.
And wouldn’t it have been painful for you to see us?
And how I’ve missed you, Vanya, how I’ve missed you!
Vanya, listen, if I love Alyosha madly, insanely, yet perhaps I love you even more as a friend.
I feel, I know that I couldn’t go on living without you. I need you. I need your soul, your heart of gold.... Oh, Vanya, what a bitter, terrible time is before us!”
She burst into a flood of tears; yes, she was very wretched.
“Oh, how I have been longing to see you,” she went on, mastering her tears.
“How thin you’ve grown, how ill and pale you are. You really have been ill, haven’t you, Vanya?
And I haven’t even asked!
I keep talking of myself. How are you getting on with the reviewers now? what about your new novel? Is it going well?”
“As though we could talk about novels, as though we could talk about me now, Natasha!
As though my work mattered.
That’s all right, let it be!
But tell me, Natasha, did he insist himself that you should go to him?”
“No, not only he, it was more I.
He did say so, certainly, but I too.... You see, dear, I’ll tell you everything; they’re making a match for him with a very rich girl, of very high rank and related to very grand people.
His father absolutely insists on his marrying her, and his father, as you know, is an awful schemer; he sets every spring working; and it’s a chance that wouldn’t come once in ten years....
Connexions, money ... and they say she’s very pretty, and she has education, a good heart, everything good; Alyosha’s attracted by her already, and what’s more his father’s very anxious to get it over, so as to get married himself. And so he’s determined to break it off between us.
He’s afraid of me and my influence on Alyosha. . .”
“But do you mean to say that the prince knows of your love?” I interrupted in surprise.
“Surely he only suspects it; and is not at all sure of it?”
“He knows it. He knows all about it.”
“Why, who told him? ”
“Alyosha told him everything a little while ago.
He told me himself that he had told him all about it.”
“Good God, what is going on!
He tells all this himself and at such a time?”
“Don’t blame him, Vanya,” Natasha broke in; “don’t jeer at him.
He can’t be judged like other people.
Be fair.
He’s not like you and me.
He’s a child. He’s not been properly brought up.
He doesn’t understand what he’s doing.
The first impression, the influence of the first person he meets can turn him away from what he has promised a minute before.
He has no character.
He’ll vow to be true to you, and that very day he will just as truthfully, just as sincerely, devote himself to someone else; and what’s more he’ll be the first person to come and tell you about it.
He may do something bad; but yet one can’t blame him for it, but can only feel sorry for him.
He’s even capable of selfsacrifice, and if you knew what sacrifice!
But only till the next new impression, then he’ll forget it all.
So he’ll forget me if I’m not continually with him.