Then he laughed and said,
‘Come with me.’
I didn’t know whether to go. An old man in gold spectacles came up and heard me ask for the silver rouble. He stooped down and asked me why I wanted so much.
I told him that mother was ill and that I wanted as much for medicine.
He asked where we lived and wrote down the address, and gave me a rouble note.
And when the other man saw the gentleman in spectacles he walked away and didn’t ask me to come with him any more.
I went into a shop and changed the rouble. Thirty kopecks I wrapped up in paper and put apart for mother, and seventy kopecks I didn’t put in paper, but held it in my hand on purpose and went to grandfather’s.
When I got there I opened the door, stood in the doorway, and threw all the money into the room, so that it rolled about the floor.
“‘There, take your money’ I said to him.
‘Mother doesn’t want it since you curse her.’ Then I slammed the door and ran away at once.”
Her eyes flashed, and she looked with naive defiance at the old man.
“Quite right, too,” said Anna Andreyevna, not looking at Nikolay Sergeyitch and pressing Nellie in her arms. “It served him right. Your grandfather was wicked and cruelhearted. . .”
“H’m!” responded Nikolay Sergeyitch.
“Well, what then, what then?” Anna Andreyevna asked impatiently.
“I left off going to see grandfather and he left off coming to meet me,” said Nellie.
“Well, how did you get on then – your mother and you?
Ah, poor things, poor things!”
“And mother got worse still, and she hardly ever got up,” Nellie went on, and her voice quivered and broke.
“We had no more money, and I began to go out with the captain’s widow.
She used to go from house to house, and stop good people in the street, too, begging; that was how she lived.
She used to tell me she wasn’t a beggar, that she had papers to show her rank, and to show that she was poor, too.
She used to show these papers, and people used to give her money for that.
She used to tell me that there was no disgrace in begging from all.
I used to go out with her, and people gave us money, and that’s how we lived.
Mother found out about it because the other lodgers blamed her for being a beggar, and Mme. Bubnov herself came to mother and said she’d better let me go for her instead of begging in the street.
She’d been to see mother before and brought her money, and when mother wouldn’t take it from her she said why was she so proud, and sent her things to eat.
And when she said this about me mother was frightened and began to cry; and Mme. Bubnov began to swear at her, for she was drunk, and told her that I was a beggar anyway and used to go out with the captain’s widow,’ and that evening she turned the captain’s widow out of the house.
When mother heard about it she began to cry; then she suddenly got out of bed, dressed, took my hand and led me out with her.
Ivan Alexandritch tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen to him, and we went out.
Mother could scarcely walk, and had to sit down every minute or two in the street, and I supported her.
Mother kept saying that she would go to grandfather and that I was to take her there, and by then it was quite night.
Suddenly we came into a big street; there a lot of carriages were waiting outside one of the houses, and a great many people were coming out; there were lights in all the windows and one could hear music.
Mother stopped, clutched me and said to me then,
‘Nellie, be poor, be poor all your life; don’t go to him, whoever calls you, whoever comes to you.
You might be there, rich and finely dressed, but I don’t want that.
They are cruel and wicked, and this is what I bid you: remain poor, work, and ask for alms, and if anyone comes after you say ‘I won’t go with you!’
That’s what mother said to me when she was ill, and I want to obey her all my life,” Nellie added, quivering with emotion, her little face glowing; “and I’ll work and be a servant all my life, and I’ve come to you, too, to work and be a servant. I don’t want to be like a daughter. . .”
“Hush, hush, my darling, hush!” cried Anna Andreyevna, clasping Nellie warmly.
“Your mother was ill, you know, when she said that.”
“She was out of her mind,” said the old man sharply.
“What if she were!” cried Nellie, turning quickly to him. “If she were out of her mind she told me so, and I shall do it all my life.
And when she said that to me she fell down fainting.”
“Merciful heavens!” cried Anna Andreyevna. “Ill, in the street, in winter!”
“They would have taken us to the police, but a gentleman took our part, asked me our address, gave me ten roubles, and told them to drive mother to our lodging in his carriage, Mother never got up again after that, and three weeks afterwards she died ...”
“And her father?
He didn’t forgive her after all, then?” cried Anna Andreyevna.
“He didn’t forgive her,” answered Nellie, mastering herself with a painful effort.
“A week before her death mother called me to her and said,
‘Nellie, go once more to your grandfather, the last time, and ask him to come to me and forgive me. Tell him in a few days I shall be dead, leaving you all alone in the world.
And tell him, too, that it’s hard for me to die. . . .’ I went and knocked at grandfather’s door. He opened it, and as soon as he saw me he meant to shut it again, but I seized the door with both hands and cried out to him: