He kept on talking so . . . my dear, I’m tired.
You know, you’d better be going home.
And come to me tomorrow as early as you can after seeing them.
And one other thing: it wasn’t rude of me to say that I wanted to get fond of him, was it?”
“No, why rude?”
“And not . . . stupid?
You see it was as much as to say that so far I didn’t like him.”
“On the contrary, it was very good, simple, spontaneous.
You looked so beautiful at that moment!
He’s stupid if he doesn’t understand that, with his aristocratic breeding!”
“You seem as though you were angry with him, Vanya.
But how horrid I am, how suspicious, and vain!
Don’t laugh at me; I hide nothing from you, you know.
Ah, Vanya, my dear!
If I am unhappy again, if more trouble comes, you’ll be here beside me, I know; perhaps you’ll be the only one!
How can I repay you for everything!
Don’t curse me ever, Vanya!”
Returning home, I undressed at once and went to bed.
My room was as dark and damp as a cellar.
Many strange thoughts and sensations were hovering in my mind, and it was long before I could get to sleep.
But how one man must have been laughing at us that moment as he fell asleep in his comfortable bed – that is, if he thought us worth laughing at!
Probably he didn’t.
Chapter III
AT ten o’clock next morning as I was coming out of my lodgings hurrying off to the Ichmenyevs in Vassilyevsky Island, and meaning to go from them to Natasha, I suddenly came upon my yesterday’s visitor, Smith’s grandchild, at the door.
She was coming to see me.
I don’t know why, but I remember I was awfully pleased to see her.
I had hardly had time to get a good look at her the day before, and by daylight she surprised me more than ever.
And, indeed, it would have been difficult to have found a stranger or more original creature – in appearance, anyway.
With her flashing black eyes, which looked somehow foreign, her thick, dishevelled, black hair, and her mute, fixed, enigmatic gaze, the little creature might well have attracted the notice of anyone who passed her in the street.
The expression in her eyes was particularly striking. There was the light of intelligence in them, and at the same time an inquisitorial mistrust, even suspicion.
Her dirty old frock looked even more hopelessly tattered by daylight.
She seemed to me to be suffering from some wasting, chronic disease that was gradually and relentlessly destroying her.
Her pale, thin face had an unnatural sallow, bilious tinge.
But in spite of all the ugliness of poverty and illness, she was positively pretty.
Her eyebrows were strongly marked, delicate and beautiful. Her broad, rather low brow was particularly beautiful, and her lips were exquisitely formed with a peculiar proud bold line, but they were pale and colourless.
“Ah, you again!” I cried. “Well, I thought you’d come!
Come in!”
She came in, stepping through the doorway slowly just as before, and looking about her mistrustfully.
She looked carefully round the room where her grandfather had lived, as though noting how far it had been changed by another inmate.
“Well, the grandchild is just such another as the grandfather,” I thought.
“Is she mad, perhaps?”
She still remained mute; I waited.
“For the books!” she whispered at last, dropping her eves.
“Oh yes, your books; here they are, take them!
I’ve been keeping them on purpose for you.”
She looked at me inquisitively, and her mouth worked strangely as though she would venture on a mistrustful smile.
But the effort at a smile passed and was replaced by the same severe and enigmatic expression.
“Grandfather didn’t speak to you of me, did he?” she asked, scanning me ironically from head to foot.
“No, he didn’t speak of you, but . . . ”
“Then how did you know I should come?