Her doubts came from no impure source.
She was proud and with a fine pride, and would not endure what she looked upon as higher than anything to be turned into a laughingstock before her.
She would, of course, have met with contempt the contempt of a base man, but at the same time her heart would have ached at mockery of what she thought sacred, whoever had been the mocker.
This was not due to any lack of firmness.
It arose partly from too limited a knowledge of the world, from being unaccustomed to people from having been shut up in her own little groove.
She had spent all her life in her own little corner and had hardly left it. And finally that characteristic of goodnatured people, inherited perhaps from her father – the habit of thinking highly of people, of persistently thinking them better that they really are, warmly exaggerating everything good in them – was highly developed in her.
It is hard for such people to be disillusioned afterwards; and it is hardest of all when one feels one is oneself to blame.
Why did one expect more than could be given?
And such a disappointment is always in store for such people.
It is best for them to stay quietly in their corners and not to go out into the world; I have noticed, in fact, that they really love their corners so much that they grow shy and unsociable in them.
Natasha, however, had suffered many misfortunes, many mortifications, She was already a wounded creature, and she cannot be blamed, if indeed there be any blame in what I have said.
But I was in a hurry and got up to go.
She was surprised and almost cried at my going, though she had shown no particular affection for me all the while I was with her; on the contrary, she seemed rather colder to me than usual.
She kissed me warmly and looked for a long time into my face.
“Listen,” she said. “Alyosha was very absurd this morning and quite surprised me.
He was very sweet, very happy apparently. but flew in, such a butterfly – such a dandy, and kept prinking before the lookingglass.
He’s a little too unceremonious now.... Yes, and he didn’t stay long.
Fancy, he brought me some sweets.”
“Sweets?
Why, that’s very charming and simplehearted, Ah, what a pair you are.
Now you’ve begun watching and spying on one another, studying each other’s faces, and reading hidden thoughts in them (and understanding nothing about it).
He’s not different.
He’s merry and schoolboyish as he always was.
But you, you!”
And whenever Natasha changed her tone and came to me with some complaint against Alyosha, or to ask for a solution of some ticklish question, or to tell me some secret, expecting me to understand her at half a word, she always, I remember, looked at me with a smile, as it were imploring me to answer somehow so that she should feel happy at heart at once.
And I remember, too, I always in such cases assumed a severe and harsh tone as though scolding someone, and this happened quite unconsciously with me, but it was always successful.
My severity and gravity were what was wanted; they seemed more authoritative, and people sometimes feel an irresistible craving to be scolded.
Natasha was sometimes left quite consoled.
“No, Vanya, you see,” she went on, keeping one of her little hands on my shoulder, while her other pressed my hand and her eyes looked into mine, “I fancied that he was somehow too little affected ... he seemed already such a man – you know, as though he’d been married ten years but was still polite to his wife.
Isn’t that very premature? ...
He laughed, and prinked, but just as though all that didn’t matter, as though it only partly concerned me, not as it used to be ... he was in a great hurry to see Katerina Fyodorovna. . . . If I spoke to him he didn’t listen to me, or began talking of something else, you know, that horrid, aristocratic habit we’ve both been getting him out of.
In fact, he was too . . . even indifferent it seemed ... but what am I saying!
Here I’m doing it, here I’ve begun!
Ah, what exacting, capricious despots we all are, Vanya!
Only now I see it!
We can’t forgive a man for a trifling change in his face, and God knows what has made his face change!
You were right, Vanya, in reproaching me just now!
It’s all my fault!
We make our own troubles and then we complain of them. . . . Thanks, Vanya, you have quite comforted me.
Ah, if he would only come today!
But there perhaps he’ll be angry for what happened this morning.”
“Surely you haven’t quarrelled already!” I cried with surprise.
“I made no sign!
But I was a little sad, and though he came in so cheerful he suddenly became thoughtful, and I fancied he said goodbye coldly.
Yes, I’ll send for him. . . . You come, too, today, Vanya.”
“Yes, I’ll be sure to, unless I’m detained by one thing.”
“Why, what thing is it?”
“I’ve brought it on myself!
But I think I’m sure to come all the same. ”
Chapter VII