Are you going?”
I went out.
I was so overcome that I hardly knew what I was doing.
Mavra started out into the passage to meet me.
“What, is she angry?” she asked me.
“I’m afraid to go near her.”
“But what’s the matter with her
“‘Why, our young gentleman hasn’t shown his nose here for the last three days!”
“Three days! “I repeated in amazement. “Why, she told me yesterday that he had been here in the morning and was coming again in the evening . . .”
“She did?
He never came near us in the morning!
I tell you we haven’t set eyes on him for three days.
You don’t say she told you yesterday that he’d been in the morning?”
“Yes, she said so.”
“Well,” said Mavra, musing, “it must have cut her to the quick if she won’t own it even to you.
Well, he’s a pretty one!”
“But what does it mean?” I cried.
“It means I don’t know what to do with her,” said Mavra, throwing up her hands.
“She was sending me to him yesterday, but twice she turned me back as I was starting.
And today she won’t even speak to me.
If only you could see him.
I daren’t leave her now.”
I rushed down the staircase, beside myself.
“Will you be here this evening?” Mavra called after me.
“We’ll see then,” I called up to her.
“I may just run in to you to ask how she is.
If only I’m alive myself.”
I really felt as though something had struck me to the very heart.
Chapter X
I WENT straight to Alyosha’s.
He lived with his father in Little Morskaya.
Prince Valkovsky had a rather large flat, though he lived alone.
Alyosha had two splendid rooms in the flat.
I had very rarely been to see him, only once before, I believe, in fact.
He had come to see me much oftener, especially at first, during the early period of his connexion with Natasha.
He was not at home.
I went straight to his rooms and wrote him the following note:
“Alyosha, you seem to have gone out of your mind.
As on Tuesday evening your father himself asked Natasha to do you the honour of becoming your wife, and you were delighted at his doing so, as I saw myself, you must admit that your behaviour is somewhat strange.
Do you know what you are doing to Natasha?
In any case this note will remind you that your behaviour towards your future wife is unworthy and frivolous in the extreme.
I am very well aware that I have no right to lecture you, but I don’t care about that in the least.
“P.S.She knows nothing about this letter, and in fact it was not she who told me about you.”
I sealed up the letter and left it on his table.
In answer to my question the servant said that Alexey Petrovitch was hardly ever at home, and that he would not be back now till the small hours of the morning.
I could hardly get home.
I was overcome with giddiness, and my legs were weak and trembling.
My door was open.
Nikolay Sergeyitch Ichmenyev was sitting waiting for me.
He was sitting at the table watching Elena in silent wonder, and she, too, was watching him with no less wonder, though she was obstinately silent.