Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (169 page)

“I’ll be a mother to you now, Nellie, and you shall be my child. Yes, Nellie, let us go, let us give up these cruel, wicked people.. Let them mock at people; God will requite them. Come, Nellie, come away from here, come!”

I have never, before or since, seen her so agitated, and I had never thought she could be so excited. Nikolay Sergeyitch sat up in his chair, stood up, and in a breaking voice asked:

“Where are you going, Anna Andreyevna?”

“To her, to my daughter, to Natasha!” she exclaimed, drawing Nellie after her to the door.

“Stay, stay! Wait!”

“No need to wait, you cruel, cold-hearted man! I have waited too long, and she has waited, but now, good-bye! …”

Saying this, Anna Andreyevna turned away, glanced at her husband, and stopped, petrified. Nikolay Sergeyitch was reaching for his hat, and with feeble, trembling hands was pulling on his coat.

“You, too! … You coming with us, too!” she cried, clasping her hands in supplication, looking at him incredulously as though she dared not believe in such happiness.

“Natasha! Where is my Natasha? Where is she? Where’s my daughter?” broke at last from the old man’s lips. “Give me back my Natasha! Where, where is she?”

And seizing his stick, which I handed him, he rushed to the door.

“He has forgiven! Forgiven!” cried Anna Andreyevna.  But the old man did not get to the door. The door opened quickly and Natasha dashed into the room, pale, with flashing eyes as though she were in a fever. Her dress was crumpled and soaked with rain. The handkerchief with which she had covered her head had slipped on to her neck, and her thick, curly hair glistened with big raindrops. She ran in, saw her father, and falling on her knees before him, stretched out her hands to him.

CHAPTER IX

BUT HE WAS already holding her in his arms!

He lifted her up like a child and carried her to his chair, sat her down, and fell on his knees before her. He kissed her hands and her feet, he hastened to kiss her, hastened to gaze at her as though he could not yet believe that she was with him, that he saw and heard her again — her, his daughter, his Natasha. Anna Andreyevna embraced her, sobbing, pressed her head to her bosom and seemed almost swooning in these embraces and unable to utter a word.

“My dear!… My life!… My joy!…” the old man exclaimed incoherently, clasping Natasha’s hands and gazing like a lover at her pale, thin, but lovely face, and into her eyes which glistened with tears. “My joy, my child!” he repeated, and paused again, and with reverent Transports gazed at her. “Why, why did you tell me she was thinner?” he said, turning to us with a hurried, childlike smile, though he was still on his knees before her. “She’s thin, it’s true, she’s pale, but look how pretty she is! Lovelier than she used to be, yes, even lovelier!” he added, his voice breaking from the joyful anguish which seemed rending his heart in two.

“Get up, father. Oh, do get up,” said Natasha. “I want to kiss you, too….”

“Oh, the darling! Do you hear, Annushka, do you hear how sweetly she said that.”

And he embraced her convulsively.

“No, Natasha, it’s for me, for me to lie at your feet, till my heart tells me that you’ve forgiven me, for I can never, never deserve your forgiveness now! I cast you off, I cursed you; do you hear, Natasha, I cursed you! I was capable of that! …And you, you, Natasha, could you believe that I had cursed you! She did believe it, yes, she did! She ought not to have believed it! She shouldn’t have believed it, she simply shouldn’t! Cruel little heart! why didn’t you come to me?

You must have known I should receive you…. Oh, Natasha, you must remember how I used to love you! Well, now I’ve loved you all this time twice as much, a thousand times as much as before. I’ve loved you with every drop of my blood. I would have torn my heart out, torn it into shreds and laid it at your feet. Oh! my joy!”

“Well, kiss me then, you cruel man, kiss me on any lips, on my face, as mother kisses me!” exclaimed Natasha in a faint, weak voice, full of joyful tears.

“And on your dear eyes, too! Your dear eyes! As I used to, do you remember?” repeated the old man after a long, sweet embrace. “Oh, Natasha! Did you sometimes dream of us? I dreamed of you almost every night, and every night you came to me and I cried over you. Once you came as a little thing, as you were when you were ten years old and were just beginning to have music lessons, do you remember? I dreamed you came in a short frock, with pretty little shoes on, and red little hands … she used to have such red little hands then, do you remember, Annushka? She came up to me, sat on my knee and put her arms round me… And you, you bad girl! You could believe I cursed you, that I wouldn’t have welcomed you if you’d come? Why, I…listen Natasha, why, I often went to see you, and your mother didn’t know, and no one knew; sometimes I’d stand under your windows, sometimes I’d wait half a day, somewhere on the pavement near your gate, on the chance of seeing you in the distance if you came out! Often in the evening there would be a light burning in your window; how often I went to your window, Natasha, only to watch your light, only to see your shadow on the window-pane, to bless you for the night. And did you bless me at night, did you think of me? Did your heart tell you that I was at the window? And how often in the winter I went up your stairs, and stood on the dark landing listening at your door, hoping to hear your voice. Aren’t you laughing? Me curse you? Why, one evening I came to you; I wanted to forgive you, and only turned back at the door…. Oh, Natasha!”

He got up, lifted her out of the chair and held her close, close to his heart.

“She is here, near my heart again!” he cried. “Oh Lord, I thank Thee for all, for all, for Thy wrath and for Thy mercy!

…And for Thy sun which is shining upon us again after the storm! For all this minute I thank Thee! Oh, we may be insulted and injured, but we’re together again, and now the proud and haughty who have insulted and injured us may triumph! Let them throw stones at us! Have no fear, Natasha…. We will go hand in hand and I will say to them, ‘This is my darling, this is my beloved daughter, my innocent daughter whom you have insulted and injured, but whom I love and bless for ever and ever!’”

“Vanya, Vanya,” Natasha cried in a weak voice, holding out her hand to me from her father’s arms.

Oh, I shall never forget that at that moment she thought of me and called to me!

“Where is Nellie?” asked the old man, looking round.

“Ah, where is she?” cried his wife. “My darling! We’re forgetting her!”

But she was not in the room. She had slipped away unnoticed into the bedroom. We all went in. Nellie was standing in the corner behind the door, hiding from us in a frightened way.

“Nellie, what’s the matter with you, my child?” cried the old man, trying to put his arm round her.

But she bent on him a strange, long gaze.

“Mother, where’s mother?” she brought out, as though in delirium. “Mere is my mother?” she cried once more, stretching out her trembling hands to us.

And suddenly a fearful, unearthly shriek broke from her bosom; her face worked convulsively, and she fell on the floor in a terrible fit.

EPILOGUE

LAST RECOLLECTIONS

IT WAS THE BEGINNING of June. The day was hot and stifling; it was impossible to remain in town, where all was dust, plaster, scaffolding, burning pavements, and tainted atmosphere…. But now! Oh joy! — there was the rumble of thunder in the distance; there came a breath of wind driving clouds of town dust before it. A few big raindrops fell on the ground, and then the whole sky seemed to open and torrents of water streamed upon the town. When, half an hour later, the sun came out again I opened my garret window and greedily drew the fresh air into my exhausted lungs. In my exhilaration I felt ready to throw up my writing, my work, and my publisher, and to rush off to my friends at Vassilyevsky Island. But great as the temptation was, I succeeded in mastering myself and fell upon my work again with a sort of fury. At all costs I had to finish it. My publisher had demanded it and would not pay me without. I was expected there, but, on the other hand, by the evening I should be free, absolutely free as the wind, and that evening would make up to me for the last two days and nights, during which I had written three and a half signatures.

And now at last the work was finished. I threw down my pen and got up, with a pain in my chest and my back and a heaviness in my head. I knew that at that moment my nerves were strained to the utmost pitch, and I seemed to hear the last words my old doctor had said to me.

“No, no health could stand such a strain, because it’s impossible.”

So far, however, it had been possible! My head was going round, I could scarcely stand upright, but my heart was filled with joy, infinite joy. My novel was finished and, although I owed my publisher a great deal, he would certainly give me something when he found the prize in his hands — if only fifty roubles, and it was ages since I had had so much as that. Freedom and money! I snatched up my hat in delight, and with my manuscript under my arm I ran at full speed to find our precious Alexandr Petrovitch at home.

I found him, but he was on the point of going out. He, too, had just completed a very profitable stroke of business, though not a literary one, and as he was at last escorting to the door a swarthy-faced Jew with whom he had been sitting for the last two hours in his study, he shook hands with me affably, and in his soft pleasant bass inquired after my health. He was a very kind-hearted man, and, joking apart, I was deeply indebted to him. Was it his fault that he was all his life only a publisher? He quite understood that literature needs Publishers, and understood it very opportunely, all honour and glory to him for it!

With an agreeable smile he heard that the novel was finished and that therefore the next number of his journal was safe as far as its principal item was concerned, and wondered how I could ever end anything and made a very amiable joke on the subject. Then he went to his iron strong-box to get me the fifty roubles he had promised me, and in the meantime held out to me another thick, hostile journal and pointed to a few lines in the critical column, where there were a few words about my last novel.

I looked: it was an article by “Copyist.” He neither directly abused me nor praised me, and I was very glad. But “Copyist,” said among other things that my works generally “smelt of sweat”; that is, that I so sweated and struggled over them, so worked them up and worked them over, that the result was mawkish.

The publisher and I laughed. I informed him that my last story had been written in two nights, and that I had now written three and a half signatures in two days and two nights, and if only “Copyist,” who blamed me for the excessive laboriousness and solid deliberation of my work, knew that!

“It’s your own fault though, Ivan Petrovitch,” said he. “Why do you get so behindhand with your work that you have to sit up at night?”

Alexandr Petrovitch is a most charming person, of course, though he has one particular weakness — that is, boasting of his literary judgement, especially before those whom he suspects of knowing him through and through. But I had no desire to discuss literature with him; I took the money and picked up my hat. Alexandr Petrovitch was going to his villa on the Island, and hearing that I, too, was bound for Vassilyevsky, he amiably offered to take me in his carriage.

“I’ve got a new carriage,” he said, “you’ve not seen it. It’s very nice.”

We set off. The carriage was certainly delightful, and in the early days of his possession of it Alexandr Petrovitch took particular pleasure in driving his friends in it and even felt a spiritual craving to do so.

In the carriage Alexandr Petrovitch several times fell to criticizing contemporary literature again. He was quite at his ease with me, and calmly enunciated various second-hand opinions which he had heard a day or two before from literary people whom he believed in and whose ideas he respected. This led him sometimes to repeat very extraordinary notions. It sometimes happened, too, that he got an idea wrong or misapplied it, so that he made nonsense of it. I sat listening in silence, marvelling at the versatility and whimsicality of the passions of mankind. “Here’s a man,” I thought to myself, “who might make money and has made it; but no, he must have fame too, literary fame, the fame of a leading publisher, a critic!”

At the actual moment he was trying to expound minutely a literary theory which he had heard three days before from me myself, which he had argued against then, though now he was giving it out as his own. But such forgetfulness is a frequent phenomenon in Alexandr Petrovitch, and he is famous for this innocent weakness among all who know him. How happy he was then, holding forth in his own carriage, how satisfied with his lot, how benign! He was maintaining a highly cultured, literary conversation, even his soft, decorous bass had the note of culture. Little by little he drifted into liberalism, and then passed to the mildly sceptical proposition that no honesty or modesty was possible in our literature, or indeed in any other, that there could be nothing but “slashing at one another,” especially where the system of signed articles was prevalent. I reflected to myself that Alexandr Petrovitch was inclined to regard every honest and sincere writer as a simpleton, if not a fool, on account of is very sincerity and honesty. No doubt such an opinion was the direct result of his extreme guilelessness.

But I had left off listening to him. When we reached Vassilyevsky Island he let me get out of the carriage, and I ran to my friends. Now I had reached Thirteenth Street; here was their little house. Seeing me Anna Andreyevna shook her finger at me, waved her hand, and said “Ssh!” to me, to be quiet.

“Nellie’s only just fallen asleep, poor little thing!” she whispered to me hurriedly. “For mercy’s sake, don’t wake her! But she’s very worn, poor darling! We’re very anxious about her. The doctor says it’s nothing for the time, One can get nothing out of your doctor. And isn’t it a shame of you, Ivan Petrovitch! We’ve been expecting you! We expected you to dinner…. You’ve not been here for two days!”