Natasha was touched.
“And you could tell us first of your triumphs with some deaf princess! Ach, Alyosha!” she exclaimed, looking at him reproachfully. “Well tell me about Katya; was she happy, cheerful, when she said good-bye to you?”
“Yes, she was glad that she was able to do something generous, but she was crying. For she loves me too, Natasha! She confessed that she had begun to love me; that she sees hardly anyone, and that she was attracted by me long ago. She noticed me particularly because she sees cunning and deception all round her, and I seemed to her a sincere and honest person. She stood up and said: ‘Well, God be with you, Alexey Petrovitch. And I was expecting . . .’ She burst out crying and went away without saying what. We decided that tomorrow she should tell her stepmother that she won’t have me, and that tomorrow I should tell my father everything and speak out boldly and firmly. She reproached me for not having told him before, saying that an honourable man ought not to be afraid of anything. She is such a noble-hearted girl. She doesn’t like my father either. She says he’s cunning and mercenary. I defended him; she didn’t believe me. If I don’t succeed tomorrow with my father (and she feels convinced I shan’t) then she advises me to get Princess K. to support me. Then no one would dare to oppose it. We promised to be like brother and sister to each other. Oh, if only you knew her story too, how unhappy she is, with what aversion she looks on her life with her stepmother, all her surroundings. She didn’t tell me directly, as though she were afraid even of me, but I guessed it from some words, Natasha, darling! How delighted she would be with you if she could see you! And what a kind heart she has! One is so at home with her! You are created to be sisters and to love one another. I’ve been thinking so all along. And really I should like to bring you two together, and stand by admiring you. Don’t imagine anything, Natasha, little one, and let me talk about her. I want to talk to you about her and to her about you. You know I love you more than anyone, more than her . . . .You’re everything to me!”
Natasha looked at him caressingly, and as it were mournfully, and did not speak. His words seemed like a caress, and yet a torment to her.
“And I saw how fine Katya was a long time ago, at least a fortnight,” he went on. “ I’ve
been going to them every evening, you see. As I went home I kept thinking of you both, kept comparing you.”
“Which of us came off best?” asked Natasha, smiling.
“Sometimes you and sometimes she. But you were always the best in the long run. When I talk to her I always feel I become somehow better, cleverer, and somehow finer. But tomorrow, tomorrow will settle everything!”
“And aren’t you sorry for her? She loves you, you know. You say you’ve noticed it yourself.”
“Yes, I am, Natasha. But we’ll all three love one another, and then . . .” “And then ‘good-bye’” Natasha brought out quietly, as though to herself. Alyosha looked at her in amazement.
But our conversation was suddenly interrupted in the most unexpected way. In the kitchen, which was at the same time the entry, we heard a slight noise as though someone had come in. A minute later Mavra opened the door and began nodding to Alyosha on the sly, beckoning to him. We all turned to her.
“Someone’s asking for you. Come along,” she said in a mysterious voice.
“Who can be asking for me now?” said Alyosha, looking at us in bewilderment. “I’m coming!”
In the kitchen stood his father’s servant in livery. It appeared that the prince had stopped his carriage at Natasha’s lodging on his way home, and had sent to inquire whether Alyosha were there. Explaining this, the footman went away at once.
“Strange! This has never happened before,” said Alyosha, looking at us in confusion. “What does it mean?”
Natasha looked at him uneasily. Suddenly Mavra opened the door again.
“Here’s the prince himself!” she said in a hurried whisper, and at once withdrew.
Natasha turned pale and got up from her seat. Suddenly her eyes kindled. She stood leaning a little on the table, and looked in agitation towards the door, by which the uninvited visitor would enter.
“Natasha, don’t be afraid! You’re with me. I won’t let you be insulted,” whispered Alyosha, disconcerted but not overwhelmed. The door opened, and Prince Valkovsky in his own person appeared on the threshold.
CHAPTER II
HE took us all in in a rapid attentive glance. It was impossible to guess from this glance whether he had come as a friend or as an enemy. But I will describe his appearance minutely. He struck me particularly that evening.
I had seen him before. He was a man of forty-five, not more, with regular and strikingly handsome features, the expression of which varied according to circumstances; but it changed abruptly, completely, with extraordinary rapidity, passing from the most agreeable to the most surly or displeased expression, as though some spring were suddenly touched. The regular oval of his rather swarthy face, his superb teeth, his small, rather thin, beautifully chiselled lips, his rather long straight nose, his high forehead, on which no wrinkle could be discerned, his rather large grey eyes, made him handsome, and yet his face did not make a pleasant impression. The face repelled because its expression was not spontaneous, but always, as it were, artificial, deliberate, borrowed, and a blind conviction grew upon one that one would never read his real expression. Looking more carefully one began to suspect behind the invariable mask something spiteful, cunning, and intensely egoistic. One’s attention was particularly caught by his fine eyes, which were grey and frank-looking. They were not completely under the control of his will, like his other features. He might want to look mild and friendly, but the light in his eyes was as it were twofold, and together with the mild friendly radiance there were flashes that were cruel, mistrustful, searching and spiteful. . . . He was rather tall, elegantly, rather slimly built, and looked strikingly young for his age. His soft dark brown hair had scarcely yet begun to turn grey. His ears, his hands, his feet were remarkably fine. It was pre-eminently the beauty of race. He was dressed with refined elegance and freshness but with some affectation of youth, which suited him, however. He looked like Alyosha’s elder brother. At any rate no one would have taken him for the father of so grown-up a son.
He went straight up to Natasha and said, looking at her firmly: “My calling upon you at such an hour, and unannounced, is strange, and against all accepted rules. But I trust that you will believe I can at least recognize the eccentricity of my behaviour. I know, too, with whom I have to deal; I know that you are penetrating and magnanimous. Only give me ten minutes, and I trust that you will understand me and justify it.”
He said all this courteously but with force, and, as it were, emphasis.
“Sit down,” said Natasha, still unable to shake off her confusion and some alarm. He made a slight bow and sat down.
“First of all allow me to say a couple of words to him,” he said, indicating his son. “As soon as you had gone away, Alyosha, without waiting for me or even taking leave of us, the countess was informed that Katerina Fyodorovna was ill. She was hastening to her, but Katerina Fyodorovna herself suddenly came in distressed and violently agitated. She told us, forthwith, that she could not marry you. She said, too, that she was going into a nunnery, that you had asked for her help, and had told her that you loved Natalya Nikolaevna. This extraordinary declaration on the part of Katerina Fyodorovna, especially at such a moment, was of course provoked by the extreme strangeness of your explanation with her. She was almost beside herself; you can understand hole shocked and alarmed I was. As I drove past just now I noticed a light in your window,” he went on, addressing Natasha, “then an idea which had been haunting me for a long time gained such possession of me that I could not resist my first impulse, and came in to see you. With what object? I will tell you directly, but I beg you beforehand not to be surprised at a certain abruptness in my explanation, It is all so sudden. . .”
“I hope I shall understand and appreciate what you are going to say, as I ought,” answered Natasha, faltering.
The prince scrutinized her intently as though he were in a hurry to understand her through and through in one minute. “I am relying on your penetration too,” he went on, “and I have ventured to come to you now just because I knew with whom I should have to deal. I have known you for a long time now, although I was
