“Yes, doctor. She certainly is strange, but I put it all down to her invalid state. Yesterday she was very obedient; today, when I gave her her medicine she pushed the spoon as though by accident and it was all spilt over. When I wanted to mix another powder she snatched the box away from me, threw it on the ground and then burst into tears. Only I don’t think it was because I was making her take the powders,” I added, after a moment’s thought.
“Hm! Irritation! Her past great misfortunes.” (I had told the doctor fully and frankly much of Nellie’s history and my story had struck him very much.) “All that in conjunction, and from it this illness. For the time the only remedy is to take the powders, and she must take the powders. I will go and try once more to impress on her the duty to obey medical instructions, and . . . that is, speaking generally . . . take the powders.”
We both came out of the kitchen (in which our interview had taken place) and the doctor went up to the sick child’s bedside again. But I think Nellie must have overheard. Anyway she had raised her head from the pillow and turned her ear in our direction, listening keenly all the time. I noticed this through the crack of the half-opened door. When we went up to her the rogue ducked under the quilt, and peeped out at us with a mocking smile. The poor child had grown much thinner during the four days of her illness. Her eyes were sunken and she was still feverish, so that the mischievous expression and glittering, defiant glances so surprising to the doctor, who was one of the most good-natured Germans in Petersburg, looked all the more incongruous on her face.
Gravely, though trying to soften his voice as far as he could, he began in a kind and caressing voice to explain how essential and efficacious the powders were, and consequently how incumbent it was on every invalid to take them. Nellie was raising her head, but suddenly, with an apparently quite accidental movement of her arm, she jerked the spoon, and all the medicine was spilt on the floor again. No doubt she did it on purpose.
“That’s very unpleasant carelessness,” said the old man quietly, “and I suspect that you did it on purpose; that’s very reprehensible. But . . . we can set that right and prepare another powder.”
Nellie laughed straight in his face. The doctor shook his head methodically. “That’s very wrong,” he said, opening another powder, “very, very reprehensible.”
“Don’t be angry with me,” answered Nellie, and vainly tried not to laugh again. “I’ll certainly take it. . . . But do you like me?”
“If you will behave yourself becomingly I shall like you very much.” “Very much?”
“Very much.”
“But now, don’t you like me?” “Yes, I like you even now.”
“And will you kiss me if I want to kiss you?” “Yes, if you desire it.”
At this Nellie could not control herself and laughed again.
“The patient has a merry disposition, but now this is nerves and caprice,” the doctor whispered to me with a most serious air.
“All right, I’ll take the powder,” Nellie cried suddenly, in her weak little voice. “But when I am big and grown up will you marry me?”
Apparently the invention of this new fancy greatly delighted her; her eyes positively shone and her lips twitched with laughter as she waited for a reply from the somewhat astonished doctor, “Very well,” he answered, smiling in spite of himself at this new whim, “very well, if you turn out a good, well-brought-up young lady, and will be obedient and will . . . ”
“Take my powders?” put in Nellie.
“0-ho! To he sure, take your powders. A good girl,” he whispered to me again; “there’s a great deal, a great deal in her . . . that’s good and clever but . . . to get married . . . what a strange caprice . . .”
And he took her the medicine again. But this time she made no pretence about it but simply jerked the spoon up from below with her hand and all the medicine was splashed on the poor doctor’s shirt-front and in his face. Nellie laughed aloud, but not with the same merry, good-humoured laugh as before. There was a look of something cruel and
malicious in her face. All this time she seemed to avoid my eyes, only looked at the doctor, and with mockery, through which some uneasiness was discernible, waited to see what the “funny” old man would do next.
“Oh! You’ve done it again! . . . What a misfortune! But . . . I can mix you another powder! “ said the old man, wiping his face and his shirt-front with his handkerchief.
This made a tremendous impression on Nellie. She had been prepared for our anger, thought that we should begin to scold and reprove her, and perhaps she was unconsciously longing at that moment for some excuse to cry, to sob hysterically, to upset some more powders as she had just now and even to break something in her vexation, and with all this to relieve her capricious and aching little heart. Such capricious humours are to be found not only in the sick and not only in Nellie. How often I have walked up and down the room with the unconscious desire for someone to insult me or to utter some word that I could interpret as an insult in order to vent my anger upon someone. Women, venting their anger in that way, begin to cry, shedding the most genuine tears, and the more emotional of them even go into hysterics. It’s a very simple and everyday experience, and happens most often when there is some other, often a secret, grief in the heart, to which one longs to give utterance but cannot.
But, struck by the angelic kindness of the old doctor and the patience with which he set to work to mix her another powder without uttering one word of reproach, Nellie suddenly subsided. The look of mockery vanished from her lips, the colour rushed to her face, her eyes grew moist. She stole a look at me and turned away at once. The doctor brought her the medicine. She took it meekly and shyly, seized the old man’s plump red hand, and looked slowly into his face.
“You . . . are angry that I’m horrid,” she tried to say, but could not finish; she ducked under the quilt, hid her head and burst into loud, hysterical sobs.
“Oh, my child, don’t weep! . . . It is nothing . . . It’s nerves, drink some water.” But Nellie did not hear.
“Be comforted . . . don’t upset yourself,” he went on, almost whimpering over her, for he was a very sensitive man. “I’ll forgive you and be married to you if, like a good, well-brought-up girl, you’ll . . .”
“Take my powders,” came from under the quilt with a little nervous laugh that tinkled like a bell, and was broken by sobs — a laugh I knew very well.
“A good-hearted, grateful child!” said the doctor triumphantly, almost with tears in his eyes. “Poor girl!”
And a strange and wonderful affection sprang up from that day between him and Nellie. With me, on the contrary, Nellie became more and more sullen, nervous, and irritable. I didn’t know what to ascribe this to, and wondered at her, especially as this change in her seemed to happen suddenly. During the first days of her illness she was particularly tender and caressing with me; it seemed as though she could not take her eyes off me; she would not let me leave her side, clutched my hand in her feverish little hand and made me sit beside her, and if she noticed that I was gloomy and anxious she tried to cheer me up, made jokes, played with me and smiled at me, evidently making an effort to overcome her own sufferings. She did not want me to work at night, or to sit up to look after her, and was grieved because I would not listen to her. Sometimes I noticed an anxious look in her face; she began to question me, and tried to find out why I was sad, what was in my mind. But strange to say, when Natasha’s name was mentioned she immediately dropped the conversation or began to speak of something else. She seemed to avoid speaking of Natasha, and that struck me. When I came home she was delighted. When I took up my hat she looked at me dejectedly and rather strangely, following me with her eyes, as it were reproachfully.
On the fourth day of her illness, I spent the whole evening with Natasha and stayed long after midnight. There was something we had to discuss. As I went out I said to my invalid that I should be back very soon, as indeed I reckoned on being. Being detained almost unexpectedly at Natasha’s, I felt quite easy in my mind about Nellie. Alexandra Semyonovna was sitting up with her, having heard from Masloboev, who came in to see me for a moment, that Nellie was ill and that I was in great difficulties and absolutely without help. Good heavens, what a fuss kind-hearted
