them, but try to think only of pleasant things . . . of something cheerful and amusing.” “And what shall I think of that’s cheerful and amusing? Nellie would ask.
The doctor was at once nonplussed.
“Well . . .of some innocent game appropriate to your age or, well . . . something of that . . .”
“I don’t want to play games, I don’t like games,” said Nellie. “I like new dresses better.”
“New dresses! Hm! Well, that’s not so good. We should in all things be content with a modest lot in life. However . . . maybe . . . there’s no harm in being fond of new dresses.”
“And will you give me a lot of dresses when I’m married to you?
“What an idea!” said the doctor and he could not help frowning. Nellie smiled slyly and, even forgetting herself for a minute, glanced at me.
“However, I’ll give you a dress if you deserve it by your conduct,” the doctor went on. “And must I take my medicine every day when I’m married to you?”
“Well, then, perhaps you may not have to take medicine always.” And the doctor began to smile.
Nellie interrupted the conversation by laughing. The old man laughed with her, and watched her merriment affectionately.
“A playful sportive mind!” he observed, turning to me. “But still one can see signs of caprice and a certain whimsicalness and irritability.”
He was right. I could not make out what was happening to her. She seemed utterly unwilling to speak to me, as though I had treated her badly in some way. This was very bitter to me. I frowned myself, and once I did not speak to her for a whole day, but next day I felt ashamed. She was often crying and I hadn’t a notion how to comfort her. On one occasion, however, she broke her silence with me.
One afternoon I returned home just before dusk and saw Nellie hurriedly hide a book under the pillow. It was my novel which she had taken from the table and was reading in my absence. What need had she to hide it from me?” just as though she were ashamed,” I thought, but I showed no sign of having noticed anything. A quarter of an hour later when I went out for a minute into the kitchen she quickly jumped out of bed and put the novel back where it had been before; when I came back I saw it lying on the table. A minute later she called me to her; there was a ring of some emotion in her voice. For the last four
days she had hardly spoken to me.
“Are you . . . today . . . going to see Natasha?” she asked me in a breaking voice, “Yes, Nellie. It’s very necessary for me to see her today.” Nellie did not speak. “You . . . are very . . . fond of her?” she asked again, in a faint voice.
“Yes, Nellie, I’m very fond of her.” “I love her too,” she added softly. A silence followed again.
“I want to go to her and to live with her,” Nellie began again, looking at me timidly.
“That’s impossible, Nellie,” I answered, looking at her with some surprise. “Are you so badly off with me?”
“Why is it impossible?” And she flushed crimson. “Why, you were persuading me to go and live with her father; I don’t want to go there. Has she a servant?
“Yes.”
“Well, let her send her servant away, and I’ll be her servant. I’ll do everything for her and not take any wages. I’ll love her, and do her cooking. You tell her so today.”
“But what for? What a notion, Nellie! And what an idea you must have of her; do you suppose she would take you as a cook? If she did take you she would take you as an equal, as her younger sister.”
“No, I don’t want to be an equal. I don’t want it like that . . .” “Why?”
Nellie was silent. Her lips were twitching. She was on the point of crying.
“The man she loves now is going away from her and leaving her alone now?” she asked at last.
I was surprised.
“Why, how do you know, Nellie?”
“You told me all about it yourself; and the day before yesterday when Alexandra Semyonovna’s husband came in the morning I asked him; he told me everything.”
“Why, did Masloboev come in the morning?” “Yes,” she answered, dropping her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me he’d been here?”
“I don’t know . . . ”
I reflected for a moment. “Goodness only knows why Masloboev is turning up with his mysteriousness. What sort of terms has he got on to with her? I ought to see him,” I thought.
“Well, what is it to you, Nellie, if he does desert her?”
“Why, you love her so much,” said Nellie, not lifting her eyes to me. “And if you love her you’ll marry her when he goes away.”
“No, Nellie, she doesn’t love me as I love her, and I . . . no, that won’t happen, Nellie.”
“And I would work for you both as your servant and you’d live and be happy,” she said, almost in a whisper, not looking at me.
“What’s the matter with her? What’s the matter with her?” I thought, and I had a disturbing pang at my heart. Nellie was silent and she didn’t say another word all the evening. When I went out she had been crying, and cried the whole evening, as Alexandra Semyonovna told me, and so fell asleep, crying. She even cried and kept saying something at night in her sleep.
But from that day she became even more sullen and silent, and didn’t speak to me at all. It is true I caught two or three glances stolen at me on the sly, and there was such tenderness in those glances. But this passed, together with the moment that called forth that sudden tenderness, and as though in opposition to this impulse Nellie grew every hour more gloomy even with the doctor, who was amazed at the change in her character. Meanwhile she had almost completely recovered, and the doctor, at last allowed her to go for a walk in the open air, but only for a very short time. It was settled weather, warm and bright. It was Passion Week, which fell that year very late; I went out in the morning; I was obliged to be at Natasha’s and I intended to return earlier in order to take Nellie out for a walk. Meantime I left her alone at home.
I cannot describe what a blow was awaiting me at home. I hurried back. When I arrived I saw that the key was sticking in the outside of the lock. I went in. There was no one there. I was numb with horror. I looked, and on the table was a piece of paper, and written in pencil in a big, uneven handwriting:
“I have gone away, and I shall never come back to you. But I love you very much. —— Your faithful Nellie.”
I uttered a cry of horror and rushed out of the flat.
CHAPTER IV
BEFORE I had time to run out into the street, before I had time to consider how to act, or what to do, I suddenly saw a droshky standing at the gate of our buildings, and Alexandra Semyonovna getting out of it leading Nellie by the arm. She was holding her tightly as though she were afraid she might run away again. I rushed up to them.
“Nellie, what’s the matter?” I cried, “where have you been, why did you go?”
“Stop a minute, don’t be in a hurry; let’s make haste upstairs. There you shall hear all about it,” twittered Alexandra Semyonovna. “The things I have to tell you, Ivan Petrovitch,” she whispered hurriedly on the way. “One can only wonder . . . Come along, you shall hear immediately.”
Her face showed that she had extremely important news.
“Go along, Nellie, go along. Lie down a little,” she said as soon as we got into the room, “you’re tired, you know; it’s no joke running about so far, and it’s too much after an illness; lie down, darling, lie down. And we’ll go out of the room for a little, we won’t get in her way; let her have a sleep.”
And she signed to me to go into the kitchen with her.
But Nellie didn’t lie down, she sat down on the sofa and hid her face in her hands.
We went into the other room, and Alexandra Semyonovna told me briefly what had happened. Afterwards I heard about it more in detail. This is how it had been.
Going out of the flat a couple of hours before my return and leaving the note for me, Nellie had run first to the old doctor’s. She had managed to find out his address beforehand. The doctor told me that he was absolutely petrified when he saw her, and “could not believe his eyes” all the while she was there. “I can’t believe it even now,” he added, as he finished his story “and I never shall believe it.” And yet Nellie actually had been at his house. He had been sitting quietly in the armchair in his study in his dressing-gown, drinking his coffee, when she ran in and threw herself on his neck before he had time to realize it. She was crying,
