My sweet angel, Natasha! Even that evening in spite of her own grief she could sympathize with my anxieties, when, seeing that she was a little calmer, or, rather, wearied out, thinking to distract her mind I told her about Nellie. We parted that evening late. I stayed till she fell asleep, and as I went out I begged Mavra not to leave her suffering mistress all night.
“Oh . . . for the end of this misery,” I cried as I walked home. “To have it over quickly, quickly! Any end, anyhow, if only it can be quick!”
Next morning at nine o’clock precisely I was with her again. Alyosha arrived at the same time . . . to say good-bye. I will not describe this scene, I don’t want to recall it. Natasha seemed to have resolved to control herself, to appear cheerful and unconcerned, but she could not. She embraced Alyosha passionately, convulsively. She did not say much to him, but for a long while she looked intently at him with an agonizing and almost frantic gaze. She hung greedily on every word he uttered, and yet seemed to take in nothing that he said. I remember he begged her to forgive him, to forgive him for his love, and for all the injury he had done her, to forgive his infidelities, his love for Katya, his going away . . . he spoke incoherently, his tears choked him. He sometimes began suddenly trying to comfort her, saying that he was only going away for a month, or at the most five weeks; that he would be back in the summer, when they would be married, and that his father would consent, and above all that the day after tomorrow he would come back from Moscow, and then they would have four whole days together again, so now they were only being parted for one day. . . .
It was strange! He fully believed in what he said, and that he would certainly return from Moscow in two days. . . . My then was he so miserable and crying?
At last eleven o’clock struck. It was with difficulty I persuaded him to go. The Moscow train left exactly at midday. There was only an hour left. Natasha said afterwards that she did not remember how she had looked at him for the last time. I remember that she made the sign of the cross over him, kissed him, and hiding her face in her hands rushed back into the room. I had to see Alyosha all the way downstairs to his carriage, or he would certainly have returned and never have reached the bottom.
“You are our only hope,” he said, as we went downstairs.
“Dear Vanya! I have injured you, and can never deserve your love; but always be a brother to me; love her, do not abandon her, write to me about everything as fully, as minutely as possible, write as much as you can. The day after tomorrow I shall be here again for certain; for certain; for certain! But afterwards, when I go away, write to me!”
I helped him into his carriage.
“Till the day after tomorrow,” he shouted to me as he drove off. “For certain!”
With a sinking heart I went upstairs, back to Natasha. She was standing in the middle of the room with her arms folded, gazing at me with a bewildered look, as though she didn’t recognize me. Her coil of hair had fallen to one side; her eyes looked vacant and wandering. Mavra stood in the doorway gazing at her, panic-stricken.
Suddenly Natasha’s eyes flashed.
“Ah! That’s you! You!” she screamed at me. “Now you are left alone! You hate him! You never could forgive him for my loving him . . . Now you are with me again! He’s come to comfort me again, to persuade me to go back to my father, who flung me off and cursed me. I knew it would be so, yesterday, two months ago. . . . I won’t, I won’t. I curse them, too . . . Go away! I can’t bear the sight of you! Go away! Go away!”
I realized that she was frantic, and that the sight of me roused her anger to an intense pitch, I realized that this was bound to be so, and thought it better to go. I sat down. on the top stair outside and waited. From time to time I got up, opened the door, beckoned to Mavra and questioned her. Mavra was in tears.
An hour and a half passed like this. I cannot describe what I went through in that time. My heart sank and ached with an intolerable pain. Suddenly the door opened and Natasha ran out with her cape and hat on. She hardly seemed to know what she was doing, and told me herself afterwards that she did not know where she was running, or with what object.
Before I had time to jump up and hide myself, she saw me and stopped before me as though suddenly struck by something. “I realized all at once,” she told me afterwards, “that in my cruelty and madness I had actually driven you away, you, my friend, my brother, my saviour! And when I saw that you, poor boy, after being insulted by me had not gone away, but were sitting on the stairs, waiting till I should call you back, my God! if you knew, Vanya, what I felt then! It was like a stab at my heart . . . ”
“Vanya, Vanya!” she cried, holding out her hands to me. “You are here!” And she fell into my arms.
I caught her up and carried her into the room. She was fainting! “What shall I do?” I thought. “She’ll have brain-fever for certain!”
I decided to run for a doctor; something must be done to check the illness. I could drive there quickly. My old German was always at home till two o’clock. I flew to him,
begging Mavra not for one minute, not for one second, to leave Natasha, and not to let her go out. Fortune favoured me. A little later and I should not have found my old friend at home. He was already in the street, just coming out of his house, when I met him. Instantly I put him in my cab, before he had time to be surprised, and we hastened back to Natasha.
Yes, fortune did favour me! During the half-hour of my absence something had happened to Natasha which might have killed her outright if the doctor and I had not arrived in the nick of time. Not a quarter of an hour after I had gone Prince Valkovsky had walked in. He had just been seeing the others off and had come to Natasha’s straight from the railway station. This visit had probably been planned and thought out by him long before. Natasha told me that for the first minute she was not even surprised to see the prince. “My brain was in a whirl” she said.
He sat facing her, looking at her with a caressing and pathetic expression.
“My dear,” he said, sighing, “I understand your grief; I know how hard it must be for you at this moment, and so I felt it my duty to come to you. Be comforted, if you can, if only that by renouncing Alyosha you have secured his happiness. But you understand that better than I, for you resolved on your noble action . . .”
“I sat and listened,” Natasha told me, “but at first I really did not understand him. I only remember that I stared and stared at him. He took my hand and began to press it in his. He seemed to find this very agreeable. I was so beside myself that I never thought of pulling my hand away.”
“You realized,” he went on, “that by becoming Alyosha’s wife you might become an object of hatred to him later on, and you had honourable pride enough to recognize this, and make up your mind . . . but — I haven’t come here to praise you. I only wanted to tell you that you will never, anywhere, find a truer friend than me! I sympathize with you and am sorry for you. I have been forced to have a share in all this against my will, but I have only done my duty. Your excellent heart will realize that and make peace with mine. . . . But it has been harder for me than for you — believe me.”
“Enough, prince,” said Natasha, “leave me in peace.”
“Certainly, I will go directly,” he answered, “but I love you as though you were my own daughter, and you must allow me to come and see you. Look upon me now as though I were your father and allow me be of use to you.”
“I want nothing. Leave me alone,” Natasha interrupted again.
“I know you are proud . . . But I’m speaking sincerely, from my heart. What do you intend to do now? To make peace with your parents? That would be a good thing. But your father is unjust, proud and tyrannical; forgive me, but that is so. At home you would meet now nothing but reproaches and fresh suffering. But you must be independent, and it is my obligation, my sacred duty to look after you and help you now. Alyosha begged me not to leave you but to be a friend to you. But besides me there are people prepared to be genuinely devoted to you. You will, I hope,
