“How is she? How has she slept? Has anything gone wrong with her? Isn’t she awake now? Do you know what, Anna Andreyevna, we’ll move the little table out on to the veranda, we’ll take out the samovar; our friends will be coming, we’ll all sit there and Nellie can come out to us . . . That’ll be nice. Isn’t she awake yet? I’ll go in to her. I’ll only have a look at her. I won’t wake her. Don’t be uneasy!” he added, seeing that Anna Andreyevna was making signals to him again. But Nellie was already awake. A quarter of an hour later we were all sitting as usual round the samovar at evening tea. Nellie was carried out in her chair. The doctor and Masloboev made their appearance. The latter brought a big bunch of lilac for Nellie, but he seemed anxious and annoyed about something, Masloboev, by the way, came in almost every evening. I have mentioned already that all of them liked him very much, especially Anna Andreyevna, but not a word was spoken among us about Alexandra Semyonovna. Masloboev himself made no allusion to her. Anna Andreyevna, having learned from me that Alexandra Semyonovna had not yet succeeded in becoming his legal wife, had made up her mind that it was impossible to receive her or speak of her in the house. This decision was maintained, and was very characteristic of Anna Andreyevna. But for Natasha’s being with her, and still more for all that had happened, she would perhaps not have been so squeamish.
Nellie was particularly depressed that evening and even preoccupied. It was as though she had had a bad dream and was brooding over it. But she was much delighted with Masloboev’s present and looked with pleasure at the flowers, which we put in a glass before her.
“So you’re very fond of flowers, Nellie.” said the old man. “just wait,” he said eagerly. “Tomorrow . . . well, you shall see. . .”
“I am fond of them,” answered Nellie, “and I remember how we used to meet mother with flowers. When we were out there, ( “out there” meant now abroad) “mother was very ill once for a whole month. Heinrich and I agreed that when she got up and came for the first time out of her bedroom, which she had not left for a whole month, we would decorate all the rooms with flowers. And so we did. Mother told us overnight that she would be sure to come down to lunch next day. We got up very, very early. Heinrich brought in a lot of flowers, and we decorated all the rooms with green leaves and garlands. There was ivy and something else with broad leaves I don’t know the name of, and some other leaves that caught in everything, and there were big white flowers and narcissus — and I like them better than any other flower — and there were roses, such splendid loses, and lots and lots of flowers, We hung them all up in wreaths or put them in pots, and there were flowers that were like whole trees in big tubs; we put them in the corners and by mother’s chair, and when mother came in she was astonished and awfully delighted, and Heinrich was glad . . . I remember that now . . .”
That evening Nellie was particularly weak and nervous. The doctor looked at her uneasily. But she was very eager to talk. And for a long time, till it was dark, she told us about her former life out there; we did not interrupt her. She and her mother and Heinrich had travelled a great deal together, and recollections of those days remained vivid in her memory. She talked eagerly of the blue skies, of the high mountains with snow and ice on them which she had seen and passed through, of the waterfalls in the mountains; and then of the lakes and valleys of Italy, of the flowers and trees, of the villagers, of their dress, their dark faces, and black eyes. She told us about various incidents and adventures with them. Then she talked of great tombs and palaces, of a tall church with a dome, which was suddenly illuminated with lights of different colours; then of a hot, southern town with blue skies and a blue sea. . . . Never had Nellie talked to us with such detail of what she remembered. We listened to her with intense interest. Till then we had heard only of her experiences of a different kind, in a dark, gloomy town, with its crushing, stupefying atmosphere, its pestilential air, its costly palaces, always begrimed with dirt; with its pale dim sunlight, and its evil, half-crazy inhabitants, at whose hands she and her mother had suffered so much. And I pictured how on damp, gloomy evenings in their filthy cellar, lying together on their poor bed, they had recalled past days, their lost Heinrich, and the marvels of other lands. I pictured Nellie alone, too, without her mother, remembering all this, while Mme. Bubnov was trying by blows and brutal cruelty to break her spirit and force her into a vicious life. . . .
But at last Nellie felt faint, and she was carried indoors. Nikolay Sergeyitch was much alarmed and vexed that we had let her talk so much. She had a sort of attack or fainting-
fit. She had had such attacks several times. When it was over Nellie asked earnestly to see me. She wanted to say something to me alone. She begged so earnestly for this that this time the doctor himself insisted that her wish should be granted, and they all went out of the room.
“Listen, Vanya,” said Nellie, when we were left alone. “I know they think that I’m going with them, but I’m not going because I can’t and I shall stay for the time with you. I wanted to tell you so . . . ”
I tried to dissuade her. I told her that the Ichmenyevs loved her and looked on her as a daughter; that they would all be very sorry to lose her. That, on the other hand, it would be hard for her to live with me; and that, much as I loved her, there was no hope for it — we must part.
“No, it’s impossible!” Nellie answered emphatically; “for I often dream of mother now, and she tells me not to go with them but to stay here. She tells me that I was very sinful to leave grandfather alone, and she always cries when she says that. I want to stay here and look after grandfather, Vanya.”
“But you know your grandfather is dead, Nellie,” I answered, listening to her with amazement.
She thought a little and looked at me intently.
“Tell me, Vanya, tell me again how grandfather died,” she said. “Tell me all about it, don’t leave anything out.”
I was surprised at this request, but I proceeded to tell her the story in every detail. I suspected that she was delirious, or at least that after her attack her brain was not quite clear.
She listened attentively to all I told her, and I remember how her black eyes, glittering with the light of fever, watched me intently and persistently all the while I was talking. It was dark by now in the room.
“No, Vanya, he’s not dead,” she said positively, when she had heard it all and reflected for a while. “Mother often tells me about grandfather, and when I said to her yesterday, ‘but grandfather’s dead,’ she was dreadfully grieved; she cried and told me he wasn’t, that I had been told so on purpose, and that he was walking about the streets now, begging ‘just as we used to beg,’ mother said to me; ‘and he keeps walking about the place where we first met him, and I fell down before him, and Azorka knew me . . . .’”
“That was a dream, Nellie, a dream that comes from illness, for you are ill,” I said to her.
“I kept thinking it was only a dream myself,” said Nellie, “and I didn’t speak of it to anyone. I only wanted to tell you. But today when you didn’t come, and I fell asleep, I dreamed of grandfather himself. He was sitting at home, waiting for me, and was so thin and dreadful; and he told me he’d had nothing to eat for two days, nor Azorka either, and he was very angry with me, and scolded me. He told me, too, that he had no snuff at all, and that he couldn’t live without it. And he did really say that to me once before, Vanya, after mother died, when I went to see him. Then he was quite ill and hardly understood anything. When I heard him say that today, I thought I would go on to the bridge and beg for alms, and then buy him bread and baked potatoes and snuff. So I went and stood there, and then I saw grandfather walking near, and he lingered a little and then came up to me, and looked how much I’d got and took it. ‘That will do for bread,’ he said; ‘now get some for snuff.’ I begged the money, and he came up and took it from me. I told him that I’d give it him all, anyway, and not hide anything from him. ‘No’ he said, ‘you steal from me. Mme. Bubnov told
