«What for? What for? For God’s sending me?» I answered, looking delighted at her joyful little face. «Why, yes; for that too.»
«Ah, Nastenka! Why, one thanks some people for being alive at the same time with one; I thank you for having met me, for my being able to remember you all my life!»
«Well, enough, enough! But now I tell you what, listen: we made an agreement then that as soon as he arrived he would let me know, by leaving a letter with some good simple people of my acquaintance who know nothing about it; or, if it were impossible to write a letter to me, for a letter does not always tell everything, he would be here at ten o’clock on the day he arrived, where we had arranged to meet. I know he has arrived already; but now it’s the third day, and there’s no sign of him and no letter. It’s impossible for me to get away from grandmother in the morning. Give my letter to-morrow to those kind people I spoke to you about: they will send it on to him, and if there is an answer you bring it to-morrow at ten o’clock.»
«But the letter, the letter! You see, you must write the letter first! So perhaps it must all be the day after to-morrow.»
«The letter …» said Nastenka, a little confused, «the letter … but….»
But she did not finish. At first she turned her little face away from me, flushed like a rose, and suddenly I felt in my hand a letter which had evidently been written long before, all ready and sealed up. A familiar sweet and charming reminiscence floated through my mind.
«R, o—Ro; s, i—si; n, a—na,» I began.
«Rosina!» we both hummed together; I almost embracing her with delight, while she blushed as only she could blush, and laughed through the tears which gleamed like pearls on her black eyelashes.
«Come, enough, enough! Good-bye now,» she said speaking rapidly. «Here is the letter, here is the address to which you are to take it. Good-bye, till we meet again! Till to-morrow!»
She pressed both my hands warmly, nodded her head, and flew like an arrow down her side street. I stood still for a long time following her with my eyes.
«Till to-morrow! till to-morrow!» was ringing in my ears as she vanished from my sight.
THIRD NIGHT
To-day was a gloomy, rainy day without a glimmer of sunlight, like the old age before me. I am oppressed by such strange thoughts, such gloomy sensations; questions still so obscure to me are crowding into my brain—and I seem to have neither power nor will to settle them. It’s not for me to settle all this!
To-day we shall not meet. Yesterday, when we said good-bye, the clouds began gathering over the sky and a mist rose. I said that to-morrow it would be a bad day; she made no answer, she did not want to speak against her wishes; for her that day was bright and clear, not one cloud should obscure her happiness.
«If it rains we shall not see each other,» she said, «I shall not come.»
I thought that she would not notice to-day’s rain, and yet she has not come.
Yesterday was our third interview, our third white night….
But how fine joy and happiness makes any one! How brimming over with love the heart is! One seems longing to pour out one’s whole heart; one wants everything to be gay, everything to be laughing. And how infectious that joy is! There was such a softness in her words, such a kindly feeling in her heart towards me yesterday…. How solicitous and friendly she was; how tenderly she tried to give me courage! Oh, the coquetry of happiness! While I … I took it all for the genuine thing, I thought that she….
But, my God, how could I have thought it? How could I have been so blind, when everything had been taken by another already, when nothing was mine; when, in fact, her very tenderness to me, her anxiety, her love … yes, love for me, was nothing else but joy at the thought of seeing another man so soon, desire to include me, too, in her happiness?… When he did not come, when we waited in vain, she frowned, she grew timid and discouraged. Her movements, her words, were no longer so light, so playful, so gay; and, strange to say, she redoubled her attentiveness to me, as though instinctively desiring to lavish on me what she desired for herself so anxiously, if her wishes were not accomplished. My Nastenka was so downcast, so dismayed, that I think she realized at last that I loved her, and was sorry for my poor love. So when we are unhappy we feel the unhappiness of others more; feeling is not destroyed but concentrated….
I went to meet her with a full heart, and was all impatience. I had no presentiment that I should feel as I do now, that it would not all end happily. She was beaming with pleasure; she was expecting an answer. The answer was himself. He was to come, to run at her call. She arrived a whole hour before I did. At first she giggled at everything, laughed at every word I said. I began talking, but relapsed into silence.
«Do you know why I am so glad,» she said, «so glad to look at you?—why I like you so much to-day?»
«Well?» I asked, and my heart began throbbing.
«I like you because you have not fallen in love with me. You know that some men in your place would have been pestering and worrying me, would have been sighing and miserable, while you are so nice!»
Then she wrung my hand so hard that I almost cried out. She laughed.
«Goodness, what a friend you are!» she began gravely a minute later. «God sent you to me. What would have happened to me if you had not been with me now? How disinterested you are! How truly you care for me! When I am married we will be great friends, more than brother and sister; I shall care almost as I do for him….»
I felt horribly sad at that moment, yet something like laughter was stirring in my soul.
«You are very much upset,» I said; «you are frightened; you think he won’t come.»
«Oh dear!» she answered; «if I were less happy, I believe I should cry at your lack of faith, at your reproaches. However, you have made me think and have given me a lot to think about; but I shall think later, and now I will own that you are right. Yes, I am somehow not myself; I am all suspense, and feel everything as it were too lightly. But hush! that’s enough about feelings….»
At that moment we heard footsteps, and in the darkness we saw a figure coming towards us. We both started; she almost cried out; I dropped her hand and made a movement as though to walk away. But we were mistaken, it was not he.
«What are you afraid of? Why did you let go of my hand?» she said, giving it to me again. «Come, what is it? We will meet him together; I want him to see how fond we are of each other.»
«How fond we are of each other!» I cried. («Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka,» I thought, «how much you have told me in that saying! Such fondness at certain moments makes the heart cold and the soul heavy. Your hand is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!… Oh, how unbearable a happy person is sometimes! But I could not be angry with you!»)
At last my heart was too full.
«Listen, Nastenka!» I cried. «Do you know how it has been with me all day.»
«Why, how, how? Tell me quickly! Why have you said nothing all this time?»
«To begin with, Nastenka, when I had carried out all your commissions, given the letter, gone to see your good friends, then … then I went home and went to bed.»
«Is that all?» she interrupted, laughing.
«Yes, almost all,» I answered restraining myself, for foolish tears were already starting into my eyes. «I woke an hour before our appointment, and yet, as it were, I had not been asleep. I don’t know what happened to me. I came to tell you all about it, feeling as though time were standing still, feeling as though one sensation, one feeling must remain with me from that time for ever; feeling as though one minute must go on for all eternity, and as though all life had come to a standstill for me…. When I woke up it seemed as though some musical motive long familiar, heard somewhere in the past, forgotten and voluptuously sweet, had come back to me now. It seemed to me that it had been clamouring at my heart all my life, and only now….»
«Oh my goodness, my goodness,» Nastenka interrupted, «what does all that mean? I don’t understand a word.»
«Ah, Nastenka, I wanted somehow to convey to you that strange impression….» I began in a plaintive voice, in which there still lay hid a hope, though a very faint one.
«Leave off. Hush!» she said, and in one instant the sly puss had guessed.
Suddenly she became extraordinarily talkative, gay, mischievous; she took my arm, laughed, wanted me to laugh too, and every confused word I uttered evoked from her prolonged ringing laughter…. I began to feel angry, she had suddenly begun flirting.
«Do you know,» she began, «I feel a little vexed that you are not
