Demons

"Sit here, next to me, I beg you, so that I can have a good look at you afterwards," she said quite firmly, with some new and obvious purpose. "And don't worry now, I won't look at you, I'll look down. And don't you look at me either, until I myself ask you to. Do sit," she added, even impatiently.

A new sensation seemed to be taking more and more possession of her.

Nikolai Vsevolodovich sat down and waited; there was quite a long silence.

"Hm! It seems all strange to me," she muttered suddenly, almost in disgust. "I am full of bad dreams, of course; only why should you come into my dreams in such a way?"

"Well, let's leave dreams out of it," he said impatiently, turning to her despite her prohibition, and perhaps the former expression flashed in his eyes again. He saw that several times she would have liked, and liked very much, to glance at him, but that she stubbornly resisted and looked down.

"Listen, Prince," she raised her voice suddenly, "listen, Prince..."

"Why did you turn away, why don't you look at me, what is this comedy about?" he cried, unable to help himself.

But it was as if she had not heard him at all.

"Listen, Prince," she repeated for the third time, in a firm voice, with an unpleasant, preoccupied look on her face. "When you told me in the carriage then that the marriage would be a

"Don't be afraid or worried," Nikolai Vsevolodovich twisted his mouth.

"Anyway, for me it won't matter much even if he should be a little ashamed of me, because there's always more pity in it than shame, depending on the person, of course. He does know that I ought rather to pity them than they me."

"You seem to be very offended with them, Marya Timofeevna?" "Who, me? No," she smiled simpleheartedly. "Not a bit. I looked at you all then: you're all angry, you're all quarreling; you get together and can't even laugh from the heart. So much wealth and so little joy—it's all loathsome to me. But, anyway, I don't pity anyone now except my own self."

"I've heard your life with your brother was bad without me?" "Who told you so? Nonsense; it's much worse now; my dreams are not so good now, and they became not so good because you arrived. Why, tell me, please, did you appear, if I may ask?" "And don't you want to go back to the convent?" "Well, I could just feel they were going to offer me the convent again! As if I haven't seen your convent! And why should I go there, what will I bring with me? I'm as alone as can be now! It's too late for me to begin a third life."

"You are very angry about something, perhaps you're afraid I've stopped loving you?"

"I don't care about you at all. I'm afraid I myself may well stop loving someone."

She gri

"I must be guilty before him in some very big way," she added suddenly, as if to herself, "only I don't know what I'm guilty of, that is my whole grief forever. Always, always, for all these five years I've feared day and night that I'm guilty before him for something. I've prayed sometimes, prayed and kept thinking about my great guilt before him. And so it's turned out to be true."

"But what is it?"

"I'm only afraid there may be something on his part," she went on without answering his question, not even hearing it at all. "Again, he couldn't really become close with such paltry people. The countess would gladly eat me, even though she put me in her carriage. They're all in the conspiracy—is he, too? Has he, too, betrayed me?" (Her lips and chin began to tremble.) "Listen, you: have you read about Grishka Otrepev, who was cursed at the seven councils?"[102]

Nikolai Vsevolodovich did not answer.

"Anyway, I'll now turn and look at you," she suddenly seemed to make up her mind. "You also turn and look at me, only look more intently. I want to make sure for the last time."

"I've been looking at you for a long time."

"Hm," said Marya Timofeevna, studying him closely, "you've grown fatter ..."

She wanted to say something more, but then again, for the third time, the same fright instantly distorted her face, and she again recoiled, raising her hand in front of her.

"What's the matter with you?" Nikolai Vsevolodovich cried out, almost in rage.

But the fright lasted only an instant; her face twisted into some strange smile, suspicious, unpleasant.

"I beg you, Prince, to get up and come in," she suddenly said, in a firm and insistent voice.

"How, come in? Come in where?"

"All these five years I've only been imagining how he would come in. Get up now and go out the door, into the other room. I'll sit here as if I'm not expecting anything and take a book in my hands, and suddenly you will come in after five years of traveling. I want to see how it will be."

Nikolai Vsevolodovich gnashed his teeth to himself and growled something incomprehensible.

"Enough," he said, slapping the table with his palm. "I beg you to listen to me, Marya Timofeevna. Kindly collect all your attention, if you can. You're not completely mad, after all!" he burst out impatiently. "Tomorrow I am a

She heard him out with great curiosity, and thought silently for a long time.

"It's all incredible to me," she said at last, mockingly and disgustedly. "I might live like that for forty years in those mountains." She laughed.