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“And where’s Natasha?”
“In the garden, the darling! Go to her.... There’s something wrong with her, too. . . . I can’t make her out. . . . Oh, Ivan Petrovitch, my heart’s very heavy! She declares she’s cheerful and content, but I don’t believe her. Go to her, Vanya, and tell me quietly what’s the matter with her.... Do you hear?”
But I was no longer listening to A
But now I came upon Natasha. She met me joyfully, holding out her hands. How thin she was, how pale! She, too, had only just recovered from an illness.
“Have you quite finished, Vanya?” she asked me.
“Quite, quite! And I am free for the whole evening.”
“Well, thank God! Did you hurry? Have you spoilt it?”
“What could I do? It’s all right, though. My nerves get strung up to a peculiar tension by working at such a strain; I imagine more clearly, I feel more vividly and deeply, and even my style is more under my control, so that work done under pressure always turns out better. It’s all right. . .”
“Ah, Vanya, Vanya! . . .”
I had noticed that of late Natasha had been keeping a jealous and devoted watch over my literary success and reputation. She read over everything I had published in the last year, was constantly asking me about my plans for the future, was interested in every criticism, was angry at some; and was desperately anxious that I should take a high place in the literary world. Her desire was expressed so strongly and insistently that I was positively astonished at her feeling.
“You’ll simply write yourself out, Vanya,” she said to me. “You’re overstraining yourself, and you’ll write yourself out; and what’s more, you’re ruining your health. S. now only writes a novel a year, and N. has only written one novel in ten years. See how polished, how finished, their work is. You won’t find one oversight.”
“Yes, but they are prosperous and don’t write up to time; while I’m a hack. But that’s no matter! Let’s drop that, my dear. Well, is there no news?”
“A great deal. In the first place a letter from him.”
“Again?” I
“Yes, again.”
And she gave me a letter from Alyosha. It was the third she had had since their separation. The first was written from Moscow, and seemed to be written in a kind of frenzy. He informed her that things had turned out so that it was impossible for him to come from Moscow to Petersburg, as they had pla
It covered two sheets of paper and was written disco
I gave both letters back to Natasha; we looked at one another and said nothing; it had been the same with the other two letters; and in general we avoided talking of the past, as though this had been agreed upon between us. She was suffering intolerably, I saw that, but she did not want to express it even before me. After her return to her father’s house she had been in bed for three weeks with a feverish attack, and was only just getting over it. We did not talk much either of the change in store for us, though she knew her father had obtained a situation and that we soon had to part. In spite of that she was so tender to me all that time, so attentive, and took such interest in all that I was doing; she listened with such persistence, such obstinate attention, to all I had to tell her about myself that at first it rather weighed upon me; it seemed to me that she was trying to make up to me for the past. But this feeling soon passed off. I realized that she wanted something quite different, that it was simply that she loved me, loved me immensely, could not live without me and without being interested in everything that concerned me; and I believed that no sister ever loved a brother as Natasha loved me. I knew quite well that our approaching separation was a load on her heart, that Natasha was miserable; she knew, too, that I could not live without her; but of that we said nothing, though we did talk in detail of the events before us.
I asked after Nikolay Sergeyitch.
“I believe he’ll soon be back,” said Natasha; “he promised to be in to tea.”
“He’s still trying to get that job?”
“Yes; but there’s no doubt about the job now; and I don’t think there’s really any reason for him to go today,” she added, musing. “He might have gone tomorrow.”
“Why did he go, then?”
“Because I got a letter. . . . He’s so ill over me,” Natasha added, “that it’s really painful to me, Vanya. He seems to dream of nothing but me. I believe that he never thinks of anything except how I’m getting on, how I’m feeling, what I’m thinking. Every anxiety I have raises an echo in his heart. I see how awkwardly he sometimes tries to control himself, and to make a pretence of not grieving about me, how he affects to be cheerful, tries to laugh and amuse us. Mother is not herself either at such moments and doesn’t believe in his laugh either, and sighs.... She’s so awkward ... an upright soul.” she added with a laugh. “So when I got a letter today he had to run off at once to avoid meeting my eyes. I love him more than myself, more than anyone in the world, Vanya,” she added, dropping her head and pressing my hand, “even more than you...”