The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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      CHAPTER IV

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       BEFORE I HAD TIME to run out into the street, before I had time to consider how to act, or what to do, I suddenly saw a droshky standing at the gate of our buildings, and Alexandra Semyonovna getting out of it leading Nellie by the arm. She was holding her tightly as though she were afraid she might run away again. I rushed up to them.

      “Nellie, what’s the matter?” I cried, “where have you been, why did you go?”

      “Stop a minute, don’t be in a hurry; let’s make haste upstairs. There you shall hear all about it,” twittered Alexandra Semyonovna. “The things I have to tell you, Ivan Petrovitch,” she whispered hurriedly on the way. “One can only wonder …Come along, you shall hear immediately.”

      Her face showed that she had extremely important news.

      “Go along, Nellie, go along. Lie down a little,” she said as soon as we got into the room, “you’re tired, you know; it’s no joke running about so far, and it’s too much after an illness; lie down, darling, lie down. And we’ll go out of the room for a little, we won’t get in her way; let her have a sleep.”

      And she signed to me to go into the kitchen with her.

      But Nellie didn’t lie down, she sat down on the sofa and hid her face in her hands.

      We went into the other room, and Alexandra Semyonovna told me briefly what had happened. Afterwards I heard about it more in detail. This is how it had been.

      Going out of the flat a couple of hours before my return and leaving the note for me, Nellie had run first to the old doctor’s. She had managed to find out his address beforehand. The doctor told me that he was absolutely petrified when he saw her, and “could not believe his eyes” all the while she was there. “I can’t believe it even now,” he added, as he finished his story “and I never shall believe it.” And yet Nellie actually had been at his house. He had been sitting quietly in the armchair in his study in his dressing-gown, drinking his coffee, when she ran in and threw herself on his neck before he had time to realize it. She was crying, she embraced and kissed him, kissed his hands, and earnestly though incoherently begged him to let her stay with him, declaring that she wouldn’t and couldn’t live with me any longer, and that’s why she had left me; that she was unhappy; that she wouldn’t laugh at him again or talk about new dresses, but would behave well and learn her lessons, that she would learn to “wash and get up his shirtfront” (probably she had thought over her whole speech on the way or perhaps even before), and that, in fact, she would be obedient and would take as many powders as he liked every day; and that as for her saying she wanted to marry him that had only been a joke, and she had no idea of the kind. The old German was so dumbfounded that he sat open-mouthed the whole time, forgetting the cigar he held in his hand till it went out.

      “Mademoiselle,” he brought out at last, recovering his powers of speech, “so far as I can understand you, you ask me to give you a situation in my household. But that’s impossible. As you see, I’m very much cramped and have not a very considerable income … and, in fact, to act so rashly without reflection … is awful! And, in fact, you, so far as I can see, have run away from home. That is reprehensible and impossible…. And what’s more, I only allowed you to take a short walk in charge of your benefactor, and you abandon your benefactor, and run off to me when you ought to be taking care of yourself and … and … taking your medicine. And, in fact … in fact … I can make nothing of it …”

      Nellie did not let him finish. She began to cry and implored him again, but nothing was of use. The old man was more and more bewildered, and less and less able to understand. At last Nellie gave him up and crying “Oh, dear!” ran out of the room.

      “I was ill all that day,” the old doctor said in conclusion, “and had taken a decoction in the evening….”

      Nellie rushed off to the Masloboevs. She had provided herself with their address too, and she succeeded in finding them, though not without trouble. Masloboev was at home. Alexandra Semyonovna clasped her hands in amazement when she heard Nellie beg them to take her in. When she asked her why she wanted it, what was wrong, whether she was unhappy with me, Nellie had made no answer, but flung herself sobbing on a chair.

      “She sobbed so violently, so violently,” said Alexandra Semyonovna, “that I thought she would have died.” Nellie begged to be taken if only as a housemaid or a cook, said she would sweep the floors and learn to do the washing (she seemed to rest her hopes especially on the washing and seemed for some reason to think this a great inducement for them to take her). Alexandra Semyonovna’s idea was to keep her till the matter was cleared up, meanwhile letting me know. But Filip Filippovitch had absolutely forbidden it, and had told her to bring the runaway to me at once. On the way Alexandra Semyonovna had kissed and embraced her, which had made Nellie cry more than ever.

      Looking at her, Alexandra Semyonovna too had shed tears. So both of them had been crying all the way in the cab.

      “But why, Nellie, why don’t you want to go on staying with him? What has he done. Is he unkind to you?” Alexandra Semyonovna asked, melting into tears.

      “No.”

      “Well, why then?”

      “Nothing … I don’t want to stay with him … I’m always so nasty with him and he’s so kind … but with you I won’t be nasty, I’ll work,” she declared, sobbing as though she were in hysterics.

      “Why are you so nasty to him, Nellie?”

      “Nothing….”

      And that was all I could get out of her,” said Alexandra Semyonovna, wiping her tears. “Why is she such an unhappy little thing? Is it her fits? What do you think, Ivan Petrovitch?”

      We went in to Nellie. She lay with her face hidden in the pillow, crying. I knelt down beside her, took her hands, and began to kiss them. She snatched her hands from me and sobbed more violently than ever. I did not know what to say. At that moment old Ichmenyev walked in.