"Oh, do you want to marry her?"
"Yes."
"Is she a good girl? Well, mind you don't make a mistake, and don't be
false to her," he said with a curious gentleness and thoughtfulness.
I left him at once and ran back home, delighted, along the Arbat. I was
glad that I had told him the truth, and his affectionate and cautious
way of taking it strengthened my affection both for him, to whom I was
boundlessly grateful for his cordiality, and for her, whom I loved
still more warmly from that moment, and to whom I resolved still more
fervently never to be untrue.
My father's tactfulness toward us amounted almost to timidity. There
were certain questions which he could never bring himself to touch on
for fear of causing us pain. I shall never forget how once in Moscow
I found him sitting writing at the table in my room when I dashed in
suddenly to change my clothes.
My bed stood behind a screen, which hid him from me.
When he heard my footsteps he said, without looking round:
"Is that you, Ilya?"
"Yes, it's I."
"Are you alone? Shut the door. There's no one to hear us, and we can't
see each other, so we shall not feel ashamed. Tell me, did you ever have
anything to do with women?"
When I said no, I suddenly heard him break out sobbing, like a little
child.
I sobbed and cried, too, and for a long time we stayed weeping tears of
joy, with the screen between us, and we were neither of us ashamed, but
both so joyful that I look on that moment as one of the happiest in my
whole life.
No arguments or homilies could ever have effected what the emotion I
experienced at that moment did. Such tears as those shed by a father
of sixty can never be forgotten even in moments of the strongest
temptation.
My father observed my inward life most attentively between the ages of
sixteen and twenty, noted all my doubts and hesitations, encouraged me
in my good impulses, and often found fault with me for inconsistency.