She looked at me with her serene glance. Birds look so when they are
not frightened.
‘I’ll bring you a book!’ I cried. (I thought of _Faust_, which I had
just been reading.)
Vera Nikolaevna gave a gentle sigh.
‘It----it won’t be Georges--Sand?’ she questioned with some timidity.
‘Ah! then you’ve heard of her? Well, if it were, where’s the harm?… No,
I’ll bring you another author. You’ve not forgotten German, have you?’
‘No.’
‘She speaks it like a German,’ put in Priemkov.
‘Well, that’s splendid! I will bring you--but there, you shall see what
a wonderful thing I will bring you.’
‘Very good, we shall see. But now let us go into the garden, or
there’ll be no keeping Natasha still.’
She put on a round straw hat, a child’s hat, just such a one as her
daughter was wearing, only a little larger, and we went into the
garden. I walked beside her. In the fresh air, in the shade of the tall
limes, I thought her face looked sweeter than ever, especially when she
turned a little and threw back her head so as to look up at me from
under the brim of her hat. If it had not been for Priemkov walking
behind us, and the little girl skipping about in front of us, I could
really have fancied I was three-and-twenty, instead of thirty-five;
and that I was just on the point of starting for Berlin, especially
as the garden we were walking in was very much like the garden in
Madame Eltsov’s estate. I could not help expressing my feelings to Vera
Nikolaevna.
‘Every one tells me that I am very little changed externally,’ she
answered, ‘though indeed I have remained just the same inwardly too.’
We came up to a little Chinese summer-house.
‘We had no summer-house like this at Osinovka,’ she said; ‘but you
mustn’t mind its being so tumbledown and discoloured: it’s very nice
and cool inside.’
We went into the house. I looked round.
‘I tell you what, Vera Nikolaevna,’ I observed, ‘you let them bring a
table and some chairs in here. Here it is really delicious. I will read
you here Goethe’s _Faust_--that’s the thing I am going to read you.’
‘Yes, there are no flies here,’ she observed simply. ‘When will you
come?’
‘The day after to-morrow.’
‘Very well,’ she answered. ‘I will arrange it.’
Natasha, who had come into the summer-house with us, suddenly gave a
shriek and jumped back, quite pale.
‘What is it?’ inquired Vera Nikolaevna.
‘O mammy,’ said the little girl, pointing into the corner, ‘look, what
a dreadful spider!’
Vera Nikolaevna looked into the corner: a fat mottled spider was
crawling slowly along the wall.
‘What is there to fear in that?’ she said. ‘It won’t bite, look.’
And before I had time to stop her, she took up the hideous insect, let
it run over her hand, and threw it away.
‘Well, you are brave!’ I cried.
‘Where is the bravery in that? It wasn’t a venomous spider.’
‘One can see you are as well up in Natural History as ever, but I
couldn’t have held it in my hand.’
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of!’ repeated Vera Nikolaevna.
Natasha looked at us both in silence, and laughed.
‘How like your mother she is!’ I remarked.
‘Yes,’ rejoined Vera Nikolaevna with a smile of pleasure, ‘it is a
great happiness to me. God grant she may be like her, not in face only!’
We were called in to dinner, and after dinner I went away.
_N.B._--The dinner was very good and well-cooked, an observation in
parenthesis for you, you gourmand!
To-morrow I shall take them _Faust_. I’m afraid old Goethe and I may
not come off very well. I will write and tell you all about it most
exactly.
Well, and what do you think of all these proceedings? No doubt, that
she has made a great impression on me, that I’m on the point of falling
in love, and all the rest of it? Rubbish, my dear boy! There’s a limit
to everything. I’ve been fool enough. No more! One can’t begin life
over again at my age. Besides, I never did care for women of that
sort.… Nice sort of women I did care for, if you come to that!!
‘I shudder--my heart is sick--
I am ashamed of my idols.’
Any way, I am very glad of such neighbours, glad of the opportunity of
seeing something of an intelligent, simple, bright creature. And as to
what comes of it later on, you shall hear in due time.--Yours, P. B.