Suddenly Natasha’s eyes flashed.
“Ah! That’s you! You!” she screamed at me. “Now you are left alone! You hate him! You never could forgive him for my loving him. . . Now you are with me again! He’s come to comfort me again, to persuade me to go back to my father, who flung me off and cursed me. I knew it would be so, yesterday, two months ago.... I won’t, I won’t. I curse them, too... Go away! I can’t bear the sight of you! Go away! Go away!”
I realized that she was frantic, and that the sight of me roused her anger to an intense pitch, I realized that this was bound to be so, and thought it better to go. I sat down. on the top stair outside and waited. From time to time I got up, opened the door, beckoned to Mavra and questioned her. Mavra was in tears.
An hour and a half passed like this. I cannot describe what I went through in that time. My heart sank and ached with an intolerable pain. Suddenly the door opened and Natasha ran out with her cape and hat on. She hardly seemed to know what she was doing, and told me herself afterwards that she did not know where she was running, or with what object.
Before I had time to jump up and hide myself, she saw me and stopped before me as though suddenly struck by something. “I realized all at once,” she told me afterwards, “that in my cruelty and madness I had actually driven you away, you, my friend, my brother, my saviour! And when I saw that you, poor boy, after being insulted by me had not gone away, but were sitting on the stairs, waiting till I should call you back, my God! if you knew, Vanya, what I felt then! It was like a stab at my heart...”
“Vanya, Vanya!” she cried, holding out her hands to me. “You are here!”
And she fell into my arms.
I caught her up and carried her into the room. She was fainting! “What shall I do?” I thought. “She’ll have brain-fever for certain!”
I decided to run for a doctor; something must be done to check the illness. I could drive there quickly. My old German was always at home till two o’clock. I flew to him, begging Mavra not for one minute, not for one second, to leave Natasha, and not to let her go out. Fortune favoured me. A little later and I should not have found my old friend at home. He was already in the street, just coming out of his house, when I met him. Instantly I put him in my cab, before he had time to be surprised, and we hastened back to Natasha.
Yes, fortune did favour me! During the half-hour of my absence something had happened to Natasha which might have killed her outright if the doctor and I had not arrived in the nick of time. Not a quarter of an hour after I had gone Prince Valkovsky had walked in. He had just been seeing the others off and had come to Natasha’s straight from the railway station. This visit had probably been planned and thought out by him long before. Natasha told me that for the first minute she was not even surprised to see the prince. “My brain was in a whirl” she said.
He sat facing her, looking at her with a caressing and pathetic expression.
“My dear,” he said, sighing, “I understand your grief; I know how hard it must be for you at this moment, and so I felt it my duty to come to you. Be comforted, if you can, if only that by renouncing Alyosha you have secured his happiness. But you understand that better than I, for you resolved on your noble action . . .”
“I sat and listened,” Natasha told me, “but at first I really did not understand him. I only remember that I stared and stared at him. He took my hand and began to press it in his. He seemed to find this very agreeable. I was so beside myself that I never thought of pulling my hand away.”
“You realized,” he went on, “that by becoming Alyosha’s wife you might become an object of hatred to him later on, and you had honourable pride enough to recognize this, and make up your mind . . . but — I haven’t come here to praise you. I only wanted to tell you that you will never, anywhere, find a truer friend than me! I sympathize with you and am sorry for you. I have been forced to have a share in all this against my will, but I have only done my duty. Your excellent heart will realize that and make peace with mine.... But it has been harder for me than for you — believe me.”
“Enough, prince,” said Natasha, “leave me in peace.”
“Certainly, I will go directly,” he answered, “but I love you as though you were my own daughter, and you must allow me to come and see you. Look upon me now as though I were your father and allow me be of use to you.”
“I want nothing. Leave me alone,” Natasha interrupted again.
“I know you are proud ... But I’m speaking sincerely, from my heart. What do you intend to do now? To make peace with your parents? That would be a good thing. But your father is unjust, proud and tyrannical; forgive me, but that is so. At home you would meet now nothing but reproaches and fresh suffering. But you must be independent, and it is my obligation, my sacred duty to look after you and help you now. Alyosha begged me not to leave you but to be a friend to you. But besides me there are people prepared to be genuinely devoted to you. You will, I hope, allow me to present to you Count Nainsky. He has the best of hearts, he is a kinsman of ours, and I may even say has been the protector of our whole family. He had done a great deal for Alyosha. Alyosha had the greatest respect and affection for him. He is a very powerful man with great influence, an old man, and it is quite possible for a girl, like you, to receive him. I have talked to him about you already. He can establish you, and, if you wish it, find you an excellent position ... with one of his relations. I gave him a full and straightforward account of our affair long ago, and I so enlisted his kind and generous feelings that now he keeps begging me to introduce him to you as soon as possible.... He is a man who has a feeling for everything beautiful, believe me — he is a generous old man, highly respected, able to recognize true worth, and indeed, not long ago he behaved in a most generous way to your father in certain case.”
Natasha jumped up as though she had been stung. Now, at last, she understood him.
“Leave me, leave me at once!” she cried.
“But, my dear, you forget, the count may be of use to you father too ...”
“My father will take nothing from you. Leave me!” Natasha cried again.
“Oh, how unjust and mistrustful you are! How have I deserved this!” exclaimed the prince, looking about him with some uneasiness. “You will allow me in any case,” he went on taking a large roll out of his pocket, “you will allow me in any case to leave with you this proof of my sympathy, and especially the sympathy of Count Nainsky, on whose suggestion I am acting. This roll contains ten thousand roubles. Wait a moment, my dear,” he said hurriedly, seeing that Natasha had jumped up from her seat angrily. “Listen patiently to everything. You know your father lost a lawsuit against me. This ten thousand will serve as a compensation which . . .”
“Go away!” cried Natasha, “take your money away! I see through you! Oh, base, base, base, man!”
Prince Valkovsky got up from his chair, pale with anger.
Probably he had come to feel his way, to survey the position, and no doubt was building a great deal on the effect of the ten thousand roubles on Natasha, destitute, and abandoned by everyone. The vile and brutal man had often been of service to Count Nainsky, a licentious old reprobate, in enterprises of this kind. But he hated Natasha, and realizing that things were not going smoothly he promptly changed his tone, and with spiteful joy hastened to insult her, that he might anyway not have come for nothing.
“That’s not the right thing at all, my dear, for you to lose you temper,” he brought out in a voice quivering with impatience to enjoy the effect of his insult, “that’s not the right thing at all You are offered protection and you turn up your little nose... Don’t you realize that you ought to be grateful to me? I might have put you in a penitentiary long ago, as the father of the young man you have led astray, but I haven’t done it, he-he-he!
But by now we had come in. Hearing the voices while still in the kitchen, I stopped the doctor for a second and overheard the prince’s last sentence. It was followed by his loathsome chuckle and a despairing cry from Natasha. “Oh, my God!” At that moment I opened the door and rushed at the prince.