The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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strain, if I may so express it; my character is distinguished by an extreme capacity for endurance, so that the outbreak, the sudden manifestation of feeling only comes at the last extremity. It must be remembered that all this time Katya and I did not exchange more than half a dozen words; but little by little I noticed from certain elusive signs that it was not due to forget-fullness nor indifference on her part, but to intentional avoidance, as though she had inwardly vowed to keep me at a certain distance. But I could not sleep at night, and by day could not conceal my emotion even from Madame Leotard. My love for Katya approached the abnormal. One day I stealthily took her handkerchief, another time the ribbon that she plaited in her hair, and spent whole nights kissing it and bathing it in my tears. At first Katya’s indifference wounded and mortified me, but then everything grew misty and I could not have given myself an account of my own feelings. In this way new impressions gradually crowded out the old, and memories of my sorrowful past lost their morbid power and were replaced by new life.
I remember I used sometimes to wake up at night, get out of bed, and go on tiptoe to the little princess in the dim light of our nightlight. I would gaze for hours at Katya sleeping; sometimes I would sit on her bed, bend down to her face and feel her hot breath on my cheeks. Softly, trembling with fear, I would kiss her little hands, her shoulders, hair, and feet if her foot peeped out from under the quilt. little by little I began to notice — for I never took my eyes off Katya all that month — that Katya was growing more pensive from day to day; she had begun to lose the evenness of her temper: sometimes one would not hear her noise all day, while another time there would be such an uproar as never before. She became irritable, exacting, grew crimson and angry very often, and was even guilty of little cruelties in her behaviour to me. At one time she would suddenly refuse to have dinner with me, to sit beside me, as though she felt aversion for me; or she would go off to her mother’s apartments and stay there for whole days together, knowing perhaps that I was pining in misery without her. Then she would suddenly begin staring for an hour at a stretch, so that I did not know what to do with myself from overwhelming confusion, turned red and pale by turns, and yet did not dare to get up and go out of the room. Twice Katya complained of feeling feverish, though she had never been known to feel ill before. All of a sudden one morning a new arrangement was made; at Katya’s urgent desire she moved downstairs to the apartments of her mother, who was ready to die with alarm when Katya complained of being feverish. I must observe that Katya’s mother was by no means pleased with me, and put down the change in Katya, which she, too, observed, to the influence of my morose disposition, as she expressed it, on her daughter’s character. She would have parted us long before, but put off doing so for a time, knowing that she would have to face a serious dispute with the prince, who, though he gave way to her in nearly everything, sometimes became unyielding and immovably obstinate. She understood her husband thoroughly.
I was overwhelmed by Katya’s removal, and spent a whole week in anguish of spirit. I was in desperate misery, racking my brains to discover the cause of Katya’s dislike. My heart was torn with grief and indignation, and a sense of injustice began to rise up in my wounded heart. A certain pride began to stir within me, and when I met Katya at the hour when we were taken out for a walk, I looked at her with such independence, such gravity, so differently from ever before, that even she was struck by it. Of course this change continued only by fits and starts, and my heart ached more and more afterwards, and I grew weaker, and more fainthearted than ever. At last one morning, to my intense astonishment and joyful confusion, the little princess came back upstairs. At first she threw herself on Madame Leotard’s neck with a wild laugh and announced that she had come back to live with us again, then she nodded to me, asked to be excused lessons that morning, and spent the whole morning frolicking and racing about. I had never seen her livelier and merrier. But towards evening she grew quiet and dreamy, and again a sort of sadness seemed to overshadow her charming little face. When her mother came in the evening to have a look at her, I saw that Katya made an unnatural effort to seem gay. But after her mother had gone she suddenly burst into tears. I was much impressed. Katya noticed my attention and went out of the room. In short, she was working up to some sudden crisis. Her mother was consulting doctors, and every day sent for Madame Leotard to question her minutely about Katya, and told her to watch over all her actions. Only I had a foreboding of the truth, and my heart beat with hope.
In short, my little romance was reaching its denouement. The third day after Katya’s return to our floor, I noticed that she was looking at me all the morning with a wonderful light 290
in her eyes, with a long persistent gaze…. Several times I met that gaze, and each time we both blushed and cast down our eyes as though we were ashamed. At last the little princess burst out laughing and walked away. It struck three, and we had to dress to go out.
“Your shoe’s untied,” she said to me, “let me tie it.”
I was bending down to tie it up myself, turning as red as a cherry, at Katya’s having at last spoken to me.
“Let me do it,” she said impatiently, and she laughed. She bent down on the spot, took my foot by force, set it on her knee and tied the lace. I was breathless; I did not know what to do from a sort of sweet terror. When she had finished tying the shoe, she stood up and scrutinised me from head to foot.
“Your neck is too open,” she said, touching the bare skin of my neck with her little finger. “There, let me wrap it up.”
I did not oppose her. She untied my neckerchief and retied it in her own fashion.
“Or you may get a cough,” she said, with a sly smile, flashing her black, shining eyes upon me.
I was beside myself, I did not know what was happening to me and what was happening to Katya. But, thank goodness, our walk was soon over or I should not have been able to restrain myself, and should have rushed to kiss her in the street. As we went up the stairs, however, I succeeded in stealthily kissing her on the shoulder. She noticed it, started, but said nothing. In the evening she was dressed up and taken downstairs. Her mother had visitors. But there was a strange commotion in the house that evening.
Katya had a nervous attack. Her mother was beside herself with alarm. The doctor came and did not know what to say. Of course it was all put down to Katya’s age, but I thought otherwise. Next morning Katya made her appearance the same as ever, rosy and in good spirits, full of inexhaustible health, but of whims and caprices such as she had never had before.
In the first place, all that morning she disregarded Madame Leotard altogether. Then she suddenly wanted to go and see her old aunt. Contrary to her usual practice, the old lady, who could not endure her niece, was in continual conflict with her, and did not care to see her, on this occasion for some reason consented to see her. At first everything went well, and for the first hour they got on harmoniously. At first the little rogue asked her aunt’s forgiveness for all her misdeeds, for her noisy play, for her shouting and disturbing her aunt. The old lady solemnly and with tears in her eyes forgave her. But the mischievous girl would go too far. She took it into her head to tell her aunt about pranks which were so far only in the stage of schemes and projects. Katya affected to be very meek and penitent, and to be very sorry for her sins; in short, the old fanatic was highly delighted, and her vanity was greatly flattered at the prospect of dominating Katya, the treasure and idol of the whole house, who could make even her mother gratify her whims. And so the naughty chit confessed in the first place that she had intended to pin a visiting card on her aunt’s dress; then that she had planned to hide Falstaff under her bed; and then to break her spectacles, to carry off all her aunt’s books, and put French novels from her mother’s room in place of them, and to throw bits of flock all over the floor; then to hide a pack of cards in her aunt’s pocket, and so on. In fact, she told her aunt of prank after prank each worse than the last. The old lady was beside herself, she turned pale and then red with anger. At last Katya could not keep it up any longer, she burst out laughing and ran away from her aunt. The old lady promptly sent for the child’s mother. There was a fearful to-do, and the princess spent a couple of hours imploring her aunt with tears in her eyes to forgive Katya, to allow her not to be punished, and to take into consideration that the child was ill. At first the old lady would listen to nothing; she declared that next day she should leave the house, and was only softened when the princess promised that she would only put off punishment till