The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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yourself,” Katya exclaimed, putting her hand over my mouth. “Listen. I very much wanted to like you, and then all at once began to want to hate you; and I did hate you so, I did hate you so!…”
“What for?”
“Oh, because I was cross with you. I don’t know what for! And then I saw that you couldn’t live without me, and I thought, ‘I’ll torment her, the horrid thing!’”
“Oh, Katya!”
“My darling!” said Katya, kissing my hand. “Then I wouldn’t speak to you, I wouldn’t for anything. But do you remember how I stroked Falstaff?”
“Ah, you fearless girl!”
“Wasn’t I fri-ight-ened!” Katya drawled. “Do you know why I went up to him?”
“Why?”
“Why, you were looking at me. When I saw that you were looking… Ah, come what may, I would go up to him. I gave you a fright, didn’t I? Were you afraid for me?”
“Horribly!”
“I saw. And how glad I was that Falstaff went away! Goodness, how frightened I was afterwards when he had gone, the mo-on-ster!’’
And the little princess broke into an hysterical laugh; then she raised her feverish head and looked intently at me. Tears glistened like little pearls on her long eyelashes.
“Why, what is there in you that I should have grown so fond of you? Ah, you poor little thing with your flaxen hair; you silly little thing, such a cry-baby, with your little blue eyes; my little orphan girl!”
And Katya bent down to give me countless kisses again. A few drops of her tears fell on my cheeks. She was deeply moved.
“How I loved you, but still I kept thinking, ‘No, no! I won’t tell her.’ And you know how obstinate I was! What was I afraid of, why was I ashamed of you? See how happy we are now!”
“Katya! How it hurt me!” I said in a frenzy of joy. “It broke my heart!”
“Yes, Nyetochka, listen…. Yes, listen: who gave you your name Nyetochka?”
“Mother.”
“You must tell me about your mother.”
“Everything, everything,” I answered rapturously.
“And where have you put those two handkerchiefs of mine with lace on them? And why did you carry off my ribbon? Ah, you shameless girl! I know all about it.”
I laughed and blushed till the tears came.
“‘No,’ I thought, ‘I will torment her, let her wait.’ And at other times I thought, ‘I don’t like her a bit, I can’t bear her.’ And you are always such a meek little thing, my little lamb! And how frightened I was that you would think me stupid. You are clever, Nyetochka, you are very clever, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean, Katya?” I answered, almost offended.
“No, you are clever,” said Katya, gravely and resolutely. “I know that. Only I got up one morning and felt awfully fond of you. I had been dreaming of you all night. I thought I would ask mother to let me live downstairs. ‘I don’t want to like her, I don’t want to!’ And the next night I woke up and thought, ‘If only she would come as she did last night!’ And you did come! Ah, how I pretended to be asleep…. Ah, what shameless creatures we are, Nyetochka?”
“But why did you want not to like me?”
“I don’t know. But what nonsense I am talking, I liked you all the time, I always liked you. It was only afterwards I could not bear you; I thought, ‘I will kiss her one day, or else I will pinch her to death.’ There’s one for you, you silly!”
And the little princess pinched me.
“And do you remember my tying up your shoe?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I remember. Were you pleased? I looked at you. ‘What a sweet darling,’ I thought. ‘If I tie up her shoe, what will she think?’ But I was happy too. And do you know, really I wanted to kiss you… but I didn’t kiss you. And then it seemed so funny, so funny! And when we were out on our walk together, all the way I kept wanting to laugh. I couldn’t look at you it was so funny. And how glad I was that you went into the black hole for me.”
The empty room was called the “black hole”.
“And were you frightened?”
“Horribly frightened.”
“I wasn’t so glad at your saying you did it, but I was glad that you were ready to be punished for me! I thought, ‘She is crying now, but how I love her! Tomorrow how I will kiss her, how I will kiss her!’ And I wasn’t sorry, I really wasn’t sorry for you, though I did cry.”
“But I didn’t cry, I was glad!”
“You didn’t cry? Ah, you wicked girl!” cried Katya, fastening her little lips upon me.
“Katya, Katya! Oh, dear! how lovely you are!”
“Yes, am I not? Well, now you can do what you like to me. My tyrant, pinch me. Please pinch me! My darling, pinch me!”
“You silly!”
“Well, what next?”
“Idiot!”
“And what next?”
“Why, kiss me.”
And we kissed each other, cried, laughed, and our lips were swollen with kissing.
“Nyetochka! To begin with, you are always to sleep with me. Are you fond of kissing? And we will kiss each other. Then I won’t have you be so depressed. Why were you so depressed? You’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“I will tell you everything, but I am not sad now, but happy!’’
“No, you are to have rosy cheeks like mine. Oh, if tomorrow would only come quickly! Are you sleepy, Nyetochka?”
“No.”
“Well, then let’s talk.”
And we chattered away for another two hours. Goodness knows what we didn’t talk about. To begin with, the little princess unfolded all her plans for the future, and explained the present position of affairs; and so I learned that she loved her father more than anyone, almost more than me. Then we both decided that Madame Leotard was a splendid woman, and that she was not at all strict. Then we settled what we would do the next day, and the day after, and, in fact, planned out our lives for the next twenty years. Katya decided that we should live in this way: one day she would give me orders and I should obey, and the next day it should be the other way round, I should command and she would obey unquestioningly, and so we should both give orders equally; and that if either disobeyed on purpose we would first quarrel just for appearances and then make haste to be reconciled. In short, an infinity of happiness lay before us. At last we were tired out with prattling, I could not keep my eyes open. Katya laughed at me and called me sleepy-head, but she fell asleep before I did. In the morning we woke up at the same moment, hurriedly kissed because someone was coming in, and I only just had time to scurry into my bed.
All day we did not know what to do for joy. We were continually hiding and running away from everyone, dreading other people’s eyes more than anything. At last I began telling her my story. Katya was distressed to tears by what I told her.
“You wicked, wicked girl! Why didn’t you tell me all this before? I should have loved you so. And did the boys in the street hurt you when they hit you?”
“Yes, I was so afraid of them.”
“Oh, the wretches! Do you know, Nyetochka, I saw a boy beating another in the street. Tomorrow I’ll steal Falstaff’s whip, and if I meet one like that, I’ll give him such a beating!”