XIV.
One more conversation which I heard at the hedge. Raissa seemed more than usually troubled. "Five kopecks for the very smallest head of cabbage!" she said, supporting her head on her hand. "Oh, how dear! and I have no money from my sewing!"
"Who owes you any?" asked David.
"The shopkeeper's wife, who lives behind the city wall."
"That fat woman who always wears a green sontag?"
"Yes."
"How fat she is!—too fat to breathe. She lights plenty of candles in church, but she won't pay her debts."
"Oh, she'll pay them—but when? And then, David, I have other troubles. My father has begun to narrate his dreams; and you know what trouble he had with his tongue—how he tried to say one word and uttered another. About his food and things around the house we have got used to understanding him, but even ordinary people's dreams can't be understood; and you may judge what his are. He said, 'I am very glad. I was walking to-day with the white birds, and the Lord handed me a bouquet, and in the bouquet was Andruscha with a little knife.'—He always calls my little sister Andruscha.—'Now we shall both get well: we only need a little knife, and just one cut. That's the way.' And he pointed to his own throat. I didn't understand him, but I said, 'All right, father!' but he grew angry and tried to explain what he meant. At last he burst into tears."
"Yes, but you ought to have made up something—told him some trifling lie," I interrupted.
"I can't lie," answered Raissa, raising her hands.
True, thought I to myself, she cannot lie.
"There's no need of lying," said David, "nor is there any need of your killing yourself in this way. Do you suppose any one will thank you for it?"
Raissa looked at him: "What I wanted to ask you, David, was how do you spell should?"
"What?—should?"
"Yes, for instance, 'Should you like to live?'"
"Oh!—-s-h-o-u-d?"
"No," I interrupted again, "that's not right: not o-u-d, but o-u-l-d"
"Well, it's all the same," said David: "spell it with an l. The most important thing is that you should live yourself."
"I wish I knew how to spell and write properly," said Raissa, blushing slightly.
When she blushed she became at once amazingly pretty.
"It may be of use. Father in his time wrote a beautiful hand: he taught me it, too. Now he can hardly scrawl the letters."
"You must live for me," answered David, lowering his voice and gazing at her steadily. Raissa looked up quickly and blushed more deeply. "Live and spell as you please.—The devil! here's that old witch coming." (By the witch David meant my aunt.) "What brings her this way? Run off, my dear."
With one more look at David, Raissa hastened away.
It was only seldom and with great reluctance that David used to talk with me about Raissa and her family, especially since he had begun to expect his father's return. He could think of nothing but him, and how we should then live. He remembered him clearly, and used to describe him to me with great satisfaction: "Tall, strong: with one hand he could lift two hundred pounds. If he called, 'I say, boy!' the whole house could hear him. And such a man as he is—good and brave! I don't believe there's anything he's afraid of. We lived pleasantly until our misfortunes came upon us. They say his hair is become perfectly gray, but it used to be light red like mine. He's a powerful man."
David would never agree that we were going to live in Riasan.
"You'll go away," I used to say, "but I shall stay here."
"Nonsense! we'll take you with us."
"And what'll become of my father?"
"You'll leave him. If you don't, it will be the worse for you."
"How so?"
David merely frowned and made no answer.
"See here: if we go with my father," he resumed, "he will get some good position: I shall marry—"
"Not so soon as that?" I interrupted.
"Why not? I shall marry soon."
"You?"
"Yes, I; and why not?"
"Have you chosen your wife yet?"
"Of course."
"And who is it?"
David smiled: "How stupid you are! Who but Raissa?"
"Raissa?" I repeated in my amazement. "You're joking."
"I never make jokes: I don't know how to."
"But she's a year older than you?"
"What difference does that make? But we won't talk any more about it."
"Just one question," I persisted. "Does she know that you want to marry her?"
"Probably."
"But you haven't told her?"
"What is there to tell her? When the time comes I'll tell her. Now, that's enough." David rose and left the room.
When I was alone I thought it over, and, at last came to the conclusion that David was acting like a wise and practical man, and I felt a glow of pride at being the friend of such a practical man. And Raissa in her eternal black woolen dress suddenly seemed to me charming and deserving of the most devoted affection.