‘Your wife?’ She shook her head slowly and sadly. ‘No, it’s impossible, Vanichka dear.’
‘Why, Olyessia? Why?’
‘No, no.... You can see yourself, it’s funny to think of it even. What kind of wife could I be for you? You are a gentleman, clever, educate—and I? I can’t even read. I don’t know how to behave. You will be ashamed to be my husband....’
‘What nonsense, Olyessia,’ I replied fervently. ‘In six months you won’t know yourself. You don’t even suspect the natural wit and genius for observation you have in you. We’ll read all sorts of good books together; we’ll make friends with decent, clever people; we’ll see the whole wide world together, Olyessia. We’ll go together arm in arm just like we are now until old age, to the grave itself; and I shan’t be ashamed of you, but proud and grateful....’
Olyessia answered my passionate speech with a grateful clasp of the hand, but she persisted:
‘That’s not everything.... Perhaps you don’t know, yet.... I never told you.... I haven’t a father.... I’m illegitimate....’
‘Don’t, Olyessia.... That’s the last thing I care about. What have I got to do with your family, when you yourself are more precious to me than my father and mother, than the whole world even? No, this is all trifling—just excuses!...’
Olyessia pressed her shoulder against mine with a gentle submissive caress.
‘Darling!... You’d better not have begun to talk at all.... You are young, free.... Would I ever dare to tie you hand and foot for all your life?... What if you fall in love with another woman afterwards? Then you will despise me, and curse the day and hour when I agreed to marry you. Don’t be angry, darling!’ she cried out in entreaty, seeing by my face that the words had offended me, ‘I don’t want to hurt you.... I’m only thinking of your happiness. And you’ve forgotten granny. Well, ask yourself, could I leave her alone?’
‘Why ... she’ll come with us, too.’ (I confess the idea of granny made me uneasy.) ‘And even if she didn’t want to live with us ... there are houses in every town ... called alms-houses, where such old women are given rest, and carefully looked after.’