“What does it matter where you have been wandering. You have been wandering, and, you have been found, like the prodigal son.”
How happy all will be!
The old nurse will not be consoled. She wails:
“Boryushka, Boryushka, my incomparable one! I say to him: ‘Boryushka, I’m going to the poor-house!’ And he says to me: ‘No,’ says he, ‘nyanechka,[4] I’ll not let you go to the poor-house. I,’ he says, ‘will let you stop with me, nyanechka; only wait till I grow up,’ says he, ‘and you can live with me.’ Oh, Boryushka, what’s this you’ve done!”
In the morning the old nurse enters the vestibule. Whose grey overcoat is it that she sees hanging on the rack? It is Borya’s, his gymnasia uniform. Has he then not gone to the gymnasia to-day?
She wanders into the dining-room, making a muffled noise with her soft slippers.
“Natashenka, is Boryushka home to-day? His overcoat’s there on the rack. Or is he sick?”
“Nyanechka!” exclaims Natasha.
And, frightened, she looks at her mother.
The old nurse has suddenly remembered. She is crying. The grey head shivers in its black wrap. The old woman wails: