‘Only fancy! I went upstairs to her and found her crying. It’s a long while since such a thing has happened to her. I can tell you the last time she cried; it was when our Sasha died. You see what you have done with your Faust!’ he added, with a smile.
‘So you see now, Vera Nikolaevna,’ I began, ‘that I was right when——’
‘I did not expect this,’ she interrupted me; ‘but God knows whether you are right. Perhaps that was the very reason my mother forbade my reading such books,—she knew——’
Vera Nikolaevna stopped.
‘What did she know?’ I asked. ‘Tell me.’
‘What for? I’m ashamed of myself, as it is; what did I cry for? But we’ll talk about it another time. There was a great deal I did not quite understand.’
‘Why didn’t you stop me?’
‘I understood all the words, and the meaning of them, but——’
She did not finish her sentence, and looked away dreamily. At that instant there came from the garden the sound of rustling leaves, suddenly fluttering in the rising wind. Vera Nikolaevna started and looked round towards the open window.
‘I told you there would be a storm!’ cried Priemkov. ‘But what made you start like that, Verotchka?’