‘That’s splendid,’ I commented; ‘but I tell you what I don’t like—I’m afraid this sleeplessness and headache may turn you against reading such things.’
‘You think so?’ she responded, and she picked a sprig of wild jasmine as she passed. ‘God knows! I fancy if one has once entered on that path, there is no turning back.’
She suddenly flung away the spray.
‘Come, let us sit down in this arbour,’ she went on; ‘and please, until I talk of it of my own accord, don’t remind me—of that book.’ (She seemed afraid to utter the name Faust.)
We went into the arbour and sat down.
‘I won’t talk to you about Faust,’ I began; ‘but you will let me congratulate you and tell you that I envy you.’
‘You envy me?’
‘Yes; you, as I know you now, with your soul, have such delights awaiting you! There are great poets besides Goethe; Shakespeare, Schiller—and, indeed, our own Pushkin, and you must get to know him too.’
She did not speak, and drew in the sand with her parasol.
O, my friend, Semyon Nikolaitch! if you could have seen how sweet she was at that instant; pale almost to transparency, stooping forward a little, weary, inwardly perturbed—and yet serene as the sky! I talked, talked a long while, then ceased, and sat in silence watching her.… She did not raise her eyes, and went on drawing with her parasol and rubbing it out again. Suddenly we heard quick, childish steps; Natasha ran into the arbour. Vera Nikolaevna drew herself up, rose, and to my surprise she embraced her daughter with a sort of passionate tenderness.… That was not one of her ways. Then Priemkov made his appearance. Schimmel, that grey-haired but punctual innocent, had left before daybreak so as not to miss a lesson. We went in to morning tea.