When her father was on friendly terms with mine, we used to see her continually. She would sit with us for hours at a time, either sewing, or spinning with her delicate, rapid, clever fingers. She was a well-made, rather thin girl, with intelligent brown eyes and a long, white, oval face. She talked little but sensibly in a soft, musical voice, barely opening her mouth and not showing her teeth. When she laughed--which happened rarely and never lasted long--they were all suddenly displayed, big and white as almonds. I remember her gait, too, light, elastic, with a little skip at each step. It always seemed to me that she was going down a flight of steps, even when she was walking on level ground. She held herself erect with her arms folded tightly over her bosom. And whatever she was doing, whatever she undertook, if she were only threading a needle or ironing a petticoat--the effect was always beautiful and somehow--you may not believe it--touching. Her Christian name was Raissa, but we used to call her Black-lip: she had on her upper lip a birthmark; a little dark-bluish spot, as though she had been eating blackberries; but that did not spoil her: on the contrary. She was just a year older than David. I cherished for her a feeling akin to respect, but we were not great friends. But between her and David a friendship had sprung up, a strange, unchildlike but good friendship. They somehow suited each other.
Sometimes they did not exchange a word for hours together, but both felt that they were happy and happy because they were together. I had never met a girl like her, really. There was something attentive and resolute about her, something honest and mournful and charming. I never heard her say anything very intelligent, but I never heard her say anything commonplace, and I have never seen more intelligent eyes. After the rupture between her family and mine I saw her less frequently: my father sternly forbade my visiting the Latkins, and she did not appear in our house again. But I met her in the street, in church and Black-lip always aroused in me the same feeling--respect and even some wonder, rather than pity. She bore her misfortunes very well indeed. "The girl is flint," even coarse-witted, Trankvillitatin said about her once, but really she ought to have been pitied: her face acquired a careworn, exhausted expression, her eyes were hollow and sunken, a burden beyond her strength lay on her young shoulders. David saw her much oftener than I did; he used to go to their house. My father gave him up in despair: he knew that David would not obey him, anyway. And from time to time Raissa would appear at the hurdle fence of our garden which looked into a lane and there have an interview with David; she did not come for the sake of conversation, but told him of some new difficulty or trouble and asked his advice. The paralysis that had attacked Latkin was of a rather peculiar kind. His arms and legs had grown feeble, but he had not lost the use of them, and his brain indeed worked perfectly; but his speech was muddled and instead of one word he would pronounce another: one had to guess what it was he wanted to say.... "Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo," he would stammer with an effort--he began every sentence with "Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo, some scissors, some scissors," ... and the word scissors meant bread.... My father, he hated with all the strength left him--he attributed all his misfortunes to my father's curse and called him alternately the butcher and the diamond-merchant. "Tchoo, tchoo, don't you dare to go to the butcher's, Vassilyevna." This was what he called his daughter though his own name was Martinyan. Every day he became more exacting; his needs increased.... And how were those needs to be satisfied? Where could the money be found? Sorrow soon makes one old: but it was horrible to hear some words on the lips of a girl of seventeen.
XIII
I remember I happened to be present at a conversation with David over the fence, on the very day of her mother's death.
"Mother died this morning at daybreak," she said, first looking round with her dark expressive eyes and then fixing them on the ground.
"Cook undertook to get a coffin cheap but she's not to be trusted; she may spend the money on drink, even. You might come and look after her, Davidushka, she's afraid of you."
"I will come," answered David. "I will see to it. And how's your father?"
"He cries; he says: 'you must spoil me, too.' Spoil must mean bury. Now he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly gave a deep sigh. "Oh, Davidushka, Davidushka!" She passed her half-clenched fist over her forehead and her eyebrows, and the action was so bitter ... and as sincere and beautiful as all her actions.
"You must take care of yourself, though," David observed; "you haven't slept at all, I expect.... And what's the use of crying? It doesn't help trouble."
"I have no time for crying," answered Raissa.