“But that’s not the same. Only a girl’s feelings. And you—do you love him?”
“Of course I do.”
“Very much?”
“Ever so much.”
“Really?...” Tatiana looked from one to the other, but said nothing more.
“I’ll tell you what I would like. Could you get me some coarse, strong wool? I want to knit some stockings ... plain ones.”
Tatiana promised to have everything done, and clearing the table, went out of the room with her firm, quiet step.
“Well, what shall we do now?” Mariana asked, turning to Nejdanov, and without, waiting for a reply, continued, “Since our real work does not begin until tomorrow, let us devote this evening to literature. Would you like to? We can read your poems. I will be a severe critic, I promise you.”
It took Nejdanov a long time before he consented, but he gave in at last and began reading aloud out of his copybook. Mariana sat close to him and gazed into his face as he read. She had been right; she turned out to be a very severe critic. Very few of the verses pleased her. She preferred the purely lyrical, short ones, to the didactic, as she expressed it. Nejdanov did not read well. He had not the courage to attempt any style, and at the same time wanted to avoid a dry tone. It turned out neither the one thing nor the other. Mariana interrupted him suddenly by asking if he knew Dobrolubov’s beautiful poem,* which begins, “To die for me no terror holds.” She read it to him—also not very well—in a somewhat childish manner.
* To die for me no terror holds,
Yet one fear presses on my mind,
That death should on me helpless play
A satire of the bitter kind.