I found a note from Gagin waiting for me. My sudden whim astonished him. He made me some reproaches that I had not taken him with me, and begged me to come to him as soon as I should return. Distrustfully I read this note, yet the following day found me at L——.
Gagin's reception was friendly. He overwhelmed me with affectionate reproaches; but no sooner had Assja caught sight of me than she broke into loud laughter, designedly, it seemed, and without the least cause, and ran away precipitately. Gagin lost his temper, grumbled at her for a crazy girl, and begged me to excuse her. I must confess that I was very cross with Assja. I was uncomfortable before, and now this unnatural laughter and ridiculous behavior must be added. However, I acted as if I had observed nothing, and detailed to Gagin all the incidents of my little journey. He told me what he had done during my absence. But the conversation went lame. Assja kept running in and out. Finally I declared that I had some pressing work, and that it was time for me to be at home. Gagin tried to detain me at first, then looking keenly at me, he begged permission to accompany me. In the hall Assja approached me suddenly, and held out her hand to me. I gave her fingers an almost imperceptible pressure, and bade her good-by carelessly. We crossed the Rhine together, strolled to my favorite oak tree near the little shrine to the Virgin, and sat down on a bench to enjoy the landscape. There a remarkable conversation took place between us.
At first we only spoke in the briefest words, then fell into silence and fixed our eyes on the shining river.
"Tell me," Gagin began suddenly, with his accustomed smile, "what is your opinion of Assja? She must appear a little singular to you. Not so?"
"Yes," I answered, not without a certain constraint. I had not expected him to speak of her.
"One must learn to know her well to form a judgment upon her," he continued. "She has a very good heart, but a wild head. It is hard to live quietly with her. However, it is not her fault, and if you knew her history——"
"Her history!" I interrupted him. "Isn't she then your——" Gagin looked at me.
"Is it possible that you have doubted that she was my sister? No," he went on, without heeding my confusion. "She is; at least she is my father's daughter. Listen to me. I have confidence in you, and I will tell you all about her.
"My father was a very honest, sensible, cultivated, and unfortunate man. Fate had no harder blows for him than for others, but he could not bear the first one that he felt from her. He had married early—a love match; his wife, my mother, soon died, and I was left a six months' old baby. My father took me to his country estates, and for twelve whole years he lived there in absolute seclusion. He himself took charge of my education, and would never have been separated from me if my uncle, his brother, had not come to visit us in our country house. This uncle lived in Petersburg, where he held a rather important post. He persuaded my father, who could not be induced to quit his home under any consideration, to trust me to his care. He showed his brother what an injury it was to a boy of my age to live in such complete isolation, and that, with a companion always melancholy and silent as my father, I should inevitably remain behind boys of my age—yes, that my character might easily be endangered by such a life. For a long time my father resisted his brother's arguments, but at last he yielded. I cried at parting from my father, whom I loved, though I had never seen a smile on his face; but Petersburg once reached, our gloomy and silent nest was soon forgotten. I went to school, and was afterward placed in a regiment of the Guards. Every year I spent some weeks at our country house, and with every year I found my father more melancholy, more reserved, and depressed to an alarming degree. He went to church daily, and had almost given up speech. On one of my visits—I was then in my twentieth year—I saw for the first time about the house a little lean, black-eyed girl, who might have been about ten years old. It was Assja. My father said she was an orphan whose care he had undertaken: those were his own words. I gave her no further attention. She was as wild, quick, and shy as a little animal, and if I entered my father's favorite room, a great dismal chamber in which my mother had died, and which had to be lighted even by day, she always slunk out of sight behind my father's old-fashioned easy chair, or hid behind the bookcase. It happened that for the three or four years following I was prevented by my service from visiting our estate. Every month I received a short letter from my father, in which Assja was spoken of seldom and always incidentally. My father was already past his fiftieth year, but looked still a young man. Imagine my distress then when I suddenly received a perfectly unexpected letter from our steward, announcing the fatal illness of my father, and begging me urgently to come home as quickly as possible if I wished to see him alive. I rushed headlong home, and found my father, though in the last agony. My presence seemed the greatest joy to him; he clasped me in his wasted arms, turned on me his gaze half doubtful, half imploring, and after he had obtained from me a promise that I would carry out his last wishes, he ordered his old servant to fetch Assja. The old man brought her. She could hardly support herself on her feet, and was trembling in every limb.