XV
Nástenka finished telling her story to Viéra Pavlovna on other days. She lived at Kirsánof’s house about two years. The signs of her threatening sickness seemed entirely to have disappeared; but at the end of the second year, when spring came, consumption suddenly appeared in its full development. The doctor thought that if she went away, she might count on staving off her death for a long while. They decided to part. To occupy her time in sedentary employment was also sure destruction. It was necessary for her to look for occupation as a housekeeper, chambermaid, nurse-girl, or something of the kind, and with such a mistress as would not impose trying duties upon her, and in such a way that there should not be unpleasantness, and this was a very important thing. These conditions were hard to meet; but such a place was found. Kirsánof had acquaintances among rising artists. Through them Nástenka found a place as chambermaid with one of the actresses in the Russian theatre, an excellent woman.
As long as the actress remained on the stage, Nástenka was well satisfied to live with her. The actress was a refined woman, and Nástenka valued her place; it would be hard to find another like it. Nástenka became attached to her because she never had any disagreeable scenes with her, and the actress seeing this, became kinder than ever. Nástenka lived a quiet life there, and her disease ceased, or almost ceased, to develop. But the actress got married, renounced the stage, and made her home in her husband’s family. And here, as Viéra Pavlovna had already heard before, the actress’s father-in-law began to affront the chambermaid. Nástenka, let us suppose, was not subjected to temptation, but it occasioned a family quarrel; the former actress began to put the old man to shame; the old man felt the shame. Nástenka did not want to be the cause of a family disorder, and even if she had wanted, she could not enjoy the peaceful life of her former situation, and she gave it up.
That was about two years and a half since her parting from Kirsánof. They had not seen each other at all during this time. He called upon her, but the happiness of the meeting affected her so unfavorably that he begged her not to let him call upon her for her own sake. Nástenka tried to live as chambermaid in two or three families, but everywhere she found so many worriments and unpleasantnesses, that it seemed better for her to become a seamstress, though it was a direct step towards the development of her disease; the disease would have been developed from any such trying position, and so it would be better for her to be subjected to such a fate, but without the unpleasantness, and only from her own work. A year of sewing entirely undermined Nástenka’s health. When she entered Viéra Pavlovna’s union, Lopukhóf, who was then the doctor for the shop, did everything possible to stop the development of the consumption; he did a great deal, that is, so far as a man with so little real knowledge of medicine can do. But the end was at hand.
Nástenka had enjoyed the delusion universal among those who suffer from consumption, imagining that her disease was not very far advanced, and so she did not seek to see Kirsánof; but for the last two months she had persistently asked Lopukhóf whether she had long to live. Why she wanted to know, she did not say, and Lopukhóf did not feel that he had the right to tell her plainly about the approaching crisis, for he did not see in her question anything more than the universal attachment to human life. He tried to calm her; but she, as it often happens, could not be contented, for she kept aloof from that which might have given her days a glimpse of happiness; but now she herself saw that she had not long to live, and her feelings were dominated by this thought: but the doctor assured her that she must take care of herself. She knew that she had to believe more in him than in her own hopes, and therefore she did not look to see Kirsánof.
Of course this doubt could not last long. According as her last days approached, Nástenka’s questions became more persistent; she either would have said that she had a particular reason for knowing the truth, or Lopukhóf and Viéra Pavlovna would have guessed that she had a particular reason in her questions, and two or three weeks, or maybe several days later, the result would have been the same as really happened, owing to Kirsánof’s unexpected appearance in the shop. But now the doubt was at an end; not brought by the further progress of her questions, but by this accidental circumstance.
“How glad I am, how glad I am! I always have been wanting to catch a sight of you, Sáshenka,” said Nástenka, when she took him to her room.
“Yes, Nástenka, I too am no less glad than you; now you shall not leave me again. Come back to my house,” said Kirsánof, who was drawn away by a feeling of sympathy and compassion; but after he said this, it occurred to him, “How could I have said that to her? She most likely is not aware of the nearness of the crisis.”
But she either did not understand at first the sense that could be drawn from these words, or she understood it, and did not care to heed it; and her gladness at seeing once more the man whom she loved, deadened her grief at the approaching end; at all events, she simply showed her happiness by saying, “How kind you are! How could I have ever left you?”
But after he left she wept. Only now she either understood, or may have noticed that she had understood, what it meant for her to see him once more. “Well, it is of no use for you to take care of yourself any longer, but at least you shall enjoy the little of life that is left.”
And indeed she was glad; he never left her for a moment, except those hours when he had to be in the hospital, or at the medical school; so she lived about a month, and he was always with her. And how much they talked about everything; what had happened since she had left his house, and still further recollections about her past, and how many pleasures she had; he even took her out to ride; he hired a coupé, and he took her out every pleasant day into the suburbs of Petersburg, and she was greatly delighted. Nature is so dear to a human being that even this pitiable, miserable nature surrounding Petersburg, which cost millions and tens of millions of rubles, people are delighted with; he used to read to her, and they played loto, and she even tried to play chess, as though she had time to learn it.
Viéra Pavlovna sometimes spent late hours at their house when returning from her walks, and still more often she used to call on the invalid in the morning, to distract her thoughts when she was alone, and when they were alone together, Nástenka had only one thing to tell her, how kind Aleksandr Matvéitch was, and how good, and how she loved him.