White Nights - XV

Grandmother was always regretting the old days — she was younger in old days and the sun was warmer in old days and cream did not turn so sour in old days — it was always the old days! I would sit still and hold my tongue and think to myself: why did grandmother suggest it to me? Why did she ask whether the lodger was young and good-looking? But that was all, I just thought it, began counting my stitches again, went on knitting my stocking, and forgot all about it.

Well, one morning the lodger came in to see us; he asked about a promise to paper his rooms. One thing led to another. Grandmother was talkative, and she said: ‘Go, Nastenka, go to my bedroom and bring me my reckoner.’ I jumped up at once; I blushed all over, I don’t know why, and forgot I was sitting pinned to grandmother; instead of quietly undoing the pin, so that the lodger should not see — I jumped so that grandmother’s chair moved. When I saw that the lodger knew all about me now, I blushed, stood still as though I had been shot, and suddenly began to cry — I felt so ashamed and miserable at that minute, that I didn’t know where to look! Grandmother called out, ‘What are you waiting for?’ and I went on worse than ever. When the lodger saw that I was ashamed on his account, he bowed and went away at once!

After that I felt ready to die at the least sound in the passage. ‘It’s the lodger,’ I kept thinking; I stealthily undid the pin in case. But it always turned out not to be that he never came. A fortnight passed; the lodger sent word through Fyokla that he had a great number of French books and that they were all good books that I might read, so wouldn't grandmother like me to read them that I might not be dull? Grandmother agreed with gratitude but kept asking if they were moral books, for if the books were immoral it would be out of the question that one would learn evil from them.

“And what should I learn, grandmother? What is written in them?"

“Ah," she said, "What’s described in them is how young men seduce virtuous girls, how on the excuse that they want to marry them, they carry them off from their parents’ houses, how afterwards they leave these unhappy girls to their fate and they perish in the most pitiful way. I read great many books," said grandmother, "And it is all so well described that one sits up all night and reads them on the sly. So mind you, don’t read them," She said. ‘What books has he sent?’

“They are all Walter Scott’s novels, grandmother."

“Walter Scott’s novels! But isn’t there some trick about it? Look, hasn’t he stuck a love-letter among them?"

"No, grandmother," I said, "There isn’t a love-letter."

“But look under the binding; they sometimes stuff it under the bindings, the rascals!"

“No, grandmother, there is nothing under the binding."

“Well, that’s all right."

So we began reading Walter Scott, and in a month or so we had read almost half. Then he sent us more and more. He sent us Pushkin, too; so that at last I could not get on without a book and left off dreaming of how fine it would be to marry a Chinese Prince.

That’s how things were when I chanced one day to meet our lodger on the stairs. Grandmother had sent me to fetch something.

He stopped, I blushed and he blushed; he laughed, though, said good-morning to me, asked after grandmother, and said, "Well, have you read the books?" I answered that I had. "Which did you like best?" He asked. I said, "Ivanhoe and Pushkin were best of all," And so our talk ended for that time.

TO BE CONTINUED