Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
feeling--esteem, and even a sort of admiration, rather than pity.
She bore her misfortunes well. "The girl is a stone," the coarse
Trankwillitatin once said of her. But in truth one could not help
sympathizing with her. Her face wore a troubled, wearied expression,
and her eyes grew deeper: a burden beyond her strength was laid on
her young shoulders. David used to see her much oftener than I did.
My father troubled himself very little about him: he knew that David
never listened to him. And Raissa used to appear from time to time at
the gate between our garden and the street, and meet David there. She
did not chatter with David, but merely told him of some new loss or
misfortune that had happened to them, and begged for his advice.
The after-consequences of Latkin's paralysis were very strange: his
hands and feet became weak, but still he could use them. Even his
brain worked normally, but his tongue was confused and used to utter
one word in the place of another: you had to guess at what he really
meant to say. "Choo, choo, choo," he would with difficulty stammer
forth--he always began with "Choo, choo, choo"--"the scissors, the
scissors," but the scissors meant "bread." He hated my father with
all the strength that was left him: he ascribed his sufferings to my
father's curses, and called him sometimes "the butcher," and sometimes
the "jeweler." "Choo, choo, don't you dare to go to the butcher,
Wassilievna:" by this name he called his daughter. Every day he
grew more exacting: his needs increased; and how should his needs be
satisfied? where get the money? Sorrows soon make people old, but
it was painful to hear these questions from the lips of a
sixteen-year-old girl.
XIII.
I remember I happened to be present at her conversation with David by
the hedge on the day her mother died.
"Mother died this morning," first letting her dark, expressive eyes
wander around and then fall on the ground. "The cook has undertaken
to buy a cheap coffin, but she is not to be trusted: she may spend the
money in drink. You must come and look after her, David: she is afraid
of you."
"I will come," answered David: "I will see to it. And your father?"
"He cries and says, 'You'll spoil me, too!'--he means bury him. Now
he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly drew a deep sigh: "Oh, David!
David!" She drew her half-closed hand across her brow and eyes, a
gesture graceful and sad, like all her movements.
"But you must take care of yourself," said David. "You can't have
slept at all; and why cry? It won't help matters."
"I have no time to cry," answered Raissa.
"The rich can indulge themselves in the luxury of crying," said David.
Raissa started to go, but she turned back: "We are thinking of
selling the yellow shawl: you know the one that belonged to mother's
trousseau. We have been offered twelve rubles for it. I think that is
too little."
"Yes, indeed, much too little."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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