“I’ll borrow that from you,” whispered
Raissa, taking the fifteen kopecks from him.
“What next? Perhaps you would like to pay
interest? But you see I have a pledge here, a
very fine thing.... First-rate people, the English.”
“They say we are going to war with them.”
“No,” answered David, “we are fighting
the French now.”
“Well, you know best. Take care of it,
then. Good-bye, friends.”
Here is another conversation that took place beside
the same fence. Raissa seemed more worried than
usual.
“Five kopecks for a cabbage, and a tiny little
one, too,” she said, propping her chin on her
hand. “Isn’t it dear? And I haven’t
had the money for my sewing yet.”
“Who owes it you?” asked David.
“Why, the merchant’s wife who lives beyond
the rampart.”
“The fat woman who goes about in a green blouse?”
“Yes, yes.”
“I say, she is fat! She can hardly breathe
for fat. She positively steams in church, and
doesn’t pay her debts!”
“She will pay, only when? And do you know,
Davidushka, I have fresh troubles. Father has
taken it into his head to tell me his dreams—you
know he cannot say what he means: if he wants
to say one word, it comes out another. About
food or any everyday thing we have got used to it
and understand; but it is not easy to understand the
dreams even of healthy people, and with him, it’s
awful! ‘I am very happy,’ he says;
’I was walking about all among white birds to-day;
and the Lord God gave me a nosegay and in the nosegay
was Andryusha with a little knife,’ he calls
our Lyubotchka, Andryusha; ’now we shall both
be quite well,’ he says. ’We need
only one stroke with the little knife, like this!’
and he points to his throat. I don’t understand
him, but I say, ‘All right, dear, all right,’
but he gets angry and tries to explain what he means.
He even bursts into tears.”
“But you should have said something to him,”
I put in; “you should have made up some lie.”
“I can’t tell lies,” answered Raissa,
and even flung up her hands.
And indeed she could not tell lies.
“There is no need to tell lies,” observed
David, “but there is no need to kill yourself,
either. No one will say thank you for it, you
know.”
Raissa looked at him intently.
“I wanted to ask you something, Davidushka;
how ought I to spell ’while’?”
“What sort of ’while’?”
“Why, for instance: I hope you will live
a long while.”
“Spell: w-i-l-e.”
“No,” I put in, “w-h-i-l-e.”
“Well, it does not matter. Spell it with
an h, then! What does matter is, that you should
live a long while.”
“I should like to write correctly,” observed
Raissa, and she flushed a little.
When she flushed she was amazingly pretty at once.
