A vital question; or, What is to be done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky

Author:Nikolay Chernyshevsky [Chernyshevsky, Nikolay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 1886-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

"What ridiculous poetry! wrong accent in the second line: make the most of! of, uv! But what a voice and what feeling she puts into her singing; and her voice is vastly sweeter than it used to be—incomparably better! It is wonderful! How could it improve so much? And here I was wondering how I could get acquainted with her, and she herself has come to call upon me. How did she find out that I wanted her to?"

"Yes; you came to call on me a long time ago," says Bosio, and she speaks Russian.

"I called upon you, Bosio? How could I have called upon you when I was not acquainted with you? But I am very, very glad to see you."

Viéra Pavlovna pushed aside her bed-curtain, so as to give Bosio her hand; but the cantatrice laughs, and it seems that it is not Bosio at all, but de Merrick in the rôle of the gypsy "Rigoletto"; only the gayety of the laughter is de Merrick's, but the voice is still Bosio's, and she runs away and hides herself behind the bed-curtain. How disagreeable, that this bed-curtain hides her—and before there was no bed-curtain at all: where did it come from?

"Do you know why I came to you?" And she laughs, as though she were de Merrick and at the same time Bosio.

"Who are you? You are not de Merrick, are you?"

"No."

"Are you Bosio?"

The songstress laughs. "You learn rapidly; but now it will be necessary for us to attend to what brought me here. I want to read your diary with you."

"I do not keep a diary; I never kept one."

"Look here; what is that lying on this little table?"

Viéra Pavlovna looks; on the table near the bedstead is lying a copy-book with the inscription, "V. L.'s Diary." Where did this copy-book come from? Viéra Pavlovna takes it, opens it; the book is written in her own hand—but when?

"Read the last page," says Bosio.

Viéra Pavlovna reads: "Again I am often obliged to stay alone whole evenings. But that's nothing; I am used to it."

"Is that all?" asks Bosio.

"That's all."

"No; you did not read it all."

"There is nothing more written there."

"You cannot deceive me," says the visitor. "What is this?"

From behind the bed-curtain comes forth a hand; what a handsome hand! No; this wonderful hand does not belong to Bosio, and how does this hand come out from the curtain without pushing it apart?

The hand of the new visitor touches the page; from under the hand appear new lines, which were not there before.

"Read," says the visitor.

And Viéra Pavlovna's heart begins to feel oppressed; she has never seen these lines before; she did not know that they were written, but her heart is oppressed. She does not wish to read the new lines. "Read," repeats the visitor.

Viéra Pavlovna reads: "No; it is tiresome for me to be alone. Once I did not feel the loneliness. Why is it tiresome for me now when it did not used to be?"

"Turn back a page," says the visitor.

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