Katenka was with me in the britchka; her lovely head inclined as she gazed pensively at the roadway. I looked at her in silence and wondered what had brought the unchildlike expression of sadness to her face which I now observed for the first time there.
"We shall soon be in Moscow," I said at last. "How large do you suppose it is?""I don't know," she replied.
"Well, but how large do you IMAGINE? As large as Serpukhov?""What do you say?"
"Nothing."
Yet the instinctive feeling which enables one person to guess the thoughts of another and serves as a guiding thread in conversation soon made Katenka feel that her indifference was disagreeable to me; wherefore she raised her head presently, and, turning round, said:
"Did your Papa tell you that we girls too were going to live at your Grandmamma's?""Yes, he said that we should ALL live there,""ALL live there?"
"Yes, of course. We shall have one half of the upper floor, and you the other half, and Papa the wing; but we shall all of us dine together with Grandmamma downstairs.""But Mamma says that your Grandmamma is so very grave and so easily made angry?""No, she only SEEMS like that at first. She is grave, but not bad-tempered. On the contrary, she is both kind and cheerful. If you could only have seen the ball at her house!""All the same, I am afraid of her. Besides, who knows whether we--"Katenka stopped short, and once again became thoughtful.
"What?" I asked with some anxiety.
"Nothing, I only said that--"
"No. You said, 'Who knows whether we--'"
"And YOU said, didn't you, that once there was ever such a ball at Grandmamma's?""Yes. It is a pity you were not there. There were heaps of guests--about a thousand people, and all of them princes or generals, and there was music, and I danced-- But, Katenka" Ibroke off, "you are not listening to me?"
"Oh yes, I am listening. You said that you danced--?""Why are you so serious?"
"Well, one cannot ALWAYS be gay."
"But you have changed tremendously since Woloda and I first went to Moscow. Tell me the truth, now: why are you so odd?" My tone was resolute.
"AM I so odd?" said Katenka with an animation which showed me that my question had interested her. "I don't see that I am so at all.""Well, you are not the same as you were before," I continued.
"Once upon a time any one could see that you were our equal in everything, and that you loved us like relations, just as we did you; but now you are always serious, and keep yourself apart from us.""Oh, not at all."
"But let me finish, please," I interrupted, already conscious of a slight tickling in my nose--the precursor of the tears which usually came to my eyes whenever I had to vent any long pent-up feeling. "You avoid us, and talk to no one but Mimi, as though you had no wish for our further acquaintance.""But one cannot always remain the same--one must change a little sometimes," replied Katenka, who had an inveterate habit of pleading some such fatalistic necessity whenever she did not know what else to say.
I recollect that once, when having a quarrel with Lubotshka, who had called her "a stupid girl," she (Katenka) retorted that EVERYBODY could not be wise, seeing that a certain number of stupid people was a necessity in the world. However, on the present occasion, I was not satisfied that any such inevitable necessity for "changing sometimes" existed, and asked further:
"WHY is it necessary?"
