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"Are you very ill?" she asked sympathetically, looking at him in a peculiar way. "Good heavens! And this man wants to do without me!" "Listen, Dasha, now I'm always seeing phantoms. One devil offered me yesterday, on the bridge, to murder Lebyadkin and Marya Timofyevna, to settle the marriage difficulty, and to cover up all traces.
But mind you think highly of him, in the first place because there are many worse. I don't want to get you off my hands by marrying you to a rascal, you don't imagine anything of that sort, do you? And, above all, because I ask you, you'll think highly of him," She broke off suddenly and irritably. "Do you hear? Why won't you say something?" Dasha still listened and did not speak.
Varvara Petrovna thought for a minute: "If," she pronounced at last firmly, evidently addressing all present, though she only looked at Dasha, "if Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch did not appeal even to me but asked you to do this for him, he must have had his reasons for doing so. I don't consider I have any right to inquire into them, if they are kept secret from me.
It was true that she would never have let Dasha suffer; on the contrary, she considered now that she was acting as her benefactress. The most generous and legitimate indignation was glowing in her soul, when, as she put on her shawl, she caught fixed upon her the embarrassed and mistrustful eyes of her protegee. She had genuinely loved the girl from her childhood upwards.
She noticed that he used sometimes to talk to Dasha; and, well, she got in such a frantic state that even my life wasn't worth living, my dear. The doctors have forbidden my being irritated, and I was so sick of their lake they make such a fuss about, it simply gave me toothache, I had such rheumatism. It's stated in print that the Lake of Geneva does give people the toothache.
Remember, too, that he's a poet. Listen, Dasha, there's no greater happiness than self-sacrifice. And besides, you'll be giving me great satisfaction and that's the chief thing. Don't think I've been talking nonsense. I understand what I'm saying. I'm an egoist, you be an egoist, too. Of course I'm not forcing you. It's entirely for you to decide. As you say, so it shall be.
I heard the order you gave him, and when he came out just now I hid round the corner, on the right, and he didn't notice me." "I've long meant to break off with you, Dasha... for a while... for the present. I couldn't see you last night, in spite of your note. I meant to write to you myself, but I don't know how to write," he added with vexation, almost as though with disgust.
"And are they beaten now, auntie?" asked Vera. "The steward beats them sometimes, but I never do, bless their hearts! And your grandfather sometimes lifts his stick from old habit, but he never beats them." Auntie Dasha yawned and crossed herself over her mouth and her right ear. "It's not dull here?" Vera inquired. "What shall I say?
Well, what's the good of sitting like this. Speak!" "I don't mind, Varvara Petrovna, if I really must be married," said Dasha firmly. "Must? What are you hinting at?" Varvara Petrovna looked sternly and intently at her. Dasha was silent, picking at her embroidery canvas with her needle.
And how's Shatov? Is he just the same?" "Irascible, mais bon." "I can't endure your Shatov. He's spiteful and he thinks too much of himself." "How is Darya Pavlovna?" "You mean Dasha? What made you think of her?" Varvara Petrovna looked at him inquisitively. "She's quite well. I left her with the Drozdovs. I heard something about your son in Switzerland. Nothing good."
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