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Updated: May 7, 2025
It happened I went to the skating-ground alone at midday; mingling with the crowd I saw Nadenka go up to the ice-hill and look about for me . . . then she timidly mounted the steps. . . . She was frightened of going alone oh, how frightened! She was white as the snow, she was trembling, she went as though to the scaffold, but she went, she went without looking back, resolutely.
And waiting for the wind I said in a low voice: "I love you, Nadya!" Mercy! The change that came over Nadenka! She uttered a cry, smiled all over her face and looking joyful, happy and beautiful, held out her arms to meet the wind. And I went off to pack up. . . . That was long ago.
"But it's by the qualities of your soul, after all, that you will make your way, Nicolas," sighs Nadenka's mamma, as though affirming some secret and original idea of her own. And Nadenka is sympathetically distressed on my account, but the conviction that a man passionately in love with her is sitting opposite is obviously a source of the greatest enjoyment to her.
The sledge began moving more and more slowly, the roar of the wind and the whirr of the runners was no longer so terrible, it was easier to breathe, and at last we were at the bottom. Nadenka was more dead than alive. She was pale and scarcely breathing. . . . I helped her to get up. "Nothing would induce me to go again," she said, looking at me with wide eyes full of horror.
The riddle evidently would not let her rest. . . . Had those words been uttered or not? . . . Yes or no? Yes or no? It was the question of pride, or honour, of life a very important question, the most important question in the world. Nadenka kept impatiently, sorrowfully looking into my face with a penetrating glance; she answered at random, waiting to see whether I would not speak.
But then the month of March arrived . . . the spring sunshine was more kindly. . . . Our ice-hill turned dark, lost its brilliance and finally melted. We gave up tobogganning. There was nowhere now where poor Nadenka could hear those words, and indeed no one to utter them, since there was no wind and I was going to Petersburg for long, perhaps for ever.
"Listen, Monsieur Nicolas," says Nadenka, sighing. "Why are you so melancholy? And why are you so silent?" Extraordinary girl she is, really! What can I talk to her about? What have we in common? "Oh, do say something!" she begs me. I begin trying to think of something popular, something within the range of her understanding.
She had evidently determined to put it to the test at last: would those sweet amazing words be heard when I was not there? I saw her, pale, her lips parted with horror, get into the sledge, shut her eyes and saying good-bye for ever to the earth, set off. . . . "Whrrr!" whirred the runners. Whether Nadenka heard those words I do not know.
Next morning I got a little note: "If you are tobogganning to-day, come for me. And from that time I began going every day tobogganning with Nadenka, and as we flew down in the sledge, every time I pronounced in a low voice the same words: "I love you, Nadya!" Soon Nadenka grew used to that phrase as to alcohol or morphia. She could not live without it.
I saw Nadenka come out into the porch and fix a mournful yearning gaze on the sky. . . . The spring wind was blowing straight into her pale dejected face. . . . It reminded her of the wind which roared at us on the ice-hill when she heard those four words, and her face became very, very sorrowful, a tear trickled down her cheek, and the poor child held out both arms as though begging the wind to bring her those words once more.
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