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You! Now! No, Natalia Victorovna. It's too late. You come too late. You must expect nothing from me." She recoiled from him a little, though he had made no movement, as if she had seen some change in his face, charging his words with the significance of some hidden sentiment they shared together.
"As things have turned out," I said, "you happen to know exactly what your brother's friend has to tell your mother. And surely after that..." "Yes," said Natalia Haldin slowly. "I only wonder, as I was not here when he came, if it wouldn't be better not to interrupt now." We remained silent, and I suppose we both strained our ears, but no sound reached us through the closed door.
At last it was publicly announced that a brother of Natalia Narychkine had seized the crown and seated himself on the throne, and that Ivan had been strangled. Love and pity for the son of Alexis, and the indignation excited by the news of the usurpation, immediately caused the people of Moscow to revolt, and the ringleaders cleverly directed the movement.
Not understanding the reason for such strange conduct, Mamma followed her presently to her room, and found her sitting with streaming eyes on her trunk, crushing her pocket-handkerchief between her fingers, and looking mournfully at the remains of the document, which was lying torn to pieces on the floor. "What is the matter, dear Natalia Savishna?" said Mamma, taking her hand.
I was just skipping away, in the sprightliest mood possible, when Natalia darted out upon me from behind the door with the tablecloth in her hand, and, catching hold of me, rubbed my face hard with the stained part of it, repeating, "Don't thou go and spoil tablecloths any more!" I struggled hard, and roared with temper. "What?"
Haldin in her armchair keeping a dreadful, tormenting vigil under the evil spell of an arbitrary rule: a victim of tyranny and revolution, a sight at once cruel and absurd. "You will come in for a moment?" said Natalia Haldin. I demurred on account of the late hour. "You know mother likes you so much," she insisted. "I will just come in to hear how your mother is."
"But there is a question of fitness. Has this occurred to you?" There was a breathlessness in his utterance which contrasted with the monstrous hint of mockery in his intention. "Why!" whispered Natalia Haldin with feeling. "Who more fit than you?" He had a convulsive movement of exasperation, but controlled himself. "Indeed! Directly you heard that I was in Geneva, before even seeing me?
The tocsin sounded from four hundred churches of the "holy city"; the regiments of the streltsi took up arms and marched, followed by an immense crowd, to the Kremlin, with drums beating, matches lighted, and dragging cannon behind them. Natalia Narychkine had only to show herself on the "Red Staircase," accompanied by her son Peter, and Ivan who was reported dead.
My grandfather and his brother, Ivan Ivanovitch, were simple, good-hearted people, quiet and depressed. My grand'tante Natalia married, as you are aware, a coarse, dull-witted man, and all her life she cherished an unutterable, slavish, sheep-like passion for him. But their brother Vassily was not of that sort. I believe I said that Ivan Andreevitch had left him in Petersburg. He was then twelve.
His second wife, Natalia Nariskin, to whom he was married in the year 1671, still lived with her two children, a son, Peter, who was subsequently entitled the Great, as being the most illustrious monarch Russia has known, and a daughter Natalia. Alexis, notwithstanding the unpropitious promise of his youth, proved one of the wisest and best princes Russia had known for years.
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