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32
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
I could not make up my mind to relate to my
governess what had taken place. Children always
become confused when they talk of their feelings.
Moreover, we were forbidden to be intimate with the
servants, and I knew that the governess still praised
me. I also knew by instinct that she praised me
without cause. After evening tea, when bedtime
came, instead of going straight to my bed-room, I
determined to run to Marya Vasilievna. This was a sort
of sacrifice on my part, because I had to run through
the long, deserted corridor, which was now entirely
dark, which I always feared and avoided in the
evening. But now I developed a desperate courage. I
ran without stopping to take breath, and rushed into
her room like a hurricane, pauting.
Marya Vasilievna had already finished her supper.
Because of the festival she was not at work, but was
sitting at a table covered with a clean, white cloth,
and reading a little book on some pious subject. The
shrine lamp flickered in front of the holy images.
After the dark, dreadful corridor, her little chamber
seemed to me unusually light and comfortable, and
she herself very kind and good.
" I have come to say good-night to you, dear, dear
Marya Vasilievna !" I cried in one breath; but
before I had finished my sentence, she had seized me
and begun to cover me with kisses. She kissed me
so vehemently and so long, that I began to feel
embarrassed, and to consider how I might get away
from her without offending her again, when a fit of
her terrible coughing forced her to release me from
her embrace.
This terrible cough persecuted her more and more.
" I barked like a dog all last night," she would say of
herself, with a sort of grim irony.
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