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Anton Chekhov -
Betrothed
I II
III IV
V VI
V A cab had been sent for. Nadya in her hat and overcoat went
upstairs to take one more look at her mother, at all her
belongings. She stood in her own room beside her still warm bed,
looked about her, then went slowly in to her mother. Nina
Ivanovna was asleep; it was quite still in her room. Nadya
kissed her mother, smoothed her hair, stood still for a couple
of minutes . . . then walked slowly downstairs.
It was raining heavily. The cabman with the hood pulled down was
standing at the entrance, drenched with rain.
"There is not room for you, Nadya," said Granny, as the servants
began putting in the luggage. "What an idea to see him off in
such weather! You had better stop at home. Goodness, how it
rains!"
Nadya tried to say something, but could not. Then Sasha helped
Nadya in and covered her feet with a rug. Then he sat down
beside her.
"Good luck to you! God bless you!" Granny cried from the steps.
"Mind you write to us from Moscow, Sasha!"
"Right. Good-bye, Granny."
"The Queen of Heaven keep you!"
"Oh, what weather!" said Sasha.
It was only now that Nadya began to cry. Now it was clear to her
that she certainly was going, which she had not really believed
when she was saying good-bye to Granny, and when she was looking
at her mother. Good-bye, town! And she suddenly thought of it
all: Andrey, and his father and the new house and the naked lady
with the vase; and it all no longer frightened her, nor weighed
upon her, but was nave and trivial and continually retreated
further away. And when they got into the railway carriage and
the train began to move, all that past which had been so big and
serious shrank up into something tiny, and a vast wide future
which till then had scarcely been noticed began unfolding before
her. The rain pattered on the carriage windows, nothing could be
seen but the green fields, telegraph posts with birds sitting on
the wires flitted by, and joy made her hold her breath; she
thought that she was going to freedom, going to study, and this
was just like what used, ages ago, to be called going off to be
a free Cossack.
She laughed and cried and prayed all at once.
"It's a-all right," said Sasha, smiling. "It's a-all right."
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