head at that.
"No... No... No..." she kept repeating. "You don't understand."

"I do understand," he answered, always whispering, and with one ear on
the door lest the old woman should hear and come in. "We've got very
little time," he said. "Grogoff will never let you go if he's here. I
know why you don't come back--you think we'll all look down on you for
having gone. But that's nonsense. We are all simply miserable without
you."

But she simply continued to repeat "No... No..." Then, as he urged her
still further, she begged him to go away. She said that he simply didn't
know what Grogoff would do if he returned and found him, and although
he'd gone to a meeting he might return at any moment. Then, as though
to urge upon him Grogoff's ferocity, in little hoarse whispers she let
him see some of the things that during these weeks she'd endured. He'd
beaten her, thrown things at her, kept her awake hour after hour at
night making her sing to him... and, of course, worst things, things
far, far worse that she would never tell to anybody, not even to Vera!
Poor Nina, she had indeed been punished for her innocent impetuosities.
She was broken in body and soul; she had faced reality at last and been
beaten by it. She suddenly turned away from him, buried her head in her
arm, as a tiny child does, and cried....

It was then that he discovered he loved her. He went to her, put his arm
round her, kissed her, stroked her hair, whispering little consoling
things to her. She suddenly collapsed, burying her head in his breast
and watering his waistcoat with her tears....

After that he seemed to be able to do anything with her that he pleased.
He whispered to her to go and get her hat, then her coat, then to hurry
up and come along.... As he gave these last commands he heard the door
open, turned and saw Masha, Grogoff's old witch of a servant, facing
him.

The scene that followed must have had its ludicrous side. The old woman
didn't scream or make any kind of noise, she simply asked him what he
was doing there; he answered that he was going out for a walk with the
mistress of the house. She said that he should do nothing of the kind.
He told her to stand away from the door. She refused to move. He then
rushed at her, caught her round the waist, and a most impossible
struggle ensued up and down the middle of the room. He called to Nina to
run, and had the satisfaction of seeing her dart through the door like a
frightened ha