west of hussies. I'd treat you
differently, but I'm sorry for your father, so I will conceal it."

Natasha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with
noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Marya Dmitrievna glanced
round at Sonya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natasha.

"It's lucky for him that he escaped me; but I'll find him!" she said in
her rough voice. "Do you hear what I am saying or not?" she added.

She put her large hand under Natasha's face and turned it toward her.
Both Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were amazed when they saw how Natasha
looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her
cheeks sunken.

"Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!" she muttered,
wrenching herself from Marya Dmitrievna's hands with a vicious effort
and sinking down again into her former position.

"Natalie!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "I wish for your good. Lie still,
stay like that then, I won't touch you. But listen. I won't tell you how
guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back
tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?"

Again Natasha's body shook with sobs.

"Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?"

"I have no betrothed: I have refused him!" cried Natasha.

"That's all the same," continued Marya Dmitrievna. "If they hear of
this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he
challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?"

"Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked
you to?" shouted Natasha, raising herself on the sofa and looking
malignantly at Marya Dmitrievna.

"But what did you want?" cried Marya Dmitrievna, growing angry again.
"Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house?
Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he
had carried you off... do you think they wouldn't have found him?
Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he's a scoundrel, a
wretch--that's a fact!"

"He is better than any of you!" exclaimed Natasha getting up. "If you
hadn't interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sonya,
why?... Go away!"

And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people
bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Marya
Dmitrievna was to speak again but Natasha cried out:

"Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!" and she threw herself
back on the sofa.

Marya Dmitriev