Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
138
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
mise with my conscience, I tried to redeem my secret
sin against her by particular obligingness and
amiability toward her. But the pangs of conscience did
not prevent my feeling a certain jubilation every time
that Aniuta and Dostoévsky quarreled.
Feödor Mikhåilovitch called me his friend, and I
very ingenuously believed that I stood nearer to him
than did my elder sister, and that I understood him
better than she did. He even praised my personal
appearance, to the disparagement of Aniuta’s.
"You imagine that you are very handsome," he
said to my sister; " but your little sister will be much
handsomer than you in course of time. She has a
more expressive face, and the eyes of a gipsy! But
you are merely a tolerably comely little German,
that’s what you are!"
Aniuta smiled disdainfully; but I drank in this
unprecedented laudation of my beauty with rapture.
" But perhaps it is true," I said to myself, with
sinking heart; and I began even to be seriously troubled
with the thought—how was it that my sister was not
annoyed by the preference which Dostoévsky
exhibited for me ?
I longed greatly to know for certain what Aniuta
herself thought of all this, and whether it were true
that I was destined to become beautiful when I should
be fully grown up. This last thought interested me
especially.
In Petersburg my sister and I slept in the same
room, and at night, when we were undressing, our
most intimate conferences took place.
Aniuta usually stood in front of the mirror
brushing her long, golden hair, and plaiting it into two
braids for the night. This operation required a good
deal of time; her hair was very thick and silky, and
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
