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26
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
envied her, and hated her for her pride and arrogance.
She knew it, and knew also how bitterly she would now
be compelled to expiate her former grandeur.
Nevertheless, strange as it may seem, she not only did not
rejoice at my father’s decision, but on the contrary
began to pray for forgiveness. Some cat-like
attachment to our house, to the place among us which she
had won for herself, made its voice heard in her.
"I have not long to live; I feel that I shall die
soon. How am I to drag myself around with
strangers just before my death 1" she said.
"But that had nothing to do with it," nurse
explained to me, as we recalled the story many years
afterward, when I was grown up. "She simply
could n’t leave us as long as Philip Matvyeevitch
remained, and she knew that if she once went away she
would never see him again. In any case, as it was
difficult to find such a good gardener, and the garden
and farm could not be left at the mercy of fate, it
was decided to keep him with us for a time at least."
I do not know whether nurse was right as to the
causes which made Marya Vasilievna cling so
obstinately to her place in our house; but at any rate, on
the day appointed for her departure, she came and
threw herself at my father’s feet.
" Let me rather stay with you without wages,
punish me like a serf, only do not drive me from you,"
she pleaded, sobbing.
Such attachment to our house touched my father;
but, on the other hand, he was afraid that if he
forgave Marya Vasilievna it would exert a demoralizing
influence on the other servants. He was in a very
difficult dilemma as to what he ought to do ; but all
at once the following expedient occurred to him.
"Listen," he said to her. "Although theft is a
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