A Gentle Creature by Fyodor Dostoevsky

… So as long as she's here, everything's still all right: I can go over and look at her any time; but tomorrow they'll be taking her away and how on earth will I manage on my own? At the moment she's in the room on a table, two card-tables put together, but tomorrow the coffin arrives, white, white gros de Naples* still, where was I … I keep pacing about trying to make sense of all this. I've been trying to make sense of it for six hours now and I still can't get my thoughts into focus. The thing is, I keep on pacing and pacing about … This is how it happened. I'll just tell it in order (order!). Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a long way from being a literary man, as you can well see, but be that as it may, I will tell it as far as I understand it. In fact, that's the horrible thing about it for me-I understand it all!

If you want to know, I mean if I start from the very beginning, she used to come to me to pawn articles, as simple as that, to finance an advertisement in The Voice-something on the lines of governess, willing to travel, give lessons at people's homes, and so on and so forth. That was at the very beginning and naturally I didn't differentiate between her and the others; she used to come along like the rest, well, you know. Then I did begin to take notice of her. She was a fair-haired, delicate creature, medium tall; she was always ill at ease with me, awkward somehow (I fancy she was like that with everybody she didn't know, and to her of course I was no different from anyone else, as a man I mean, not a pawnbroker). As soon as she got her money, she would turn about and leave immediately. And not a word spoken. The others used to argue, insist, haggle for more; she never did, just took what was offered … I fancy I'm getting things out of order … Yes; the first thing that struck me was the type of thing she used to bring in: little silver-gilt earrings, a trashy little medallion-not worth two kopeks any of it. She was well aware they were only worth coppers, but I could tell by her face that to her they were precious-in fact they were all that remained to her of her father and mother, as I afterwards learned. Only once did I presume to smile at these trinkets of hers. I mean, I never let myself do that, you see, I maintain a gentlemanly front with the public: few words, polite and formal. ‘Discipline, discipline, always discipline. '* But, all of a sudden, she had ventured to bring the remnants (I mean literally) of an old jacket lined with rabbit fur, I just couldn't help coming out with some witticism. Ye gods, did she flare up! She had big blue wistful eyes, but how they flashed! She uttered no word, however, just gathered up the ‘remnants' and went off. It was at that point that I took special notice of her for the first time and started thinking about her in that way, I mean in a special sort of way. Yes: I also remember what struck me, my chief impression if you like, what summed it all up: it was that she was terribly young, so young you'd have taken her for 14. Yet in fact she was actually three months off 16. Still, that's not what I wanted to say, that wasn't what I meant by summing her up. She turned up again the following day. I found out later that she'd been to Dobronravov and Mozer* with that jacket of hers, but they take nothing but gold and wouldn't discuss the matter. I did once accept a precious stone from her (rubbishy, you know) and when I came to think about it afterwards, I was surprised: I don't accept anything apart from gold and silver myself, but I'd let her pawn a stone. That was the second thought I had about her at the time, I remember that.