"Calabressa did not tell you?"
"No. There were some hints I did not understand."
"Nor of the reasons that forced me to comply with such an inhuman
demand? Alas! these reasons exist no longer. I have done my duty to one
whose life was sacred to me; now his death has released me from fear; I
come to my daughter now. Ah, when I fold her to my heart, what shall I
say to her--what but this?--'Natalushka, if your mother has remained
away from you all these years, it was not because she did not love
you.'"
He drew his chair nearer, and took her hand.
"I perceive that you have suffered, and deeply. But your daughter will
make amends to you. She loves you now; you are a saint to her; your
portrait is her dearest possession--"
"My portrait?" she said, looking rather bewildered. "Her father has not
forbidden her that, then?"
"It was Calabressa who gave it to her quite recently."
She gently withdrew her hand, and glanced at the table, on which two
books lay, and sighed.
"The English tongue is so difficult," she said. "And I have so much--so
much--to say! I have written out many things that I wish to tell her;
and have repeated them, and repeated them; but the sound is not
right--the sound is not like what my heart wishes to say to her.
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