"No... No... No..." she kept repeating. "You don't understand."
"I do understand," he answered, always whispering, and with one ear on
the door lest the old woman should hear and come in. "We've got very
little time," he said. "Grogoff will never let you go if he's here. I
know why you don't come back--you think we'll all look down on you for
having gone. But that's nonsense. We are all simply miserable without
you."
But she simply continued to repeat "No... No..." Then, as he urged her
still further, she begged him to go away. She said that he simply didn't
know what Grogoff would do if he returned and found him, and although
he'd gone to a meeting he might return at any moment. Then, as though
to urge upon him Grogoff's ferocity, in little hoarse whispers she let
him see some of the things that during these weeks she'd endured. He'd
beaten her, thrown things at her, kept her awake hour after hour at
night making her sing to him... and, of course, worst things, things
far, far worse that she would never tell to anybody, not even to Vera!
Poor Nina, she had indeed been punished for her innocent impetuosities.
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