91
MAY THERE BE GOOD ON EARTH
of us, I can see you, so how can you be here and at the same time be moving
the clock’s hands in the other room?”
“Well yes, we’re here,” Kostya replied, “but our thought is there, where
the clock is. Only her thought is stronger. So it cuckoos when her thought
speeds up the hands. Lately she’s been playing at this a whole lot. I told her
not to do it. I knew you might get worried, but Dasha doesn’t care. When she
gets to thinking, she starts cooking up something. . . .”
“What is Dasha getting to thinking about?” Ivan Nikiforovich joined the
conversation. “And why haven’t you said anything about this to us before,
Kostya?”
“You can see for yourself how she gets to thinking. The clock’s hands
aren’t important, she’s just entertaining herself this way. I can do it, too,
move the clock’s hands, when no one gets in my way. Only I can’t think the
way Dasha does. When she’s deep in thought, her thoughts can’t be
stopped.”
“What is Dasha thinking about? Kostya, do you know?”
“No. You’ll have to ask her yourself. I’ll interrupt her thinking now so she
doesn’t cook up something else.”
Kostya walked over to the chair where his younger sister was sitting and
said a little more loudly and distinctly than usual,
“Dasha, stop thinking. If you don’t stop, I won’t talk to you for a whole
day. And anyway, you’ve frightened mama.”
The little girl’s eyelashes fluttered, she ran an appraising look over those
present in the study, and as if waking up, jumped off the chair, apologized,
and lowered her eyes. The cuckooing stopped, and for a while there was
total silence in the study, a silence broken by little Dasha’s quiet, apologetic
voice. She raised her little head, looked at her mama and father with kind,
shining eyes, and said,
“Dear Mama, dear Papa, I’m sorry if I frightened you. But I have to, I
really really have to think it through. Now I can’t not think it through. And
tomorrow I will, after I rest.” The little girl’s lips were trembling, and she
seemed just about to cry, but she went on: “Kostya, you aren’t going to talk
to me, but I’m still going to be thinking until I finish.”
