A House of Gentlefolk Part 17

"What do you want?" queried Lemm. "I can't play to you every night, I have taken a decoction for a cold." But Lavretsky's face, apparently, struck him as strange; the old man made a shade for his eyes with his hand, took a look at his elated visitor, and let him in.

Lavretsky went into the room and sank into a chair. The old man stood still before him, wrapping the skirts of his shabby striped dressing-gown around him, shrinking together and gnawing his lips.

"My wife is here," Lavretsky brought out. He raised his head and suddenly broke into involuntary laughter.

Lemm's face expressed bewilderment, but he did not even smile, only wrapped himself closer in his dressing-gown.

"Of course, you don't know," Lavretsky went on, "I had imagined... I read in a paper that she was dead."

"O--oh, did you read that lately?" asked Lemm.

"Yes, lately."

"O--oh," repeated the old man, raising his eyebrows. "And she is here?"

"Yes. She is at my house now; and I... I am an unlucky fellow."

And he laughed again.

"You are an unlucky fellow," Lemm repeated slowly.

"Christopher Fedoritch," began Lavretsky, "would you undertake to carry a note for me?"

"H'm. May I know to whom?"

"Lisavet--"

"Ah... yes, yes, I understand. Very good. And when must the letter be received?"

"To-morrow, as early as possible."

"H'm. I can send Katrine, my cook. No, I will go myself."

"And you will bring me an answer?"

"Yes, I will bring you an answer."

Lemm sighed.

"Yes, my poor young friend; you are certainly an unlucky young man."

Lavretsky wrote a few words to Lisa. He told her of his wife's arrival, begged her to appoint a meeting with him,--then he flung himself on the narrow sofa, with his face to the wall; and the old man lay down on the bed, and kept muttering a long while, coughing and drinking off his decoction by gulps.

The morning came; they both got up. With strange eyes they looked at one another. At that moment Lavretsky longed to kill himself. The cook, Katrine, brought them some villainous coffee. It struck eight. Lemm put on his hat, and saying that he was going to give a lesson at the Kalitins' at ten, but he could find a suitable pretext for going there now, he set off. Lavretsky flung himself again on the little sofa, and once more the same bitter laugh stirred in the depth of his soul. He thought of how his wife had driven him out of his house; he imagined Lisa's position, covered his eyes and clasped his hands behind his head.

At last Lemm came back and brought him a sc.r.a.p of paper, on which Lisa had scribbled in pencil the following words: "We cannot meet to-day; perhaps, to-morrow evening. Good-bye." Lavretsky thanked Lemm briefly and indifferently, and went home.

He found his wife at breakfast; Ada, in curl-papers, in a little white frock with blue ribbons, was eating her mutton cutlet. Varvara Pavlovna rose at once directly Lavretsky entered the room, and went to meet him with humility in her face. He asked her to follow him into the study, shut the door after them, and began to walk up and down; she sat down, modestly laying one hand over the other, and began to follow his movements with her eyes, which were still beautiful, though they were pencilled lightly under their lids.

For some time Lavretsky could not speak; he felt that he could not master himself, he saw clearly that Varvara Pavlovna was not in the least afraid of him, but was a.s.suming an appearance of being ready to faint away in another instant.

"Listen, madam," he began at last, breathing with difficulty and at moments setting his teeth: "it is useless for us to make pretense with one another; I don't believe in your penitence; and even if it were sincere, to be with you again, to live with you, would be impossible for me."

Varvara Pavlovna bit her lips and half-closed her eyes. "It is aversion," she thought; "all is over; in his eyes I am not even a woman."

"Impossible," repeated Lavretsky, fastening the top b.u.t.tons of his coat.

"I don't know what induced you to come here; I suppose you have come to the end of your money."

"Ah! you hurt me!" whispered Varvara Pavlovna.

"However that may be--you are, any way, my wife, unhappily. I cannot drive you away... and this is the proposal I make you. You may to-day, if you like, set off to Lavriky, and live there; there is, as you know, a good house there; you will have everything you need in addition to your allowance... Do you agree?"--Varvara Pavlovna raised an embroidered handkerchief to her face.

"I have told you already," she said, her lips twitching nervously, "that I will consent to whatever you think fit to do with me; at present it only remains for me to beg of you--will you allow me at least to thank you for your magnanimity?"

"No thanks, I beg--it is better without that," Lavretsky said hurriedly.

"So then," he pursued, approaching the door, "I may reckon on--"

"To-morrow I will be at Lavriky," Varvara Pavlovna declared, rising respectfully from her place. "But Fedor Ivanitch--" (She no longer called him "Theodore.")

"What do you want?"

"I know, I have not yet gained any right to forgiveness; may I hope at least that with time--"

"Ah, Varvara Pavlovna," Lavretsky broke in, "you are a clever woman, but I too am not a fool; I know that you don't want forgiveness in the least. And I have forgiven you long ago; but there was always a great gulf between us."

"I know how to submit," rejoined Varvara Pavlovna, bowing her head. "I have not forgotten my sin; I should not have been surprised if I had learnt that you even rejoiced at the news of my death," she added softly, slightly pointing with her hand to the copy of the journal which was lying forgotten by Lavretsky on the table.

Fedor Ivanitch started; the paper had been marked in pencil. Varvara Pavlovna gazed at him with still greater humility. She was superb at that moment. Her grey Parisian gown clung gracefully round her supple, almost girlish figure; her slender, soft neck, encircled by a white collar, her bosom gently stirred by her even breathing, her hands innocent of bracelets and rings--her whole figure, from her shining hair to the tip of her just visible little shoe, was so artistic...

Lavretsky took her in with a glance of hatred; scarcely could he refrain from crying: "Bravo!" scarcely could he refrain from felling her with a blow of his fist on her shapely head--and he turned on his heel. An hour later he had started for Va.s.silyevskoe, and two hours later Varvara Pavlovna had bespoken the best carriage in the town, had put on a simple straw hat with a black veil, and a modest mantle, given Ada into the charge of Justine, and set off to the Kalitins'. From the inquiries she had made among the servants, she had learnt that her husband went to see them every day.

Chapter x.x.xVIII

The day of the arrival of Lavretsky's wife at the town of O-----, a sorrowful day for him, and been also a day of misery for Lisa. She had not had time to go down-stairs and say good-morning to her mother, when the tramp of hoofs was heard under the window, and with a secret dismay she saw Panshin riding into the courtyard. "He has come so early for a final explanation," she thought, and she was not mistaken. After a turn in the drawing-room, he suggested that she should go with him into the garden, and then asked her for the decision of his fate. Lisa summoned up all her courage and told him that she could not be his wife. He heard her to the end, standing on one side of her and pulling his hat down over his forehead; courteously, but in a changed voice, he asked her, "Was this her last word, and had he given her any ground for such a change in her views?"--then pressed his hand to his eyes, sighed softly and abruptly, and took his head away from his face again.

"I did not want to go along the beaten track," he said huskily. "I wanted to choose a wife according to the dictates of my heart; but it seems this was not to be. Farewell, fond dream!" He made Lisa a profound bow, and went back into the house.

She hoped that he would go away at once; but he went into Marya Dmitrievna's room and remained nearly an hour with her. As he came out, he said to Lisa: "Votre mere vous appelle; adieu a jamais,"... mounted his horse, and set off at full trot from the very steps. Lisa went in to Marya Dmitrievna and found her in tears; Panshin had informed her of his ill-luck.

"Do you want to be the death of me? Do you want to be the death of me?"

was how the disconsolate widow began her lamentations. "Whom do you want? Wasn't he good enough for you? A kammer-junker! not interesting!

He might have married any Maid of Honour he liked in Petersburg. And I--I had so hoped for it! Is it long that you have changed towards him?

How has this misfortune come on us,--it cannot have come of itself! Is it that dolt of a cousin's doing? A nice person you have picked up to advise you!"

"And he, poor darling," Marya Dmitrievna went on, "how respectful he is, how attentive even in his sorrow! He has promised not to desert me. Ah, I can never bear that! Ah, my head aches fit to split! Send me Palashka.

You will be the death of me, if you don't think better of it,--do you hear?"