Boris Lensky Part 3

"No, father. She evidently fainted from excitement. I have never seen any one listen as she listened to you."

"Swooned from excitement," repeats Lensky. "A pretty young woman! _Mais c'est un succes de Torreador_--the highest that a man can attain."

The carriage stops before the Hotel Westminster.

"Will you dine with me?" Lensky asks, as he gets out.

"If you will permit me," replies Nikolai.

"Only no such formalities!" bursts out the violinist. "Do not force yourself to anything from politeness. You must not, if you do not wish.

The company which you will find with me will not suit you without that."

Lensky says that quite roughly and angrily. In general, the opposing manners of the two men are strange enough. At heart they evidently cling to each other very greatly; still, a perceptible lack of confidence is apparent in the relations between father and son.

"And at what hour may I come?" asks Nikolai.

"May I come!" his father mimics him. "That is really not to be borne.

Leave me in peace with your aristocratic manners. Do not forget that you have a proletary for a father. My guests come at half-past eight, and you can come when you will."

With that they have reached the first story of the hotel, where are the violinist's secluded rooms.

Nikolai's room is one story higher. "For, near each other, we would mutually annoy each other," the virtuoso has from the beginning signified to his son. "_Adieu a tantot_," he calls to the young man.

With that they separate.

When Nikolai joins Lensky, half an hour later, they are already at table.

The atmosphere of the little dining-room is filled with the savory odor of _potage bisque_, the virtuoso's favorite dish. Gay dishes of dessert stand on the table, the chandelier sheds its glaring light over an extremely mixed a.s.sembly. At Lensky's right sits Madame Grevin, a very old friend of his; at his left, the Countess d'Olbreuse, who, probably to accentuate the situation, has kept on her hat. This great lady, in the _role_ of guest in artistic circles, is in some manner annoying to Nikolai. He feels especially constrained, seems to himself awkward in his pedantically correct clothes; he wears a dress-coat and white cravat, because after dinner he is going into society--laughable. The place opposite his father has been left vacant for him. His eyes wander over the guests. He sees a strikingly dressed young harpist, with loud, noisy manners and bold expressions, Mademoiselle Klein, from Vienna; then a violin virtuoso of good family, Monsieur Paul, not without intelligence and wit, but without belief in his art, which he seems to consider a moderately remunerative trade; a vain French journalist with pretentious cynicism--no single artist of really significant renown; and in the midst of all this unenlivening gang--his father.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Can he feel at home with these men?" Nikolai asks himself, and looks at him scrutinizingly.

At first he sits quite silently there, and only addresses a few friendly words across the table to Madame Bulatow, the wife of a poor, unrecognized composer. His boundless kindness of heart never fails with poor unfortunates, however raging, untamably wild, quite rough he may otherwise be. But to no one is he so tender as to his own country people. Poor Russians in a strange land he treats as relatives.

The further the dinner progresses, the worse becomes the universal tone, the more unrestrained Lensky. His manner to the Countess d'Olbreuse becomes completely inadmissible.

In the beginning he scarcely noticed her. But as she, from vanity and a whim, had evidently determined to make his conquest, to rouse him from his indifference with all kinds of flatteries and coquetries, he gradually warms, presses her hand, whispers all kinds of insidious remarks to her with wicked glances, permits himself so much that at last she is frightened and tries to restrain him. But to restrain Lensky after the second bottle of wine, at the close of a good dinner, and near a very pretty woman, who has suddenly become prudish after she had, a few minutes before, thrown herself at his head, is no easy thing.

Nikolai, whose blood burns in his brown cheeks, foolishly lets himself be brought to remark a shy, "_Mais, mon pere!_" and by that attains a not at all pleasing result. Always excited by the slightest weight or restraint, to violent opposition, Lensky is least of all inclined to submit to be lectured by his "aristocratic son." His face, flushed by wine, becomes distorted, his eyes glisten. He is just about to say something horrible, unpardonable--the word dies on his lips; he turns his head and listens. A very excited child's voice outside is heard by turns with a waiter's voice: "I wish to go in, _laissez-moi donc!_"

Was it possible? The door opens. Breathless, with cheeks flushed from the cold, a girl of perhaps seventeen years bursts in and into Lensky's arms, who has hastily sprung up.

"Here I am at last!" said she, breathless, between laughing and weeping, in Russian. "Oh, if you knew how much trouble I had in getting to you! They would not let me in. What does it matter, now I am with you? And how are you? Are you well again? Oh, you poor dear, I could not bear it any longer, I was so worried about you!"

He holds her delightedly to his breast, covers her whole face with kisses. "It is my daughter," he explains to his astonished-looking guests. "Please make room for her near me, Madame Grevin." And as a waiter pushes a chair between the old woman and the virtuoso, he continues: "Take off your coat and hat, Mascha, and now sit down and get your breath." Then he pa.s.ses his hand over her soft dark hair. His touching tenderness has wiped away every trace from his face of the hateful expression which formerly disfigured it. "Yes, yes, this is my daughter, my foolish, ignorant daughter, a little goose, who loves me dearly." And the voice of the spoiled despot, who recently only tolerated the homage of hundreds of women crazy about him, trembles at these words quite as if he wondered that his own child loves him! "Are you hungry, my little dove?" asks he.

"No, papa, I am too happy to be hungry; but I am thirsty." And she reaches for his champagne gla.s.s.

"Oh, you little wretch!" admonishes Lensky, tenderly, while Nikolai calls to him across the table: "Don't give her any champagne; she cannot stand it. A thimbleful goes to her head."

"And I like it so much," sighs the girl.

"Tell us, please, how you really came here, Mascha," Lensky asks his daughter in French. "I thought you still in Arcachon."

"I ran away," says she, gayly, and laughs till her white teeth show between her full child's lips. "Ran away secretly, and quite alone!"

"So, well, that is good," says Lensky, and immediately is vexed at having made an unsuitable remark before his daughter. He adds: "You at least took your maid with you?"

"No, papa, no one. Ah! please do not look so gloomy; only do not be angry. If you must quarrel with me, quarrel to-morrow, but not to-day; I am too happy to be with you. See, it was this way: Since October, I have been with Aunt Sophie in Arcachon, because Aunt Barbara has not yet arranged her house in Paris, and therefore cannot take me. Ah! I must always go from one aunt to another, because you will not have me with you, you naughty papa!"

At this jesting reproof Lensky's face darkens; meanwhile, the girl continues: "All at once I heard you were in Paris. Ah! to know you were in Paris and not dare to come--that was unbearable. But, however, I begged.... 'It is impossible,' was the answer every time. Aunt Barbara could not receive me before the fifteenth, and then, besides, no one had time to accompany me to Paris--and all sorts of simple excuses, which made me furious. Meanwhile, I read in the papers how people half kill each other for places at your concerts, how all Paris is on its knees before you, and I am happy and proud of you."

"Ah! you are proud of me?" says Lensky, in a tone which among all those present only his son understands.

"But, papa," says Mascha, shrugging her shoulders impatiently at this interruption, "am I proud? How can you ask? Yes, immensely proud of you. But then I read that you look pale and weary; then I am quite consumed with anxiety, and dream every night that you are ill. Then yesterday evening I read that you had had a stroke of apoplexy. I was beside myself. They tried to talk me out of my anxiety, to convince me that if you were dangerously ill they would certainly have already telegraphed me. They were all very kind, and wished to telegraph to you, but I could not sit there idle for hours, waiting for a telegram.

And so I ran away at six o'clock in the morning while every one was asleep. It was bitterly cold. I sold my watch, and then did not have money enough to buy my ticket; a young man was so kind as to a.s.sist me."

"Ah! an obliging young man," interrupted the journalist.

"He was very nice," affirmed Mascha. "He took the ticket for me--he spoke English to me; only think, papa, he took me for an Englishwoman.

Then I left him and hurried into a coupe, and away we went. In my coupe sat an old man and an old woman. I thought they were married, because they quarrelled incessantly, but the old woman got out at Bordeaux. I remained alone with the old man. For one moment I was afraid."

"Of what, then?" asks the journalist in an unpleasant tone.

"It was just before a tunnel; he drew out a large pocket-knife. I thought he would murder me, but no, it was only to peel a pear. He wished to force half of it upon me. When I refused, he offered me chocolate; he became very insolent. I cannot bear that, and threatened to signal for help." She interrupts her confession with a pretty little shudder. "I did not know that it would be so unpleasant to travel alone."

"In a ladies' coupe you would have been spared these unpleasantnesses,"

said Madame Grevin, provincially stiffly.

"Ah, madame!" says Mascha, with her soft eyes looking first at Lensky and then at the old woman, "I had quite forgotten that there were ladies' coupes. I only thought to come to Paris as quickly as possible.

It all turned out well, you shall see. G.o.d be thanked, just then the train stopped. I opened the window, called to the conductor to open the door; he did not hear me. French conductors never hear one. Then my young gentleman discovered me. You know the one from the station in Arcachon, who was walking up and down the platform smoking. He threw away his cigar and hurried to my help. I would like to change my coupe, I said, with a glance at my objectionable travelling companion. He understood, took me in another compartment, said I was evidently not accustomed to travelling alone, and asked if I would permit him to offer me his protection. I was very thankful to him, and then I told him my whole story, and that I was your daughter, papa. He said that he was an old friend of yours, Nikolinka"--to her brother. "He told me his name, Count Barenburg. He is a diplomat, was in St. Petersburg, and said he had often met you at Uncle Sergeis. Do you remember him, Nikolinka?"

"I believe it," said Nikolai. "He is a man who saved my life on a bear hunt. I was in very close quarters with a wounded beast."

"And he shot the bear?" said Lensky.

"No," replied Nikolai; "he was, as he modestly expressed it, too cowardly to discharge his gun--the ball might have hit me. 'Every one who will cannot be a William Tell,' said he, afterward, laughing. He stabbed the brute with his hunting-knife, in danger of being strangled with me."

"He saved you with danger to his life? Then he must like you very much," bursts out Maschenka.

"He scarcely knew me."

"Ah, how generous!" said Mascha. "How glad I am to have learned to know him, and you cannot think how nice he was to me. He spoke so pleasantly of you, Colia. Then he got a paper to see whether there was anything about you in it, papa. We found a notice which relieved me as to your health, and then after the worry I had had, my heart was so light that I cried. Arrived in Paris, he sent his servant with me because he did not want me to drive all the way through the city alone, and here I am.

You see, madame"--she turns coaxingly to Grevin--"on the whole it was certainly better than if I had travelled in a ladies' compartment."

But Madame Grevin only shrugged her shoulders, and said: "That is a matter of taste; for my daughter, I should have preferred the ladies'

compartment."