Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 16

But Lavretsky remained sitting on his willow stem.

"I talk to her just as if I still had an interest in life," he thought.

Liza had hung up her hat on a bough when she went away. It was with a strange and almost tender feeling that Lavretsky looked at the hat, and at its long, slightly rumpled ribbons.

Liza soon came back again and took up her former position on the platform.

"Why do you think that Vladimir Nikolaevich has no heart?" she asked, a few minutes afterwards.

"I have already told you that I may be mistaken. However, time will reveal all."

Liza became contemplative. Lavretsky began to talk about his mode of life al Vasilievskoe, about Mikhalevich, about Anton. He felt compelled to talk to Liza, to communicate to her all that went on in his heart. And she listened to him so attentively, with such kindly interest; the few remarks and answers she made appeared to him so sensible and so natural. He even told her so.

Liza was astonished. "Really?" she said. "As for me, I thought I was like my maid, Nastasia, and had no words 'of my own.' She said one day to her betrothed, 'You will be sure to be bored with me. You talk to me so beautifully about every thing, but I have no words of my own.'"

"Heaven be praised!" thought Lavretsky.

XXVI.

In the meantime the evening had arrived, and Maria Dmitrievna evinced a desire to return home. With some difficulty the little girls were torn away from the lake, and got ready for the journey. Lavretsky said he would accompany his guests half-way home, and ordered a horse to be saddled for him. After seeing Maria Dmitrievna into her carriage he looked about for Lemm; but the old man could nowhere be found. He had disappeared the moment the fishing was over, Anton slammed the carriage door to, with a strength remarkable at his age, and cried in a stern voice, "Drive on, coachman!" The carriage set off. Maria Dmitrievna and Liza occupied the back seats; the two girls and the maid sat in front.

The evening was warm and still, and the windows were open on both sides. Lavretsky rode close by the carriage on Liza's side, resting a hand on the door--he had thrown the reins on the neck of his easily trotting horse--and now and then exchanged two or three words with the young girl. The evening glow disappeared. Night came on, but the air seemed to grow even warmer than before. Maria Dmitrievna soon went to sleep; the little girls and the maid servant slept also. Smoothly and rapidly the carriage rolled on. As Liza bent forwards, the moon, which had only just made its appearance, lighted up her face, the fragrant night air breathed on her eyes and cheeks, and she felt herself happy. Her hand rested on the door of the carriage by the side of Lavretsky's. He too felt himself happy as he floated on in the calm warmth of the night, never moving his eyes away from the good young face, listening to the young voice, clear even in its whispers, which spoke simple, good words.

It even escaped his notice for a time that he had gone more than half of the way. Then he would not disturb Madame Kalitine, but he pressed Liza's hand lightly and said, "We are friends now, are we not?" She nodded a.s.sent, and he pulled up his horse. The carriage rolled on its way quietly swinging and curtseying.

Lavretsky returned home at a walk. The magic of the summer night took possession of him. All that spread around him seemed so wonderfully strange, and yet at the same time so well known and so dear. Far and near all was still--and the eye could see very far, though it could not distinguish much of what it saw--but underneath that very stillness a young and flowering life made itself felt.

Lavretsky's horse walked on vigorously, swinging itself steadily to right and left. Its great black shadow moved by its side. There was a sort of secret charm in the tramp of its hoofs, something strange and joyous in the noisy cry of the quails. The stars disappeared in a kind of luminous mist. The moon, not yet at its full, shone with steady l.u.s.tre. Its light spread in a blue stream over the sky, and fell in a streak of vaporous gold on the thin clouds which went past close at hand.

The freshness of the air called a slight moisture into Lavretsky's eyes, pa.s.sed caressingly over all his limbs, and flowed with free current into his chest. He was conscious of enjoying, and felt glad of that enjoyment. "Well, we will live on still; she has not entirely deprived us--" he did not say who, or of what.--Then he began to think about Liza; that she could scarcely be in love with Panshine; that if he had met her under other circ.u.mstances--G.o.d knows what might have come of it; that he understood Lemm's feelings about her now, although she had "no words of her own." And, moreover, that that was not true; for she had words of her own. "Do not speak lightly about that,"

recurred to Lavretsky's memory. For a long time he rode on with bent head, then he slowly drew himself up repeating,--

"And I have burnt all that I used to worship, I worship all that I used to burn--"

then he suddenly struck his horse with his whip and and galloped straight away home.

On alighting from his horse he gave a final look round, a thankful smile playing involuntarily on his lips. Night--silent, caressing night--lay on the hills and dales. From its fragrant depths afar--whether from heaven or from earth could not be told--there poured a soft and quiet warmth. Lavretsky wished a last farewell to Liza--and hastened up the steps.

The next day went by rather slowly, rain setting in early in the morning. Lemm looked askance, and compressed his lips even tighter and tighter, as if he had made a vow never to open them again. When Lavretsky lay down at night he took to bed with him a whole bundle of French newspapers, which had already lain unopened on his table for two or three weeks. He began carelessly to tear open their covers and to skim the contents of their columns, in which, for the matter of that, there was but little that was new. He was just on the point of throwing them aside, when he suddenly bounded out of bed as if something had stung him. In the _feuilleton_ of one of the papers our former acquaintance, M. Jules, communicated to his readers a "painful piece of intelligence." "The fascinating, fair Muscovite," he wrote, "one of the queens of fashion, the ornament of Parisian salons, Madame de Lavretski," had died almost suddenly. And this news, unfortunately but too true, had just reached him, M. Jules. He was, so he continued, he might say, a friend of the deceased--

Lavretsky put on his clothes, went out into the garden, and walked up and down one of its alleys until the break of day.

At breakfast, next morning, Lemm asked Lavretsky to let him have horses in order to get back to town.

"It is time for me to return to business, that is to lessons,"

remarked the old man. "I am only wasting my time here uselessly."

Lavretsky did not reply at once. He seemed lost in a reverie.

"Very good," he said at last; "I will go with you myself."

Refusing the a.s.sistance of a servant, Lemm packed his little portmanteau, growing peevish the while and groaning over it, and then tore up and burnt some sheets of music paper. The carriage came to the door. As Lavretsky left his study he put in his pocket the copy of the newspaper he had read the night before. During the whole of the journey neither Lavretsky nor Lemm said much. Each of them was absorbed in his own thoughts, and each was glad that the other did not disturb him. And they parted rather coldly, an occurrence which, for the matter of that, often occurs among friends in Russia. Lavretsky drove the old man to his modest dwelling. Lemm took his portmanteau with him as he got out of the carriage, and, without stretching out his hand to his friend, he held the portmanteau before him with both hands, and, without even looking at him, said in Russian, "Farewell!"

"Farewell!" echoed Lavretsky, and told the coachman to drive to his apartments; for he had taken lodgings in O.

After writing several letters, and making a hasty dinner, he went to the Kalitines'. There he found no one in the drawing-room but Panshine, who told him that Maria Dmitrievna would come directly, and immediately entered into conversation with him in the kindest and most affable manner. Until that day Panshine had treated Lavretsky, not with haughtiness exactly, but with condescension; but Liza, in describing her excursion of the day before, had spoken of Lavretsky as an excellent and clever man. That was enough; the "excellent" man must be captivated.

Panshine began by complimenting Lavretsky, giving him an account of the rapture with which, according to him, all the Kalitine family had spoken of Vasilievskoe; then, according to his custom, adroitly bringing the conversation round to himself, he began to speak of his occupations, of his views concerning life, the world, and the service; said a word or two about the future of Russia, and about the necessity of holding the Governors of provinces in hand; joked facetiously about himself in that respect, and added that he, among others, had been entrusted at St. Petersburg with the commission _de populariser l'idee du cadastre_. He spoke at tolerable length, and with careless a.s.surance, solving all difficulties, and playing with the most important administrative and political questions as a juggler does with his b.a.l.l.s. Such expressions as, "That is what I should do if I were the Government," and, "You, as an intelligent man, doubtless agree with me," were always at the tip of his tongue.

Lavretsky listened coldly to Panshine's eloquence. This handsome, clever, and unnecessarily elegant young man, with his serene smile, his polite voice, and his inquisitive eyes, was not to his liking.

Panshine soon guessed, with the quick appreciation of the feelings of others which was peculiar to him, that he did not confer any special gratification on the person he was addressing, so he disappeared under cover of some plausible excuse, having made up his mind that Lavretsky might be an excellent man, but that he was unsympathetic, "_aigri_"

and, _en somme_, somewhat ridiculous.

Madame Kalitine arrived, accompanied by Gedeonovsky. Then came Marfa Timofeevna and Liza, and after them all the other members of the family. Afterwards, also, there arrived the lover of music, Madame Belenitsine, a thin little woman, with an almost childish little face, pretty but worn, a noisy black dress, a particolored fan, and thick gold bracelets. With her came her husband, a corpulent man, with red cheeks, large hands and feet, white eyelashes, and a smile which never left his thick lips. His wife never spoke to him in society; and at home, in her tender moments, she used to call him her "sucking pig."

Panshine returned; the room became animated and noisy. Such an a.s.semblage of people was by no means agreeable to Lavretsky. He was especially annoyed by Madame Belenitsine, who kept perpetually staring at him through her eye-gla.s.s. If it had not been for Liza he would have gone away at once. He wanted to say a few words to her alone, but for a long time he could not obtain a fitting opportunity of doing so, and had to content himself with following her about with his eyes It was with a secret joy that he did so. Never had her face seemed to him more n.o.ble and charming. She appeared to great advantage in the presence of Madame Belenitsine. That lady was incessantly fidgeting on her chair, working her narrow shoulders, laughing affectedly, and either all but closing her eyes or opening them unnaturally wide. Liza sat still, looked straight before her, and did not laugh at all.

Madame Kalitine sat down to cards with Marfa Timofeevna, Belenitsine, and Gedeonovsky, the latter of whom played very slowly, made continual mistakes, squeezed up his eyes, and mopped his face with his handkerchief. Panshine a.s.sumed an air of melancholy, and expressed himself tersely, sadly, and significantly--altogether after the fashion of an artist who has not yet had any opportunity of showing off--but in spite of the entreaties of Madame Belenitsine, who coquetted with him to a great extent he would not consent to sing his romance. Lavretsky's presence embarra.s.sed him.

Lavretsky himself spoke little, but the peculiar expression his face wore struck Liza as soon as he entered the room. She immediately felt that he had something to communicate to her; but, without knowing herself why, she was afraid of asking him any questions. At last, as she was pa.s.sing into the next room to make the tea, she almost unconsciously looked towards him. He immediately followed her.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked, putting the teapot on the _samovar_.[A]

[Footnote A: Urn.]

"You have remarked something, then?" he said.

"You are different to-day from what I have seen you before."

Lavretsky bent over the table.

"I wanted," he began, "to tell you a piece of news, but just now it is impossible. But read the part of this _feuilleton_ which is marked in pencil," he added, giving her the copy of the newspaper he had brought with him. "Please keep the secret; I will come back to-morrow morning."

Liza was thoroughly amazed. At that moment Panshine appeared in the doorway. She put the newspaper in her pocket.

"Have you read Obermann,[A] Lizaveta Mikhailovna?" asked Panshine with a thoughtful air.

[Footnote A: The sentimental romance of that name, written by E.

Pivert de Senancour.]

Liza replied vaguely as she pa.s.sed out of the room, and then went up-stairs. Lavretsky returned into the drawing room and approached the card table. Marfa Timofeevna flushed, and with her cap-strings untied, began to complain to him of her partner Gedeonovsky, who, according to her, had not yet learnt his steps. "Card-playing," she said, "is evidently a very different thing from gossiping." Meanwhile Gedeonovsky never left off blinking and mopping himself with his handkerchief.

Presently Liza returned to the drawing-room and sat down in a corner.

Lavretsky looked at her and she at him, and each experienced a painful sensation. He could read perplexity on her face, and a kind of secret reproach. Much as he wished it, he could not get a talk with her, and to remain in the same room with her as a mere visitor among other visitors was irksome to him, so he determined to go away.

When taking leave of her, he contrived to repeat that he would come next day, and he added that he counted on her friendship. "Come," she replied, with the same perplexed look still on her face.