Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 32

"Give me a little time, aunt. All this will pa.s.s away."

"Will pa.s.s away! Yes, but when? Good heavens! is it possible you have loved him so much? Why, he is quite an old fellow, Lizochka! Well, well! I don't deny he is a good man; will not bite; but what of that?

We are all good people; the world isn't shut up in a corner, there will always be plenty of this sort of goodness."

"I can a.s.sure you all this will pa.s.s away--all this has already pa.s.sed away."

"Listen to what I am going to tell you, Lizochka," suddenly said Marfa Timofeevna, making Liza sit down beside her on the bed, smoothing down the girl's hair, and setting her neckerchief straight while she spoke.

"It seems to you, in the heat of the moment, as if it were impossible for your wound to be cured. Ah, my love, it is only death for which there is no cure. Only say to yourself, 'I won't give in--so much for him!' and you will be surprised yourself to see how well and how quickly it will all pa.s.s away. Only have a little patience."

"Aunt," replied Liza, "it has already pa.s.sed away. All has pa.s.sed away."

"Pa.s.sed away! how pa.s.sed away? Why your nose has actually grown peaky, and yet you say--'pa.s.sed away.' Pa.s.sed away indeed!"

"Yes, pa.s.sed away, aunt--if only you are willing to help me," said Liza, with unexpected animation, and then threw her arms round Marfa Timofeevna's neck. "Dearest aunt, do be a friend to me, do help me, don't be angry with me, try to understand me--"

"But what is all this, what is all this, my mother? Don't frighten me, please. I shall cry out in another minute. Don't look at me like that: quick, tell me what is the meaning of all this!"

"I--I want--" Here Liza hid her face on Marfa Timofeevna's breast. "I want to go into a convent," she said in a low tone.

The old lady fairly bounded off the bed.

"Cross yourself, Lizochka! gather your senses together! what ever are you about? Heaven help you!" at last she stammered out. "Lie down and sleep a little, my darling. And this comes of your want of sleep, dearest."

Liza raised her head; her cheeks glowed.

"No, aunt," she said, "do not say that. I have prayed, I have asked G.o.d's advice, and I have made up my mind. All is over. My life with you here is ended. Such lessons are not given to us without a purpose; besides, it is not for the first time that I think of it now.

Happiness was not for me. Even when I did indulge in hopes of happiness, my heart shuddered within me. I know all, both my sins and those of others, and how papa made our money. I know all, and all that I must pray away, must pray away. I grieve to leave you, I grieve for mamma and for Lenochka; but there is no help for it. I feel that it is impossible for me to live here longer. I have already taken leave of every thing, I have greeted every thing in the house for the last time. Something calls me away. I am sad at heart, and I would fain hide myself away for ever. Please don't hinder me or try to dissuade me; but do help me, or I shall have to go away by myself."

Marfa Timofeevna listened to her niece with horror.

"She is ill," she thought. "She is raving. We must send for a doctor; but for whom? Gedeonovsky praised some one the other day; but then he always lies--but perhaps he has actually told the truth this time."

But when she had become convinced that Liza was not ill, and was not raving--when to all her objections Liza had constantly made the same reply, Marfa Timofeevna was thoroughly alarmed, and became exceedingly sorrowful.

"But surely you don't know, my darling, what sort of life they lead in convents!" thus she began, in hopes of dissuading her. "Why they will feed you on yellow hemp oil, my own; they will dress you in coa.r.s.e, very coa.r.s.e clothing; they will make you go out in the cold; you will never be able to bear all this Lizochka. All these ideas of yours are Agafia's doing. It is she who has driven you out of your senses. But then she began with living, and with living to her own satisfaction.

Why shouldn't you live too? At all events, let me die in peace, and then do as you please. And who on earth has ever known any one go into a convent for the sake of such-a-one--for a goat's beard--G.o.d forgive me--for a man! Why, if you're so sad at heart, you should pay a visit to a convent, pray to a saint, order prayers to be said, but don't put the black veil on your head, my _batyushka_, my _matyushka_."

And Marfa Timofeevna cried bitterly.

Liza tried to console her, wiped the tears from her eyes, and cried herself, but maintained her purpose unshaken. In her despair, Marfa Timofeevna tried to turn threats to account, said she would reveal every thing to Liza's mother; but that too had no effect. All that Liza would consent to do in consequence of the old lady's urgent entreaties, was to put off the execution of her plan for a half year.

In return Marfa Timofeevna was obliged to promise that, if Liza had not changed her mind at the end of the six months, she would herself a.s.sist in the matter, and would contrive to obtain Madame Kalitine's consent.

As soon as the first cold weather arrived, in spite of her promise to bury herself in seclusion, Varvara Pavlovna, who had provided herself with sufficient funds, migrated to St. Petersburg. A modest, but pretty set of rooms had been found for her there by Panshine, who had left the province of O. rather earlier than she did. During the latter part of his stay in O., he had completely lost Madame Kalitine's good graces. He had suddenly given up visiting her, and indeed scarcely stirred away from Lavriki. Varvara Pavlovna had enslaved--literally enslaved him. No other word can express the unbounded extent of the despotic sway she exercised over him.

Lavretsky spent the winter in Moscow. In the spring of the ensuing year the news reached him that Liza had taken the veil in the B.

convent, in one of the most remote districts of Russia.

EPILOGUE.

Eight years pa.s.sed away. The spring had come again--

But we will first of all say a few words about the fate of Mikhalevich, Panshine, and Madame Lavretsky, and then take leave of them forever.

Mikhalevich, after much wandering to and fro, at last hit upon the business he was fitted for, and obtained the post of Head Inspector in one of the Government Educational Inst.i.tutes. His lot thoroughly satisfies him, and his pupils "adore" him, though at the same time they mimic him. Panshine has advanced high in the service, and already aims at becoming the head of a department. He stoops a little as he walks; it must be the weight of the Vladimir Cross which hangs from his neck, that bends him forward. In him the official decidedly preponderates over the artist now. His face, though still quite young, has grown yellow, his hair is thinner than it used to be, and he neither sings nor draws any longer. But he secretly occupies himself with literature. He has written a little comedy in the style of a "proverb;" and--as every one who writes now constantly brings on the stage some real person or some actual fact--he has introduced a coquette into it, and he reads it confidentially to a few ladies who are very kind to him. But he has never married, although he has had many excellent opportunities for doing so. For that Varvara Pavlovna is to blame.

As for her, she constantly inhabits Paris, just as she used to do.

Lavretsky has opened a private account for her with his banker, and has paid a sufficient sum to ensure his being free from her--free from the possibility of being a second time unexpectedly visited by her. She has grown older and stouter, but she is still undoubtedly handsome, and always dresses in taste. Every one has his ideal.

Varvara Pavlovna has found hers--in the plays of M. Dumas _fils_.

She a.s.siduously frequents the theatres in which consumptive and sentimental Camelias appear on the boards; to be Madame Doche seems to her the height of human happiness. She once announced that she could not wish her daughter a happier fate. It may, however, be expected that destiny will save Mademoiselle Ada from that kind of happiness.

From being a chubby, rosy child, she has changed into a pale, weak-chested girl, and her nerves are already unstrung. The number of Varvara Pavlovna's admirers has diminished, but they have not disappeared. Some of them she will, in all probability, retain to the end of her days. The most ardent of them in recent times has been a certain Zakurdalo-Skubyrnikof, a retired officer of the guard, a man of about thirty-eight years of age, wearing long mustaches, and possessing a singularly vigorous frame. The Frenchmen who frequent Madame Lavretsky's drawing-room call him _le gros taureau de l'Ukraine_. Varvara Pavlovna never invites him to her fashionable parties, but he is in full possession of her good graces.

And so--eight years had pa.s.sed away. Again spring shone from heaven in radiant happiness. Again it smiled on earth and on man. Again, beneath its caress, all things began to love, to flower, to sing.

The town of O. had changed but little in the course of these eight years, but Madame Kalitine's house had, as it were, grown young again.

Its freshly-painted walls shone with a welcome whiteness, while the panes of its open windows flashed ruddy to the setting sun. Out of these windows there flowed into the street mirthful sounds of ringing youthful voices, of never-ceasing laughter. All the house seemed teeming with life and overflowing with irrepressible merriment. As for the former mistress of the house, she had been laid in the grave long ago. Maria Dmitrievna died two years after Liza took the veil. Nor did Marfa Timofeevna long survive her niece; they rest side by side in the cemetery of the town. Nastasia Carpovna also was no longer alive.

During the course of several years the faithful old lady used to go every day to pray at her friend's grave. Then her time came, and her bones also were laid in the mould.

But Maria Dmitrievna's house did not pa.s.s into the hands of strangers, did not go out of her family--the nest was not torn to pieces.

Lenochka, who had grown into a pretty and graceful girl; her betrothed, a flaxen locked officer of hussars; Maria Dmitrievna's son, who had only recently married at St. Petersburg, and had now arrived with his young bride to spend the spring in O.; his wife's sister, a sixteen-year-old Inst.i.tute-girl, with clear eyes and rosy cheeks; and Shurochka, who had also grown up and turned out pretty--these were the young people who made the walls of the Kalitine house resound with laughter and with talk. Every thing was altered in the house, every thing had been made to harmonize with its new inhabitants. Beardless young servant-lads, full of fun and laughter, had replaced the grave old domestics of former days. A couple of setters tore wildly about and jumped upon the couches, in the rooms up and down which Roska, after it had grown fat, used to waddle seriously. In the stable many horses were stalled--clean-limbed canterers, smart trotters for the centre of the _troika_, fiery gallopers with platted manes for the side places, riding horses from the Don. The hours for breakfast, dinner, and supper, were all mixed up and confounded together. In the words of neighbors, "Such a state of things as never had been known before" had taken place.

On the evening of which we are about to speak, the inmates of the Kalitine house, of whom the eldest, Lenochka's betrothed, was not more than four-and-twenty, had taken to playing a game which was not of a very complicated nature, but which seemed to be very amusing to them, to judge by their happy laughter,--that of running about the rooms, and trying to catch each other. The dogs, too, ran about and barked; and the canaries which hung up in cages before the windows, straining their throats in rivalry, heightened the general uproar by the piercing accents of their shrill singing. Just as this deafening amus.e.m.e.nt had reached its climax, a taranta.s.s, all splashed with mud, drew up at the front gate, and a man about forty-five years old, wearing a travelling dress, got out of it and remained standing as if bewildered.

For some time he stood at the gate without moving, but gazing at the house with observant eyes; then he entered the court-yard by the wicket-gate, and slowly mounted the steps. He encountered no one in the vestibule; but suddenly the drawing-room door was flung open, and Shurochka, all rosy red, came running out of the room; and directly afterwards, with shrill cries, the whole of the youthful band rushed after her. Suddenly, at the sight of an unknown stranger, they stopped short, and became silent; but the bright eyes which were fixed on him still retained their friendly expression, the fresh young faces did not cease to smile. Then Maria Dmitrievna's son approached the visitor, and politely asked what he could do for him.

"I am Lavretsky," said the stranger.

A friendly cry of greeting answered him--not that all those young people were inordinately delighted at the arrival of a distant and almost forgotten relative, but simply because they were ready to rejoice and make a noise over every pleasurable occurrence. They all immediately surrounded Lavretsky. Lenochka, as his old acquaintance, was the first to name herself, a.s.suring him that, if she had had a very little more time, she would most certainly have recognized him; and then she introduced all the rest of the company to him, giving them all, her betrothed included, their familiar forms of name. The whole party then went through the dining-room into the drawing-room.

The paper on the walls of both rooms had been altered, but the furniture remained just as it used to be. Lavretsky recognized the piano. Even the embroidery-frame by the window remained exactly as it had been, and in the very same position as of old; and even seemed to have the same unfinished piece of work on it which had been there eight years before. They placed him in a large arm-chair, and sat down gravely around him. Questions, exclamations, anecdotes, followed swiftly one after another.

"What a long time it is since we saw you last!" navely remarked Lenochka; "and we haven't seen Varvara Pavlovna either."

"No wonder!" her brother hastily interrupted her--"I took you away to St. Petersburg; but Fedor Ivanovich has lived all the time on his estate."

"Yes, and mamma too is dead, since then."

"And Marfa Timofeevna," said Shurochka.

"And Nastasia Corpovna," continued Lenochka, "and Monsieur Lemm."

"What? is Lemm dead too?" asked Lavretsky.

"Yes," answered young Kalitine. "He went away from here to Odessa.

Some one is said to have persuaded him to go there, and there he died."