Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 9

"(I really cannot make up my mind to call you Barbe or Varvara). I have waited in vain for you at the corner of the Boulevard. Come to our rooms to-morrow at half-past one. That excellent husband of yours is generally absorbed in his books at that time--we will sing over again that song of your poet Pushkin which you taught me, 'Old husband, cruel husband!' A thousand kisses to your dear little hands and feet. I await you.

"ERNEST."

At first Lavretsky did not comprehend the meaning of what he had read.

He read it a second time--and his head swam, and the ground swayed beneath his feet like the deck of a ship in a storm, and a half-stifled sound issued from his lips, that was neither quite a cry nor quite a sob.

He was utterly confounded. He had trusted his wife so blindly; the possibility of deceit or of treachery on her part had never entered into his mind. This Ernest, his wife's lover, was a pretty boy of about three-and-twenty, with light hair, a turned-up nose, and a small moustache--probably the most insignificant of all his acquaintances.

Several minutes pa.s.sed; a half hour pa.s.sed. Lavretsky still stood there, clenching the fatal note in his hand, and gazing unmeaningly on the floor. A sort of dark whirlwind seemed to sweep round him, pale faces to glimmer through it.

A painful sensation of numbness had seized his heart. He felt as if he were falling, falling, falling--into a bottomless abyss.

The soft rustle of a silk dress roused him from his torpor by its familiar sound. Varvara Pavlovna came in hurriedly from out of doors.

Lavretsky shuddered all over and rushed out of the room. He felt that at that moment he was ready to tear her to pieces, to strangle her with his own hands, at least to beat her all but to death in peasant fashion. Varvara Pavlovna, in her amazement, wanted to stay him. He just succeeded in whispering "Betty"--and then he fled from the house.

Lavretsky took a carriage and drove outside the barriers. All the rest of the day, and the whole of the night he wandered about, constantly stopping and wringing his hands above his head. Sometimes he was frantic with rage, at others every thing seemed to move him to laughter, even to a kind of mirth. When the morning dawned he felt half frozen, so he entered a wretched little suburban tavern, asked for a room, and sat down on a chair before the window. A convulsive fit of yawning seized him. By that time he was scarcely able to keep upright, and his bodily strength was utterly exhausted. Still he was not conscious of fatigue. But fatigue had its own way. He continued sitting there and gazing vacantly, but he comprehended nothing. He could not make out what had happened to him, why he found himself there, alone, in an empty, unknown room, with numbed limbs, with a sense of bitterness in his mouth, with a weight like that of a great stone on his heart. He could not understand what had induced her, his Varvara, to give herself to that Frenchman, and how, knowing herself to be false to him, she could have remained as calm as ever in his presence, as confiding and caressing as ever towards him. "I cannot make it out," whispered his dry lips. "And how can I be sure now that even at St. Petersburg--?" but he did not complete the question; a fresh gaping fit seized him, and his whole frame shrank and shivered.

Sunny and sombre memories equally tormented him. He suddenly recollected how a few days before, she had sat at the piano, when both he and Ernest were present, and had sung "Old husband, cruel husband!"

He remembered the expression of her face, the strange brilliance of her eyes, and the color in her cheeks--and he rose from his chair, longing to go to them and say, "You were wrong to play your tricks on me. My great grandfather used to hang his peasants on hooks by their ribs, and my grandfather was a peasant himself,"--and then kill them both. All of a sudden it would appear to him as if every thing that had happened were a dream, even not so much as a dream, but just some absurd fancy; as if he had only to give himself a shake and take a look round--and he did look round; and as a hawk claws a captured bird, so did his misery strike deeper and deeper into his heart. What made things worse was that Lavretsky had hoped, in the course of a few months, to find himself once more a father. His past, his future, his whole life was poisoned.

At last he returned to Paris, went to a hotel, and sent Varvara Pavlovna M. Ernest's note with the following letter:--

"The sc.r.a.p of paper which accompanies this will explain every thing to you. I may as well tell you that you do not seem to have behaved in this matter with your usual tact. You, so careful a person, to drop such important papers (poor Lavretsky had been preparing this phrase, and fondling it, as it were, for several hours). I can see you no more, and I suppose that you too can have no wish for an interview with me. I a.s.sign you fifteen thousand roubles a year. I cannot give you more. Send your address to the steward of my estate. And now do what you like; live where you please. I wish you all prosperity. I want no answer."

Lavretsky told his wife that he wanted no answer; but he did expect, he even longed for an answer--an explanation of this strange, this incomprehensible affair. That same day Varvara Pavlovna sent him a long letter in French. It was the final blow. His last doubts vanished, and he even felt ashamed of having retained any doubts.

Varvara Pavlovna did not attempt to justify herself. All that she wanted was to see him; she besought him not to condemn her irrevocably. The letter was cold and constrained, though marks of tears were to be seen on it here and there. Lavretsky smiled bitterly, and sent a message by the bearer, to the effect that the letter needed no reply.

Three days later he was no longer in Paris; but he went to Italy, not to Russia. He did not himself know why he chose Italy in particular.

In reality, it was all the same to him where he went--so long as he did not go home. He sent word to his steward about his wife's allowance, ordering him, at the same time, to withdraw the whole management of the estate from General Korobine immediately, without waiting for any settlement of accounts, and to see to his Excellency's departure from Lavriki. He indulged in a vivid picture of the confusion of the expelled general, the useless airs which he would put on, and, in spite of his sorrow, he was conscious of a certain malicious satisfaction. At the same time he wrote to Glafira Petrovna, asking her to return to Lavriki, and drew up a power-of-attorney in her name. But Glafira Petrovna would not return to Lavriki; she even advertised in the newspapers that the power-of-attorney was cancelled,--a perfectly superfluous proceeding on her part.

Lavretsky hid himself in a little Italian town; but for a long time he could not help mentally following his wife's movements. He learned from the newspapers that she had left Paris for Baden, as she had intended. Her name soon appeared in a short article signed by the M.

Jules of whom we have already spoken. The perusal of that article produced a very unpleasant effect on Lavretsky's mind. He detected in it, underneath the writer's usual sprightliness, a sort of tone of charitable commiseration. Next he learned that a daughter had been born to him. Two months later he was informed by his steward that Varvara Pavlovna had drawn her first quarter's allowance. After that, scandalous reports about her began to arrive; then they became more and more frequent; at last a tragicomic story, in which she played a very unenviable part, ran the round of all the journals, and created a great sensation. Affairs had come to a climax. Varvara Pavlovna was now "a celebrity."

Lavretsky ceased to follow her movements. But it was long before he could master his own feelings. Sometimes he was seized by such a longing after his wife, that he fancied he would have been ready to give every thing he had--that he could, perhaps, even have forgiven her--if only he might once more have heard her caressing voice, have felt once more her hand in his. But time did not pa.s.s by in vain. He was not born for suffering. His healthy nature claimed its rights.

Many things became intelligible for him. The very blow which had struck him seemed no longer to have come without warning. He understood his wife now. We can never fully understand persons with whom we are generally in close contact, until we have been separated from them. He was able to apply himself to business again, and to study, although now with much less than his former ardor; the scepticism for which both his education and his experience of life had paved the way, had taken lasting hold upon his mind. He became exceedingly indifferent to every thing. Four years pa.s.sed by, and he felt strong enough to return to his home, to meet his own people.

Without having stopped either at St. Petersburg or at Moscow, he arrived at O., where we left him, and whither we now entreat the reader to return with us.

XVII.

About ten o'clock in the morning, on the day after that of which we have already spoken, Lavretsky was going up the steps of the Kalitines' house, when he met Liza with her bonnet and gloves on.

"Where are you going?" he asked her.

"To church. To-day is Sunday."

"And so you go to church?"

Liza looked at him in silent wonder.

"I beg your pardon," said Lavretsky. "I--I did not mean to say that.

I came to take leave of you. I shall start for my country-house in another hour."

"That isn't far from here, is it?" asked Liza.

"About five-and-twenty versts."

At this moment Lenochka appeared at the door, accompanied by a maid-servant.

"Mind you don't forget us," said Liza, and went down the steps.

"Don't forget me either. By the way," he continued, "you are going to church; say a prayer for me too, while you are there."

Liza stopped and turned towards him.

"Very well," she said, looking him full in the face. "I will pray for you, too. Come, Lenochka."

Lavretsky found Maria Dmitrievna alone in the drawing-room, which was redolent of Eau de Cologne and peppermint. Her head ached, she said, and she had spent a restless night.

She received him with her usual languid amiability, and by degrees began to talk.

"Tell me," she asked him, "is not Vladimir Nikolaevich a very agreeable young man?"

"Who is Vladimir Nikolaevich?"

"Why Panshine, you know, who was here yesterday. He was immensely delighted with you. Between ourselves I may mention, _mon cher cousin_, that he is perfectly infatuated with my Liza. Well, he is of good family, he is getting on capitally in the service, he is clever, and besides he is a chamberlain; and if such be the will of G.o.d--I, for my part, as a mother, shall be glad of it. It is certainly a great responsibility; most certainly the happiness of children depends upon their parents. But this much must be allowed. Up to the present time, whether well or ill, I have done every thing myself, and entirely by myself. I have brought up my children and taught them every thing myself--and now I have just written to Maclame Bulous for a governess--"

Maria Dmitrievna launched out into a description of her cares, her efforts, her maternal feelings. Lavretsky listened to her in silence, and twirled his hat in his hands. His cold, unsympathetic look at last disconcerted the talkative lady.

"And what do you think of Liza?" she asked.

"Lizaveta Mikhailovna is an exceedingly handsome girl," replied Lavretsky. Then he got up, said good-bye, and went to pay Marfa Timofeevna a visit. Maria Dmitrievna looked after him with an expression of dissatisfaction, and thought to herself, "What a bear!

what a moujik! Well, now I understand why his wife couldn't remain faithful to him."

Marfa Timofeevna was sitting in her room, surrounded by her court.

This consisted of five beings, almost equally dear to her heart--an educated bullfinch, to which she had taken an affection because it could no longer whistle or draw water, and which was afflicted with a swollen neck; a quiet and exceedingly timid little dog, called Roska; a bad-tempered cat, named Matros; a dark-complexioned, lively little girl of nine, with very large eyes and a sharp nose, whose name was Shurochka[A]; and an elderly lady of about fifty-five, who wore a white cap and a short, cinnamon-colored _katsaveika_[B] over a dark gown, and whose name was Nastasia Carpovna Ogarkof.

[Footnote A: One of the many diminutives of Alexandrina.]

[Footnote B: A kind of jacket worn by women.]

Shurochka was a fatherless and motherless girl, whose relations belonged to the lowest cla.s.s of the bourgeoisie. Marfa Timofeevna had adopted her, as well as Roska, out of pity. She had found both the dog and the girl out in the streets. Both of them were thin and cold; the autumn rain had drenched them both. No one ever claimed Roska, and as to Shurochka, she was even gladly given up to Marfa Timofeevna by her uncle, a drunken shoemaker, who never had enough to eat himself, and could still less provide food for his niece, whom he used to hit over the head with his last.

As to Nastasia Carpovna, Marfa Timofeevna had made acquaintance with her on a pilgrimage, in a monastery. She went up to that old lady in church one day,--Nastasia Carpovna had pleased Marfa Timofeevna by praying as the latter lady said, "in very good taste"--began to talk to her, and invited her home to a cup of tea. From that day she parted with her no more. Nastasia Carpovna, whose father had belonged to the cla.s.s of poor gentry, was a widow without children. She was a woman of a very sweet and happy disposition; she had a round head, grey hair, and soft, white hands. Her face also was soft, and her features, including a somewhat comical snub nose, were heavy, but pleasant. She worshipped Marfa Timofeevna, who loved her dearly, although she teased her greatly about her susceptible heart. Nastasia Carpovna had a weakness for all young men, and never could help blushing like a girl at the most innocent joke. Her whole property consisted of twelve hundred paper roubles.[A] She lived at Marfa Timofeevna's expense, but on a footing of perfect equality with her. Marfa Timofeevna could not have endured any thing like servility.