Smoke Part 19

Potugin bowed respectfully to the ladies sitting on the seat.

'Let me introduce you, Sozont Ivanitch. Old friends and relatives of mine, who have only just arrived in Baden. Potugin, Sozont Ivanitch, a countryman of ours, also staying in Baden.'

Both ladies rose a little. Potugin renewed his bows.

'It's quite a levee here,' Kapitolina Markovna began in a delicate voice; the kind-hearted old lady was easily intimidated, but she tried before all to keep up her dignity. 'Every one regards it as an agreeable duty to stay here.'

'Baden is an agreeable place, certainly,' answered Potugin, with a sidelong look at Tatyana; 'a very agreeable place, Baden.'

'Yes; but it's really too aristocratic, so far as I can form an opinion.

You see we have been staying all this time in Dresden ... a very interesting town; but here there's positively a levee.'

'She's pleased with the word,' thought Potugin. 'You are perfectly right in that observation,' he said aloud; 'but then the scenery here is exquisite, and the site of the place is something one cannot often find.

Your fellow-traveller especially is sure to appreciate that. Are you not, madam?' he added, addressing himself this time directly to Tatyana.

Tatyana raised her large, clear eyes to Potugin. It seemed as though she were perplexed. What was wanted of her, and why had Litvinov introduced her, on the first day of her arrival, to this unknown man, who had, though, a kind and clever face, and was looking at her with cordial and friendly eyes.

'Yes,' she said at last, 'it's very nice here.'

'You ought to visit the old castle,' Potugin went on; 'I especially advise a drive to----'

'The Saxon Switzerland----' Kapitolina Markovna was beginning.

The blare of wind instruments floated up the avenue; it was the Prussian military band from Rastadt (in 1862 Rastadt was still an allied fortress), beginning its weekly concert in the pavilion. Kapitolina Markovna got up.

'The music!' she said; 'the music _a la Conversation_!... We must go there. It's four o'clock now ... isn't it? Will the fashionable world be there now?'

'Yes,' answered Potugin: 'this is the most fashionable time, and the music is excellent.'

'Well, then, don't let us linger. Tanya, come along.'

'You allow me to accompany you?' asked Potugin, to Litvinov's considerable astonishment; it was not possible for it even to enter his head that Irina had sent Potugin.

Kapitolina Markovna simpered.

'With the greatest pleasure--M'sieu ... M'sieu----'

'Potugin,' he murmured, and he offered her his arm.

Litvinov gave his to Tatyana, and both couples walked towards the Konversation Hall.

Potugin went on talking with Kapitolina Markovna. But Litvinov walked without uttering a word; yet twice, without any cause, he smiled, and faintly pressed Tatyana's arm against his. There was a falsehood in those demonstrations, to which she made no response, and Litvinov was conscious of the lie. They did not express a mutual confidence in the close union of two souls given up to one another; they were a temporary subst.i.tute--for words which he could not find. That unspoken something which was beginning between them grew and gained strength. Once more Tatyana looked attentively, almost intently, at him.

It was the same before the Konversation Hall at the little table round which they all four seated themselves, with this sole difference, that, in the noisy bustle of the crowd, the clash and roar of the music, Litvinov's silence seemed more comprehensible. Kapitolina Markovna became quite excited; Potugin hardly had time to answer her questions, to satisfy her curiosity. Luckily for him, there suddenly appeared in the ma.s.s of moving figures the lank person and everlastingly leaping eyes of Madame Suhantchikov. Kapitolina Markovna at once recognised her, invited her to their table, made her sit down, and a hurricane of words arose.

Potugin turned to Tatyana, and began a conversation with her in a soft, subdued voice, his face bent slightly down towards her with a very friendly expression; and she, to her own surprise, answered him easily and freely; she was glad to talk with this stranger, this outsider, while Litvinov sat immovable as before, with the same fixed and unpleasant smile on his lips.

Dinner-time came at last. The music ceased, the crowd thinned.

Kapitolina Markovna parted from Madame Suhantchikov on the warmest terms. She had conceived an immense respect for her, though she did say afterwards to her niece, that 'this person is really too severe; but then she does know everything and everybody; and we must really get sewing-machines directly the wedding festivities are over.' Potugin took leave of them; Litvinov conducted his ladies home. As they were going into the hotel, he was handed a note; he moved aside and hurriedly tore open the envelope. On a tiny sc.r.a.p of vellum paper were the following words, scribbled in pencil: 'Come to me this evening at seven, for one minute, I entreat you.--Irina.' Litvinov thrust the note into his pocket, and, turning round, put on his smile again ... to whom? why?

Tatyana was standing with her back to him. They dined at the common table of the hotel. Litvinov was sitting between Kapitolina Markovna and Tatyana, and he began talking, telling anecdotes and pouring out wine for himself and the ladies, with a strange, sudden joviality. He conducted himself in such a free and easy manner, that a French infantry officer from Strasbourg, sitting opposite, with a beard and moustaches _a la_ Napoleon III., thought it admissible to join in the conversation, and even wound up by a toast _a la sante des belles Moscovites_! After dinner, Litvinov escorted the two ladies to their room, and after standing a little while at the window with a scowl on his face, he suddenly announced that he had to go out for a short time on business, but would be back without fail by the evening. Tatyana said nothing; she turned pale and dropped her eyes. Kapitolina Markovna was in the habit of taking a nap after dinner; Tatyana was well aware that Litvinov knew of this habit of her aunt's; she had expected him to take advantage of it, to remain with her, for he had not been alone with her, nor spoken frankly to her, since her arrival. And now he was going out! What was she to make of it? And, indeed, his whole behaviour all along....

Litvinov withdrew hurriedly, not waiting for remonstrances; Kapitolina Markovna lay down on the sofa, and with one or two sighs and groans, fell into a serene sleep; while Tatyana moved away into a corner, and sat down in a low chair, folding her arms tightly across her bosom.

XIX

Litvinov went quickly up the staircase of the _Hotel de l'Europe_; a little girl of thirteen, with a sly little face of Kalmuck cast, who had apparently been on the look-out for him, stopped him, saying in Russian: 'Come this way, please; Irina Pavlovna will be here directly.' He looked at her in perplexity. She smiled, repeated: 'Come along, come along,'

and led him to a small room, facing Irina's bedroom, and filled with travelling trunks and portmanteaus, then at once disappeared, closing the door very softly. Litvinov had not time to look about him, before the door was quickly opened, and before him in a pink ball-dress, with pearls in her hair and on her neck, stood Irina. She simply rushed at him, clutched him by both hands, and for a few instants was speechless; her eyes were shining, and her bosom heaving as though she had run up to a height.

'I could not receive ... you there,' she began in a hurried whisper: 'we are just going to a dinner party, but I wanted above everything to see you.... That is your betrothed, I suppose, with whom I met you to-day?'

'Yes, that was my betrothed,' said Litvinov, with emphasis on the word 'was.'

'And so I wanted to see you for one minute, to tell you that you must consider yourself absolutely free, that everything that happened yesterday ought not to affect your plans....'

'Irina!' cried Litvinov, 'why are you saying this?' He uttered these words in a loud voice. There was the note in them of unbounded pa.s.sion.

Irina involuntarily closed her eyes for a minute.

'Oh, my sweet one!' she went on in a whisper still more subdued, but with unrestrained emotion, 'you don't know how I love you, but yesterday I only paid my debt, I made up for the past.... Ah! I could not give you back my youth, as I would, but I have laid no obligations on you, I have exacted no promise of any sort of you, my sweet! Do what you will, you are free as air, you are bound in no way, understand that, understand that!'

'But I can't live without you, Irina,' Litvinov interrupted, in a whisper now; 'I am yours for ever and always, since yesterday.... I can only breathe at your feet....'

He stooped down all in a tremble to kiss her hands. Irina gazed at his bent head.

'Then let me say,' she said, 'that I too am ready for anything, that I too will consider no one, and nothing. As you decide, so it shall be. I, too, am for ever yours ... yours.'

Some one tapped warily at the door. Irina stooped, whispered once more, 'Yours ... good-bye!' Litvinov felt her breath on his hair, the touch of her lips. When he stood up, she was no longer in the room, but her dress was rustling in the corridor, and from the distance came the voice of Ratmirov: '_Eh bien? Vous ne venez pas?_'

Litvinov sat down on a high chest, and hid his face. A feminine fragrance, fresh and delicate, clung about him.... Irina had held his hand in her hands. 'It's too much, too much,' was his thought. The little girl came into the room, and smiling again in response to his agitated glance, said:

'Kindly come, now----'

He got up, and went out of the hotel. It was no good even to think of returning home: he had to regain his balance first. His heart was beating heavily and unevenly; the earth seemed faintly reeling under his feet. Litvinov turned again along the Lichtenthaler Allee. He realised that the decisive moment had come, that to put it off longer, to dissemble, to turn away, had become impossible, that an explanation with Tatyana had become inevitable; he could imagine how she was sitting there, never stirring, waiting for him ... he could foresee what he would say to her; but how was he to act, how was he to begin? He had turned his back on his upright, well-organised, orderly future; he knew that he was flinging himself headlong into a gulf ... but that did not confound him. The thing was done, but how was he to face his judge? And if only his judge would come to meet him--an angel with a flaming sword; that would be easier for a sinning heart ... instead of which he had himself to plunge the knife in.... Infamous! But to turn back, to abandon that other, to take advantage of the freedom offered him, recognised as his.... No! better to die! No, he would have none of such loathsome freedom ... but would humble himself in the dust, and might those eyes look down on him with love....

'Grigory Mihalitch,' said a melancholy voice, and some one's hand was laid heavily upon Litvinov.

He looked round in some alarm and recognised Potugin.

'I beg your pardon, Grigory Mihalitch,' began the latter with his customary humility, 'I am disturbing you perhaps, but, seeing you in the distance, I thought.... However if you're not in the humour....'

'On the contrary I'm delighted,' Litvinov muttered between his teeth.

Potugin walked beside him.

'What a lovely evening!' he began, 'so warm! Have you been walking long?'