Chapter 10

Márya Dmítrievna did not receive Lavrétzky with any excess of cordiality, when he presented himself on the following day. "Well, you are making yourself pretty free of the house,"--she said to herself. Personally, he did not greatly please her, and, in addition, Pánshin, under whose influence she was, had sung his praises in a very sly and careless manner on the preceding evening. As she did not look upon him in the light of a guest, and did not consider it necessary to trouble herself about a relative almost a member of the family, half an hour had not elapsed before he was strolling down an alley in the garden with Liza. Lyénotchka and Schúrotchka were frolicking a short distance away, among the flower-beds.

Liza was composed, as usual, but paler than usual. She took from her pocket and handed to Lavrétzky the sheet of newspaper, folded small.

"This is dreadful!"--said she.

Lavrétzky made no reply.

"But perhaps it is not yet true,"--added Liza.

"That is why I asked you not to mention it to any one."

Liza walked on a little way.

"Tell me,"--she began:--"you are not grieved? Not in the least?"

"I do not know myself what my feelings are,"--replied Lavrétzky.

"But, assuredly, you used to love her?"

"Yes, I did."

"Very much?"

"Very much."

"And you are not grieved by her death?"

"It is not now that she has died to me."

"What you say is sinful.... Do not be angry with me. You call me your friend: a friend may say anything. To tell the truth, I feel terrified.... Your face was so malign yesterday.... Do you remember, how you were complaining of her, not long ago?--and perhaps, already, at that very time, she was no longer alive. This is terrible. It is exactly as though it had been sent to you as a chastisement."

Lavrétzky laughed bitterly.

"Do you think so?... At all events, I am free now."

Liza gave a slight start.

"Stop, do not talk like that. Of what use to you is your freedom? You must not think about that now, but about forgiveness...."

"I forgave her long ago,"--interrupted Lavrétzky, with a wave of the hand.

"No, not that,"--returned Liza, and blushed. "You did not understand me rightly. You must take means to obtain forgiveness...."

"Who is there to forgive me?"

"Who?--God. Who else but God can forgive us?"

Lavrétzky caught her hand.

"Akh, Lizavéta Mikhaílovna, believe me,"--he exclaimed:--"I have been sufficiently punished as it is. I have already atoned for everything, believe me."

"You cannot know that,"--said Liza in a low voice. "You have forgotten;--not very long ago,--when you were talking to me,--you were not willing to forgive her...."

The two walked silently down the alley.

"And how about your daughter?"--Liza suddenly inquired, and halted.

Lavrétzky started.

"Oh, do not worry yourself! I have already despatched letters to all the proper places. The future of my daughter, as you call ... as you say ... is assured. Do not disquiet yourself."

Liza smiled sadly.

"But you are right,"--went on Lavrétzky:--"what can I do with my freedom? Of what use is it to me?"

"When did you receive that newspaper?"--said Liza, making no reply to his question.

"The day after your visit."

"And is it possible ... is it possible that you did not even weep?"

"No. I was stunned; but where were the tears to come from? Weep over the past,--but, you see, it is entirely extirpated in my case!... Her behaviour itself did not destroy my happiness, but merely proved to me that it had never existed. What was there to cry about? But, who knows?--perhaps I should have been more grieved if I had received this news two weeks earlier...."

"Two weeks?"--returned Liza. "But what has happened in those two weeks?"

Lavrétzky made no answer, and Liza suddenly blushed more furiously than before.

"Yes, yes, you have guessed it,"--interposed Lavrétzky:--"in the course of those two weeks I have learned what a pure woman's soul is like, and my past has retreated still further from me."

Liza became confused, and softly walked toward the flower-garden, to Lyénotchka and Schúrotchka.

"And I am glad that I have shown you this newspaper,"--said Lavrétzky, as he followed her:--"I have already contracted the habit of concealing nothing from you, and I hope that you will repay me with the same confidence."

"Do you think so?"--said Liza, and stopped short. "In that case, I ought to ... but no! That is impossible."

"What is it? Speak, speak!"

"Really, it seems to me that I ought not.... However," added Liza, and turned to Lavrétzky with a smile:--"what is half-frankness worth?--Do you know? I received a letter to-day."

"From Pánshin?"

"Yes, from him.... How did you know?"

"He asks your hand?"

"Yes,"--uttered Liza, and looked seriously in Lavrétzky's eyes.

Lavrétzky, in his turn, gazed seriously at Liza.

"Well, and what reply have you made to him?"--he said at last.

"I do not know what reply to make,"--replied Liza, and dropped her clasped hands.

"What? Surely, you like him?"

"Yes, he pleases me; he seems to be a nice man...."

"You said the same thing to me, in those very same words, three days ago. What I want to know is, whether you love him with that strong, passionate feeling which we are accustomed to call love?"

"As _you_ understand it,--no."

"You are not in love with him?"

"No. But is that necessary?"

"Of course it is!"

"Mamma likes him,"--pursued Liza:--"he is amiable; I have nothing against him."

"Still, you are wavering?"

"Yes ... and perhaps,--your words may be the cause of it. Do you remember what you said day before yesterday? But that weakness...."

"Oh, my child!"--suddenly exclaimed Lavrétzky--and his voice trembled:--"do not argue artfully, do not designate as weakness the cry of your heart, which does not wish to surrender itself without love. Do not take upon yourself that terrible responsibility toward a man whom you do not love and to whom you do not wish to belong...."

"I am listening,--I am taking nothing upon myself ..." Liza was beginning.

"Listen to your heart; it alone will tell you the truth,"--Lavrétzky interrupted her.... "Experience, reasoning--all that is stuff and nonsense! Do not deprive yourself of the best, the only happiness on earth."

"Is it you, Feódor Ivánitch, who are speaking thus? You, yourself, married for love--and were you happy?"

Lavrétzky wrung his hands.

"Akh, do not talk to me of that! You cannot even understand all that a young, untried, absurdly educated lad can mistake for love!... Yes, and in short, why calumniate one's self? I just told you, that I had not known happiness ... no! I was happy!"

"It seems to me, Feódor Ivánitch,"--said Liza, lowering her voice (when she did not agree with her interlocutor, she always lowered her voice; and, at the same time, she became greatly agitated):--"happiness on earth does not depend upon us...."

"It does, it does depend upon us, believe me," (he seized both her hands; Liza turned pale, and gazed at him almost in terror, but with attention):--"if only we have not ruined our own lives. For some people, a love-marriage may prove unhappy; but not for you, with your calm temperament, with your clear soul! I entreat you, do not marry without love, from a sense of duty, of renunciation, or anything else.... That, also, is want of faith, that is calculation,--and even worse. Believe me,--I have a right to speak thus: I have paid dearly for that right. And if your God...."

At that moment, Lavrétzky noticed that Lyénotchka and Schúrotchka were standing beside Liza, and staring at him with dumb amazement. He released Liza's hands, said hastily: "Pray pardon me,"--and walked toward the house.

"I have only one request to make of you,"--he said, returning to Liza:--"do not decide instantly, wait, think over what I have said to you. Even if you have not believed me, if you have made up your mind to a marriage of reason,--even in that case, you ought not to marry Mr. Pánshin: he cannot be your husband.... Promise me, will you not, not to be in a hurry?"

Liza tried to answer Lavrétzky, but did not utter a word,--not because she had made up her mind "to be in a hurry"; but because her heart was beating too violently, and a sensation resembling fear had stopped her breath.

XXX

As he was leaving the Kalítins' house, Lavrétzky encountered Pánshin; they saluted each other coldly. Lavrétzky went home to his apartment, and locked himself in. He experienced a sensation such as he had, in all probability, never experienced before. Had he remained long in that state of "peaceful numbness"? had he long continued to feel, as he had expressed it, "at the bottom of the river"? What had altered his position? what had brought him out, to the surface? the most ordinary, inevitable though always unexpected of events;--death? Yes: but he did not think so much about the death of his wife, about his freedom, as,--what sort of answer would Liza give to Pánshin? He was conscious that, in the course of the last three days, he had come to look upon her with different eyes; he recalled how, on returning home, and thinking about her in the silence of the night, he had said to himself: "If...." That "if," wherein he had alluded to the past, to the impossible, had come to pass, although not in the way he had anticipated,--but this was little in itself. "She will obey her mother," he thought, "she will marry Pánshin; but even if she refuses him,--is it not all the same to me?" As he passed in front of the mirror, he cast a cursory glance at his face, and shrugged his shoulders.

The day sped swiftly by in these reflections; evening arrived. Lavrétzky wended his way to the Kalítins. He walked briskly, but approached their house with lingering steps. In front of the steps stood Pánshin's drozhky. "Come,"--thought Lavrétzky,--"I will not be an egoist," and entered the house. Inside he met no one, and all was still in the drawing-room; he opened the door, and beheld Márya Dmítrievna, playing picquet with Pánshin. Pánshin bowed to him in silence, and the mistress of the house uttered a little scream:--"How unexpected!"--and frowned slightly. Lavrétzky took a seat by her side, and began to look over her cards.

"Do you know how to play picquet?"--she asked him, with a certain dissembled vexation, and immediately announced that she discarded.

Pánshin reckoned up ninety, and politely and calmly began to gather up the tricks, with a severe and dignified expression on his countenance. That is the way in which diplomats should play; probably, that is the way in which he was wont to play in Petersburg, with some powerful dignitary, whom he desired to impress with a favourable opinion as to his solidity and maturity. "One hundred and one, one hundred and two, hearts; one hundred and three,"--rang out his measured tone, and Lavrétzky could not understand what note resounded in it: reproach or self-conceit.

"Is Márfa Timoféevna to be seen?"--he asked, observing that Pánshin, still with great dignity, was beginning to shuffle the cards. Not a trace of the artist was, as yet, to be observed in him.

"Yes, I think so. She is in her own apartments, up-stairs,"--replied Márya Dmítrievna:--"you had better inquire."

Lavrétzky went up-stairs, and found Márfa Timoféevna at cards also: she was playing _duratchkí_ (fools) with Nastásya Kárpovna. Róska barked at him; but both the old ladies welcomed him cordially, and Márfa Timoféevna, in particular, seemed to be in high spirits.

"Ah! Fédya! Pray come in,"--she said:--"sit down, my dear little father. We shall be through our game directly. Wouldst thou like some preserves? Schúrotchka, get him a jar of strawberries. Thou dost not want it? Well, then sit as thou art; but as for smoking--thou must not: I cannot bear thy tobacco, and, moreover, it makes Matrós sneeze."

Lavrétzky made haste to assert that he did not care to smoke.

"Hast thou been down-stairs?"--went on the old woman:--"whom didst thou see there? Is Pánshin still on hand, as usual? And didst thou see Liza? No? She intended to come hither.... Yes, there she is; speak of an angel...."

Liza entered the room and, on perceiving Lavrétzky, she blushed.

"I have run in to see you for a minute, Márfa Timoféevna," she began....

"Why for a minute?"--returned the old woman. "What makes all you young girls such restless creatures? Thou seest, that I have a visitor: chatter to him, entertain him."

Liza seated herself on the edge of a chair, raised her eyes to Lavrétzky,--and felt that it was impossible not to give him to understand how her interview with Pánshin had ended. But how was that to be done? She felt both ashamed and awkward. She had not been acquainted with him long, with that man who both went rarely to church and bore with so much indifference the death of his wife,--and here she was already imparting her secrets to him.... He took an interest in her, it is true; she, herself, trusted him, and felt attracted to him; but, nevertheless, she felt ashamed, as though a stranger had entered her pure, virgin chamber.

Márfa Timoféevna came to her assistance.

"If thou wilt not entertain him,"--she began, "who will entertain him, poor fellow? I am too old for him, he is too clever for me, and for Nastásya Kárpovna he is too old, you must give her nothing but very young men."

"How can I entertain Feódor Ivánitch?"--said Liza.--"If he likes, I will play something for him on the piano,"--she added, irresolutely.

"Very good indeed: that's my clever girl,"--replied Márfa Timoféevna,--"Go down-stairs, my dear people; when you are through, come back; for I have been left the 'fool,' and I feel insulted, and want to win back."

Liza rose: Lavrétzky followed her. As they were descending the staircase, Liza halted.

"They tell the truth,"--she began:--"when they say that the hearts of men are full of contradictions. Your example ought to frighten me, to render me distrustful of marriage for love, but I...."

"You have refused him?"--interrupted Lavrétzky.

"No; but I have not accepted him. I told him everything, everything that I felt, and asked him to wait. Are you satisfied?"--she added, with a swift smile,--and lightly touching the railing with her hand, she ran down the stairs.

"What shall I play for you?"--she asked, as she raised the lid of the piano.

"Whatever you like,"--replied Lavrétzky, and seated himself in such a position that he could watch her.

Liza began to play, and, for a long time, never took her eyes from her fingers. At last, she glanced at Lavrétzky, and stopped short: so wonderful and strange did his face appear to her.

"What is the matter with you?"--she asked.

"Nothing,"--he replied:--"all is very well with me; I am glad for you, I am glad to look at you,--go on."

"It seems to me,"--said Liza, a few moments later:--"that if he really loved me, he would not have written that letter; he ought to have felt that I could not answer him now."

"That is of no importance,"--said Lavrétzky:--"the important point is, that you do not love him."

"Stop,--what sort of a conversation is this! I keep having visions of your dead wife, and you are terrible to me!"

"My Lizéta plays charmingly, does she not, Valdemar?"--Márya Dmítrievna was saying to Pánshin at the same moment.

"Yes,"--replied Pánshin;--"very charmingly."

Márya Dmítrievna gazed tenderly at her young partner; but the latter assumed a still more important and careworn aspect, and announced fourteen kings.

XXXI

Lavrétzky was not a young man; he could not long deceive himself as to the sentiments with which Liza had inspired him; he became definitively convinced, on that day, that he had fallen in love with her. This conviction brought no great joy to him. "Is it possible," he thought, "that at the age of five and thirty I have nothing better to do than to put my soul again into the hands of a woman? But Liza is not like _that one_; she would not require from me shameful sacrifices; she would not draw me away from my occupations; she herself would encourage me to honourable, severe toil, and we would advance together toward a fine goal. Yes," he wound up his meditations:--"all that is good, but the bad thing is, that she will not in the least wish to marry me. It was not for nothing that she told me, that I am terrible to her. On the other hand, she does not love that Pánshin either.... A poor consolation!"

Lavrétzky rode out to Vasílievskoe; but he did not remain four days,--it seemed so irksome to him there. He was tortured, also, by expectancy: the information imparted by M--r. Jules required confirmation, and he had received no letters. He returned to the town, and sat out the evening at the Kalítins'. It was easy for him to see, that Márya Dmítrievna had risen in revolt against him; but he succeeded in appeasing her somewhat by losing fifteen rubles to her at picquet,--and he spent about half an hour alone with Liza, in spite of the fact that her mother, no longer ago than the day before, had advised her not to be too familiar with a man "_qui a un si grand ridicule_." He found a change in her: she seemed, somehow, to have become more thoughtful, she upbraided him for his absence, and asked him--would he not go to church on the following morning (the next day was Sunday)?

"Go,"--she said to him, before he had succeeded in replying:--"we will pray together for the repose of _her_ soul."--Then she added, that she did not know what she ought to do,--she did not know whether she had the right to make Pánshin wait any longer for her decision.

"Why?"--asked Lavrétzky.

"Because,"--said she: "I am already beginning to suspect what that decision will be."

She declared that her head ached, and went off to her own room up-stairs, irresolutely offering Lavrétzky the tips of her fingers.

The next day, Lavrétzky went to the morning service. Liza was already in the church when he arrived. She observed him, although she did not turn toward him. She prayed devoutly; her eyes sparkled softly, her head bent and rose softly. He felt that she was praying for him also,--and a wonderful emotion filled his soul. He felt happy, and somewhat conscience-stricken. The decorously-standing congregation, the familiar faces, the melodious chanting, the odour of the incense, the long, slanting rays of light from the windows, the very gloom of the walls and vaulted roof,--all spoke to his ear. He had not been in a church for a long time, he had not appealed to God for a long time: and even now, he did not utter any words of prayer,--he did not even pray without words, but for a moment, at least, if not in body, certainly with all his mind, he prostrated himself and bowed humbly to the very earth. He recalled how, in his childhood, he had prayed in church on every occasion until he became conscious of some one's cool touch on his brow; "this," he had been accustomed to say to himself at that time, "is my guardian-angel accepting me, laying upon me the seal of the chosen." He cast a glance at Liza.... "Thou hast brought me hither," he thought:--"do thou also touch me, touch my soul." She continued to pray in the same calm manner as before; her face seemed to him joyful, and he was profoundly moved once more; he entreated for that other soul--peace, for his own--pardon....

They met in the porch; she greeted him with cheerful and amiable dignity. The sun brilliantly illuminated the young grass in the churchyard, and the motley-hued gowns and kerchiefs of the women; the bells of the neighbouring churches were booming aloft; the sparrows were chirping in the hedgerows. Lavrétzky stood with head uncovered, and smiled; a light breeze lifted his hair, and the tips of the ribbons on Liza's hat. He put Liza into her carriage, distributed all his small change to the poor, and softly wended his way homeward.

XXXII

Difficult days arrived for Feódor Ivánitch. He found himself in a constant fever. Every morning he went to the post-office, with excitement broke the seals of his letters and newspapers,--and nowhere did he find anything which might have confirmed or refuted the fateful rumour. Sometimes he became repulsive even to himself: "Why am I thus waiting,"--he said to himself, "like a crow for blood, for the sure news of my wife's death?" He went to the Kalítins' every day; but even there he was no more at his ease: the mistress of the house openly sulked at him, received him with condescension; Pánshin treated him with exaggerated courtesy; Lemm had become misanthropic, and hardly even bowed to him,--and, chief of all, Liza seemed to avoid him. But when she chanced to be left alone with him, in place of her previous trustfulness, confusion manifested itself in her: she did not know what to say to him, and he himself felt agitation. In the course of a few days, Liza had become quite different from herself as he had previously known her: in her movements, her voice, in her very laugh, a secret trepidation was perceptible, an unevenness which had not heretofore existed. Márya Dmítrievna, like the genuine egoist she was, suspected nothing; but Márfa Timoféevna began to watch her favourite. Lavrétzky more than once reproached himself with having shown to Liza the copy of the newspaper which he had received: he could not fail to recognise the fact, that in his spiritual condition there was an element which was perturbing to pure feeling. He also assumed that the change in Liza had been brought about by her conflict with herself, by her doubts: what answer should she give to Pánshin? One day she brought him a book, one of Walter Scott's novels, which she herself had asked of him.

"Have you read this book?"--he asked.

"No; I do not feel in a mood for books now,"--she replied, and turned to go.

"Wait a minute: I have not been alone with you for a long time. You seem to be afraid of me."

"Yes."

"Why so, pray?"

"I do not know."

Lavrétzky said nothing for a while.

"Tell me,"--he began:--"you have not yet made up your mind?"

"What do you mean by that?"--she said, without raising her eyes.

"You understand me...."

Liza suddenly flushed up.

"Ask me no questions about anything,"--she ejaculated, with vivacity:--"I know nothing, I do not even know myself...." And she immediately beat a retreat.

On the following day, Lavrétzky arrived at the Kalítins' after dinner, and found all preparations made to have the All-Night Vigil service held there. In one corner of the dining-room, on a square table, covered with a clean cloth, small holy pictures in gold settings, with tiny, dull brilliants in their halos, were already placed, leaning against the wall. An old man-servant, in a grey frock-coat and slippers, walked the whole length of the room in a deliberate manner, and without making any noise with his heels, and placed two wax tapers in slender candlesticks in front of the holy images, crossed himself, made a reverence, and softly withdrew. The unlighted drawing-room was deserted. Lavrétzky walked down the dining-room, and inquired--was it not some one's Name-day? He was answered, in a whisper, that it was not, but that the Vigil service had been ordered at the desire of Lizavéta Mikhaílovna and Márfa Timoféevna; that the intention had been to bring thither the wonder-working _ikóna_, but it had gone to a sick person, thirty versts distant. There soon arrived, also, in company with the chanters, the priest, a man no longer young, with a small bald spot, who coughed loudly in the anteroom; the ladies all immediately trooped in single file from the boudoir, and approached to receive his blessing; Lavrétzky saluted him in silence; and he returned the salute in silence. The priest stood still for a short time, then cleared his throat again, and asked in a low tone, with a bass voice:

"Do you command me to proceed?"

"Proceed, bátiushka,"--replied Márya Dmítrievna.