Chapter 13

When Kalitine married Maria Dmitrievna, he wanted to entrust the care of his household to Agafia; but she refused, "on account of temptation." He began to scold her, but she only bowed low and left the room. The shrewd Kalitine generally understood people; so he understood Agafia's character, and did not lose sight of her. When he settled in town, he appointed her, with her consent, to the post of nurse to Liza, who was then just beginning her fifth year.

At first Liza was frightened by the serious, even severe, face of her new nurse; but she soon became accustomed to her, and learned to love her warmly. The child was of a serious disposition herself. Her features called to mind Kalitine's regular and finely-moulded face, but her eyes were not like those of her father; they shone with a quiet light, expressive of an earnest goodness that is rarely seen in children. She did not care about playing with dolls; she never laughed loudly nor long, and a feeling of self-respect always manifested itself in her conduct. It was not often that she fell into a reverie, but when she did so there was almost always good reason for it; then she would keep silence for a time, but generally ended by addressing to some person older than herself a question which showed that her mind had been working under the influence of a new impression. She very soon got over her childish lisp, and even before she was four years old she spoke with perfect distinctness. She was afraid of her father. As for her mother, she regarded her with a feeling which she could scarcely define, not being afraid of her, but not behaving towards her caressingly. As for that, she did not caress even her nurse, although she loved her with her whole heart. She and Agafia were never apart. It was curious to see them together. Agafia, all in black, with a dark handkerchief on her head, her face emaciated and of a wax-like transparency, but still beautiful and expressive, would sit erect on her chair, knitting stockings. At her feet Liza would be sitting on a little stool, also engaged in some work, or, her clear eyes uplifted with a serious expression, listening to what Agafia was telling her. Agafia never told her nursery tales. With a calm and even voice, she used to tell her about the life of the Blessed Virgin, or the lives of the hermits and people pleasing to God, or about the holy female martyrs. She would tell Liza how the saints lived in the deserts; how they worked out their salvation, enduring hunger and thirst; and how they did not fear kings, but confessed Christ; and how the birds of the air brought them food, and the wild beasts obeyed them; how from those spots where their blood had fallen flowers sprang up. ("Were they carnations?" once asked Liza, who was very fond of flowers.) Agafia spoke about these things to Liza seriously and humbly, as if she felt that it was not for her to pronounce such grand and holy words; and as Liza listened to her, the image of the Omnipresent, Omniscient God entered with a sweet influence into her very soul, filling her with a pure and reverend dread, and Christ seemed to her to be close to her, and to be a friend, almost, as it were, a relation. It was Agafia, also, who taught her to pray. Sometimes she awoke Liza at the early dawn, dressed her hastily, and secretly conveyed her to matins. Liza would follow her on tiptoe, scarcely venturing to breathe. The cold, dim morning light, the raw air pervading the almost empty church, the very secrecy of those unexpected excursions, the cautious return home to bed--all that combination of the forbidden, the strange, the holy, thrilled the young girl, penetrated to the inmost depths of her being.

Agafia never blamed any one, and she never scolded Liza for any childish faults. When she was dissatisfied about anything, she merely kept silence, and Liza always understood that silence. With a child's quick instinct, she also knew well when Agafia was dissatisfied with others, whether it were with Maria Dmitrievna or with Kalitine himself.

For rather more than three years Agafia waited upon Liza. She was replaced by Mademoiselle Moreau; but the frivolous Frenchwoman, with her dry manner and her constant exclamation, _Tout ça c'est des bêtises_! could not expel from Liza's heart the recollection of her much-loved nurse. The seeds that had been sown had pushed their roots too far for that. After that Agafia, although she had ceased to attend Liza, remained for some time longer in the house, and often saw her pupil, and treated her as she had been used to do.

But when Marfa Timofeevna entered the Kalitines' house, Agafia did not get on well with her. The austere earnestness of the former "wearer of the coarse petticoat." [Footnote: The _Panovnitsa_, or wearer of the _Panovna_, a sort of petticoat made of a coarse stuff of motley hue.] did not please the impatient and self-willed old lady. Agafia obtained leave to go on a pilgrimage, and she never came back. Vague rumors asserted that she had retired into a schismatic convent. But the impression left by her on Liza's heart did not disappear. Just as before, the girl went to mass, as if she were going to a festival; and when in church prayed with enthusiasm, with a kind of restrained and timid rapture, at which her mother secretly wondered not a little. Even Marfa Timofeevna, although she never put any constraint upon Liza, tried to induce her to moderate her zeal, and would not let her make so many prostrations. It was not a lady-like habit, she said.

Liza was a good scholar, that is, a persevering one; she was not gifted with a profound intellect, or with extraordinarily brilliant faculties, and nothing yielded to her without demanding from her no little exertion. She was a good pianiste, but no one else, except Lemm, knew how much that accomplishment had cost her. She did not read much, and she had no "words of her own;" but she had ideas of her own, and she went her own way. In this matter, as well as in personal appearance, she may have taken after her father, for he never used to ask any one's advice as to what he should do.

And so she grew up, and So did her life pass, gently and tranquilly, until she had attained her nineteenth year. She was very charming, but she was not conscious of the fact. In all her movements, a natural, somewhat unconventional, grace, revealed itself; in her voice there sounded the silver notes of early youth. The slightest pleasurable sensation would bring a fascinating smile to her lips, and add a deeper light, a kind of secret tenderness, to her already lustrous eyes. Kind and soft-hearted, thoroughly penetrated by a feeling of duty, and a fear of injuring any one in any way, she was attached to all whom she knew, but to no one person in particular. To God alone did she consecrate her love--loving Him with a timid, tender enthusiasm. Until Lavretsky came, no one had troubled the calmness of her inner life.

Such was Liza.

XXXIV.

About the middle of the next day Lavretsky went to the Kalitines'. On his way there he met Panshine, who galloped past on horseback, his hat pulled low over his eyes. At the Kalitines', Lavretsky was not admitted, for the first time since he had made acquaintance with the family. Maria Dmitrievna was asleep, the footman declared; her head ached, Marfa Timofeevna and Lizaveta Mikhailovna were not at home.

Lavretsky walked round the outside of the garden in the vague hope of meeting Liza, but he saw no one. Two hours later he returned to the house, but received the same answer as before; moreover, the footman looked at him in a somewhat marked manner. Lavretsky thought it would be unbecoming to call three times in one day, so he determined to drive out to Vasilievskoe, where, moreover, he had business to transact.

On his way there he framed various plans, each one more charming than the rest. But on his arrival at his aunt's estate, sadness took hold of him. He entered into conversation with Anton; but the old man, as if purposely, would dwell on none but gloomy ideas. He told Lavretsky how Glafira Petrovna, just before her death, had bitten her own hand. And then, after an interval of silence, he added with a sigh, "Every man, _barin batyushka_,[A] is destined to devour himself."

[Footnote A: Seigneur, father.]

It was late in the day before Lavretsky set out on his return. The music he had heard the night before came back into his mind, and the image of Liza dawned on his heart in all its sweet serenity. He was touched by the thought that she loved him; and he arrived at his little house in the town, tranquillized and happy.

The first thing that struck him when he entered the vestibule, was a smell of patchouli, a perfume he disliked exceedingly. He observed that a number of large trunks and boxes were standing there, and he thought there was a strange expression on the face of the servant who hastily came to meet him. He did not stop to analyze his impressions, but went straight into the drawing-room.

A lady, who wore a black silk dress with flounces, and whose pale face was half hidden by a cambric handkerchief, rose from the sofa, took a few steps to meet him, bent her carefully-arranged and perfumed locks--and fell at his feet. Then for the first time, he recognized her. That lady was his wife!

His breathing stopped. He leaned against the wall.

"Do not drive me from you, Theodore!" she said in French; and her voice cut him to the heart like a knife. He looked at her without comprehending what he saw, and yet, at the same time, he involuntarily remarked that she had grown paler and stouter.

"Theodore!" she continued, lifting her eyes from time to time towards heaven, her exceedingly pretty fingers, tipped with polished nails of rosy hue, writhing the while in preconcerted agonies--"Theodore, I am guilty before you--deeply guilty. I will say more--I am a criminal; but hear what I have to say. I am tortured by remorse; I have become a burden to myself; I can bear my position no longer. Ever so many times I have thought of addressing you, but I was afraid of your anger. But I have determined to break every tie with the past--_puis, j'ai été si malade_. I was so ill," she added, passing her hand across her brow and cheek, "I took advantage of the report which was spread abroad of my death, and I left everything. Without stopping anywhere, I travelled day and night to come here quickly. For a long time I was in doubt whether to appear before you, my judge--_paraitre devant vous man juge_; but at last I determined to go to you, remembering your constant goodness. I found out your address in Moscow. Believe me," she continued, quietly rising from the ground and seating herself upon the very edge of an arm-chair, "I often thought of death, and I could have found sufficient courage in my heart to deprive myself of life--ah! life is an intolerable burden to me now--but the thought of my child, my little Ada, prevented me. She is here now; she is asleep in the next room, poor child. She is tired out You will see her, won't you? She, at all events, is innocent before you; and so unfortunate--so unfortunate!" exclaimed Madame Lavretsky, and melted into tears.

Lavretsky regained his consciousness at last. He stood away from the wall, and turned towards the door.

"You are going away?" exclaimed his wife, in accents of despair. "Oh, that is cruel! without saying a single word to me--not even one of reproach! This contempt kills me; it is dreadful!"

Lavretsky stopped.

"What do you want me to say to you?" he said in a hollow tone.

"Nothing--nothing!" she cried with animation. "I know that I have no right to demand anything. I am no fool, believe me. I don't hope, I don't dare to hope, for pardon. I only venture to entreat you to tell me what I ought to do, where I ought to live. I will obey your orders like a slave, whatever they may be."

"I have no orders to give," replied Lavretsky in the same tone as before. "You know that all is over between us--and more than ever now. You can live where you like; and if your allowance is too small--"

"Ah, don't say such terrible things!" she said, interrupting him. "Forgive me, if only--if only for the sake of this angel."

And having uttered these words, Varvara Pavlovna suddenly rushed into the other room, and immediately returned with a very tastefully-dressed little girl in her arms. Thick flaxen curls fell about the pretty little rosy face and over the great black, sleepy eyes of the child, who smilingly blinked at the light, and held on to her mother's neck by a chubby little arm.

"_Ada, vois, c'est ton père_," said Varvara Pavlovna, removing the curls from the child's eyes, and kissing her demonstratively. "_Prie-le avec moi_."

"_C'est là, papa_?" the little girl lispingly began to stammer.

"_Oui, mon enfant, n'est-ce pas que tu l'aimes_?"

But the interview had become intolerable to Lavretsky. ;'

"What melodrama is it just such a scene occurs; in?" he muttered, and left the room.

Varvara Pavlovna remained standing where she was for some time, then she slightly shrugged her shoulders, took the little girl back into the other room, undressed her, and put her to bed. Then she took a book and sat down near the lamp. There she waited about an hour, but at last she went to bed herself.

"_Eh bien, madame_?" asked her maid,--a Frenchwoman whom she had brought with her from Paris,--as she unlaced her stays.

"_Eh bien_, Justine!" replied Varvara Pavlovna. "He has aged a great deal, but I think he is just as good as ever. Give me my gloves for the night, and get the gray dress, the high one, ready for to-morrow morning--and don't forget the mutton cutlets for Ada. To be sure it will be difficult to get them here, but we must try."

"_A la guerre comme à la guerre_!" replied Justine as she put out the light.

XXXV.

For more than two hours Lavretsky wandered about the streets. The night he had spent in the suburbs of Paris came back into his mind. His heart seemed rent within him, and his brain felt vacant and as it were numbed, while the same set of evil, gloomy, mad thoughts went ever circling in his mind. "She is alive; she is here," he whispered to himself with constantly recurring amazement. He felt that he had lost Liza. Wrath seemed to suffocate him. The blow had too suddenly descended upon him. How could he have so readily believed the foolish gossip of a _feuilleton_, a mere scrap of paper? "But if I had not believed it," he thought, "what would have been the difference? I should not have known that Liza loves me. She would not have known it herself." He could not drive the thought of his wife out of his mind; her form, her voice, her eyes haunted him. He cursed himself, he cursed every thing in the world.

Utterly tired out, he came to Lemm's house before the dawn. For a long time he could not get the door opened; at last the old man's nightcapped head appeared at the window. Peevish and wrinkled, his face bore scarcely any resemblance to that which, austerely inspired, had looked royally down upon Lavretsky twenty-four hours before, from all the height of its artistic grandeur.

"What do you want?" asked Lemm. "I cannot play every night. I have taken a _tisane_."

But Lavretsky's face wore a strong expression which could not escape notice. The old man shaded his eyes with his hand, looked hard at his nocturnal visitor, and let him in.

Lavretsky came into the room and dropped on a chair. The old man remained standing before him, wrapping the skirts of his motley old dressing-gown around him, stooping very much, and biting his lips.

"My wife has come," said Lavretsky, with drooping head, and then he suddenly burst into a fit of involuntary laughter.

Lemm's face expressed astonishment, but he preserved a grave silence, only wrapping his dressing-gown tighter around him.

"I suppose you don't know," continued Lavretsky. "I supposed--I saw in a newspaper that she was dead."

"O--h! Was it lately you saw that?" asked Lemm.

"Yes."

"O--h!" repeated the old man, raising his eyebrows, "and she has come here?"

"Yes. She is now in my house, and I--I am a most unfortunate man."

And he laughed again.

"You are a most unfortunate man," slowly repeated Lemm.

"Christopher Fedorovich," presently said Lavretsky, "will you undertake to deliver a note?"

"Hm! To whom, may I ask?"

"To Lizav--"

"Ah! yes, yes, I understand. Very well. But when must the note be delivered?"

"To-morrow, as early as possible."

"Hm! I might send my cook, Katrin. No, I will go myself."

"And will you bring me back the answer?"

"I will."

Lemm sighed.

"Yes, my poor young friend," he said, "you certainly are--a most unfortunate young man."

Lavretsky wrote a few words to Liza, telling her of his wife's arrival, and begging her to make an appointment for an interview. Then he flung himself on the narrow sofa, with his face to the wall. The old man also lay down on his bed, and there long tossed about, coughing and swallowing mouthfuls of his _tisane_.

The morning came; they both arose--strange were the looks they exchanged. Lavretsky would have liked to kill himself just then. Katrin the cook brought them some bad coffee, and then, when eight o'clock struck, Lemm put on his hat and went out saying that he was to have given a lesson at the Kalitines' at ten o'clock, but that he would find a fitting excuse for going there sooner.

Lavretsky again threw himself on the couch, and again a bitter laugh broke out from the depths of his heart. He thought of how his wife had driven him out of the house; he pictured to himself Liza's position, and then he shut his eyes, and wrung his hands above his head.

At length Lemm returned and brought him a scrap of paper, on which Liza had traced the following words in pencil: "We cannot see each other to-day; perhaps we may to-morrow evening. Farewell." Lavretsky thanked Lemm absently and stiffly, and then went home.

He found his wife at breakfast. Ada, with her hair all in curl-papers, and dressed in a short white frock with blue ribbons, was eating a mutton cutlet. Varvara Pavlovna rose from her seat the moment Lavretsky entered the room, and came towards him with an expression of humility on her face. He asked her to follow him into his study, and when there he shut the door and began to walk up and down the room. She sat down, folded her hands, and began to follow his movements with eyes which were still naturally beautiful, besides having their lids dyed a little.

For a long time Lavretsky could not begin what he had to say, feeling that he had not complete mastery over himself. As for his wife, he saw that she was not at all afraid of him, although she looked as if she might at any moment go off into a fainting fit.

"Listen, Madame," at last he began, breathing with difficulty, and at times setting his teeth hard. "There is no reason why we should be hypocritical towards each other. I do not believe in your repentance; but even if it were genuine, it would be impossible for me to rejoin you and live with you again."

Varvara Pavlovna bit her lips and half closed her eyes. "That's dislike," she thought. "It's all over. I'm not even a woman for him."

"Impossible," repeated Lavretsky, and buttoned his coat. "I don't know why you have been pleased to honor me by coming here. Most probably you are out of funds."

"Don't say that--you wound my feelings," whispered Varvara Pavlovna.

"However that may be, you are still, to my sorrow, my wife. I cannot drive you away, so this is what I propose. You can go to Lavriki--to-day if you like--and live there! There is an excellent house there, as you know. You shall have every thing you can want, besides your allowance. Do you consent?"

Varvara Pavlovna raised her embroidered handkerchief to her face.

"I have already told you," she said, with a nervous twitching of her lips, "that I will agree to any arrangement you may please to make for me. At present I have only to ask you--will you at least allow me to thank you for your generosity?"

"No thanks, I beg of you--we shall do much better without them," hastily exclaimed Lavretsky. "Then, he added, approaching the door, I may depend upon--"

"To-morrow I will be at Lavriki," replied Varvara Pavlovna, rising respectfully from her seat. "But Fedor Ivanich--" ("She no longer familiarly called him Theodore).

"What do you wish to say?"

"I am aware that I have not yet in any way deserved forgiveness. But may I hope that, at least, in time--"

"Ah, Varvara Pavlovna," cried Lavretsky, interrupting her, "you are a clever woman; but I, too, am not a fool. I know well that you have no need of forgiveness. Besides, I forgave you long ago; but there has always been a gulf between you and me."

"I shall know how to submit," answered Varvara Pavlovna, and bowed her head. "I have not forgotten my fault. I should not have wondered if I had learnt that you had even been glad to hear of my death," she added in a soft voice, with a slight wave of her hand towards the newspaper, which was lying on the table where Lavretsky had forgotten it.

Lavretsky shuddered. The _feuilleton_ had a pencil mark against it. Varvara Pavlovna gazed at him with an expression of even greater humility than before on her face. She looked very handsome at that moment. Her grey dress, made by a Parisian milliner, fitted closely to her pliant figure, which seemed almost like that of a girl of seventeen. Her soft and slender neck, circled by a white collar, her bosom's gentle movement under the influence of her steady breathing, her arms and hands, on which she wore neither bracelets nor rings, her whole figure, from her lustrous hair to the tip of the scarcely visible _bottine_, all was so artistic!

Lavretsky eyed her with a look of hate, feeling hardly able to abstain from crying _brava_, hardly able to abstain from striking her down--and went away.

An hour later he was already on the road to Vasilievskoe, and two hours later Varvara Pavlovna ordered the best carriage on hire in the town to be got for her, put on a simple straw hat with a black veil, and a modest mantilla, left Justine in charge of Ada, and went to the Kalitines'. From the inquiries Justine had made, Madame Lavretsky had learnt that her husband was in the habit of going there every day.

XXXVI.

The day on which Lavretsky's wife arrived in O.--sad day for him--was also a day of trial for Liza. Before she had had time to go down-stairs and say good morning to her mother, the sound of a horse's hoofs was heard underneath the window, and, with a secret feeling of alarm, she saw Panshine ride into the court-yard. "It is to get a definite answer that he has come so early," she thought; and she was not deceived. After taking a turn through the drawing-room, he proposed to go into the garden with her; and when there he asked her how his fate was to be decided.

Liza summoned up her courage, and told him that she could not be his wife. He listened to all she had to say, turning himself a little aside, with his hat pressed down over his eyes. Then, with perfect politeness, but in an altered tone, he asked her if that was her final decision, and whether he had not, in some way or other, been the cause of such a change in her ideas. Then he covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, breathed one quick sigh, and took his hand away from his face.

"I wanted to follow the beaten track," he said sadly; "I wanted to choose a companion for myself according to the dictates of my heart. But I see that it is not to be. So farewell to my fancy!"

He made Liza a low bow, and went back into the house.

She hoped he would go away directly; but he went to her mother's boudoir, and remained an hour with her. As he was leaving the house he said to Liza, "_Votre mère vous appelle: Adieu à jamais_!" then he got on his horse, and immediately set off at full gallop.