Chapter 15

Varvara Pavlovna sat down to the piano. Panshine stood by her side. They hummed over the duet, Varvara Pavlovna correcting him several times; then they sang it out loud, and afterwards repeated it twice--"_Mira la bianca lu-u-una_." Varvara's voice had lost its freshness, but she managed it with great skill. At first Panshine was nervous, and sang rather false, but afterwards he experienced an artistic glow; and, if he did not sing faultlessly, at all events he shrugged his shoulders, swayed his body to and fro, and from time to time lifted his hand aloft, like a genuine vocalist.

Varvara Pavlovna afterwards played two or three little pieces by Thalberg, and coquettishly chanted a French song. Maria Dmitrievna did not know how to express her delight, and several times she felt inclined to send for Liza. Gedeonovsky, too, could not find words worthy of the occasion, and could only shake his head. Suddenly, however, and quite unexpectedly, he yawned, and only just contrived to hide his mouth with his hand.

That yawn did not escape Varvara's notice. She suddenly turned her back upon the piano, saying, "_Assez de musique comme ça_; let us talk a little," and crossed her hands before her.

"_Oui, asses de musique_," gladly repeated Panshine, and began a conversation with her--a brisk and airy conversation, carried on in French. "Exactly as if it were in one of the best Paris drawing-rooms," thought Maria Dmitrievna, listening to their quick and supple talk.

Panshine felt completely happy. He smiled, and his eyes shone. At first, when he happened to meet Maria Dmitrievna's eyes, he would pass his hand across his face and frown and sigh abruptly, but after a time he entirely forgot her presence, and gave himself up unreservedly to the enjoyment of a half-fashionable, half-artistic chat.

Varvara Pavlovna proved herself a great philosopher. She had an answer ready for everything; she doubted nothing; she did not hesitate at anything. It was evident that she had talked often and much with all kinds of clever people. All her thoughts and feelings circled around Paris. When Panshine made literature the subject of the conversation, it turned out that she, like him, had read nothing but French books. George Sand irritated her; Balzac she esteemed, although he wearied her; to Eugène Sue and Scribe she ascribed a profound knowledge of the human heart; Dumas and Féval she adored. In reality she preferred Paul de Kock to all the others; but, as may be supposed, she did not even mention his name. To tell the truth, literature did not interest her overmuch.

Varvara Pavlovna avoided with great skill every thing that might, even remotely, allude to her position. In all that she said, there was not even the slightest mention made of love; on the contrary, her language seemed rather to express an austere feeling with regard to the allurements of the passions, and to breathe the accents of disillusionment and resignation.

Panshine replied to her, but she refused to agree with him. Strange to say, however, at the very time when she was uttering words which conveyed what was frequently a harsh judgment, the accents of those very words were tender and caressing, and her eyes expressed--What those charming eyes expressed it would be hard to say, but it was something which had no harshness about it, rather a mysterious sweetness. Panshine tried to make out their hidden meaning, tried to make his own eyes eloquent, but he was conscious that he failed. He acknowledged that Varvara Pavlovna, in her capacity as a real lioness from abroad, stood on a higher level than he; and, therefore, he was not altogether master of himself.

Varvara Pavlovna had a habit of every now and then just touching the sleeve of the person with whom she was conversing. These light touches greatly agitated Panshine. She had the faculty of easily becoming intimate with any one. Before a couple of hours had passed, it seemed to Panshine as if he had known her an age, and as if Liza--that very Liza whom he had loved so much, and to whom he had proposed the evening before--had vanished in a kind of fog.

Tea was brought; the conversation became even more free from restraint than before. Madame Kalitine rang for the page, and told him to ask Liza to come down if her headache was better. At the sound of Liza's name, Panshine began to talk about self-sacrifice, and to discuss the question as to which is the more capable of such sacrifice--man or woman. Maria Dmitrievna immediately became excited, began to affirm that the woman is the more capable, asserted that she could prove the fact in a few words, got confused over them, and ended with a sufficiently unfortunate comparison. Varvara Pavlovna took up a sheet of music, and half-screening her face with it, bent over towards Panshine, and said in a whisper, while she nibbled a biscuit, a quiet smile playing about her lips and her eyes, "_Elle n'a pas inventé la poudre, la bonne dame_."

Panshine was somewhat astonished, and a little alarmed by Varvara's audacity, but he did not detect the amount of contempt for himself that lay hid in that unexpected sally, and--forgetting all Maria Dmitrievna's kindness and her attachment towards him, forgetting the dinners she had given him, the money she had lent him--he replied (unhappy mortal that he was) in the same tone, and with a similar smile, "_Je crois bien_!" and what is more he did not even say "_Je crois bien_!" but "_J'crois ben_!"

Varvara Pavlovna gave him a friendly look, and rose from her seat. At that moment Liza entered the room. Marfa Timofeevna had tried to prevent her going but in vain. Liza was resolved to endure her trial to the end. Varvara Pavlovna advanced to meet her, attended by Panshine, whose face again wore its former diplomatic expression.

"How are you now?" asked Varvara.

"I am better now, thank you," replied Liza.

"We have been passing the time with a little music," said Panshine. "It is a pity you did not hear Varvara Pavlovna. She sings charmingly, _en artiste consommée_."

"Come here, _ma chère_," said Madame Kalitine's voice.

With childlike obedience, Varvara immediately went to her, and sat down on a stool at her feet. Maria Dmitrievna had called her away, in order that she might leave her daughter alone with Panshine, if only for a moment. She still hoped in secret that Liza would change her mind. Besides this, an idea had come into her mind, which she wanted by all means to express.

"Do you know," she whispered to Varvara Pavlovna, "I want to try and reconcile you and your husband. I cannot promise to succeed, but I will try. He esteems me very much, you know."

Varvara slowly looked up at Maria Dmitrievna, and gracefully clasped her hands together.

"You would be my saviour, _ma tante_," she said, with a sad voice. "I don't know how to thank you properly for all your kindness; but I am too guilty before Fedor Ivanovich. He cannot forgive me."

"But did you actually--in reality--?" began Maria Dmitrievna, with lively curiosity.

"Do not ask me," said Varvara, interrupting her, and then looked down. "I was young, light headed--However, I don't wish to make excuses for myself."

"Well, in spite of all that, why not make the attempt? Don't give way to despair," replied Maria Dmitrievna, and was going to tap her on the cheek, but looked at her, and was afraid. "She is modest and discreet," she thought, "but, for all that, a _lionne_ still!"

"Are you unwell?" asked Panshine, meanwhile.

"I am not quite well," replied Liza.

"I understand," he said, after rather a long silence, "Yes, I understand."

"What do you mean?"

"I understand," significantly repeated Panshine, who simply was at a loss for something to say.

Liza felt confused, but then she thought, "What does it matter?"

Meanwhile Panshine assumed an air of mystery and maintained silence, looking in a different direction with a grave expression on his face.

"Why I fancy it must be past eleven!" observed Maria Dmitrievna. Her guests understood the hint and began to take leave. Varvara was obliged to promise to come and dine to-morrow, and to bring Ada with her. Gedeonovsky, who had all but gone to sleep as he sat in a corner, offered to escort her home. Panshine bowed gravely to all the party; afterwards, as he stood on the steps after seeing Varvara into her carriage, he gave her hand a gentle pressure, and exclaimed, as she drove away, "_Au revoir_!" Gedeonovsky sat by her side in the carriage, and all the way home she amused herself by putting the tip of her little foot, as if by accident, on his foot. He felt abashed, and tried to make her complimentary speeches. She tittered, and made eyes at him when the light from the street lamps shone Into the carriage. The waltz she had played rang in her ears and excited her. Wherever she might be she had only to imagine a ballroom and a blaze of light, and swift circling round to the sound of music, and her heart would burn within her, her eyes would glow with a strange lustre, a smile would wander around her lips, a kind of bacchanalian grace would seem to diffuse itself over her whole body.

When they arrived at her house Varvara lightly bounded from the carriage, as only a _lionne_ could bound, turned towards Gedeonovsky, and suddenly burst out laughing in his face.

"A charming creature," thought the councillor of state, as he made his way home to his lodgings, where his servant was waiting for him with a bottle of opodeldoc. "It's as well that I'm a steady man--But why did she laugh?"

All that night long Marfa Timofeevna sat watching by Liza's bedside.

XXXIX.

Lavretsky spent a day and a half at Vasilievskoe, wandering about the neighborhood almost all the time. He could not remain long in any one place. His grief goaded him on. He experienced all the pangs of a ceaseless, impetuous, and impotent longing. He remembered the feeling which had come over him the day after his first arrival. He remembered the resolution he had formed then, and he felt angrily indignant with himself. What was it that had been able to wrest him aside from that which he had acknowledged as his duty, the single problem of his future life? The thirst after happiness--the old thirst after happiness. "It seems that Mikhalevich was right after all," he thought. "You wanted to find happiness in life once more," he said to himself. "You forgot that for happiness to visit a man even once is an undeserved favor, a steeping in luxury. Your happiness was incomplete--was false, you may say. Well, show what right you have to true and complete happiness! Look around you and see who is happy, who enjoys his life! There is a peasant going to the field to mow. It may be that he is satisfied with his lot. But what of that? Would you be willing to exchange lots with him? Remember your own mother. How exceedingly modest were her wishes, and yet what sort of a lot fell to her share! You seem to have only been boasting before Panshine, when you told him that you had come into Russia to till the soil. It was to run after the girls in your old age that you came. Tidings of freedom, reached you, and you flung aside every thing, forgot every thing, ran like a child after a butterfly."

In the midst of his reflections the image of Liza constantly haunted him. By a violent effort he tried to drive it away, and along with it another haunting face, other beautiful but ever malignant and hateful features.

Old Anton remarked that his master was not quite himself; and after sighing several times behind the door, and several times on the threshold, he ventured to go up to him, and advised him to drink something hot. Lavretsky spoke to him harshly, and ordered him out of the room: afterwards he told the old man he was sorry he had done so; but this only made Anton sadder than he had been before.

Lavretsky could not stop in the drawing-room. He fancied that his great grandfather, Andrei, was looking out from his frame with contempt on his feeble descendant. "So much for you! You float in shallow water!"[A] the wry lips seemed to be saying to him. "Is it possible," he thought, "that I cannot gain mastery over myself; that I am going to yield to this--this trifling affair!" (Men who are seriously wounded in a battle always think their wounds "a mere trifle;" when a man can deceive himself no longer, it is time to give up living). "Am I really a child? Well, yes I have seen near at hand, I have almost grasped, the possibility of gaining a life-long happiness--and then it has suddenly disappeared. It is just the same in a lottery. Turn the wheel a little more, and the pauper would perhaps be rich. If it is not to be, it is not to be--and all is over. I will betake me to my work with set teeth, and I will force myself to be silent; and I shall succeed, for it is not for the first time that I take myself in hand. And why have I run away? Why do I stop here, vainly hiding my head, like an ostrich? Misfortune a terrible thing to look in the face! Nonsense!"

[Footnote A: See note to page 142.]

"Anton!" he called loudly, "let the tarantass be got ready immediately."

"Yes," he said to himself again. "I must compel myself to be silent; I must keep myself tightly in hand."

With such reflections as these Lavretsky sought to assuage his sorrow; but it remained as great and as bitter as before. Even Apraxia, who had outlived, not only her intelligence, but almost all her faculties, shook her head, and followed him with sad eyes as he started in the tarantass for the town. The horses galloped. He sat erect and motionless, and looked straight along the road.

XL.

Liza had written to Lavretsky the night before telling him to come and see her on this evening; but he went to his own house first. He did not find either his wife or his daughter there; and the servant told him that they had both gone to the Kalitines'! This piece of news both annoyed and enraged him. "Varvara Pavlovna seems to be determined not to let me live in peace," he thought, an angry feeling stirring in his heart. He began walking up and down the room, pushing away every moment, with hand or foot, one of the toys or books or feminine belongings which fell in his way. Then he called Justine, and told her to take away all that "rubbish."

"_Oui, monsieur_," she replied, with a grimace, and began to set the room in order, bending herself into graceful attitudes, and by each of her gestures making Lavretsky feel that she considered him an uncivilized bear. It was with a sensation of downright hatred that he watched the mocking expression of her faded, but still _piquante_, Parisian face, and looked at her white sleeves, her silk apron, and her little cap. At last he sent her away, and, after long hesitation, as Varvara Pavlovna did not return, he determined to go to the Kalitines', and pay a visit, not to Madame Kalitine (for nothing would have induced him to enter her drawing-room--that drawing-room in which his wife was), but to Marfa Timofeevna. He remembered that a back staircase, used by the maid-servants, led straight to her room.

Lavretsky carried out his plan. By a fortunate chance he met Shurochka in the court-yard, and she brought him to Marfa Timofeevna. He found the old lady, contrary to her usual custom, alone. She was without her cap, and was sitting in a corner of the room in a slouching attitude, her arms folded across her breast. When she saw Lavretsky, she was much agitated, and jumping up hastily from her chair, she began going here and there about the room, as if she were looking for her cap.

"Ah! so you have come, then," she said, fussing about and avoiding his eyes. "Well, good day to you! Well, what's--what's to be done? Where were you yesterday? Well, she has come. Well--yes. Well, it must be--somehow or other."

Lavretsky sank upon a chair.

"Well, sit down, sit down," continued the old lady. "Did you come straight up-stairs? Yes, of course. Eh! You came to see after me? Many thanks."

The old lady paused. Lavretsky did not know what to say to her; but she understood him.

"Liza--yes; Liza was here just now," she continued tying and untying the strings of her work-bag. "She isn't quite well. Shurochka, where are you? Come here, my mother; cannot you sit still a moment? And I have a headache myself. It must be that singing which has given me it, and the music."

"What singing, aunt?"

"What? don't you know? They have already begun--what do you call them?--duets down there. And all in Italian--chi-chi and cha-cha--regular magpies. With their long drawn-out notes, one would think they were going to draw one's soul out. It's that Panshine, and your wife too. And how quickly it was all arranged! Quite without ceremony, just as if among near relations. However, one must say that even a dog will try to find itself a home somewhere. You needn't die outside if folks don't chase you away from their houses."

"I certainly must confess I did not expect this," answered Lavretsky. "This must have required considerable daring."

"No, my dear, it isn't daring with her, it is calculation. However, God be with her! They say you are going to send her to Lavriki. Is that true?"

"Yes; I am going to make over that property to her."

"Has she asked you for money?"

"Not yet."

"Well, that request won't be long in coming. But--I haven't looked at you till now--are you well?"

"Quite well."

"Shurochka!" suddenly exclaimed the old lady. "Go and tell Lizaveta Mikhailovna--that is--no--ask her--Is she down-stairs?"

"Yes."

"Well, yes. Ask her where she has put my book She will know all about it."

"Very good."

The old lady commenced bustling about again, and began to open the drawers in her commode. Lavretsky remained quietly sitting on his chair.

Suddenly light steps were heard on the staircase--and Liza entered.

Lavretsky stood up and bowed. Liza remained near the door.

"Liza, Lizochka," hurriedly began Marfa Timofeevna, "where have you--where have you put my book?"

"What book, aunt?"

"Why, good gracious! that book. However, I didn't send for you--but it's all the same. What are you all doing down-stairs? Here is Fedor Ivanovich come. How is your headache?"

"It's of no consequence."

"You always say, 'It's of no consequence.' What are you all doing down below?--having music again?"

"No--They are playing cards."

"Of course; she is ready for anything. Shurochka, I see you want to run out into the garden. Be off!"

"No, I don't Marfa Timofeevna--"

"No arguing, if you please. Be off. Nastasia Carpovna has gone into the garden by herself. Go and keep her company. You should show the old lady respect."

Shurochka left the room.

"But where is my cap? Wherever can it have got to?"

"Let me look for it," said Liza.

"Sit still, sit still! My own legs haven't dropped off yet. It certainly must be in my bed-room."

And Marfa Timofeevna went away, after casting a side-glance at Lavretsky. At first she left the door open, but suddenly she returned and shut it again from the outside.

Liza leant back in her chair and silently hid her face in her hands.

Lavretsky remained standing where he was.

"This is how we have had to see each other!" he said at last.

Liza let her hands fall from before her face.

"Yes," she replied sadly, "we have soon been punished."

"Punished!" echoed Lavretsky. "For what have you, at all events, been punished?"

Liza looked up at him. Her eyes did not express either sorrow or anxiety; but they seemed to have become smaller and dimmer than they used to be. Her face was pale; even her slightly-parted lips had lost their color.

Lavretsky's heart throbbed with pity and with love.

"You have written to me that all is over," he whispered. "Yes, all is over--before it had begun."

"All that must be forgotten," said Liza. "I am glad you have come. I was going to write to you; but it is better as it is. Only we must make the most of these few minutes. Each of us has a duty to fulfil. You, Fedor Ivanovich, must become reconciled with your wife."

"Liza!"

"I entreat you to let it be so. By this alone can expiation be made for--for all that has taken place. Think over it, and then you will not refuse my request."

"Liza! for God's sake! You ask what is impossible. I am ready to do every thing you tell me; but to be reconciled with her _now_!--I consent to every thing, I have forgotten every thing; but I cannot do violence to my heart. Have some pity; this is cruel!"

"But I do not ask you to do what is impossible. Do not live with her if you really cannot do so. But be reconciled with her," answered Liza, once more hiding her face in her hands. "Remember your daughter; and, besides, do it for my sake."

"Very good," said Lavretsky between his teeth. "Suppose I do this--in this I shall be fulfilling my duty; well, but you--in what does your duty consist?"

"That I know perfectly well."

Lavretsky suddenly shuddered.

"Surely you have not made up your mind to many Panshine?" he asked.

"Oh, no!" replied Liza, with an almost imperceptible smile.

"Ah! Liza, Liza!" exclaimed Lavretsky, "how happy we might have been!"

Liza again looked up at him.

"Now even you must see, Fedor Ivanovich, that happiness does not depend upon ourselves, but upon God."

"Yes, because you--"

The door of the next room suddenly opened, and Marfa Timofeevna came in, holding her cap in her hand.

"I had trouble enough to find it," she said, standing between Liza and Lavretsky; "I had stuffed it away myself. Dear me, see what old age comes to! But, after all, youth is no better. Well, are you going to Lavriki with your wife?" she added, turning to Fedor Ivanovich.

"To Lavriki with her? I?--I don't know," he added, after a short pause.

"Won't you pay a visit down stairs?"

"Not to-day."

"Well, very good; do as you please. But you, Liza, ought to go down-stairs, I think. Ah! my dears. I've forgotten to give any seed to my bullfinch too. Wait a minute; I will be back directly."

And Marfa Timofeevna ran out of the room without even having put on her cap.

Lavretsky quickly drew near to Liza.

"Liza," he began, with an imploring voice, "we are about to part for ever, and my heart is very heavy. Give me your hand at parting."

Liza raised her head. Her wearied, almost lustre less eyes looked at him steadily.

"No," she said, and drew back the hand she had half held out to him. "No, Lavretsky" (it was the first time that she called him by this name), "I will not give you my hand. Why should I? And now leave me, I beseech you. You know that I love you--Yes, I love you!" she added emphatically. "But no--no;" and she raised her handkerchief to her lips.

"At least, then, give me that handkerchief--"

The door creaked. The handkerchief glided down to Liza's knees. Lavretsky seized it before it had time to fall on the floor, and quickly hid it away in his pocket; then, as he turned round, he encountered the glance of Marfa Timofeevna's eyes.

"Lizochka, I think your mother is calling you," said the old lady.

Liza immediately got up from her chair, and left the room.

Marfa Timofeevna sat down again in her corner, Lavretsky was going to take leave of her.

"Fedia," she said, abruptly.

"What, Aunt?"

"Are you an honorable man?"

"What?"

"I ask you--Are you an honorable man?"

"I hope so."

"Hm! Well, then, give me your word that you are going to behave like an honorable man."

"Certainly. But why do you ask that?"