Litvinov did not sleep all night, and did not undress. He was very miserable. As an honest and straightforward man, he realised the force of obligations, the sacredness of duty, and would have been ashamed of any double dealing with himself, his weakness, his fault. At first he was overcome by apathy; it was long before he could throw off the gloomy burden of a single half-conscious, obscure sensation; then terror took possession of him at the thought that the future, his almost conquered future, had slipped back into the darkness, that his home, the solidly-built home he had only just raised, was suddenly tottering about him....
He began reproaching himself without mercy, but at once checked his own vehemence. ‘What feebleness!’ he thought. ‘It’s no time for self-reproach and cowardice; now I must act. Tanya is my betrothed, she has faith in my love, my honour, we are bound together for life, and cannot, must not, be put asunder.’ He vividlypictured to himself all Tanya’s qualities, mentally he picked them out and reckoned them up; he was trying to call up feeling and tenderness in himself. ‘One thing’s left for me,’ he thought again, ‘to run away, to run away directly, without waiting for her arrival, to hasten to meet her; whether I suffer, whether I am wretched with Tanya—that’s not likely—but in any case to think of that, to take that into consideration is useless; I must do my duty, if I die for it! But you have no right to deceive her,’ whispered another voice within him. ‘You have no right to hide from her the change in your feelings; it may be that when she knows you love another woman, she will not be willing to become your wife? Rubbish! rubbish!’ he answered, ‘that’s all sophistry, shameful double-dealing, deceitful conscientiousness; I have no right not to keep my word, that’s the thing. Well, so be it.... Then I must go away from here, without seeing the other....’
But at that point Litvinov’s heart throbbed with anguish, he turned cold, physically cold, a momentary shiver passed over him, his teeth chattered weakly. He stretched and yawned, as though he were in a fever. Without dwelling longer on his last thought, choking back that thought, turning away from it, he set himself to marvelling and wondering in perplexityhow he could again ... again love that corrupt worldly creature, all of whose surroundings were so hateful, so repulsive to him. He tried to put to himself the question: ‘What nonsense, do you really love her?’ and could only wring his hands in despair. He was still marvelling and wondering, and suddenly there rose up before his eyes, as though from a soft fragrant mist, a seductive shape, shining eyelashes were lifted, and softly and irresistibly the marvellous eyes pierced him to the heart and a voice was singing with sweetness in his ears, and resplendent shoulders, the shoulders of a young queen, were breathing with voluptuous freshness and warmth....
Towards morning a determination was at last fully formed in Litvinov’s mind. He decided to set off that day to meet Tatyana, and seeing Irina for the last time, to tell her, since there was nothing else for it, the whole truth, and to part from her for ever.
He set in order and packed his things, waited till twelve o’clock, and started to go to her. But at the sight of her half-curtained windows Litvinov’s heart fairly failed him ... he could not summon up courage to enter the hotel. He walked once or twice up and down Lichtenthaler Allee. ‘A very good day to Mr. Litvinov!’ he suddenly heard an ironical voice call from the top of a swiftly-moving ‘dogcart.’ Litvinov raised his eyes and saw General Ratmirov sitting beside Prince M., a well-known sportsman and fancier of English carriages and horses. The prince was driving, the general was leaning over on one side, grinning, while he lifted his hat high above his head. Litvinov bowed to him, and at the same instant, as though he were obeying a secret command, he set off at a run towards Irina’s.
She was at home. He sent up his name; he was at once received. When he went in, she was standing in the middle of the room. She was wearing a morning blouse with wide open sleeves; her face, pale as the day before, but not fresh as it had been then, expressed weariness; the languid smile with which she welcomed her visitor emphasised that expression even more clearly. She held out her hand to him in a friendly way, but absent-mindedly.
‘Thanks for coming,’ she began in a plaintive voice, and she sank into a low chair. ‘I am not very well this morning; I spent a bad night. Well, what have you to say about last night? Wasn’t I right?’
Litvinov sat down.
‘I have come to you, Irina Pavlovna,’ he began.
She instantly sat up and turned round; her eyes simply fastened upon Litvinov.
‘What is it,’ she cried. ‘You’re pale as death, you’re ill. What’s the matter with you?’
Litvinov was confused.
‘With me, Irina Pavlovna?’
‘Have you had bad news? Some misfortune has happened, tell me, tell me——’
Litvinov in his turn looked at Irina.
‘I have had no bad news,’ he brought out not without effort, ‘but a misfortune has certainly happened, a great misfortune ... and it has brought me to you.’
‘A misfortune? What is it?’
‘Why ... that——’
Litvinov tried to go on ... and could not. He only pinched his hands together so that his fingers cracked. Irina was bending forward and seemed turned to stone.
‘Oh! I love you!’ broke at last with a low groan from Litvinov’s breast, and he turned away, as though he would hide his face.
‘What, Grigory Mihalitch, you’ ... Irina too could not finish her sentence, and leaning back in her chair, she put both her hands to her eyes. ‘You ... love me.’
‘Yes ... yes ... yes,’ he repeated with bitterness, turning his head further and further away.
Everything was silent in the room; a butterfly that had flown in was fluttering its wings and struggling between the curtain and the window.
The first to speak was Litvinov.
‘That, Irina Pavlovna,’ he began, ‘that is the misfortune, which ... has befallen me, which I ought to have foreseen and avoided, if I had not now just as in the Moscow days been carried off my feet at once. It seems fate is pleased to force me once again through you to suffer tortures, which one would have thought should not be repeated again.... It was not without cause I struggled.... I tried to struggle; but of course there’s no escaping one’s fate. And I tell you all this to put an end at once to this ... this tragic farce,’ he added with a fresh outburst of shame and bitterness.
Litvinov was silent again; the butterfly was struggling and fluttering as before. Irina did not take her hands from her face.
‘And you are not mistaken?’ her whisper sounded from under those white, bloodless-looking hands.
‘I am not mistaken,’ answered Litvinov in a colourless voice. ‘I love you, as I have never loved any one but you. I am not going to reproach you; that would be too foolish; I’m not going to tell you that perhaps nothing of all this would have happened if you yourself had behaved differently with me.... Of course, I alone am to blame, my self-confidence has been my ruin; I am deservedly punished, and you could not have anticipated it. Of course you did not consider that it would have been far less dangerous for me if you had not been so keenly alive to your wrong ... your supposed wrong to me; and had not wished to make up for it ... but what’s done can’t be undone. I only wanted to make clear my position to you; it’s hard enough as it is.... But at least there will be, as you say, no misunderstanding, while the openness of my confession will soften, I hope, the feeling of offence which you cannot but feel.’
Litvinov spoke without raising his eyes, but even if he had glanced at Irina, he could not have seen what was passing in her face, as she still as before kept her hands over her eyes. But what was passing over her face meanwhile would probably have astounded him; both alarm and delight were apparent on it, and a kind of blissful helplessness and agitation; her eyes hardly glimmered under their overhanging lids, and her slow, broken breathing was chill upon her lips, that were parted as though with thirst....
Litvinov was silent, waiting for a response, some sound.... Nothing!
‘There is one thing left for me,’ he began again, ‘to go away; I have come to say good-bye to you.’
Irina slowly dropped her hands on to her knees.
‘But I remember, Grigory Mihalitch,’ she began; ‘that ... that person of whom you spoke to me, she was to have come here? You are expecting her?’
‘Yes; but I shall write to her ... she will stop somewhere on the way ... at Heidelberg, for instance.’
‘Ah! Heidelberg.... Yes.... It’s nice there.... But all this must upset your plans. Are you perfectly certain, Grigory Mihalitch, that you are not exaggerating,et que ce n’est pas une fausse alarme?’
Irina spoke softly, almost coldly, with short pauses, looking away towards the window. Litvinov made no answer to her last question.
‘Only, why did you talk of offence?’ she went on. ‘I am not offended ... oh, no! and if one or other of us is to blame, in any case it’s not you; not you alone.... Remember our last conversations, and you will be convinced that it’s not you who are to blame.’
‘I have never doubted your magnanimity,’ Litvinov muttered between his teeth, ‘but I should like to know, do you approve of my intention?’
‘To go away?’
‘Yes.’
Irina continued to look away.
‘At the first moment, your intention struck me as premature ... but now I have thought over what you have said ... and if you are really not mistaken, then I suppose that you ought to go away. It will be better so ... better for us both.’
Irina’s voice had grown lower and lower, and her words too came more and more slowly.
‘General Ratmirov, certainly, might notice,’ Litvinov was beginning....
Irina’s eyes dropped again, and something strange quivered about her lips, quivered and died away.
‘No; you did not understand me,’ she interrupted him. ‘I was not thinking of my husband. Why should I? And there is nothing to notice. But I repeat, separation is necessary for us both.’
Litvinov picked up his hat, which had fallen on the ground.
‘Everything is over,’ he thought, ‘I must go. And so it only remains for me to say good-bye to you, Irina Pavlovna,’ he said aloud, andsuddenly felt a pang, as though he were preparing to pronounce his own sentence on himself. ‘It only remains for me to hope that you will not remember evil against me, and ... and that if we ever——’
Irina again cut him short.
‘Wait a little, Grigory Mihalitch, don’t say good-bye to me yet. That would be too hurried.’
Something wavered in Litvinov, but the burning pain broke out again and with redoubled violence in his heart.
‘But I can’t stay,’ he cried. ‘What for? Why prolong this torture?’
‘Don’t say good-bye to me yet,’ repeated Irina. ‘I must see you once more.... Another such dumb parting as in Moscow again—no, I don’t want that. You can go now, but you must promise me, give me your word of honour that you won’t go away without seeing me once more.’
‘You wish that?’
‘I insist on it. If you go away without saying good-bye to me, I shall never forgive it, do you hear, never! Strange!’ she added as though to herself, ‘I cannot persuade myself that I am in Baden.... I keep feeling that I am in Moscow.... Go now.’
Litvinov got up.
‘Irina Pavlovna,’ he said, ‘give me your hand.’
Irina shook her head.
‘I told you that I don’t want to say good-bye to you....’
‘I don’t ask it for that.’
Irina was about to stretch out her hand, but she glanced at Litvinov for the first time since his avowal, and drew it back.
‘No, no,’ she whispered, ‘I will not give you my hand. No ... no. Go now.’
Litvinov bowed and went away. He could not tell why Irina had refused him that last friendly handshake.... He could not know what she feared.
He went away, and Irina again sank into the armchair and again covered her face.
Litvinov did not return home; he went up to the hills, and getting into a thick copse, he flung himself face downwards on the earth, and lay there about an hour. He did not suffer tortures, did not weep; he sank into a kind of heavy, oppressive stupor. Never had he felt anything like it; it was an insufferably aching and gnawing sensation of emptiness, emptiness in himself, his surroundings, everywhere.... He thought neither of Irina nor of Tatyana. He felt one thing only: a blow had fallen and life was sundered like a cord, and all of him was being drawn along in the clutches of something chill and unfamiliar. Sometimes it seemed to him that a whirlwind had swooped down upon him, and he had the sensation of its swift whirling round and the irregular beating of its dark wings. But his resolution did not waver. To remain in Baden ... that could not even be considered. In thought he had already gone, he was already sitting in the rattling, snortingtrain, hurrying, hurrying into the dumb, dead distance. He got up at last, and leaning his head against a tree, stayed motionless; only with one hand, he all unconsciously snatched and swung in rhythm the topmost frond of a fern. The sound of approaching footsteps drew him out of his stupor: two charcoal-burners were making their way down the steep path with large sacks on their shoulders. ‘It’s time!’ whispered Litvinov, and he followed the charcoal-burners to the town, turned into the railway station, and sent off a telegram to Tatyana’s aunt, Kapitolina Markovna. In this telegram he informed her of his immediate departure, and appointed as a meeting-place, Schrader’s hotel in Heidelberg.
‘Make an end, make an end at once,’ he thought; ‘it’s useless putting it off till to-morrow.’ Then he went to the gambling saloon, stared with dull curiosity at the faces of two or three gamblers, got a back view of Bindasov’s ugly head in the distance, noticed the irreproachable countenance of Pishtchalkin, and after waiting a little under the colonnade, he set off deliberately to Irina’s. He was not going to her through the force of sudden, involuntary temptation; when he made up his mind to go away, he also made up his mind to keep his word and see her once more.He went into the hotel unobserved by the porter, ascended the staircase, not meeting any one, and without knocking at the door, he mechanically pushed it open and went into the room.
In the room, in the same armchair, in the same dress, in precisely the same attitude as three hours before, was sitting Irina.... It was obvious that she had not moved from the place, had not stirred all that time. She slowly raised her head, and seeing Litvinov, she trembled all over and clutched the arm of the chair. ‘You frightened me,’ she whispered.
Litvinov looked at her with speechless bewilderment. The expression of her face, her lustreless eyes, astounded him.
Irina gave a forced smile and smoothed her ruffled hair. ‘Never mind.... I really don’t know.... I think I must have fallen asleep here.’
‘I beg your pardon, Irina Pavlovna,’ began Litvinov. ‘I came in unannounced.... I wanted to do what you thought fit to require of me. So as I am going away to-day——’
‘To-day? But I thought you told me that you meant first to write a letter——’
‘I have sent a telegram.’
‘Ah! you found it necessary to make haste. And when are you going? What time, I mean?’
‘At seven o’clock this evening.’
‘Ah! at seven o’clock! And you have come to say good-bye?’
‘Yes, Irina Pavlovna, to say good-bye.’
Irina was silent for a little.
‘I ought to thank you, Grigory Mihalitch, it was probably not easy for you to come here.’
‘No, Irina Pavlovna, it was anything but easy.’
‘Life is not generally easy, Grigory Mihalitch; what do you think about it?’
‘It depends, Irina Pavlovna.’
Irina was silent again for a little; she seemed sunk in thought.
‘You have proved your affection for me by coming,’ she said at last, ‘I thank you. And I fully approve of your decision to put an end to everything as soon as possible ... because any delay ... because ... because I, even I whom you have reproached as a flirt, called an actress ... that, I think, was what you called me?...’
Irina got up swiftly, and, sitting down in another chair, stooped down and pressed her face and arms on the edge of the table.
‘Because I love you ...’ she whispered between her clasped fingers.
Litvinov staggered, as though some one had dealt him a blow in the chest. Irina turned her head dejectedly away from him, as though shein her turn wanted to hide her face from him, and laid it down on the table.
‘Yes, I love you ... I love you ... and you know it.’
‘I? I know it?’ Litvinov said at last; ‘I?’
‘Well, now you see,’ Irina went on, ‘that you certainly must go, that delay’s impossible ... both for you, and for me delay’s impossible. It’s dangerous, it’s terrible ... good-bye!’ she added, rising impulsively from her chair, ‘good-bye!’
She took a few steps in the direction of the door of her boudoir, and putting her hand behind her back, made a hurried movement in the air, as though she would find and press the hand of Litvinov; but he stood like a block of wood, at a distance.... Once more she said, ‘Good-bye, forget me,’ and without looking round she rushed away.
Litvinov remained alone, and yet still could not come to himself. He recovered himself at last, went quickly to the boudoir door, uttered Irina’s name once, twice, three times.... He had already his hand on the lock.... From the hotel stairs rose the sound of Ratmirov’s sonorous voice.
Litvinov pulled down his hat over his eyes, and went out on to the staircase. The elegant general was standing before the Swiss porter’s box and explaining to him in bad German that he wanted a hired carriage for the whole of the next day. On catching sight of Litvinov, he again lifted his hat unnaturally high, and again wished him ‘a very good-day’; he was obviously jeering at him, but Litvinov had no thoughts for that. He hardly responded to Ratmirov’s bow, and, making his way to his lodging, he stood still before his already packed and closed trunk. His head was turning round and his heart vibrating like a harp-string. What was to be done now? And could he have foreseen this?
Yes, he had foreseen it, however unlikely it seemed. It had stunned him like a clap of thunder, yet he had foreseen it, though he had not courage even to acknowledge it. Besides he knew nothing now for certain. Everything was confusion and turmoil within him; he had lost the thread of his own thoughts. He remembered Moscow, he remembered how then too ‘it’ had come upon him like a sudden tempest. He was breathless; rapture, but a rapture comfortless and hopeless, oppressed and tore his heart. For nothing in the world would he have consented that the words uttered by Irina should not have actually been uttered by her.... But then? those words could not for all that change the resolution he had taken. As before, it did not waver; it stood firm likean anchor. Litvinov had lost the thread of his own thoughts ... yes; but his will still remained to him, and he disposed of himself as of another man dependent on him. He rang for the waiter, asked him for the bill, bespoke a place in the evening omnibus; designedly he cut himself off all paths of retreat. ‘If I die for it after!’ he declared, as he had in the previous sleepless night; that phrase seemed especially to his taste. ‘Then even if I die for it!’ he repeated, walking slowly up and down the room, and only at rare intervals, unconsciously, he shut his eyes and held his breath, while those words, those words of Irina’s forced their way into his soul, and set it aflame. ‘It seems you won’t love twice,’ he thought; ‘another life came to you, you let it come into yours—never to be rid of that poison to the end, you will never break those bonds! Yes; but what does that prove? Happiness?... Is it possible? You love her, granted ... and she ... she loves you....’
But at this point again he had to pull himself up. As a traveller on a dark night, seeing before him a light, and afraid of losing the path, never for an instant takes his eyes off it, so Litvinov continually bent all the force of his attention on a single point, a single aim. To reach his betrothed, and not precisely even his betrothed (hewas trying not to think of her) but to reach a room in the Heidelberg hotel, that was what stood immovably before him, a guiding light. What would be later, he did not know, nor did he want to know.... One thing was beyond doubt, he would not come back. ‘If I die first!’ he repeated for the tenth time, and he glanced at his watch.
A quarter-past six! How long still to wait! He paced once more up and down. The sun was nearly setting, the sky was crimson above the trees, and the pink flush of twilight lay on the narrow windows of his darkening room. Suddenly Litvinov fancied the door had been opened quickly and softly behind him and as quickly closed again.... He turned round; at the door, muffled in a dark cloak, was standing a woman....
‘Irina,’ he cried, and clapped his hands together in amazement.... She raised her head and fell upon his breast.
Two hours later he was sitting in his room on the sofa. His box stood in the corner, open and empty, and on the table in the midst of things flung about in disorder, lay a letter from Tatyana, just received by him. She wrote to him that she had decided to hasten her departure from Dresden, since her aunt’s health was completely restored, and that if nothing happenedto delay them, they would both be in Baden the following day at twelve o’clock, and hoped that he would come to meet them at the station. Apartments had already been taken for them by Litvinov in the same hotel in which he was staying.
The same evening he sent a note to Irina, and the following morning he received a reply from her. ‘Sooner or later,’ she wrote, ‘it must have been. I tell you again what I said yesterday: my life is in your hands, do with me what you will. I do not want to hamper your freedom, but let me say, that if necessary, I will throw up everything, and follow you to the ends of the earth. We shall see each other to-morrow, of course.—Your Irina.’
The last two words were written in a large, bold, resolute hand.
Among the persons assembled on the 18th of August at twelve o’clock on the platform at the railway station was Litvinov. Not long before, he had seen Irina: she was sitting in an open carriage with her husband and another gentleman, somewhat elderly. She caught sight of Litvinov, and he perceived that some obscure emotion flitted over her eyes; but at once she hid herself from him with her parasol.
A strange transformation had taken place in him since the previous day—in his whole appearance, his movements, the expression of his face; and indeed he felt himself a different man. His self-confidence had vanished, and his peace of mind had vanished too, and his respect for himself; of his former spiritual condition nothing was left. Recent ineffaceable impressions obscured all the rest from him. Some sensation unknown before had come, strong, sweet—and evil; the mysterious guest had made its way to the innermost shrine andtaken possession and lain down in it, in silence, but in all its magnitude, like the owner in a new house. Litvinov was no longer ashamed, he was afraid; at the same time a desperate hardihood had sprung up in him; the captured, the vanquished know well this mixture of opposing feelings; the thief too knows something of it after his first robbery. Litvinov had been vanquished, vanquished suddenly ... and what had become of his honesty?
The train was a few minutes late. Litvinov’s suspense passed into agonising torture; he could not stop still in one place, and, pale all over, moved about jostling in the crowd. ‘My God,’ he thought, ‘if I only had another twenty-four hours.’... The first look at Tanya, the first look of Tanya ... that was what filled him with terror ... that was what he had to live through directly.... And afterwards? Afterwards ... come, what may come!... He now made no more resolutions, he could not answer for himself now. His phrase of yesterday flashed painfully through his head.... And this was how he was meeting Tanya....
A prolonged whistle sounded at last, a heavy momentarily increasing rumble was heard, and, slowly rolling round a bend in the line, the train came into sight. The crowd hurried to meet it, and Litvinov followed it, dragging hisfeet like a condemned man. Faces, ladies’ hats began to appear out of the carriages, at one window a white handkerchief gleamed.... Kapitolina Markovna was waving to him.... It was over; she had caught sight of Litvinov and he recognised her. The train stood still; Litvinov rushed to the carriage door, and opened it; Tatyana was standing near her aunt, smiling brightly and holding out her hand.
He helped them both to get out, uttered a few words of welcome, unfinished and confused, and at once bustled about, began taking their tickets, their travelling bags, and rugs, ran to find a porter, called a fly; other people were bustling around them. He was glad of their presence, their fuss, and loud talk. Tatyana moved a little aside, and, still smiling, waited calmly for his hurried arrangements to be concluded. Kapitolina Markovna, on the other hand, could not keep still; she could not believe that she was at last at Baden.
She suddenly cried, ‘But the parasols? Tanya, where are our parasols?’ all unconscious that she was holding them fast under her arm; then she began taking a loud and prolonged farewell of another lady with whom she had made friends on the journey from Heidelberg to Baden. This lady was no other than our old friend Madame Suhantchikov. She hadgone away to Heidelberg to do obeisance to Gubaryov, and was returning with ‘instructions.’ Kapitolina Markovna wore a rather peculiar striped mantle and a round travelling hat of a mushroom-shape, from under which her short white hair fell in disorder; short and thin, she was flushed with travelling and kept talking Russian in a shrill and penetrating voice.... She was an object of attention at once.
Litvinov at last put her and Tatyana into a fly, and placed himself opposite them. The horses started. Then followed questionings, renewed handshaking, interchanging of smiles and welcomes.... Litvinov breathed freely; the first moment had passed off satisfactorily. Nothing in him, apparently, had struck or bewildered Tanya; she was smiling just as brightly and confidently, she was blushing as charmingly, and laughing as goodnaturedly. He brought himself at last to take a look at her; not a stealthy cursory glance, but a direct steady look at her, hitherto his own eyes had refused to obey him. His heart throbbed with involuntary emotion: the serene expression of that honest, candid face gave him a pang of bitter reproach. ‘So you are here, poor girl,’ he thought, ‘you whom I have so longed for, so urged to come, with whom I had hoped to spend my life to the end, you have come, you believed in me ...while I ... while I.’... Litvinov’s head sank; but Kapitolina Markovna gave him no time for musing; she was pelting him with questions.
‘What is that building with columns? Where is it the gambling’s done? Who is that coming along? Tanya, Tanya, look, what crinolines! And who can that be? I suppose they are mostly French creatures from Paris here? Mercy, what a hat! Can you get everything here just as in Paris? But, I expect, everything’s awfully dear, eh? Ah, I’ve made the acquaintance of such a splendid, intellectual woman! You know her, Grigory Mihalitch; she told me she had met you at some Russian’s, who’s a wonderfully intellectual person too. She promised to come and see us. How she does abuse all these aristocrats—it’s simply superb! What is that gentleman with grey moustaches? The Prussian king? Tanya, Tanya, look, that’s the Prussian king. No? not the Prussian king, the Dutch ambassador, did you say? I can’t hear, the wheels rattle so. Ah, what exquisite trees!’
‘Yes, exquisite, aunt,’ Tanya assented, ‘and how green everything is here, how bright and gay! Isn’t it, Grigory Mihalitch?’
‘Oh, very bright and gay’ ... he answered through his teeth.
The carriage stopped at last before the hotel.Litvinov conducted the two travellers to the room taken for them, promised to come back within an hour, and went to his own room. Directly he entered it, he fell again under the spell which had been lulled for a while. Here, in that room, since the day before, Irina reigned supreme; everything was eloquent of her, the very air seemed to have kept secret traces of her visit.... Again Litvinov felt himself her slave. He drew out her handkerchief, hidden in his bosom, pressed it to his lips, and burning memories flowed in subtle poison through his veins. He realised that there was no turning back, no choosing now; the sorrowful emotion aroused in him by Tatyana melted away like snow in the fire, and remorse died down ... died down so completely that his uneasiness even was soothed, and the possibility—present to his intellect—of hypocrisy no longer revolted him.... Love, Irina’s love, that was now his truth, his bond, his conscience.... The sensible Litvinov did not even ponder how to get out of a position, the horror and hideousness of which he bore lightly, as if it did not concern him.
The hour had not yet passed when a waiter came to Litvinov from the newly arrived ladies; they begged him to come to them in the public drawing-room. He followed the messenger,and found them already dressed and in their hats. They both expressed a desire to go out at once to see Baden, as the weather was so fine. Kapitolina Markovna especially seemed burning with impatience; she was quite cast down when she heard that the hour of the fashionable promenade before the Konversation Hall had not yet arrived. Litvinov gave her his arm, and the ceremony of sight-seeing began. Tatyana walked beside her aunt, looking about her with quiet interest; Kapitolina Markovna pursued her inquiries. The sight of the roulette, the dignified croupiers, whom—had she met them in any other place—she would certainly have taken for ministers, the quickly moving scoops, the heaps of gold and silver on the green cloth, the old women gambling, and the paintedcocottesreduced Kapitolina Markovna to a sort of speechless stupor; she altogether forgot that she ought to feel moral indignation, and could only gaze and gaze, giving a start of surprise at every new sight.... The whiz of the ivory ball into the bottom of the roulette thrilled her to the marrow of her bones, and it was only when she was again in the open air that, drawing a long breath, she recovered energy enough to denounce games of chance as an immoral invention of aristocracy. A fixed, unpleasant smile had made its appearance on Litvinov’s lips; he had spoken abruptly and lazily, as though he were annoyed or bored.... But now he turned round towards Tatyana, and was thrown into secret confusion; she was looking attentively at him, with an expression as though she were asking herself what sort of an impression was being made on her. He made haste to nod his head to her, she responded with the same gesture, and again looked at him questioningly, with a sort of strained effort, as though he were standing much further off than he really was. Litvinov led his ladies away from the Konversation Hall, and passing the ‘Russian tree,’ under which two Russian ladies were already sitting, he went towards Lichtenthaler Allee. He had hardly entered the avenue when he saw Irina in the distance.
She was walking towards him with her husband and Potugin. Litvinov turned white as a sheet; he did not slacken his pace, however, and when he was on a level with her, he made a bow without speaking. She too bowed to him, politely, but coldly, and taking in Tatyana in a rapid glance, she glided by.... Ratmirov lifted his hat high, Potugin muttered something.
‘Who is that lady?’ Tatyana asked suddenly. Till that instant she had hardly opened her lips.
‘That lady?’ repeated Litvinov, ‘that lady? That is a Madame Ratmirov.’
‘Is she Russian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you make her acquaintance here?’
‘No; I have known her a long while.’
‘How beautiful she is!’
‘Did you notice her dress?’ put in Kapitolina Markovna. ‘Ten families might live for a whole year on the cost of her lace alone. Was that her husband with her?’ she inquired turning to Litvinov.
‘Yes.’
‘He must be awfully rich, I suppose?’
‘Really I don’t know; I don’t think so.’
‘What is his rank?’
‘He’s a general.’
‘What eyes she has!’ said Tatyana, ‘and what a strange expression in them: pensive and penetrating at the same time.... I have never seen such eyes.’
Litvinov made no answer; he fancied that he felt again Tatyana’s questioning glance bent on his face, but he was wrong, she was looking at her own feet, at the sand of the path.
‘Mercy on us! Who is that fright?’ cried Kapitolina Markovna suddenly, pointing to a low jaunting-car in which a red-haired pug-nosed woman lay lolling impudently, in an extraordinarily gorgeous costume and lilac stockings.
‘That fright! why, that’s the celebrated Ma’mselle Cora.’
‘Who?’
‘Ma’mselle Cora ... a Parisian ... notoriety.’
‘What? That pug? Why, but she’s hideous!’
‘It seems that’s no hindrance.’
Kapitolina Markovna could only lift her hands in astonishment.
‘Well, this Baden of yours!’ she brought out at last. ‘Can one sit down on a seat here? I’m rather tired.’
‘Of course you can, Kapitolina Markovna.... That’s what the seats are put here for.’
‘Well, really, there’s no knowing! But there in Paris, I’m told, there are seats, too, along the boulevards; but it’s not proper to sit on them.’
Litvinov made no reply to Kapitolina Markovna; only at that moment he realised that two paces away was the very spot where he had had that explanation with Irina, which had decided everything. Then he recalled that he had noticed a small rosy spot on her cheek to-day....
Kapitolina Markovna sank down on to the seat, Tatyana sat down beside her. Litvinov remained on the path; between Tatyana and him—or was it only his fancy?—somethingseemed to have happened ... unconsciously and gradually.
‘Ah, she’s a wretch, a perfect wretch!’ Kapitolina Markovna declared, shaking her head commiseratingly; ‘why, with the price ofherget-up, you could keep not ten, but a hundred families. Did you see under her hat, onherred hair, there were diamonds? Upon my word, diamonds in the day-time!’
‘Her hair’s not red,’ remarked Litvinov; ‘she dyes it red—that’s the fashion now.’
Again Kapitolina Markovna could only lift her hands; she was positively dumbfounded.
‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘where we were, in Dresden, things had not got to such a scandalous pitch yet. It’s a little further from Paris, anyway, that’s why. Don’t you think that’s it, Grigory Mihalitch, eh?’
‘Don’t I think so?’ answered Litvinov. While he thought to himself, ‘What on earth is she talking of?’ ‘I? Of course ... of course....’
But at this point the sound of slow footsteps was heard, and Potugin approached the seat.
‘Good-morning, Grigory Mihalitch,’ he began, smiling and nodding.
Litvinov grasped him by the hand at once.
‘Good-morning, good-morning, Sozont Ivanitch. I fancy I passed you just now with ... just now in the avenue?’
‘Yes, it was me.’
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 levée 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 levée.’
‘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?’ headded, 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 musicà 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 substitute—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 Markovnabecame quite excited; Potugin hardly had time to answer her questions, to satisfy her curiosity. Luckily for him, there suddenly appeared in the mass 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 thehotel, he was handed a note; he moved aside and hurriedly tore open the envelope. On a tiny scrap 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 moustachesà laNapoleonIII., thought it admissible to join in the conversation, and even wound up by a toastà la santé 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 awarethat 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.
Litvinov went quickly up the staircase of theHôtel 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 adinner 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 passion. 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 amdisturbing 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?’
‘No, not long.’
‘Why do I ask though; I’ve just seen you come out of theHôtel de l’Europe.’
‘Then you’ve been following me?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have something to say to me?’
‘Yes,’ Potugin repeated, hardly audibly.
Litvinov stopped and looked at his uninvited companion. His face was pale, his eyes moved restlessly; his contorted features seemed overshadowed by old, long-standing grief.
‘What do you specially want to say to me?’ Litvinov said slowly, and he moved forward.
‘Ah, with your permission ... directly. If it’s all the same to you, let us sit down here on this seat. It will be most convenient.’
‘Why, this is something mysterious,’ Litvinov declared, seating himself near him. ‘You don’t seem quite yourself, Sozont Ivanitch.’
‘No; I’m all right; and it’s nothing mysterious either. I specially wanted to tellyou ... the impression made on me by your betrothed ... she is betrothed to you, I think?... well, anyway, by the girl to whom you introduced me to-day. I must say that in the course of my whole existence I have never met a more attractive creature. A heart of gold, a really angelic nature.’
Potugin uttered all these words with the same bitter and mournful air, so that even Litvinov could not help noticing the incongruity between his expression of face and his speech.
‘You have formed a perfectly correct estimate of Tatyana Petrovna,’ Litvinov began, ‘though I can’t help being surprised, first that you should be aware of the relation in which I stand to her; and secondly, that you should have understood her so quickly. She really has an angelic nature; but allow me to ask, did you want to talk to me about this?’
‘It’s impossible not to understand her at once,’ Potugin replied quickly, as though evading the last question. ‘One need only take one look into her eyes. She deserves every possible happiness on earth, and enviable is the fate of the man whose lot it is to give her that happiness! One must hope he may prove worthy of such a fate.’
Litvinov frowned slightly.
‘Excuse me, Sozont Ivanitch,’ he said, ‘Imust confess our conversation strikes me as altogether rather original.... I should like to know, does the hint contained in your words refer to me?’
Potugin did not at once answer Litvinov; he was visibly struggling with himself.
‘Grigory Mihalitch,’ he began at last, ‘either I am completely mistaken in you, or you are capable of hearing the truth, from whomsoever it may come, and in however unattractive a form it may present itself. I told you just now, that I saw where you came from.’
‘Why, from theHôtel de l’Europe. What of that?’
‘I know, of course, whom you have been to see there.’
‘What?’
‘You have been to see Madame Ratmirov.’
‘Well, I have been to see her. What next?’
‘What next?... You, betrothed to Tatyana Petrovna, have been to see Madame Ratmirov, whom you love ... and who loves you.’
Litvinov instantly got up from the seat; the blood rushed to his head.
‘What’s this?’ he cried at last, in a voice of concentrated exasperation: ‘stupid jesting, spying? Kindly explain yourself.’
Potugin turned a weary look upon him.
‘Ah! don’t be offended at my words. GrigoryMihalitch, me you cannot offend. I did not begin to talk to you for that, and I’m in no joking humour now.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps. I’m ready to believe in the excellence of your intentions; but still I may be allowed to ask you by what right you meddle in the private affairs, in the inner life, of another man, a man who is nothing to you; and what grounds you have for so confidently giving out your own ... invention for the truth?’
‘My invention! If I had imagined it, it should not have made you angry; and as for my right, well I never heard before that a man ought to ask himself whether he had the right to hold out a hand to a drowning man.’
‘I am humbly grateful for your tender solicitude,’ cried Litvinov passionately, ‘but I am not in the least in need of it, and all the phrases about the ruin of inexperienced young men wrought by society women, about the immorality of fashionable society, and so on, I look upon merely as stock phrases, and indeed in a sense I positively despise them; and so I beg you to spare your rescuing arm, and to let me drown in peace.’
Potugin again raised his eyes to Litvinov. He was breathing hard, his lips were twitching.
‘But look at me, young man,’ broke from himat last, and he clapped himself on the breast: ‘can you suppose I have anything in common with the ordinary, self-satisfied moralist, a preacher? Don’t you understand that simply from interest in you, however strong it might be, I would never have let fall a word, I would never have given you grounds for reproaching me with what I hate above all things—indiscretion, intrusiveness? Don’t you see that this is something of a different kind altogether, that before you is a man crushed, utterly obliterated by the very passion, from the results of which he would save you, and ... and for the same woman!’
Litvinov stepped back a pace.
‘Is it possible? What did you say?... You ... you ... Sozont Ivanitch? But Madame Byelsky ... that child?’
‘Ah, don’t cross-examine me.... Believe me! That is a dark terrible story, and I’m not going to tell you it. Madame Byelsky I hardly knew, that child is not mine, but I took it all upon myself ... because ...shewished it, because it was necessary forher. Why am I here in your hateful Baden? And, in fact, could you suppose, could you for one instant imagine, that I’d have brought myself to caution you out of sympathy for you? I’m sorry for that sweet, good girl, yourfiancée, but what haveI to do with your future, with you both?... But I am afraid for her ... for her.’
‘You do me great honour, Mr. Potugin,’ began Litvinov, ‘but since, according to you, we are both in the same position, why is it you don’t apply such exhortations to yourself, and ought I not to ascribe your apprehensions to another feeling?’
‘That is to jealousy, you mean? Ah, young man, young man, it’s shameful of you to shuffle and make pretences, it’s shameful of you not to realise what a bitter sorrow is speaking to you now by my lips! No, I am not in the same position as you! I, I am old, ridiculous, an utterly harmless old fool—but you! But there’s no need to talk about it! You would not for one second agree to accept the position I fill, and fill with gratitude! Jealousy? A man is not jealous who has never had even a drop of hope, and this is not the first time it has been my lot to endure this feeling. I am only afraid ... afraid for her, understand that. And could I have guessed when she sent me to you that the feeling of having wronged you—she owned to feeling that—would carry her so far?’
‘But excuse me, Sozont Ivanitch, you seem to know....’
‘I know nothing, and I know everything! I know,’ he added, turning away, ‘I know whereshe was yesterday. But there’s no holding her back now; like a stone set rolling, she must roll on to the bottom. I should be a great idiot indeed, if I imagined my words could hold you back at once ... you, when a woman like that.... But that’s enough of this. I couldn’t restrain myself, that’s my whole excuse. And after all how can one know, and why not try? Perhaps, you will think again; perhaps, some word of mine will go to your heart, you will not care to ruin her and yourself, and that innocent sweet creature.... Ah! don’t be angry, don’t stamp about! What have I to fear? Why should I mince matters? It’s not jealousy speaking in me, not anger.... I’m ready to fall at your feet, to beseech you.... Good-bye, though. You needn’t be afraid, all this will be kept secret. I wished for your good.’
Potugin strode off along the avenue and quickly vanished in the now falling darkness. Litvinov did not detain him.
‘A terrible dark story....’ Potugin had said to Litvinov, and would not tell it.... Let us pass it over with a few words only.
Eight years before, it had happened to him to be sent by his department to Count Reisenbach as a temporary clerk. It was in the summer. Potugin used to drive to his country villa withpapers, and be whole days there at a time. Irina was then living at the count’s. She was never haughty with people in a humbler station, at least she never treated them superciliously, and the countess more than once reproved her for her excessive Moscow familiarity. Irina soon detected a man of intelligence in the humble clerk, attired in the stiffly buttoned frockcoat that was his uniform. She used often and eagerly to talk to him ... while he ... he fell in love with her passionately, profoundly, secretly.... Secretly! Sohethought. The summer passed; the count no longer needed any outside assistance. Potugin lost sight of Irina but could not forget her. Three years after, he utterly unexpectedly received an invitation, through a third person, to go to see a lady slightly known to him. This lady at first was reluctant to speak out, but after exacting an oath from him to keep everything he was going to hear absolutely secret, she proposed to him ... to marry a girl, who occupied a conspicuous position in society, and for whom marriage had become a necessity. The lady scarcely ventured to hint at the principal personage, and then promised Potugin money ... a large sum of money. Potugin was not offended, astonishment stifled all feeling of anger in him; but, of course, he point-blankdeclined. Then the lady handed him a note—from Irina. ‘You are a generous, noble man,’ she wrote, ‘and I know you would do anything for me; I beg of you this sacrifice. You will save one who is very dear to me. In saving her, you will save me too.... Do not ask me how. I could never have brought myself to any one with such an entreaty, but to you I hold out my hands and say to you, do it for my sake.’ Potugin pondered, and said that for Irina Pavlovna, certainly he was ready to do a great deal; but he should like to hear her wishes from her own lips. The interview took place the same evening; it did not last long, and no one knew of it, except the same lady. Irina was no longer living at Count Reisenbach’s.
‘What made you think of me, of all people?’ Potugin asked her.
She was beginning to expatiate on his noble qualities, but suddenly she stopped....
‘No,’ she said, ‘you must be told the truth. I know, I know that you love me; so that was why I made up my mind ...’ and then she told him everything.
Eliza Byelsky was an orphan; her relations did not like her, and reckoned on her inheritance ... ruin was facing her. In saving her, Irina was really doing a service to him who was responsible for it all, and who was himself nowstanding in a very close relation to Irina.... Potugin, without speaking, looked long at Irina, and consented. She wept, and flung herself all in tears on his neck. And he too wept ... but very different were their tears. Everything had already been made ready for the secret marriage, a powerful hand removed all obstacles.... But illness came ... and then a daughter was born, and then the mother ... poisoned herself. What was to be done with the child? Potugin received it into his charge, received it from the same hands, from the hands of Irina.
A terrible dark story.... Let us pass on, readers, pass on!
Over an hour more passed before Litvinov could bring himself to go back to his hotel. He had almost reached it when he suddenly heard steps behind him. It seemed as though they were following him persistently, and walking faster when he quickened his pace. When he moved under a lamp-post Litvinov turned round and recognised General Ratmirov. In a white tie, in a fashionable overcoat, flung open, with a row of stars and crosses on a golden chain in the buttonhole of his dresscoat, the general was returning from dinner, alone. His eyes, fastened with insolent persistence on Litvinov, expressed such contempt and such hatred, his whole deportment was suggestive ofsuch intense defiance, that Litvinov thought it his duty, stifling his wrath, to go to meet him, to face a ‘scandal.’ But when he was on a level with Litvinov, the general’s face suddenly changed, his habitual playful refinement reappeared upon it, and his hand in its pale lavender glove flourished his glossy hat high in the air. Litvinov took off his in silence, and each went on his way.
‘He has noticed something, for certain!’ thought Litvinov.
‘If only it were ... any one else!’ thought the general.
Tatyana was playing picquet with her aunt when Litvinov entered their room.
‘Well, I must say, you’re a pretty fellow!’ cried Kapitolina Markovna, and she threw down her cards. ‘Our first day, and he’s lost for the whole evening! Here we’ve been waiting and waiting, and scolding and scolding....’
‘I said nothing, aunt,’ observed Tatyana.
‘Well, you’re meekness itself, we all know! You ought to be ashamed, sir! and you betrothed too!’
Litvinov made some sort of excuse and sat down to the table.
‘Why have you left off your game?’ he asked after a brief silence.
‘Well, that’s a nice question! We’ve beenplaying cards from sheer dulness, not knowing what to do with ourselves ... but now you’ve come.’
‘If you would care to hear the evening music,’ observed Litvinov, ‘I should be delighted to take you.’
Kapitolina Markovna looked at her niece.
‘Let us go, aunt, I am ready,’ she said, ‘but wouldn’t it be better to stay at home?’
‘To be sure! Let us have tea in our own old Moscow way, with the samovar, and have a good chat. We’ve not had a proper gossip yet.’
Litvinov ordered tea to be sent up, but the good chat did not come off. He felt a continual gnawing of conscience; whatever he said, it always seemed to him that he was telling lies and Tatyana was seeing through it. Meanwhile there was no change to be observed in her; she behaved just as unconstrainedly ... only her look never once rested upon Litvinov, but with a kind of indulgent timorousness glided over him, and she was paler than usual.
Kapitolina Markovna asked her whether she had not a headache.
Tatyana was at first about to say no, but after a moment’s thought, she said, ‘Yes, a little.’
‘It’s the journey,’ suggested Litvinov, and he positively blushed with shame.
‘Yes, the journey,’ repeated Tatyana, and her eyes again glided over him.
‘You ought to rest, Tanya darling.’
‘Yes, I will go to bed soon, aunt.’
On the table lay aGuide des Voyageurs;Litvinov fell to reading aloud the description of the environs of Baden.
‘Quite so,’ Kapitolina Markovna interrupted, ‘but there’s something we mustn’t forget. I’m told linen is very cheap here, so we must be sure to buy some for the trousseau.’
Tatyana dropped her eyes.
‘We have plenty of time, aunt. You never think of yourself, but you really ought to get yourself some clothes. You see how smart every one is here.’
‘Eh, my love! what would be the good of that? I’m not a fine lady! It would be another thing if I were such a beauty as your friend, Grigory Mihalitch, what was her name?’
‘What friend?’