CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.Next morning, while waiting for Pavel Pavlovitch, who had promised to be in good time in order to drive down to the Pogoryeltseffs with him, Velchaninoff walked up and down the room, sipped his coffee, and every other minute reflected upon one and the same idea; namely, that he felt like a man who had awaked from sleep with the deep impression of having received a box on the ear the last thing at night.“Hm!”he thought, anxiously,“he understands the state of the case only too well; he'll take it out of me by means of Liza!”The dear image of the poor little girl danced before his eyes. His heart beat quicker when he reflected that to-day—in a couple of hours—he would seehis ownLiza once more.“Yes—there's no question about it,”he said to himself;“my whole end and aim in life istherenow! What do I care about all these‘memories’and boxes on the ear; and what have I lived for up to now?—for sorrow and discomfort—that's all! butnow, now—it's all different!”But in spite of his ecstatic feelings he grew more and more thoughtful.“He is worrying me for Liza, that's plain; and he bullies Liza—he is going to take it out of me that way—forall! Hm! at all events I cannot possibly allow such sallies as his of last night,”and Velchaninoff blushed hotly“and here's half-past eleven and he hasn't come yet.”He waited long—till half-past twelve, and his anguish of impatience grew more and more keen. Pavel Pavlovitch did not appear. At length the idea began to take shape that Pavel Pavlovitch naturally would not come again for the sole purpose of another scene like that of last night. The thought filled Velchaninoff with despair.“The brute knows I am depending upon him—and what on earth am I to do now about Liza? How can I make my appearance without him?”At last he could bear it no longer and set off to the Pokrofsky at one o'clock to look for Pavel Pavlovitch.At the lodging, Velchaninoff was informed that Pavel Pavlovitch had not been at home all night, and had only called in at nine o'clock, stayed a quarter of an hour, and had gone out again.Velchaninoff stood at the door listening to the servants' report, mechanically tried the handle, recollected himself, and asked to see Maria Sisevna.The latter obeyed his summons at once.She was a kind-hearted old creature, of generous feelings, as Velchaninoff described her afterwards to Claudia Petrovna. Having first enquired as to his journey yesterday with Liza, Maria launched into anecdotes of Pavel Pavlovitch. She declared that she would long ago have turned her lodger out neck and crop, but for the child. Pavel Pavlovitch had been turned out of the hotel for generally disreputable behaviour.“Oh, he does dreadful things!”she continued.“Fancy his telling the poor child, in anger, that she wasn't his daughter, but——”“Oh no, no! impossible!”cried Velchaninoff in alarm.“I heard it myself! She's only a small child, of course, but that sort of thing doesn't do before an intelligent child like her! She cried dreadfully—she was quite upset. We had a catastrophe in the house a short while since. Some commissionnaire or somebody took a room in the evening, and hung himself before morning. He had bolted with money, they say. Well, crowds of people came in to stare at him. Pavel Pavlovitch wasn't at home, but the child had escaped and was wandering about; and she must needs go with the rest to see the sight. I saw her looking at the suicide with an extraordinary expression, and carried her off at once, of course; and fancy, I hardly managed to get home with her—trembling all over she was—when off she goes in a dead faint, and it was all I could do to bring her round at all. I don't know whether she's epileptic or what—and ever since that she has been ill. When her father heard, he came and pinched her all over—he doesn't beat her; he always pinches her like that,—then he went out and got drunk somewhere, and came back and frightened her.‘I'm going to hang myself too,’he says,‘because of you. I shall hang myself on that blind string there,’he says, and he makes a loop in the string before her very eyes. The poor little thing went quite out of her mind with terror, and cried and clasped him round with her little arms.‘I'll be good—I'll be good!’she shrieks. It was a pitiful sight—it was, indeed!”Velchaninoff, though prepared for strange revelations concerning Pavel Pavlovitch and his ways, was quite dumbfounded by these tales; he could scarcely believe his ears.Maria Sisevna told him many more such little anecdotes. Among others, there was one occasion, when, if she (Maria) had not been by, Liza would have thrown herself out of the window.Pavel Pavlovitch had come staggering out of the room muttering,“I shall smash her head in with a stick! I shall murder her like a dog!”and he had gone away, repeating this over and over again to himself.Velchaninoff hired a carriage and set off towards the Pogoryeltseffs. Before he had left the town behind him, the carriage was delayed by a block at a cross road, just by a small bridge, over which was passing, at the moment, a long funeral procession. There were carriages waiting to move on on both sides of the bridge, and a considerable crowd of foot passengers besides.The funeral was evidently of some person of considerable importance, for the train of private and hired vehicles was a very long one; and at the window of one of these carriages in the procession Velchaninoff suddenly beheld the face of Pavel Pavlovitch.Velchaninoff would not have believed his eyes, but that Pavel Pavlovitch nodded his head and smiled to him. He seemed to be delighted to have recognised Velchaninoff; he even began to kiss his hand out of the window.Velchaninoff jumped out of his own vehicle, and in spite of policemen, crowd, and everything else, elbowed his way to Pavel Pavlovitch's carriage window. He found the latter sitting alone.“What are you doing?”he cried.“Why didn't you come to my house? Why are you here?”“I'm paying a debt; don't shout so! I'm repaying a debt,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling and winking.“I'm escorting the mortal remains of my dear friend Stepan Michailovitch Bagantoff!”“What absurdity, you drunken, insane creature,”cried Velchaninoff louder than ever, and beside himself with outraged feeling.“Get out and come with me. Quick! get out instantly!”“I can't. It's a debt——”“I'll pull you out, then!”shouted Velchaninoff.“Then I'll scream, sir, I'll scream!”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch, as merrily as ever, just as though the whole thing was a joke. However, he retreated into the further corner of the carriage, all the same.“Look out, sir, look out! You'll be knocked down!”cried a policeman.Sure enough, an outside carriage was making its way on to the bridge from the side, stopping the procession, and causing a commotion. Velchaninoff was obliged to spring aside, and the press of carriages and people immediately separated him from Pavel Pavlovitch. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to his own vehicle.“It's all the same. I couldn't take such a fellow with me, anyhow,”he reflected, still all of a tremble with excitement and the rage of disgust. When he repeated Maria Sisevna's story, and his meeting at the funeral, to Claudia Petrovna afterwards, the latter became buried in deep thought.“I am anxious for you,”she said at last.“You must break off all relations with that man, and as soon as possible.”“Oh, he's nothing but a drunken fool!”cried Velchaninoff passionately;“as if I am to be afraid ofhim! And how can I break off relations with him? Remember Liza!”Meanwhile Liza was lying ill; fever had set in last night, and an eminent doctor was momentarily expected from town! He had been sent for early this morning.These news quite upset Velchaninoff. Claudia Petrovna took him in to see the patient.“I observed her very carefully yesterday,”she said, stopping at the door of Liza's room before entering it.“She is a proud and morose child. She is ashamed of being with us, and of having been thrown over by her father. In my opinion that is the whole secret of her illness.”“How‘thrown over’? Why do you suppose that he has thrown her over?”“The simple fact that he allowed her to come here to a strange house, and with a man who was also a stranger, or nearly so; or, at all events, with whom his relations were such that——”“Oh, but I took her myself, almost by force.”Liza was not surprised to see Velchaninoff alone. She only smiled bitterly, and turned her hot face to the wall. She made no reply to his passionate promises to bring her father down to-morrow without fail, or to his timid attempts at consolation.As soon as Velchaninoff left the sick child's presence, he burst into tears.The doctor did not arrive until evening. On seeing the patient he frightened everybody by his very first remark, observing that it was a pity he had not been sent for before.When informed that the child had only been taken ill last night, he could not believe it at first.“Well, it all depends upon how this night is passed,”he decided at last.Having made all necessary arrangements, he took his departure, promising to come as early as possible next morning.Velchaninoff was anxious to stay the night, but Claudia Petrovna begged him to try once more“to bring down that brute of a man.”“Try once more!”cried Velchaninoff, passionately;“why, I'll tie him hand and foot and bring him along myself!”The idea that he would tie Pavel Pavlovitch up and carry him down in his arms overpowered Velchaninoff, and filled him with impatience to execute his frantic desire.“I don't feel the slightest bit guilty before him any more,”he said to Claudia Petrovna, at parting,“and I withdraw all my servile, abject words of yesterday—all I said to you,”he added, wrathfully.Liza lay with closed eyes, apparently asleep; she seemed to be better. When Velchaninoff bent cautiously over her in order to kiss—if it were but the edge of her bed linen—she suddenly opened her eyes, just as though she had been waiting for him, and whispered,“Take me away!”It was but a quiet, sad petition—without a trace of yesterday's irritation; but at the same time there was that in her voice which betrayed that she made the request in the full knowledge that it could not be assented to.No sooner did Velchaninoff, in despair, begin to assure her as tenderly as he could that what she desired was impossible, than she silently closed her eyes and said not another word, just as though she neither saw nor heard him.Arrived in town Velchaninoff told his man to drive him to the Pokrofsky. It was ten o'clock at night.Pavel Pavlovitch was not at his lodgings. Velchaninoff waited for him half an hour, walking up and down the passage in a state of feverish impatience. Maria Sisevna assured him at last that Pavel Pavlovitch would not come in until the small hours.“Well, then, I'll return here before daylight,”he said, beside himself with desperation, and he went home to his own rooms.What was his amazement, when, on arriving at the gate of his house, he learned from Mavra that“yesterday's visitor”had been waiting for him ever since before ten o'clock.“He's had some tea,”she added,“and sent me for wine again—the same wine as yesterday. He gave me the money to buy it with.”CHAPTER IX.Pavel Pavlovitch had made himself very comfortable. He was sitting in the same chair as he had occupied yesterday, smoking a cigar, and had just poured the fourth and last tumbler of champagne out of the bottle.The teapot and a half-emptied tumbler of tea stood on the table beside him; his red face beamed with benevolence. He had taken off his coat, and sat in his shirt sleeves.“Forgive me, dearest of friends,”he cried, catching sight of Velchaninoff, and hastening to put on his coat,“I took it off to make myself thoroughly comfortable.”Velchaninoff approached him menacingly.“You are not quite tipsy yet, are you? Can you understand what is said to you?”Paul Pavlovitch became a little confused.“No, not quite. I've been thinking of the dear deceased a bit, but I'm not quite drunk yet.”“Can you understand what I say?”“My dear sir, I came here on purpose to understand you.”“Very well, then I shall begin at once by telling you that you are an ass, sir!”cried Velchaninoff, at the top of his voice.“Why, if you begin that way where will you end, I wonder!”said Pavel Pavlovitch, clearly alarmed more than a little.Velchaninoff did not listen, but roared again,“Your daughter is dying—she is very ill! Have you thrown her over altogether, or not?”“Oh, surely she isn't dying yet?”“I tell you she's ill; very, very ill—dangerously ill.”“What, fits? or——”“Don't talk nonsense. I tell you she is very dangerously ill. You ought to go down, if only for that reason.”“What, to thank your friends, eh? to return thanks for their hospitality? Of course, quite so; I well understand, Alexey Ivanovitch—dearest of friends!”He suddenly seized Velchaninoff by both hands, and added with intoxicated sentiment, almost melted to tears,“Alexey Ivanovitch, don't shout at me—don't shout at me, please! If you do, I may throw myself into the Neva—I don't know!—and we have such important things to talk over. There's lots of time to go to the Pogoryeltseffs another day.”Velchaninoff did his best to restrain his wrath.“You are drunk, and therefore I don't understand what you are driving at,”he said sternly.“I'm ready to come to an explanation with you at any moment you like—delighted!—the the sooner the better. But first let me tell you that I am going to take my own measures to secure you. You will sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I shall take you with me to see Liza. I shall not let you go again. I shall bind you, if necessary, and carry you down myself. How do you like this sofa to sleep on?”he added, panting, and indicating a wide, soft divan opposite his own sofa, against the other wall.“Oh—anything will do for me!”“Very well, you shall have this sofa. Here, take these things—here are sheets, blankets, pillow”(Velchaninoff pulled all these things out of a cupboard, and tossed them impatiently to Pavel Pavlovitch, who humbly stood and received them);“now then, make your bed,—come, bustle up!”Pavel Pavlovitch laden with bed clothes had been standing in the middle of the room with a stupid drunken leer on his face, irresolute; but at Velchaninoff's second bidding he hurriedly began the task of making his bed, moving the table away from in front of it, and smoothing a sheet over the seat of the divan. Velchaninoff approached to help him. He was more or less gratified with his guest's alarm and submission.“Now, drink up that wine and lie down!”was his next command. He felt that hemustorder this man about, he could not help himself.“I suppose you took upon yourself to order this wine, did you?”“I did—I did, sir! I sent for the wine, Alexey Ivanovitch, because I knewyouwould not send out again!”“Well, it's a good thing that you knew that; but I desire that you should know still more. I give you notice that I have taken my own measures for the future, I'm not going to put up with any more of your antics.”“Oh, I quite understand, Alexey Ivanovitch, that that sort of thing could only happen once!”said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling feebly.At this reply Velchaninoff, who had been marching up and down the room stopped solemnly before Pavel Pavlovitch.“Pavel Pavlovitch,”he said,“speak plainly! You are a clever fellow—I admit the fact freely,—but I assure you you are going on a false track now. Speak plainly, and act like an honest man, and I give you my word of honour that I will answer all you wish to know.”Pavel Pavlovitch grinned his disagreeable grin (which always drove Velchaninoff wild) once more.“Wait!”cried the latter.“No humbug now, please; I see through you. I repeat that I give you my word of honour to reply candidly to anything you may like to ask, and to give you every sort of satisfaction—reasonable or even unreasonable—that you please.Oh!how I wish I could make you understand me!”“Since you are so very kind,”began Pavel Pavlovitch, cautiously bending towards him,“I may tell you that I am very much interested as to what you said yesterday about‘bird of prey’?”Velchaninoff spat on the ground in utter despair and disgust, and recommenced his walk up and down the room, quicker than ever.“No, no, Alexey Ivanovitch, don't spurn my question; you don't know how interested I am in it. I assure you I came here on purpose to ask you about it. I know I'm speaking indistinctly, but you'll forgive me that. I've read the expression before. Tell me now, was Bagantoff a‘bird of prey,’or—the other thing? How is one to distinguish one from the other?”Velchaninoff went on walking up and down, and answered nothing for some minutes.“The bird of prey, sir,”he began suddenly, stopping in front of Pavel Pavlovitch, and speaking vehemently,“is the man who would poison Bagantoff while drinking champagne with him under the cloak of goodfellowship, as you did with me yesterday, instead of escorting his wretched body to the burial ground as you did—the deuce only knows why, and with what dirty, mean, underhand, petty motives, which only recoil upon yourself and make you viler than you already are. Yes, sir, recoil upon yourself!”“Quite so, quite so, I oughtn't to have gone,”assented Pavel Pavlovitch,“but aren't you a little——”“The bird of prey is not a man who goes and learns his grievance off by heart, like a lesson, and whines it about the place, grimacing and posing, and hanging it round other people's necks, and who spends all his time in such pettifogging. Is it true you wanted to hang yourself? Come, is it true, or not?”“I—I don't know—I may have when I was drunk—I don't remember. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, it wouldn't be quite nice for me to go poisoning people. I'm too high up in the service, and I have money, too, you know—and I may wish to marry again, who knows.”“Yes; you'd be sent to Siberia, which would be awkward.”“Quite so; though they say the penal servitude is not so bad as it was. But you remind me of an anecdote, Alexey Ivanovitch. I thought of it in the carriage, and meant to tell you afterwards. Well! you may remember Liftsoff at T——. He came while you were there. His younger brother—who is rather a swell, too—was serving at L—— under the governor, and one fine day he happened to quarrel with Colonel Golubenko in the presence of ladies, and of one lady especially. Liftsoff considered himself insulted, but concealed his grievance; and, meanwhile, Golubenko proposed to a certain lady and was accepted. Would you believe it, Liftsoff made great friends with Golubenko, and even volunteered to be best man at his wedding. But when the ceremony was all over, and Liftsoff approached the bridegroom to wish him joy and kiss him, as usual, he took the opportunity of sticking a knife into Golubenko. Fancy! his own best man stuck him! Well, what does the assassin do but run about the room crying.‘Oh! what have I done? Oh! what have I done?’says he, and throws himself on everyone's neck by turns, ladies and all! Ha-ha-ha! He starved to death in Siberia, sir! One is a little sorry for Golubenko; but he recovered, after all.”“I don't understand why you told me that story,”said Velchaninoff, frowning heavily.“Why, because he stuck the other fellow with a knife,”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch,“which proves that he was no type, but an ass of a fellow, who could so forget the ordinary manners of society as to hang around ladies' necks, and in the presence of the governor, too—and yet he stuck the other fellow. Ha-ha-ha! He did what he intended to do, that's all, sir!”“Go to the devil, will you—you and your miserable humbug—you miserable humbug yourself,”yelled Velchaninoff, wild with rage and fury, and panting so that he could hardly get his words out.“You think you are going to alarmme, do you, you frightener of children—you mean beast—you low scoundrel you?—scoundrel—scoundrel—scoundrel!”He had quite forgotten himself in his rage.Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered all over; his drunkenness seemed to vanish in an instant; his lips trembled and shook.“Are you callingmea scoundrel, Alexey Ivanovitch—you—me?”But Velchaninoff was himself again now.“I'll apologise if you like,”he said, and relapsed into gloomy silence. After a moment he added,“But only on condition that you yourself agree to speak out fully, and at once.”“In your place I should apologise unconditionally, Alexey Ivanovitch.”“Very well; so be it then.”Velchaninoff was silent again for a while.“I apologise,”he resumed;“but admit yourself, Pavel Pavlovitch, that I need not feel myself in any way bound to you after this. I mean with regard toanything—not only this particular matter.”“All right! Why, what is there to settle between us?”laughed Pavel Pavlovitch, without looking up.“In that case, so much the better—so much the better. Come, drink up your wine and get into bed, for I shall not let you go now, anyhow.”“Oh, my wine—never mind my wine!”muttered Pavel Pavlovitch; but he went to the table all the same, and took up his tumbler of champagne which had long been poured out. Either he had been drinking copiously before, or there was some other unknown cause at work, but his hand shook so as he drank the wine that a quantity of it was spilled over his waistcoat and the floor. However, he drank it all, to the last drop, as though he could not leave the tumbler without emptying it. He then placed the empty glass on the table, approached his bed, sat down on it, and began to undress.“I think perhaps I had betternotsleep here,”he said suddenly, with one boot off, and half undressed.“Well, Idon'tthink so,”said Velchaninoff, who was walking up and down, without looking at him.Pavel Pavlovitch finished undressing and lay down. A quarter of an hour later Velchaninoff also got into bed, and put the candle out.He soon began to doze uncomfortably. Some new trouble seemed to have suddenly come over him and worried him, and at the same time he felt a sensation of shame that he could allow himself to be worried by the new trouble. Velchaninoff was just falling definitely asleep, however, when a rustling sound awoke him. He immediately glanced at Pavel Pavlovitch's bed. The room was quite dark, the blinds being down and curtains drawn; but it seemed to him that Pavel Pavlovitch was not lying in his bed; he seemed to be sitting on the side of it.“What's the matter?”cried Velchaninoff.“A ghost, sir,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, in a low tone, after a few moments of silence.“What? What sort of a ghost?”“Th—there—in that room—just at the door, I seemed to see a ghost!”“Whose ghost?”asked Velchaninoff, pausing a minute before putting the question.“Natalia Vasilievna's!”Velchaninoff jumped out of bed and walked to the door, whence he could see into the room opposite, across the passage. There were no curtains in that room, so that it was much lighter than his own.“There's nothing there at all. You are drunk; lie down again!”he said, and himself set the example, rolling his blanket around him.Pavel Pavlovitch said nothing, but lay down as he was told.“Did you ever see any ghosts before?”asked Velchaninoff suddenly, ten minutes later.“I think I saw one once,”said Pavel Pavlovitch in the same low voice; after which there was silence once more. Velchaninoff was not sure whether he had been asleep or not, but an hour or so had passed, when suddenly he was wide awake again. Was it a rustle that awoke him? He could not tell; but one thing was evident—in the midst of the profound darkness of the room something white stood before him; not quite close to him, but about the middle of the room. He sat up in bed, and stared for a full minute.“Is that you, Pavel Pavlovitch?”he asked. His voice sounded very weak.There was no reply; but there was not the slightest doubt of the fact that someone was standing there.“Is that you, Pavel Pavlovitch?”cried Velchaninoff again, louder this time; in fact, so loud that if the former had been asleep in bed he must have started up and answered.But there was no reply again. It seemed to Velchaninoff that the white figure had approached nearer to him.Then something strange happened; something seemed to“let go”within Velchaninoff's system, and he commenced to shout at the top of his voice, just as he had done once before this evening, in the wildest and maddest way possible, panting so that he could hardly articulate his words:“If you—drunken ass that you are—dare to think that you could frightenme, I'll turn my face to the wall, and not look round once the whole night, to show you how little I am afraid of you—a fool like you—if you stand there from now till morning! I despise you!”So saying, Velchaninoff twisted round with his face to the wall, rolled his blanket round him, and lay motionless, as though turned to stone. A deathlike stillness supervened.Did the ghost stand where it was, or had it moved? He could not tell; but his heart beat, and beat, and beat—At least five minutes went by, and then, not a couple of paces from his bed, there came the feeble voice of Pavel Pavlovitch:“I got up, Alexey Ivanovitch, to look for a little water. I couldn't find any, and was just going to look about nearer your bed——”“Then why didn't you answer when I called?”cried Velchaninoff angrily, after a minute's pause.“I was frightened; you shouted so, you alarmed me!”“You'll find a caraffe and glass over there, on the little table. Light a candle.”“Oh, I'll find it without. You'll forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch, for frightening you so; I felt thirsty so suddenly.”But Velchaninoff said nothing. He continued to lie with his face to the wall, and so he lay all night, without turning round once. Was he anxious to keep his word and show his contempt for Pavel Pavlovitch? He did not know himself why he did it; his nervous agitation and perturbation were such that he could not sleep for a long while, he felt quite delirious. At last he fell asleep, and awoke at past nine o'clock next morning. He started up just as though someone had struck him, and sat down on the side of his bed. But Pavel Pavlovitch was not to be seen. His empty, rumpled bed was there, but its occupant had flown before daybreak.“I thought so!”cried Velchaninoff, bringing the palm of his right hand smartly to his forehead.CHAPTER X.The doctor's anxiety was justified; Liza grew worse, so much so that it was clear she was far more seriously ill than Velchaninoff and Claudia Petrovna had thought the day before.When the former arrived in the morning, Liza was still conscious, though burning with fever. He assured his friend Claudia, afterwards, that the child had smiled at him and held out her little hot hand. Whether she actually did so, or whether he so much longed for her to do so that he imagined it done, is uncertain.By the evening, however, Liza was quite unconscious, and so she remained during the whole of her illness. Ten days after her removal to the country she died.This was a sad period for Velchaninoff; the Pogoryeltseffs were quite anxious on his account. He was with them for the greater part of the time, and during the last few days of the little one's illness, he used to sit all alone for hours together in some corner, apparently thinking of nothing. Claudia Petrovna would attempt to distract him but he hardly answered her, and conversation was clearly painful to him. Claudia was quite surprised that“all this”should affect him so deeply.The children were the best consolation and distraction for him; with them he could even laugh and play at intervals. Every hour, at least, he would rise from his chair and creep on tip-toes to the sick-room to look at the little invalid. Sometimes he imagined that she knew him; he had no hope for her recovery—none of the family had any hope; but he never left the precincts of the child's chamber, sitting principally in the next room.Twice, however, he had evinced great activity of a sudden; he had jumped up and started off for town, where he had called upon all the most eminent doctors of the place, and arranged consultations between them. The last consultation was on the day before Liza's death.Claudia Petrovna had spoken seriously to him a day or two since, as to the absolute necessity of hunting up Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky, because in case of anything happening to Liza, she could not be buried without certain documents from him.Velchaninoff promised to write to him, and did write a couple of lines, which he took to the Pokrofsky. Pavel Pavlovitch was not at home, as usual, but he left the letter to the care of Maria Sisevna.At last Liza died—on a lovely summer evening, just as the sun was setting; and only then did Velchaninoff rouse himself.When the little one was laid out, all covered with flowers, and dressed in a fair white frock belonging to one of Claudia Petrovna's children, Velchaninoff came up to the lady of the house, and told her with flashing eyes that he would now go and fetch the murderer. Regardless of all advice to put off his search until to-morrow he started for town immediately.He knew where to find Pavel Pavlovitch. He had not been in town exclusively to find the doctors those two days. Occasionally, while watching the dying child, he had been struck with the idea that if he could only find and bring down Pavel Pavlovitch she might hear his voice and be called back, as it were, from the darkness of delirium; at such moments he had been seized with desperation, and twice he had started up and driven wildly off to town in order to find Pavel Pavlovitch.The latter's room was the same as before, but it was useless to look for him there, for, according to Maria Sisevna's report, he was now two or three days absent from home at a stretch, and was generally to be found with some friends in the Voznecensky.Arrived in town about ten o'clock, Velchaninoff went straight to these latter people, and securing the services of a member of the family to assist in finding Pavel Pavlovitch, set out on his quest. He did not know what he should do with Pavel Pavlovitch when found, whether he should kill him then and there, or simply inform him of the death of the child, and of the necessity for his assistance in arranging for her funeral. After a long and fruitless search Velchaninoff found Pavel Pavlovitch quite accidentally; he was quarrelling with some person in the street—tipsy as usual, and seemed to be getting the worst of the controversy, which appeared to be about a money claim.On catching sight of Velchaninoff, Pavel Pavlovitch stretched out his arms to him and begged for help; while his opponent—observing Velchaninoff's athletic figure—made off. Pavel Pavlovitch shook his fist after him triumphantly, and hooted at him with cries of victory; but this amusement was brought to a sudden conclusion by Velchaninoff, who, impelled by some mysterious motive—which he could not analyse, took him by the shoulders, and began to shake him violently, so violently that his teeth chattered.Pavel Pavlovitch ceased to shout after his opponent, and gazed with a stupid tipsy expression of alarm at his new antagonist. Velchaninoff, having shaken him till he was tired, and not knowing what to do next with him, set him down violently on the pavement, backwards.“Liza is dead!”he said.Pavel Pavlovitch sat on the pavement and stared, he was too far gone to take in the news. At last he seemed to realize.“Dead!”he whispered, in a strange inexplicable tone. Velchaninoff was not sure whether his face was simply twitching, or whether he was trying to grin in his usual disagreeable way; but the next moment the drunkard raised his shaking hand to cross himself. He then struggled to his feet and staggered off, appearing totally oblivious of the fact that such a person as Velchaninoff existed.However, the latter very soon pursued and caught him, seizing him once more by the shoulder.“Do you understand, you drunken sot, that without you the funeral arrangements cannot be made?”he shouted, panting with rage.Pavel Pavlovitch turned his head.“The artillery—lieutenant—don't you remember him?”he muttered, thickly.“What?”cried Velchaninoff, with a shudder.“He's her father—find him! he'll bury her!”“You liar! You said that out of pure malice. I thought you'd invent something of the sort!”Quite beside himself with passion Velchaninoff brought down his powerful fist with all his strength on Pavel Pavlovitch's head; another moment and he might have followed up the blow and slain the man as he stood. His victim never winced, but he turned upon Velchaninoff a face of such insane terrible passion, that his whole visage looked distorted.“Do you understand Russian?”he asked more firmly, as though his fury had chased away the effects of drunkenness.“Very well, then, you are a——!”(here followed a specimen of the very vilest language which the Russian tongue could furnish);“and now you can go back to her!”So saying he tore himself from Velchaninoff's grasp, nearly knocking himself over with the effort, and staggered away. Velchaninoff did not follow him.Next day, however, a most respectable-looking middle-aged man arrived at the Pogoryeltseft's house, in civil uniform, and handed to Claudia Petrovna a packet addressed to her“from Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky.”In this packet was a sum of three hundred roubles, together with all certificates necessary for Liza's funeral. Pavel Pavlovitch had written a short note couched in very polite and correct phraseology, and thanking Claudia Petrovna sincerely“for her great kindness to the orphan—kindness for which heaven alone could recompense her.”He added rather confusedly that severe illness prevented his personal presence at the funeral of his“tenderly loved and unfortunate daughter,”but that he“felt he could repose all confidence (as to the ceremony being fittingly performed) in the angelic goodness of Claudia Petrovna.”The three hundred roubles, he explained, were to go towards the funeral and other expenses. If there should be any of the money left after defraying all charges, Claudia Petrovna was requested to spend the same in prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased.Nothing further was to be discovered by questioning the messenger; and it was soon evident that the latter knew nothing, excepting that he had only consented to act as bearer of the packet, in response to the urgent appeal of Pavel Pavlovitch.Pogoryeltseff was a little offended by the offer of money for expenses, and would have sent it back, but Claudia Petrovna suggested that a receipt should be taken from the cemetery authorities for the cost of the funeral (since one could not well refuse to allow a man to bury his own child), together with a document undertaking that the rest of the three hundred roubles should be spent in prayer for the soul of Liza.Velchaninoff afterwards posted an envelope containing these two papers to Trusotsky's lodging.After the funeral Velchaninoff disappeared from the country altogether. He wandered about town for a whole fortnight, knocking up against people as he went blindly through the streets. Now and then he spent a whole day lying in his bed, oblivious of the most ordinary needs and occupations; the Pogoryeltseffs often invited him to their house, and he invariably promised to come, and as invariably forgot all about it. Claudia Petrovna went as far as to call for him herself, but she did not find him at home. The same thing happened with his lawyer, who had some good news to tell him. The difference with his opponent had been settled advantageously for Velchaninoff, the former having accepted a small bonification and renounced his claim to the property in dispute. All that was wanting was the formal acquiescence of Velchaninoff himself.Finding him at home at last, after many endeavours, the lawyer was excessively surprised to discover that Velchaninoff was as callous and cool as to the result of his (the lawyer's) labours, as he had before been ardent and excitable.The hottest days of July had now arrived, but Velchaninoff was oblivious of everything. His grief swelled and ached at his heart like some internal boil; his greatest sorrow was that Liza had not had time to know him, and died without ever guessing how fondly he loved her. The sweet new beacon of his life, which had glimmered for a short while within his heart, was extinguished once more, and lost in eternal gloom.The whole object of his existence, as he now told himself at every moment, should have been that Liza might feel his love about her and around her, each day, each hour, each moment of her life.“There can be no higher aim or object than this in life,”he thought, in gloomy ecstasy.“If there be other aims in life, none can be holier or better than this of mine. All my old unworthy life should have been purified and atoned for by my love for Liza; in place of myself—my sinful, worn-out, useless life—I should have bequeathed to the world a sweet, pure, beautiful being, in whose innocence all my guilt should have been absorbed, and lost, and forgiven, and in her I should have forgiven myself.”Such thoughts would flit through Velchaninoff's head as he mused sorrowfully over the memory of the dead child. He thought over all he had seen of her; he recalled her little face all burning with fever, then lying at rest in her coffin, covered with lovely flowers. He remembered that once he had noticed that one of her fingers was quite black from some bruise or pinch—goodness knows what had made it so, but it was the sight of that little finger which had filled him with longing to go straight away andmurderPavel Pavlovitch.“Do you know what Liza is to me?”Pavel had said, he recollected, one day; and now he understood the exclamation. It was no pretence of love, no posturing and nonsense—it was real love! How, then, could the wretch have been so cruel to a child whom he so dearly loved? He could not bear to think of it, the question was painful, and quite unanswerable.One day he wandered down—he knew not exactly how—to the cemetery where Liza was buried, and hunted up her grave. This was the first time he had been there since the funeral; he had never dared to go there before, fearing that the visit would be too painful. But strangely enough, when he found the little mound and had bent down and kissed it, he felt happier and lighter at heart than before.It was a lovely evening, the sun was setting, the tall grass waved about the tombs, and a bee hummed somewhere near him. The flowers and crosses placed on the tomb by Claudia Petrovna were still there. A ray of hope blazed up in his heart for the first time for many a long day.“How light-hearted I feel,”he thought, as he felt the spell of the quiet of God's Acre, and the hush of the beautiful still evening. A flow of some indefinable faith in something poured into his heart.“This is Liza's gift,”he thought;“this is Liza herself talking to me!”It was quite dark when he left the cemetery and turned his steps homewards.Not far from the gate of the burial ground there stood a small inn or public-house, and through the open windows he could see the people inside sitting at tables. It instantly struck Velchaninoff that one of the guests, sitting nearest to the window, was Pavel Pavlovitch, and that the latter had seen him and was observing him curiously.He went on further, but before very long he heard footsteps pursuing him. It was, of course, Pavel Pavlovitch. Probably the unusually serene and peaceful expression of Velchaninoff's face as he went by had attracted and encouraged him.He soon caught Velchaninoff up, and smiled timidly at him, but not with the old drunken grin. He did not appear to be in the smallest degree drunk.“Good evening,”said Pavel Pavlovitch.“How d'ye do?”replied Velchaninoff.

Next morning, while waiting for Pavel Pavlovitch, who had promised to be in good time in order to drive down to the Pogoryeltseffs with him, Velchaninoff walked up and down the room, sipped his coffee, and every other minute reflected upon one and the same idea; namely, that he felt like a man who had awaked from sleep with the deep impression of having received a box on the ear the last thing at night.

“Hm!”he thought, anxiously,“he understands the state of the case only too well; he'll take it out of me by means of Liza!”The dear image of the poor little girl danced before his eyes. His heart beat quicker when he reflected that to-day—in a couple of hours—he would seehis ownLiza once more.“Yes—there's no question about it,”he said to himself;“my whole end and aim in life istherenow! What do I care about all these‘memories’and boxes on the ear; and what have I lived for up to now?—for sorrow and discomfort—that's all! butnow, now—it's all different!”

But in spite of his ecstatic feelings he grew more and more thoughtful.

“He is worrying me for Liza, that's plain; and he bullies Liza—he is going to take it out of me that way—forall! Hm! at all events I cannot possibly allow such sallies as his of last night,”and Velchaninoff blushed hotly“and here's half-past eleven and he hasn't come yet.”He waited long—till half-past twelve, and his anguish of impatience grew more and more keen. Pavel Pavlovitch did not appear. At length the idea began to take shape that Pavel Pavlovitch naturally would not come again for the sole purpose of another scene like that of last night. The thought filled Velchaninoff with despair.“The brute knows I am depending upon him—and what on earth am I to do now about Liza? How can I make my appearance without him?”

At last he could bear it no longer and set off to the Pokrofsky at one o'clock to look for Pavel Pavlovitch.

At the lodging, Velchaninoff was informed that Pavel Pavlovitch had not been at home all night, and had only called in at nine o'clock, stayed a quarter of an hour, and had gone out again.

Velchaninoff stood at the door listening to the servants' report, mechanically tried the handle, recollected himself, and asked to see Maria Sisevna.

The latter obeyed his summons at once.

She was a kind-hearted old creature, of generous feelings, as Velchaninoff described her afterwards to Claudia Petrovna. Having first enquired as to his journey yesterday with Liza, Maria launched into anecdotes of Pavel Pavlovitch. She declared that she would long ago have turned her lodger out neck and crop, but for the child. Pavel Pavlovitch had been turned out of the hotel for generally disreputable behaviour.“Oh, he does dreadful things!”she continued.“Fancy his telling the poor child, in anger, that she wasn't his daughter, but——”

“Oh no, no! impossible!”cried Velchaninoff in alarm.

“I heard it myself! She's only a small child, of course, but that sort of thing doesn't do before an intelligent child like her! She cried dreadfully—she was quite upset. We had a catastrophe in the house a short while since. Some commissionnaire or somebody took a room in the evening, and hung himself before morning. He had bolted with money, they say. Well, crowds of people came in to stare at him. Pavel Pavlovitch wasn't at home, but the child had escaped and was wandering about; and she must needs go with the rest to see the sight. I saw her looking at the suicide with an extraordinary expression, and carried her off at once, of course; and fancy, I hardly managed to get home with her—trembling all over she was—when off she goes in a dead faint, and it was all I could do to bring her round at all. I don't know whether she's epileptic or what—and ever since that she has been ill. When her father heard, he came and pinched her all over—he doesn't beat her; he always pinches her like that,—then he went out and got drunk somewhere, and came back and frightened her.‘I'm going to hang myself too,’he says,‘because of you. I shall hang myself on that blind string there,’he says, and he makes a loop in the string before her very eyes. The poor little thing went quite out of her mind with terror, and cried and clasped him round with her little arms.‘I'll be good—I'll be good!’she shrieks. It was a pitiful sight—it was, indeed!”

Velchaninoff, though prepared for strange revelations concerning Pavel Pavlovitch and his ways, was quite dumbfounded by these tales; he could scarcely believe his ears.

Maria Sisevna told him many more such little anecdotes. Among others, there was one occasion, when, if she (Maria) had not been by, Liza would have thrown herself out of the window.

Pavel Pavlovitch had come staggering out of the room muttering,“I shall smash her head in with a stick! I shall murder her like a dog!”and he had gone away, repeating this over and over again to himself.

Velchaninoff hired a carriage and set off towards the Pogoryeltseffs. Before he had left the town behind him, the carriage was delayed by a block at a cross road, just by a small bridge, over which was passing, at the moment, a long funeral procession. There were carriages waiting to move on on both sides of the bridge, and a considerable crowd of foot passengers besides.

The funeral was evidently of some person of considerable importance, for the train of private and hired vehicles was a very long one; and at the window of one of these carriages in the procession Velchaninoff suddenly beheld the face of Pavel Pavlovitch.

Velchaninoff would not have believed his eyes, but that Pavel Pavlovitch nodded his head and smiled to him. He seemed to be delighted to have recognised Velchaninoff; he even began to kiss his hand out of the window.

Velchaninoff jumped out of his own vehicle, and in spite of policemen, crowd, and everything else, elbowed his way to Pavel Pavlovitch's carriage window. He found the latter sitting alone.

“What are you doing?”he cried.“Why didn't you come to my house? Why are you here?”

“I'm paying a debt; don't shout so! I'm repaying a debt,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling and winking.“I'm escorting the mortal remains of my dear friend Stepan Michailovitch Bagantoff!”

“What absurdity, you drunken, insane creature,”cried Velchaninoff louder than ever, and beside himself with outraged feeling.“Get out and come with me. Quick! get out instantly!”

“I can't. It's a debt——”

“I'll pull you out, then!”shouted Velchaninoff.

“Then I'll scream, sir, I'll scream!”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch, as merrily as ever, just as though the whole thing was a joke. However, he retreated into the further corner of the carriage, all the same.

“Look out, sir, look out! You'll be knocked down!”cried a policeman.

Sure enough, an outside carriage was making its way on to the bridge from the side, stopping the procession, and causing a commotion. Velchaninoff was obliged to spring aside, and the press of carriages and people immediately separated him from Pavel Pavlovitch. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to his own vehicle.

“It's all the same. I couldn't take such a fellow with me, anyhow,”he reflected, still all of a tremble with excitement and the rage of disgust. When he repeated Maria Sisevna's story, and his meeting at the funeral, to Claudia Petrovna afterwards, the latter became buried in deep thought.

“I am anxious for you,”she said at last.“You must break off all relations with that man, and as soon as possible.”

“Oh, he's nothing but a drunken fool!”cried Velchaninoff passionately;“as if I am to be afraid ofhim! And how can I break off relations with him? Remember Liza!”

Meanwhile Liza was lying ill; fever had set in last night, and an eminent doctor was momentarily expected from town! He had been sent for early this morning.

These news quite upset Velchaninoff. Claudia Petrovna took him in to see the patient.

“I observed her very carefully yesterday,”she said, stopping at the door of Liza's room before entering it.“She is a proud and morose child. She is ashamed of being with us, and of having been thrown over by her father. In my opinion that is the whole secret of her illness.”

“How‘thrown over’? Why do you suppose that he has thrown her over?”

“The simple fact that he allowed her to come here to a strange house, and with a man who was also a stranger, or nearly so; or, at all events, with whom his relations were such that——”

“Oh, but I took her myself, almost by force.”

Liza was not surprised to see Velchaninoff alone. She only smiled bitterly, and turned her hot face to the wall. She made no reply to his passionate promises to bring her father down to-morrow without fail, or to his timid attempts at consolation.

As soon as Velchaninoff left the sick child's presence, he burst into tears.

The doctor did not arrive until evening. On seeing the patient he frightened everybody by his very first remark, observing that it was a pity he had not been sent for before.

When informed that the child had only been taken ill last night, he could not believe it at first.

“Well, it all depends upon how this night is passed,”he decided at last.

Having made all necessary arrangements, he took his departure, promising to come as early as possible next morning.

Velchaninoff was anxious to stay the night, but Claudia Petrovna begged him to try once more“to bring down that brute of a man.”

“Try once more!”cried Velchaninoff, passionately;“why, I'll tie him hand and foot and bring him along myself!”

The idea that he would tie Pavel Pavlovitch up and carry him down in his arms overpowered Velchaninoff, and filled him with impatience to execute his frantic desire.

“I don't feel the slightest bit guilty before him any more,”he said to Claudia Petrovna, at parting,“and I withdraw all my servile, abject words of yesterday—all I said to you,”he added, wrathfully.

Liza lay with closed eyes, apparently asleep; she seemed to be better. When Velchaninoff bent cautiously over her in order to kiss—if it were but the edge of her bed linen—she suddenly opened her eyes, just as though she had been waiting for him, and whispered,“Take me away!”

It was but a quiet, sad petition—without a trace of yesterday's irritation; but at the same time there was that in her voice which betrayed that she made the request in the full knowledge that it could not be assented to.

No sooner did Velchaninoff, in despair, begin to assure her as tenderly as he could that what she desired was impossible, than she silently closed her eyes and said not another word, just as though she neither saw nor heard him.

Arrived in town Velchaninoff told his man to drive him to the Pokrofsky. It was ten o'clock at night.

Pavel Pavlovitch was not at his lodgings. Velchaninoff waited for him half an hour, walking up and down the passage in a state of feverish impatience. Maria Sisevna assured him at last that Pavel Pavlovitch would not come in until the small hours.

“Well, then, I'll return here before daylight,”he said, beside himself with desperation, and he went home to his own rooms.

What was his amazement, when, on arriving at the gate of his house, he learned from Mavra that“yesterday's visitor”had been waiting for him ever since before ten o'clock.

“He's had some tea,”she added,“and sent me for wine again—the same wine as yesterday. He gave me the money to buy it with.”

CHAPTER IX.Pavel Pavlovitch had made himself very comfortable. He was sitting in the same chair as he had occupied yesterday, smoking a cigar, and had just poured the fourth and last tumbler of champagne out of the bottle.The teapot and a half-emptied tumbler of tea stood on the table beside him; his red face beamed with benevolence. He had taken off his coat, and sat in his shirt sleeves.“Forgive me, dearest of friends,”he cried, catching sight of Velchaninoff, and hastening to put on his coat,“I took it off to make myself thoroughly comfortable.”Velchaninoff approached him menacingly.“You are not quite tipsy yet, are you? Can you understand what is said to you?”Paul Pavlovitch became a little confused.“No, not quite. I've been thinking of the dear deceased a bit, but I'm not quite drunk yet.”“Can you understand what I say?”“My dear sir, I came here on purpose to understand you.”“Very well, then I shall begin at once by telling you that you are an ass, sir!”cried Velchaninoff, at the top of his voice.“Why, if you begin that way where will you end, I wonder!”said Pavel Pavlovitch, clearly alarmed more than a little.Velchaninoff did not listen, but roared again,“Your daughter is dying—she is very ill! Have you thrown her over altogether, or not?”“Oh, surely she isn't dying yet?”“I tell you she's ill; very, very ill—dangerously ill.”“What, fits? or——”“Don't talk nonsense. I tell you she is very dangerously ill. You ought to go down, if only for that reason.”“What, to thank your friends, eh? to return thanks for their hospitality? Of course, quite so; I well understand, Alexey Ivanovitch—dearest of friends!”He suddenly seized Velchaninoff by both hands, and added with intoxicated sentiment, almost melted to tears,“Alexey Ivanovitch, don't shout at me—don't shout at me, please! If you do, I may throw myself into the Neva—I don't know!—and we have such important things to talk over. There's lots of time to go to the Pogoryeltseffs another day.”Velchaninoff did his best to restrain his wrath.“You are drunk, and therefore I don't understand what you are driving at,”he said sternly.“I'm ready to come to an explanation with you at any moment you like—delighted!—the the sooner the better. But first let me tell you that I am going to take my own measures to secure you. You will sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I shall take you with me to see Liza. I shall not let you go again. I shall bind you, if necessary, and carry you down myself. How do you like this sofa to sleep on?”he added, panting, and indicating a wide, soft divan opposite his own sofa, against the other wall.“Oh—anything will do for me!”“Very well, you shall have this sofa. Here, take these things—here are sheets, blankets, pillow”(Velchaninoff pulled all these things out of a cupboard, and tossed them impatiently to Pavel Pavlovitch, who humbly stood and received them);“now then, make your bed,—come, bustle up!”Pavel Pavlovitch laden with bed clothes had been standing in the middle of the room with a stupid drunken leer on his face, irresolute; but at Velchaninoff's second bidding he hurriedly began the task of making his bed, moving the table away from in front of it, and smoothing a sheet over the seat of the divan. Velchaninoff approached to help him. He was more or less gratified with his guest's alarm and submission.“Now, drink up that wine and lie down!”was his next command. He felt that hemustorder this man about, he could not help himself.“I suppose you took upon yourself to order this wine, did you?”“I did—I did, sir! I sent for the wine, Alexey Ivanovitch, because I knewyouwould not send out again!”“Well, it's a good thing that you knew that; but I desire that you should know still more. I give you notice that I have taken my own measures for the future, I'm not going to put up with any more of your antics.”“Oh, I quite understand, Alexey Ivanovitch, that that sort of thing could only happen once!”said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling feebly.At this reply Velchaninoff, who had been marching up and down the room stopped solemnly before Pavel Pavlovitch.“Pavel Pavlovitch,”he said,“speak plainly! You are a clever fellow—I admit the fact freely,—but I assure you you are going on a false track now. Speak plainly, and act like an honest man, and I give you my word of honour that I will answer all you wish to know.”Pavel Pavlovitch grinned his disagreeable grin (which always drove Velchaninoff wild) once more.“Wait!”cried the latter.“No humbug now, please; I see through you. I repeat that I give you my word of honour to reply candidly to anything you may like to ask, and to give you every sort of satisfaction—reasonable or even unreasonable—that you please.Oh!how I wish I could make you understand me!”“Since you are so very kind,”began Pavel Pavlovitch, cautiously bending towards him,“I may tell you that I am very much interested as to what you said yesterday about‘bird of prey’?”Velchaninoff spat on the ground in utter despair and disgust, and recommenced his walk up and down the room, quicker than ever.“No, no, Alexey Ivanovitch, don't spurn my question; you don't know how interested I am in it. I assure you I came here on purpose to ask you about it. I know I'm speaking indistinctly, but you'll forgive me that. I've read the expression before. Tell me now, was Bagantoff a‘bird of prey,’or—the other thing? How is one to distinguish one from the other?”Velchaninoff went on walking up and down, and answered nothing for some minutes.“The bird of prey, sir,”he began suddenly, stopping in front of Pavel Pavlovitch, and speaking vehemently,“is the man who would poison Bagantoff while drinking champagne with him under the cloak of goodfellowship, as you did with me yesterday, instead of escorting his wretched body to the burial ground as you did—the deuce only knows why, and with what dirty, mean, underhand, petty motives, which only recoil upon yourself and make you viler than you already are. Yes, sir, recoil upon yourself!”“Quite so, quite so, I oughtn't to have gone,”assented Pavel Pavlovitch,“but aren't you a little——”“The bird of prey is not a man who goes and learns his grievance off by heart, like a lesson, and whines it about the place, grimacing and posing, and hanging it round other people's necks, and who spends all his time in such pettifogging. Is it true you wanted to hang yourself? Come, is it true, or not?”“I—I don't know—I may have when I was drunk—I don't remember. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, it wouldn't be quite nice for me to go poisoning people. I'm too high up in the service, and I have money, too, you know—and I may wish to marry again, who knows.”“Yes; you'd be sent to Siberia, which would be awkward.”“Quite so; though they say the penal servitude is not so bad as it was. But you remind me of an anecdote, Alexey Ivanovitch. I thought of it in the carriage, and meant to tell you afterwards. Well! you may remember Liftsoff at T——. He came while you were there. His younger brother—who is rather a swell, too—was serving at L—— under the governor, and one fine day he happened to quarrel with Colonel Golubenko in the presence of ladies, and of one lady especially. Liftsoff considered himself insulted, but concealed his grievance; and, meanwhile, Golubenko proposed to a certain lady and was accepted. Would you believe it, Liftsoff made great friends with Golubenko, and even volunteered to be best man at his wedding. But when the ceremony was all over, and Liftsoff approached the bridegroom to wish him joy and kiss him, as usual, he took the opportunity of sticking a knife into Golubenko. Fancy! his own best man stuck him! Well, what does the assassin do but run about the room crying.‘Oh! what have I done? Oh! what have I done?’says he, and throws himself on everyone's neck by turns, ladies and all! Ha-ha-ha! He starved to death in Siberia, sir! One is a little sorry for Golubenko; but he recovered, after all.”“I don't understand why you told me that story,”said Velchaninoff, frowning heavily.“Why, because he stuck the other fellow with a knife,”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch,“which proves that he was no type, but an ass of a fellow, who could so forget the ordinary manners of society as to hang around ladies' necks, and in the presence of the governor, too—and yet he stuck the other fellow. Ha-ha-ha! He did what he intended to do, that's all, sir!”“Go to the devil, will you—you and your miserable humbug—you miserable humbug yourself,”yelled Velchaninoff, wild with rage and fury, and panting so that he could hardly get his words out.“You think you are going to alarmme, do you, you frightener of children—you mean beast—you low scoundrel you?—scoundrel—scoundrel—scoundrel!”He had quite forgotten himself in his rage.Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered all over; his drunkenness seemed to vanish in an instant; his lips trembled and shook.“Are you callingmea scoundrel, Alexey Ivanovitch—you—me?”But Velchaninoff was himself again now.“I'll apologise if you like,”he said, and relapsed into gloomy silence. After a moment he added,“But only on condition that you yourself agree to speak out fully, and at once.”“In your place I should apologise unconditionally, Alexey Ivanovitch.”“Very well; so be it then.”Velchaninoff was silent again for a while.“I apologise,”he resumed;“but admit yourself, Pavel Pavlovitch, that I need not feel myself in any way bound to you after this. I mean with regard toanything—not only this particular matter.”“All right! Why, what is there to settle between us?”laughed Pavel Pavlovitch, without looking up.“In that case, so much the better—so much the better. Come, drink up your wine and get into bed, for I shall not let you go now, anyhow.”“Oh, my wine—never mind my wine!”muttered Pavel Pavlovitch; but he went to the table all the same, and took up his tumbler of champagne which had long been poured out. Either he had been drinking copiously before, or there was some other unknown cause at work, but his hand shook so as he drank the wine that a quantity of it was spilled over his waistcoat and the floor. However, he drank it all, to the last drop, as though he could not leave the tumbler without emptying it. He then placed the empty glass on the table, approached his bed, sat down on it, and began to undress.“I think perhaps I had betternotsleep here,”he said suddenly, with one boot off, and half undressed.“Well, Idon'tthink so,”said Velchaninoff, who was walking up and down, without looking at him.Pavel Pavlovitch finished undressing and lay down. A quarter of an hour later Velchaninoff also got into bed, and put the candle out.He soon began to doze uncomfortably. Some new trouble seemed to have suddenly come over him and worried him, and at the same time he felt a sensation of shame that he could allow himself to be worried by the new trouble. Velchaninoff was just falling definitely asleep, however, when a rustling sound awoke him. He immediately glanced at Pavel Pavlovitch's bed. The room was quite dark, the blinds being down and curtains drawn; but it seemed to him that Pavel Pavlovitch was not lying in his bed; he seemed to be sitting on the side of it.“What's the matter?”cried Velchaninoff.“A ghost, sir,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, in a low tone, after a few moments of silence.“What? What sort of a ghost?”“Th—there—in that room—just at the door, I seemed to see a ghost!”“Whose ghost?”asked Velchaninoff, pausing a minute before putting the question.“Natalia Vasilievna's!”Velchaninoff jumped out of bed and walked to the door, whence he could see into the room opposite, across the passage. There were no curtains in that room, so that it was much lighter than his own.“There's nothing there at all. You are drunk; lie down again!”he said, and himself set the example, rolling his blanket around him.Pavel Pavlovitch said nothing, but lay down as he was told.“Did you ever see any ghosts before?”asked Velchaninoff suddenly, ten minutes later.“I think I saw one once,”said Pavel Pavlovitch in the same low voice; after which there was silence once more. Velchaninoff was not sure whether he had been asleep or not, but an hour or so had passed, when suddenly he was wide awake again. Was it a rustle that awoke him? He could not tell; but one thing was evident—in the midst of the profound darkness of the room something white stood before him; not quite close to him, but about the middle of the room. He sat up in bed, and stared for a full minute.“Is that you, Pavel Pavlovitch?”he asked. His voice sounded very weak.There was no reply; but there was not the slightest doubt of the fact that someone was standing there.“Is that you, Pavel Pavlovitch?”cried Velchaninoff again, louder this time; in fact, so loud that if the former had been asleep in bed he must have started up and answered.But there was no reply again. It seemed to Velchaninoff that the white figure had approached nearer to him.Then something strange happened; something seemed to“let go”within Velchaninoff's system, and he commenced to shout at the top of his voice, just as he had done once before this evening, in the wildest and maddest way possible, panting so that he could hardly articulate his words:“If you—drunken ass that you are—dare to think that you could frightenme, I'll turn my face to the wall, and not look round once the whole night, to show you how little I am afraid of you—a fool like you—if you stand there from now till morning! I despise you!”So saying, Velchaninoff twisted round with his face to the wall, rolled his blanket round him, and lay motionless, as though turned to stone. A deathlike stillness supervened.Did the ghost stand where it was, or had it moved? He could not tell; but his heart beat, and beat, and beat—At least five minutes went by, and then, not a couple of paces from his bed, there came the feeble voice of Pavel Pavlovitch:“I got up, Alexey Ivanovitch, to look for a little water. I couldn't find any, and was just going to look about nearer your bed——”“Then why didn't you answer when I called?”cried Velchaninoff angrily, after a minute's pause.“I was frightened; you shouted so, you alarmed me!”“You'll find a caraffe and glass over there, on the little table. Light a candle.”“Oh, I'll find it without. You'll forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch, for frightening you so; I felt thirsty so suddenly.”But Velchaninoff said nothing. He continued to lie with his face to the wall, and so he lay all night, without turning round once. Was he anxious to keep his word and show his contempt for Pavel Pavlovitch? He did not know himself why he did it; his nervous agitation and perturbation were such that he could not sleep for a long while, he felt quite delirious. At last he fell asleep, and awoke at past nine o'clock next morning. He started up just as though someone had struck him, and sat down on the side of his bed. But Pavel Pavlovitch was not to be seen. His empty, rumpled bed was there, but its occupant had flown before daybreak.“I thought so!”cried Velchaninoff, bringing the palm of his right hand smartly to his forehead.

Pavel Pavlovitch had made himself very comfortable. He was sitting in the same chair as he had occupied yesterday, smoking a cigar, and had just poured the fourth and last tumbler of champagne out of the bottle.

The teapot and a half-emptied tumbler of tea stood on the table beside him; his red face beamed with benevolence. He had taken off his coat, and sat in his shirt sleeves.

“Forgive me, dearest of friends,”he cried, catching sight of Velchaninoff, and hastening to put on his coat,“I took it off to make myself thoroughly comfortable.”

Velchaninoff approached him menacingly.

“You are not quite tipsy yet, are you? Can you understand what is said to you?”

Paul Pavlovitch became a little confused.

“No, not quite. I've been thinking of the dear deceased a bit, but I'm not quite drunk yet.”

“Can you understand what I say?”

“My dear sir, I came here on purpose to understand you.”

“Very well, then I shall begin at once by telling you that you are an ass, sir!”cried Velchaninoff, at the top of his voice.

“Why, if you begin that way where will you end, I wonder!”said Pavel Pavlovitch, clearly alarmed more than a little.

Velchaninoff did not listen, but roared again,

“Your daughter is dying—she is very ill! Have you thrown her over altogether, or not?”

“Oh, surely she isn't dying yet?”

“I tell you she's ill; very, very ill—dangerously ill.”

“What, fits? or——”

“Don't talk nonsense. I tell you she is very dangerously ill. You ought to go down, if only for that reason.”

“What, to thank your friends, eh? to return thanks for their hospitality? Of course, quite so; I well understand, Alexey Ivanovitch—dearest of friends!”He suddenly seized Velchaninoff by both hands, and added with intoxicated sentiment, almost melted to tears,“Alexey Ivanovitch, don't shout at me—don't shout at me, please! If you do, I may throw myself into the Neva—I don't know!—and we have such important things to talk over. There's lots of time to go to the Pogoryeltseffs another day.”

Velchaninoff did his best to restrain his wrath.“You are drunk, and therefore I don't understand what you are driving at,”he said sternly.“I'm ready to come to an explanation with you at any moment you like—delighted!—the the sooner the better. But first let me tell you that I am going to take my own measures to secure you. You will sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I shall take you with me to see Liza. I shall not let you go again. I shall bind you, if necessary, and carry you down myself. How do you like this sofa to sleep on?”he added, panting, and indicating a wide, soft divan opposite his own sofa, against the other wall.

“Oh—anything will do for me!”

“Very well, you shall have this sofa. Here, take these things—here are sheets, blankets, pillow”(Velchaninoff pulled all these things out of a cupboard, and tossed them impatiently to Pavel Pavlovitch, who humbly stood and received them);“now then, make your bed,—come, bustle up!”

Pavel Pavlovitch laden with bed clothes had been standing in the middle of the room with a stupid drunken leer on his face, irresolute; but at Velchaninoff's second bidding he hurriedly began the task of making his bed, moving the table away from in front of it, and smoothing a sheet over the seat of the divan. Velchaninoff approached to help him. He was more or less gratified with his guest's alarm and submission.

“Now, drink up that wine and lie down!”was his next command. He felt that hemustorder this man about, he could not help himself.“I suppose you took upon yourself to order this wine, did you?”

“I did—I did, sir! I sent for the wine, Alexey Ivanovitch, because I knewyouwould not send out again!”

“Well, it's a good thing that you knew that; but I desire that you should know still more. I give you notice that I have taken my own measures for the future, I'm not going to put up with any more of your antics.”

“Oh, I quite understand, Alexey Ivanovitch, that that sort of thing could only happen once!”said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling feebly.

At this reply Velchaninoff, who had been marching up and down the room stopped solemnly before Pavel Pavlovitch.

“Pavel Pavlovitch,”he said,“speak plainly! You are a clever fellow—I admit the fact freely,—but I assure you you are going on a false track now. Speak plainly, and act like an honest man, and I give you my word of honour that I will answer all you wish to know.”

Pavel Pavlovitch grinned his disagreeable grin (which always drove Velchaninoff wild) once more.

“Wait!”cried the latter.“No humbug now, please; I see through you. I repeat that I give you my word of honour to reply candidly to anything you may like to ask, and to give you every sort of satisfaction—reasonable or even unreasonable—that you please.Oh!how I wish I could make you understand me!”

“Since you are so very kind,”began Pavel Pavlovitch, cautiously bending towards him,“I may tell you that I am very much interested as to what you said yesterday about‘bird of prey’?”

Velchaninoff spat on the ground in utter despair and disgust, and recommenced his walk up and down the room, quicker than ever.

“No, no, Alexey Ivanovitch, don't spurn my question; you don't know how interested I am in it. I assure you I came here on purpose to ask you about it. I know I'm speaking indistinctly, but you'll forgive me that. I've read the expression before. Tell me now, was Bagantoff a‘bird of prey,’or—the other thing? How is one to distinguish one from the other?”

Velchaninoff went on walking up and down, and answered nothing for some minutes.

“The bird of prey, sir,”he began suddenly, stopping in front of Pavel Pavlovitch, and speaking vehemently,“is the man who would poison Bagantoff while drinking champagne with him under the cloak of goodfellowship, as you did with me yesterday, instead of escorting his wretched body to the burial ground as you did—the deuce only knows why, and with what dirty, mean, underhand, petty motives, which only recoil upon yourself and make you viler than you already are. Yes, sir, recoil upon yourself!”

“Quite so, quite so, I oughtn't to have gone,”assented Pavel Pavlovitch,“but aren't you a little——”

“The bird of prey is not a man who goes and learns his grievance off by heart, like a lesson, and whines it about the place, grimacing and posing, and hanging it round other people's necks, and who spends all his time in such pettifogging. Is it true you wanted to hang yourself? Come, is it true, or not?”

“I—I don't know—I may have when I was drunk—I don't remember. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, it wouldn't be quite nice for me to go poisoning people. I'm too high up in the service, and I have money, too, you know—and I may wish to marry again, who knows.”

“Yes; you'd be sent to Siberia, which would be awkward.”

“Quite so; though they say the penal servitude is not so bad as it was. But you remind me of an anecdote, Alexey Ivanovitch. I thought of it in the carriage, and meant to tell you afterwards. Well! you may remember Liftsoff at T——. He came while you were there. His younger brother—who is rather a swell, too—was serving at L—— under the governor, and one fine day he happened to quarrel with Colonel Golubenko in the presence of ladies, and of one lady especially. Liftsoff considered himself insulted, but concealed his grievance; and, meanwhile, Golubenko proposed to a certain lady and was accepted. Would you believe it, Liftsoff made great friends with Golubenko, and even volunteered to be best man at his wedding. But when the ceremony was all over, and Liftsoff approached the bridegroom to wish him joy and kiss him, as usual, he took the opportunity of sticking a knife into Golubenko. Fancy! his own best man stuck him! Well, what does the assassin do but run about the room crying.‘Oh! what have I done? Oh! what have I done?’says he, and throws himself on everyone's neck by turns, ladies and all! Ha-ha-ha! He starved to death in Siberia, sir! One is a little sorry for Golubenko; but he recovered, after all.”

“I don't understand why you told me that story,”said Velchaninoff, frowning heavily.

“Why, because he stuck the other fellow with a knife,”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch,“which proves that he was no type, but an ass of a fellow, who could so forget the ordinary manners of society as to hang around ladies' necks, and in the presence of the governor, too—and yet he stuck the other fellow. Ha-ha-ha! He did what he intended to do, that's all, sir!”

“Go to the devil, will you—you and your miserable humbug—you miserable humbug yourself,”yelled Velchaninoff, wild with rage and fury, and panting so that he could hardly get his words out.“You think you are going to alarmme, do you, you frightener of children—you mean beast—you low scoundrel you?—scoundrel—scoundrel—scoundrel!”He had quite forgotten himself in his rage.

Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered all over; his drunkenness seemed to vanish in an instant; his lips trembled and shook.

“Are you callingmea scoundrel, Alexey Ivanovitch—you—me?”

But Velchaninoff was himself again now.

“I'll apologise if you like,”he said, and relapsed into gloomy silence. After a moment he added,“But only on condition that you yourself agree to speak out fully, and at once.”

“In your place I should apologise unconditionally, Alexey Ivanovitch.”

“Very well; so be it then.”Velchaninoff was silent again for a while.“I apologise,”he resumed;“but admit yourself, Pavel Pavlovitch, that I need not feel myself in any way bound to you after this. I mean with regard toanything—not only this particular matter.”

“All right! Why, what is there to settle between us?”laughed Pavel Pavlovitch, without looking up.

“In that case, so much the better—so much the better. Come, drink up your wine and get into bed, for I shall not let you go now, anyhow.”

“Oh, my wine—never mind my wine!”muttered Pavel Pavlovitch; but he went to the table all the same, and took up his tumbler of champagne which had long been poured out. Either he had been drinking copiously before, or there was some other unknown cause at work, but his hand shook so as he drank the wine that a quantity of it was spilled over his waistcoat and the floor. However, he drank it all, to the last drop, as though he could not leave the tumbler without emptying it. He then placed the empty glass on the table, approached his bed, sat down on it, and began to undress.

“I think perhaps I had betternotsleep here,”he said suddenly, with one boot off, and half undressed.

“Well, Idon'tthink so,”said Velchaninoff, who was walking up and down, without looking at him.

Pavel Pavlovitch finished undressing and lay down. A quarter of an hour later Velchaninoff also got into bed, and put the candle out.

He soon began to doze uncomfortably. Some new trouble seemed to have suddenly come over him and worried him, and at the same time he felt a sensation of shame that he could allow himself to be worried by the new trouble. Velchaninoff was just falling definitely asleep, however, when a rustling sound awoke him. He immediately glanced at Pavel Pavlovitch's bed. The room was quite dark, the blinds being down and curtains drawn; but it seemed to him that Pavel Pavlovitch was not lying in his bed; he seemed to be sitting on the side of it.

“What's the matter?”cried Velchaninoff.

“A ghost, sir,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, in a low tone, after a few moments of silence.

“What? What sort of a ghost?”

“Th—there—in that room—just at the door, I seemed to see a ghost!”

“Whose ghost?”asked Velchaninoff, pausing a minute before putting the question.

“Natalia Vasilievna's!”

Velchaninoff jumped out of bed and walked to the door, whence he could see into the room opposite, across the passage. There were no curtains in that room, so that it was much lighter than his own.

“There's nothing there at all. You are drunk; lie down again!”he said, and himself set the example, rolling his blanket around him.

Pavel Pavlovitch said nothing, but lay down as he was told.

“Did you ever see any ghosts before?”asked Velchaninoff suddenly, ten minutes later.

“I think I saw one once,”said Pavel Pavlovitch in the same low voice; after which there was silence once more. Velchaninoff was not sure whether he had been asleep or not, but an hour or so had passed, when suddenly he was wide awake again. Was it a rustle that awoke him? He could not tell; but one thing was evident—in the midst of the profound darkness of the room something white stood before him; not quite close to him, but about the middle of the room. He sat up in bed, and stared for a full minute.

“Is that you, Pavel Pavlovitch?”he asked. His voice sounded very weak.

There was no reply; but there was not the slightest doubt of the fact that someone was standing there.

“Is that you, Pavel Pavlovitch?”cried Velchaninoff again, louder this time; in fact, so loud that if the former had been asleep in bed he must have started up and answered.

But there was no reply again. It seemed to Velchaninoff that the white figure had approached nearer to him.

Then something strange happened; something seemed to“let go”within Velchaninoff's system, and he commenced to shout at the top of his voice, just as he had done once before this evening, in the wildest and maddest way possible, panting so that he could hardly articulate his words:“If you—drunken ass that you are—dare to think that you could frightenme, I'll turn my face to the wall, and not look round once the whole night, to show you how little I am afraid of you—a fool like you—if you stand there from now till morning! I despise you!”So saying, Velchaninoff twisted round with his face to the wall, rolled his blanket round him, and lay motionless, as though turned to stone. A deathlike stillness supervened.

Did the ghost stand where it was, or had it moved? He could not tell; but his heart beat, and beat, and beat—At least five minutes went by, and then, not a couple of paces from his bed, there came the feeble voice of Pavel Pavlovitch:

“I got up, Alexey Ivanovitch, to look for a little water. I couldn't find any, and was just going to look about nearer your bed——”

“Then why didn't you answer when I called?”cried Velchaninoff angrily, after a minute's pause.

“I was frightened; you shouted so, you alarmed me!”

“You'll find a caraffe and glass over there, on the little table. Light a candle.”

“Oh, I'll find it without. You'll forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch, for frightening you so; I felt thirsty so suddenly.”

But Velchaninoff said nothing. He continued to lie with his face to the wall, and so he lay all night, without turning round once. Was he anxious to keep his word and show his contempt for Pavel Pavlovitch? He did not know himself why he did it; his nervous agitation and perturbation were such that he could not sleep for a long while, he felt quite delirious. At last he fell asleep, and awoke at past nine o'clock next morning. He started up just as though someone had struck him, and sat down on the side of his bed. But Pavel Pavlovitch was not to be seen. His empty, rumpled bed was there, but its occupant had flown before daybreak.

“I thought so!”cried Velchaninoff, bringing the palm of his right hand smartly to his forehead.

CHAPTER X.The doctor's anxiety was justified; Liza grew worse, so much so that it was clear she was far more seriously ill than Velchaninoff and Claudia Petrovna had thought the day before.When the former arrived in the morning, Liza was still conscious, though burning with fever. He assured his friend Claudia, afterwards, that the child had smiled at him and held out her little hot hand. Whether she actually did so, or whether he so much longed for her to do so that he imagined it done, is uncertain.By the evening, however, Liza was quite unconscious, and so she remained during the whole of her illness. Ten days after her removal to the country she died.This was a sad period for Velchaninoff; the Pogoryeltseffs were quite anxious on his account. He was with them for the greater part of the time, and during the last few days of the little one's illness, he used to sit all alone for hours together in some corner, apparently thinking of nothing. Claudia Petrovna would attempt to distract him but he hardly answered her, and conversation was clearly painful to him. Claudia was quite surprised that“all this”should affect him so deeply.The children were the best consolation and distraction for him; with them he could even laugh and play at intervals. Every hour, at least, he would rise from his chair and creep on tip-toes to the sick-room to look at the little invalid. Sometimes he imagined that she knew him; he had no hope for her recovery—none of the family had any hope; but he never left the precincts of the child's chamber, sitting principally in the next room.Twice, however, he had evinced great activity of a sudden; he had jumped up and started off for town, where he had called upon all the most eminent doctors of the place, and arranged consultations between them. The last consultation was on the day before Liza's death.Claudia Petrovna had spoken seriously to him a day or two since, as to the absolute necessity of hunting up Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky, because in case of anything happening to Liza, she could not be buried without certain documents from him.Velchaninoff promised to write to him, and did write a couple of lines, which he took to the Pokrofsky. Pavel Pavlovitch was not at home, as usual, but he left the letter to the care of Maria Sisevna.At last Liza died—on a lovely summer evening, just as the sun was setting; and only then did Velchaninoff rouse himself.When the little one was laid out, all covered with flowers, and dressed in a fair white frock belonging to one of Claudia Petrovna's children, Velchaninoff came up to the lady of the house, and told her with flashing eyes that he would now go and fetch the murderer. Regardless of all advice to put off his search until to-morrow he started for town immediately.He knew where to find Pavel Pavlovitch. He had not been in town exclusively to find the doctors those two days. Occasionally, while watching the dying child, he had been struck with the idea that if he could only find and bring down Pavel Pavlovitch she might hear his voice and be called back, as it were, from the darkness of delirium; at such moments he had been seized with desperation, and twice he had started up and driven wildly off to town in order to find Pavel Pavlovitch.The latter's room was the same as before, but it was useless to look for him there, for, according to Maria Sisevna's report, he was now two or three days absent from home at a stretch, and was generally to be found with some friends in the Voznecensky.Arrived in town about ten o'clock, Velchaninoff went straight to these latter people, and securing the services of a member of the family to assist in finding Pavel Pavlovitch, set out on his quest. He did not know what he should do with Pavel Pavlovitch when found, whether he should kill him then and there, or simply inform him of the death of the child, and of the necessity for his assistance in arranging for her funeral. After a long and fruitless search Velchaninoff found Pavel Pavlovitch quite accidentally; he was quarrelling with some person in the street—tipsy as usual, and seemed to be getting the worst of the controversy, which appeared to be about a money claim.On catching sight of Velchaninoff, Pavel Pavlovitch stretched out his arms to him and begged for help; while his opponent—observing Velchaninoff's athletic figure—made off. Pavel Pavlovitch shook his fist after him triumphantly, and hooted at him with cries of victory; but this amusement was brought to a sudden conclusion by Velchaninoff, who, impelled by some mysterious motive—which he could not analyse, took him by the shoulders, and began to shake him violently, so violently that his teeth chattered.Pavel Pavlovitch ceased to shout after his opponent, and gazed with a stupid tipsy expression of alarm at his new antagonist. Velchaninoff, having shaken him till he was tired, and not knowing what to do next with him, set him down violently on the pavement, backwards.“Liza is dead!”he said.Pavel Pavlovitch sat on the pavement and stared, he was too far gone to take in the news. At last he seemed to realize.“Dead!”he whispered, in a strange inexplicable tone. Velchaninoff was not sure whether his face was simply twitching, or whether he was trying to grin in his usual disagreeable way; but the next moment the drunkard raised his shaking hand to cross himself. He then struggled to his feet and staggered off, appearing totally oblivious of the fact that such a person as Velchaninoff existed.However, the latter very soon pursued and caught him, seizing him once more by the shoulder.“Do you understand, you drunken sot, that without you the funeral arrangements cannot be made?”he shouted, panting with rage.Pavel Pavlovitch turned his head.“The artillery—lieutenant—don't you remember him?”he muttered, thickly.“What?”cried Velchaninoff, with a shudder.“He's her father—find him! he'll bury her!”“You liar! You said that out of pure malice. I thought you'd invent something of the sort!”Quite beside himself with passion Velchaninoff brought down his powerful fist with all his strength on Pavel Pavlovitch's head; another moment and he might have followed up the blow and slain the man as he stood. His victim never winced, but he turned upon Velchaninoff a face of such insane terrible passion, that his whole visage looked distorted.“Do you understand Russian?”he asked more firmly, as though his fury had chased away the effects of drunkenness.“Very well, then, you are a——!”(here followed a specimen of the very vilest language which the Russian tongue could furnish);“and now you can go back to her!”So saying he tore himself from Velchaninoff's grasp, nearly knocking himself over with the effort, and staggered away. Velchaninoff did not follow him.Next day, however, a most respectable-looking middle-aged man arrived at the Pogoryeltseft's house, in civil uniform, and handed to Claudia Petrovna a packet addressed to her“from Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky.”In this packet was a sum of three hundred roubles, together with all certificates necessary for Liza's funeral. Pavel Pavlovitch had written a short note couched in very polite and correct phraseology, and thanking Claudia Petrovna sincerely“for her great kindness to the orphan—kindness for which heaven alone could recompense her.”He added rather confusedly that severe illness prevented his personal presence at the funeral of his“tenderly loved and unfortunate daughter,”but that he“felt he could repose all confidence (as to the ceremony being fittingly performed) in the angelic goodness of Claudia Petrovna.”The three hundred roubles, he explained, were to go towards the funeral and other expenses. If there should be any of the money left after defraying all charges, Claudia Petrovna was requested to spend the same in prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased.Nothing further was to be discovered by questioning the messenger; and it was soon evident that the latter knew nothing, excepting that he had only consented to act as bearer of the packet, in response to the urgent appeal of Pavel Pavlovitch.Pogoryeltseff was a little offended by the offer of money for expenses, and would have sent it back, but Claudia Petrovna suggested that a receipt should be taken from the cemetery authorities for the cost of the funeral (since one could not well refuse to allow a man to bury his own child), together with a document undertaking that the rest of the three hundred roubles should be spent in prayer for the soul of Liza.Velchaninoff afterwards posted an envelope containing these two papers to Trusotsky's lodging.After the funeral Velchaninoff disappeared from the country altogether. He wandered about town for a whole fortnight, knocking up against people as he went blindly through the streets. Now and then he spent a whole day lying in his bed, oblivious of the most ordinary needs and occupations; the Pogoryeltseffs often invited him to their house, and he invariably promised to come, and as invariably forgot all about it. Claudia Petrovna went as far as to call for him herself, but she did not find him at home. The same thing happened with his lawyer, who had some good news to tell him. The difference with his opponent had been settled advantageously for Velchaninoff, the former having accepted a small bonification and renounced his claim to the property in dispute. All that was wanting was the formal acquiescence of Velchaninoff himself.Finding him at home at last, after many endeavours, the lawyer was excessively surprised to discover that Velchaninoff was as callous and cool as to the result of his (the lawyer's) labours, as he had before been ardent and excitable.The hottest days of July had now arrived, but Velchaninoff was oblivious of everything. His grief swelled and ached at his heart like some internal boil; his greatest sorrow was that Liza had not had time to know him, and died without ever guessing how fondly he loved her. The sweet new beacon of his life, which had glimmered for a short while within his heart, was extinguished once more, and lost in eternal gloom.The whole object of his existence, as he now told himself at every moment, should have been that Liza might feel his love about her and around her, each day, each hour, each moment of her life.“There can be no higher aim or object than this in life,”he thought, in gloomy ecstasy.“If there be other aims in life, none can be holier or better than this of mine. All my old unworthy life should have been purified and atoned for by my love for Liza; in place of myself—my sinful, worn-out, useless life—I should have bequeathed to the world a sweet, pure, beautiful being, in whose innocence all my guilt should have been absorbed, and lost, and forgiven, and in her I should have forgiven myself.”Such thoughts would flit through Velchaninoff's head as he mused sorrowfully over the memory of the dead child. He thought over all he had seen of her; he recalled her little face all burning with fever, then lying at rest in her coffin, covered with lovely flowers. He remembered that once he had noticed that one of her fingers was quite black from some bruise or pinch—goodness knows what had made it so, but it was the sight of that little finger which had filled him with longing to go straight away andmurderPavel Pavlovitch.“Do you know what Liza is to me?”Pavel had said, he recollected, one day; and now he understood the exclamation. It was no pretence of love, no posturing and nonsense—it was real love! How, then, could the wretch have been so cruel to a child whom he so dearly loved? He could not bear to think of it, the question was painful, and quite unanswerable.One day he wandered down—he knew not exactly how—to the cemetery where Liza was buried, and hunted up her grave. This was the first time he had been there since the funeral; he had never dared to go there before, fearing that the visit would be too painful. But strangely enough, when he found the little mound and had bent down and kissed it, he felt happier and lighter at heart than before.It was a lovely evening, the sun was setting, the tall grass waved about the tombs, and a bee hummed somewhere near him. The flowers and crosses placed on the tomb by Claudia Petrovna were still there. A ray of hope blazed up in his heart for the first time for many a long day.“How light-hearted I feel,”he thought, as he felt the spell of the quiet of God's Acre, and the hush of the beautiful still evening. A flow of some indefinable faith in something poured into his heart.“This is Liza's gift,”he thought;“this is Liza herself talking to me!”It was quite dark when he left the cemetery and turned his steps homewards.Not far from the gate of the burial ground there stood a small inn or public-house, and through the open windows he could see the people inside sitting at tables. It instantly struck Velchaninoff that one of the guests, sitting nearest to the window, was Pavel Pavlovitch, and that the latter had seen him and was observing him curiously.He went on further, but before very long he heard footsteps pursuing him. It was, of course, Pavel Pavlovitch. Probably the unusually serene and peaceful expression of Velchaninoff's face as he went by had attracted and encouraged him.He soon caught Velchaninoff up, and smiled timidly at him, but not with the old drunken grin. He did not appear to be in the smallest degree drunk.“Good evening,”said Pavel Pavlovitch.“How d'ye do?”replied Velchaninoff.

The doctor's anxiety was justified; Liza grew worse, so much so that it was clear she was far more seriously ill than Velchaninoff and Claudia Petrovna had thought the day before.

When the former arrived in the morning, Liza was still conscious, though burning with fever. He assured his friend Claudia, afterwards, that the child had smiled at him and held out her little hot hand. Whether she actually did so, or whether he so much longed for her to do so that he imagined it done, is uncertain.

By the evening, however, Liza was quite unconscious, and so she remained during the whole of her illness. Ten days after her removal to the country she died.

This was a sad period for Velchaninoff; the Pogoryeltseffs were quite anxious on his account. He was with them for the greater part of the time, and during the last few days of the little one's illness, he used to sit all alone for hours together in some corner, apparently thinking of nothing. Claudia Petrovna would attempt to distract him but he hardly answered her, and conversation was clearly painful to him. Claudia was quite surprised that“all this”should affect him so deeply.

The children were the best consolation and distraction for him; with them he could even laugh and play at intervals. Every hour, at least, he would rise from his chair and creep on tip-toes to the sick-room to look at the little invalid. Sometimes he imagined that she knew him; he had no hope for her recovery—none of the family had any hope; but he never left the precincts of the child's chamber, sitting principally in the next room.

Twice, however, he had evinced great activity of a sudden; he had jumped up and started off for town, where he had called upon all the most eminent doctors of the place, and arranged consultations between them. The last consultation was on the day before Liza's death.

Claudia Petrovna had spoken seriously to him a day or two since, as to the absolute necessity of hunting up Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky, because in case of anything happening to Liza, she could not be buried without certain documents from him.

Velchaninoff promised to write to him, and did write a couple of lines, which he took to the Pokrofsky. Pavel Pavlovitch was not at home, as usual, but he left the letter to the care of Maria Sisevna.

At last Liza died—on a lovely summer evening, just as the sun was setting; and only then did Velchaninoff rouse himself.

When the little one was laid out, all covered with flowers, and dressed in a fair white frock belonging to one of Claudia Petrovna's children, Velchaninoff came up to the lady of the house, and told her with flashing eyes that he would now go and fetch the murderer. Regardless of all advice to put off his search until to-morrow he started for town immediately.

He knew where to find Pavel Pavlovitch. He had not been in town exclusively to find the doctors those two days. Occasionally, while watching the dying child, he had been struck with the idea that if he could only find and bring down Pavel Pavlovitch she might hear his voice and be called back, as it were, from the darkness of delirium; at such moments he had been seized with desperation, and twice he had started up and driven wildly off to town in order to find Pavel Pavlovitch.

The latter's room was the same as before, but it was useless to look for him there, for, according to Maria Sisevna's report, he was now two or three days absent from home at a stretch, and was generally to be found with some friends in the Voznecensky.

Arrived in town about ten o'clock, Velchaninoff went straight to these latter people, and securing the services of a member of the family to assist in finding Pavel Pavlovitch, set out on his quest. He did not know what he should do with Pavel Pavlovitch when found, whether he should kill him then and there, or simply inform him of the death of the child, and of the necessity for his assistance in arranging for her funeral. After a long and fruitless search Velchaninoff found Pavel Pavlovitch quite accidentally; he was quarrelling with some person in the street—tipsy as usual, and seemed to be getting the worst of the controversy, which appeared to be about a money claim.

On catching sight of Velchaninoff, Pavel Pavlovitch stretched out his arms to him and begged for help; while his opponent—observing Velchaninoff's athletic figure—made off. Pavel Pavlovitch shook his fist after him triumphantly, and hooted at him with cries of victory; but this amusement was brought to a sudden conclusion by Velchaninoff, who, impelled by some mysterious motive—which he could not analyse, took him by the shoulders, and began to shake him violently, so violently that his teeth chattered.

Pavel Pavlovitch ceased to shout after his opponent, and gazed with a stupid tipsy expression of alarm at his new antagonist. Velchaninoff, having shaken him till he was tired, and not knowing what to do next with him, set him down violently on the pavement, backwards.

“Liza is dead!”he said.

Pavel Pavlovitch sat on the pavement and stared, he was too far gone to take in the news. At last he seemed to realize.

“Dead!”he whispered, in a strange inexplicable tone. Velchaninoff was not sure whether his face was simply twitching, or whether he was trying to grin in his usual disagreeable way; but the next moment the drunkard raised his shaking hand to cross himself. He then struggled to his feet and staggered off, appearing totally oblivious of the fact that such a person as Velchaninoff existed.

However, the latter very soon pursued and caught him, seizing him once more by the shoulder.

“Do you understand, you drunken sot, that without you the funeral arrangements cannot be made?”he shouted, panting with rage.

Pavel Pavlovitch turned his head.

“The artillery—lieutenant—don't you remember him?”he muttered, thickly.

“What?”cried Velchaninoff, with a shudder.

“He's her father—find him! he'll bury her!”

“You liar! You said that out of pure malice. I thought you'd invent something of the sort!”

Quite beside himself with passion Velchaninoff brought down his powerful fist with all his strength on Pavel Pavlovitch's head; another moment and he might have followed up the blow and slain the man as he stood. His victim never winced, but he turned upon Velchaninoff a face of such insane terrible passion, that his whole visage looked distorted.

“Do you understand Russian?”he asked more firmly, as though his fury had chased away the effects of drunkenness.“Very well, then, you are a——!”(here followed a specimen of the very vilest language which the Russian tongue could furnish);“and now you can go back to her!”So saying he tore himself from Velchaninoff's grasp, nearly knocking himself over with the effort, and staggered away. Velchaninoff did not follow him.

Next day, however, a most respectable-looking middle-aged man arrived at the Pogoryeltseft's house, in civil uniform, and handed to Claudia Petrovna a packet addressed to her“from Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky.”

In this packet was a sum of three hundred roubles, together with all certificates necessary for Liza's funeral. Pavel Pavlovitch had written a short note couched in very polite and correct phraseology, and thanking Claudia Petrovna sincerely“for her great kindness to the orphan—kindness for which heaven alone could recompense her.”He added rather confusedly that severe illness prevented his personal presence at the funeral of his“tenderly loved and unfortunate daughter,”but that he“felt he could repose all confidence (as to the ceremony being fittingly performed) in the angelic goodness of Claudia Petrovna.”The three hundred roubles, he explained, were to go towards the funeral and other expenses. If there should be any of the money left after defraying all charges, Claudia Petrovna was requested to spend the same in prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased.

Nothing further was to be discovered by questioning the messenger; and it was soon evident that the latter knew nothing, excepting that he had only consented to act as bearer of the packet, in response to the urgent appeal of Pavel Pavlovitch.

Pogoryeltseff was a little offended by the offer of money for expenses, and would have sent it back, but Claudia Petrovna suggested that a receipt should be taken from the cemetery authorities for the cost of the funeral (since one could not well refuse to allow a man to bury his own child), together with a document undertaking that the rest of the three hundred roubles should be spent in prayer for the soul of Liza.

Velchaninoff afterwards posted an envelope containing these two papers to Trusotsky's lodging.

After the funeral Velchaninoff disappeared from the country altogether. He wandered about town for a whole fortnight, knocking up against people as he went blindly through the streets. Now and then he spent a whole day lying in his bed, oblivious of the most ordinary needs and occupations; the Pogoryeltseffs often invited him to their house, and he invariably promised to come, and as invariably forgot all about it. Claudia Petrovna went as far as to call for him herself, but she did not find him at home. The same thing happened with his lawyer, who had some good news to tell him. The difference with his opponent had been settled advantageously for Velchaninoff, the former having accepted a small bonification and renounced his claim to the property in dispute. All that was wanting was the formal acquiescence of Velchaninoff himself.

Finding him at home at last, after many endeavours, the lawyer was excessively surprised to discover that Velchaninoff was as callous and cool as to the result of his (the lawyer's) labours, as he had before been ardent and excitable.

The hottest days of July had now arrived, but Velchaninoff was oblivious of everything. His grief swelled and ached at his heart like some internal boil; his greatest sorrow was that Liza had not had time to know him, and died without ever guessing how fondly he loved her. The sweet new beacon of his life, which had glimmered for a short while within his heart, was extinguished once more, and lost in eternal gloom.

The whole object of his existence, as he now told himself at every moment, should have been that Liza might feel his love about her and around her, each day, each hour, each moment of her life.

“There can be no higher aim or object than this in life,”he thought, in gloomy ecstasy.“If there be other aims in life, none can be holier or better than this of mine. All my old unworthy life should have been purified and atoned for by my love for Liza; in place of myself—my sinful, worn-out, useless life—I should have bequeathed to the world a sweet, pure, beautiful being, in whose innocence all my guilt should have been absorbed, and lost, and forgiven, and in her I should have forgiven myself.”

Such thoughts would flit through Velchaninoff's head as he mused sorrowfully over the memory of the dead child. He thought over all he had seen of her; he recalled her little face all burning with fever, then lying at rest in her coffin, covered with lovely flowers. He remembered that once he had noticed that one of her fingers was quite black from some bruise or pinch—goodness knows what had made it so, but it was the sight of that little finger which had filled him with longing to go straight away andmurderPavel Pavlovitch.

“Do you know what Liza is to me?”Pavel had said, he recollected, one day; and now he understood the exclamation. It was no pretence of love, no posturing and nonsense—it was real love! How, then, could the wretch have been so cruel to a child whom he so dearly loved? He could not bear to think of it, the question was painful, and quite unanswerable.

One day he wandered down—he knew not exactly how—to the cemetery where Liza was buried, and hunted up her grave. This was the first time he had been there since the funeral; he had never dared to go there before, fearing that the visit would be too painful. But strangely enough, when he found the little mound and had bent down and kissed it, he felt happier and lighter at heart than before.

It was a lovely evening, the sun was setting, the tall grass waved about the tombs, and a bee hummed somewhere near him. The flowers and crosses placed on the tomb by Claudia Petrovna were still there. A ray of hope blazed up in his heart for the first time for many a long day.“How light-hearted I feel,”he thought, as he felt the spell of the quiet of God's Acre, and the hush of the beautiful still evening. A flow of some indefinable faith in something poured into his heart.

“This is Liza's gift,”he thought;“this is Liza herself talking to me!”

It was quite dark when he left the cemetery and turned his steps homewards.

Not far from the gate of the burial ground there stood a small inn or public-house, and through the open windows he could see the people inside sitting at tables. It instantly struck Velchaninoff that one of the guests, sitting nearest to the window, was Pavel Pavlovitch, and that the latter had seen him and was observing him curiously.

He went on further, but before very long he heard footsteps pursuing him. It was, of course, Pavel Pavlovitch. Probably the unusually serene and peaceful expression of Velchaninoff's face as he went by had attracted and encouraged him.

He soon caught Velchaninoff up, and smiled timidly at him, but not with the old drunken grin. He did not appear to be in the smallest degree drunk.

“Good evening,”said Pavel Pavlovitch.

“How d'ye do?”replied Velchaninoff.

Back to Index Next