CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIII.In spite of Velchaninoff's apparently happy day, the feeling of annoyance and suffering at his heart had hardly actually left him for a single moment. Before he sang the song he had not known what to do with himself, or suppressed anger and melancholy—perhaps that was the reason why he had sung with so much feeling and passion.“To think that I could so have lowered myself as to forget everything!”he thought—and then despised himself for thinking it;“it is more humiliating still to cry over what is done,”he continued.“Far better to fly into a passion with someone instead.”“Fool!”he muttered—looking askance at Pavel Pavlovitch, who sat beside him as still as a mouse. Pavel Pavlovitch preserved a most obstinate silence—probably concentrating and ranging his energies. He occasionally took his hat off, impatiently, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.Once—and once only—Pavel spoke, to the coachman, he asked whether there was going to be a thunder-storm.“Wheugh!”said the man,“I should think so! It's been a steamy day—just the day for it!”By the time town was reached—half-past ten—the whole sky was overcast.“I am coming to your house,”said Pavel to Velchaninoff, when almost at the door.“Quite so; but I warn you, I feel very unwell to-night!”“All right—I won't stay too long.”When the two men passed under the gateway, Pavel Pavlovitch disappeared into the 'dvornik's' room for a minute, to speak to Mavra.“What did you go in there for?”asked Velchaninoff severely as they mounted the stairs and reached his own door.“Oh—nothing—nothing at all,—just to tell them about the coachman.——”“Very well. Mind, I shall not allow you to drink!”Pavel Pavlovitch did not answer.Velchaninoff lit a candle, while Pavel threw himself into a chair;—then the former came and stood menacingly before him.“I may have told you I should havemylast word to say to-night, as well as you!”he said with suppressed anger in his voice and manner:“Here it is. I consider conscientiously that things are square between you and me, now; and therefore there is no more to be said, understand me, aboutanything. Since this is so, had you not better go, and let me close the door after you?”“Let's cry‘quits’first, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, gazing into Velchaninoff's eyes with great sweetness.“Quits?”cried the latter, in amazement;“you strange man, what are we to cry quits about? Are you harping upon your promise of a‘last word’?”“Yes.”“Oh, well, we have nothing more to cry quits for. We have been quits long since,”said Velchaninoff.“Dear me, do you really think so?”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, in a shrill, sharp voice, pressing his two hands tightly together, finger to finger, as he held them up before his breast.Velchaninoff said nothing. He rose from his seat and began to walk up and down the room. The word“Liza”resounded through and through his soul like the voice of a bell.“Well, what is there that you still consider unsettled between us?”he asked at last, looking angrily at Pavel, who had never ceased to follow him with his eyes—always holding his hands before his breast, finger tip to finger tip.“Don't go down there any more,”said Pavel, almost in a whisper, and rising from his seat with every indication of humble entreaty.“What!isthatall?”cried Velchaninoff, bursting into an angry laugh;“good heavens, man, you have done nothing but surprise me all day.”He had begun in a tone of exasperation, but he now abruptly changed both voice and expression, and continued with an air of deep feeling.“Listen,”he said,“listen to me. I don't think I have ever felt so deeply humiliated as I am feeling now, in consequence of the events of to-day. In the first place, that I should have condescended to go down with you at all, and in the second place, all that happened there. It has been such a day of pettifogging—pitiful pettifogging. I have profaned and lowered myself by taking a share in it all, and forgetting——Well, it's done now. But look here—you fell upon me to-day, unawares—upon a sick man. Oh, you needn't excuse yourself; at all events I shall certainlynotgo there again. I have not the slightest interest in so doing,”he concluded, with an air of decision.“No, really!”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, making no secret of his delight and exultation.Velchaninoff glanced contemptuously at him, and recommenced his march up and down the room.“You have determined to be happy under any circumstances, I suppose?”he observed, after a pause. He could not resist making the remark disdainfully.“Yes, I have,”said Pavel, quietly.“It's no business of mine that he's a fool and a knave, out of pure idiocy!”thought Velchaninoff.“I can't help hating him, though I feel that he is not even worth hating.”“I'm a permanent husband,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with the most exquisitely servile irony, at his own expense.“I remember you using that expression, Alexey Ivanovitch, long ago, when you were with us at T——. I remember many of your original phrases of that time, and when you spoke of‘permanent husbands,’the other day, I recollected the expression.”At this point Mavra entered the room with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.“Forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel,“you know I can't get on without it. Don't consider it an audacity on my part—think of it as a mere bit of by-play unworthy your notice.”“Well,”consented Velchaninoff, with a look of disgust,“but I must remind you that I don't feel well, and that—”“One little moment—I'll go at once, I really will—Imustjust drinkoneglass, my throat is so——”He seized the bottle eagerly, and poured himself out a glass, drank it greedily at a gulp, and sat down. He looked at Velchaninoff almost tenderly.“What a nasty looking beast!”muttered the latter to himself.“It's all her friends that make her like that,”said Pavel, suddenly, with animation.“What? Oh, you refer to the lady. I——”“And, besides, she is so very young still, you see,”resumed Pavel.“I shall be her slave—she shall see a little society, and a bit of the world. She will change, sir, entirely.”“I mustn't forget to give him back the bracelet, by-the-bye,”thought Velchaninoff, frowning, as he felt for the case in his coat pocket.“You said just now that I am determined to be happy, Alexey Ivanovitch,”continued Pavel, confidentially, and with almost touching earnestness.“Imustmarry, else what will become of me? You see for yourself”(he pointed to the bottle),“and that's only a hundredth part of what I demean myself to nowadays. I cannot get on without marrying again, sir; Imusthave a new faith. If I can but believe in some one again, sir, I shall rise—I shall be saved.”“Why are you tellingmeall this?”exclaimed Velchaninoff, very nearly laughing in his face; it seemed so absurdly inconsistent.“Look here,”he continued, roaring the words out,“let me know now, once for all, why did you drag me down there? what good was I to do you there?”“I—I wished to try——,”began Pavel, with some confusion.“Try what?”“The effect, sir. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, I have only been visiting there a week”(he grew more and more confused),“and yesterday, when I met you, I thought to myself that I had never seen her yet in society; that is, in the society of othermenbesides myself—a stupid idea, I know it is—I was very anxious to try—you know my wretchedly jealous nature.”He suddenly raised his head and blushed violently.“Hecan'tbe telling me the truth!”thought Velchaninoff; he was struck dumb with surprise.“Well, go on!”he muttered at last.“Well, I see it was all her pretty childish nature, sir—that and her friends together. You must forgive my stupid conduct towards yourself to-day, Alexey Ivanovitch. I will never do it again—never again, sir, I assure you!”“I shall never be there to give you the opportunity,”replied Velchaninoff with a laugh.“That's partly why I say it,”said Pavel.“Oh, come! I'm not the only man in the world you know!”said the other irritably.“I am sorry to hear you say that, Alexey Ivanovitch. My esteem for Nadejda is such that I——”“Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I meant nothing, I assure you! Only it surprises me that you should have expected so much of me—that you trusted me so completely.”“I trusted you entirely, sir, solely on account of—all that has passed.”“So that you still consider me the most honourable of men?”Velchaninoff paused, the naïve nature of his sudden question surprised even himself.“I always did think you that, sir!”said Pavel, hanging his head.“Of course, quite so—I didn't mean quite that—I wanted to say, in spite of all prejudices you may have formed, you——”“Yes, in spite of all prejudices!”“And when you first came to Petersburg?”asked Velchaninoff, who himself felt the monstrosity of his own inquisitive questions, but could not resist putting them.“I considered you the most honourable of men when I first came to Petersburg, sir; no less. I always respected you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”Pavel Pavlovitch raised his eyes and looked at his companion without the smallest trace of confusion.Velchaninoff suddenly felt cowed and afraid. He was anxious that nothing should result—nothing disagreeable—from this conversation, since he himself was responsible for having initiated it.“I loved you, Alexey Ivanovitch; all that year at T—— I loved you—you did not observe it,”continued Pavel Pavlovitch, his voice trembling with emotion, to the great discomfiture of his companion.“You did not observe my affection, because I was too lowly a being to deserve any sort of notice; but it was unnecessary that you should observe my love. Well, sir, and all these nine years I have thought of you, for I have never known such a year of life as that year was.”(Pavel's eyes seemed to have a special glare in them at this point.)“I remembered many of your sayings and expressions, sir, and I thought of you always as a man imbued with the loftiest sentiments, and gifted with knowledge and intellect, sir—of the highest order—a man of grand ideas.‘Great ideas do not proceed so frequently from greatness of intellect, as from elevation of taste and feeling.’You yourself said that, sir, once. I dare say you have forgotten the fact, but you did say it. Therefore I always thought of you, sir, as a man of taste and feeling; consequently I concluded—consequently I trusted you, in spite of everything.”Pavel Pavlovitch's chin suddenly began to tremble. Velchaninoff was frightened out of his wits. This unexpected tone must be put an end to at all hazards.“Enough, Pavel Pavlovitch!”he said softly, blushing violently and with some show of irritation.“And why—why (Velchaninoff suddenly began to shout passionately)—why do you come hanging round the neck of a sick man, a worried man—a man who is almost out of his wits with fever and annoyance of all sorts, and drag him into this abyss of lies and mirage and vision and shame—and unnatural, disproportionate, distorted nonsense! Yes, sir, that's the most shameful part of the whole business—the disproportionate nonsense of what you say! You know it's all humbug; both of us are mean wretches—both of us; and if you like I'll prove to you at once that not only you don't love me, but that you loathe and hate me with all your heart, and that you are a liar, whether you know it or not! You took me down to see your bride, not—not a bit in the world to try how she would behave in the society of other men—absurd idea!—You simply saw me, yesterday, and your vile impulse led you to carry me off there in order that you might show me the girl, and say, as it were. There, look at that! She's to be mine! Try your handthereif you can! It was nothing but your challenge to me! You may not have known it, but this was so, as I say; and you felt the impulse which I have described. Such a challenge could not be made without hatred; consequently you hate me.”Velchaninoff almostrushedup and down the room as he shouted the above words; and with every syllable the humiliating consciousness that he was allowing himself to descend to the level of Pavel Pavlovitch afflicted him and tormented him more and more!“I was only anxious to be at peace with you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”said Pavel sadly, his chin and lips working again.Velchaninoff flew into a violent rage, as if he had been insulted in the most unexampled manner.“I tell you once more, sir,”he cried,“that you have attached yourself to a sick and irritated man, in order that you may surprise him into saying something unseemly in his madness! We are, I tell you, man, we are men of different worlds. Understand me! between us two there is a grave,”he hissed in his fury, and stopped.“And how do you know,—sir,”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, his face suddenly becoming all twisted, and deadly white to look at, as he strode up to Velchaninoff,“how do you know what that grave means to me, sir, here!”(He beat his breast with terrible earnestness, droll though he looked.)“Yes, sir, we both stand on the brink of the grave, but on my side there is more, sir, than on yours—yes, more, more, more!”he hissed, beating his breast without pause—“more than on yours—the grave means more to me than to you!”But at this moment a loud ring at the bell brought both men to their senses. Someone was ringing so loud that the bell-wire was in danger of snapping.“People don't ring like that for me, observed Velchaninoff angrily.”“No more they do for me, sir! I assure you they don't!”said Pavel Pavlovitch anxiously. He had become the quiet timid Pavel again in a moment. Velchaninoff frowned and went to open the door.“Mr. Velchaninoff, if I am not mistaken?”said a strange voice, apparently belonging to some young and very self-satisfied person, at the door.“What is it?”“I have been informed that Mr. Trusotsky is at this moment in your rooms. I must see him at once.”Velchaninoff felt inclined to send this self-satisfied looking young gentleman flying downstairs again; but he reflected—refrained, stood aside and let him in.“Here is Mr. Trusotsky. Come in.”CHAPTER XIV.A young fellow of some nineteen summers entered the room; he might have been even younger, to judge by his handsome but self-satisfied and very juvenile face.He was not badly dressed, at all events his clothes fitted him well; in stature he was a little above the middle height; he had thick black hair, and dark, bold eyes—and these were the striking features of his face. Unfortunately his nose was a little too broad and tip-tilted, otherwise he would have been a really remarkably good-looking young fellow.—He came in with some pretension.“I believe I have the opportunity of speaking to Mr. Trusotsky?”he observed deliberately, and bringing out the word opportunity with much apparent satisfaction, as though he wished to accentuate the fact that he could not possibly be supposed to feel either honour or pleasure in meeting Mr. Trusotsky. Velchaninoff thought he knew what all this meant; Pavel Pavlovitch seemed to have an inkling of the state of affairs, too. His expression was one of anxiety, but he did not show the white feather.“Not having the honour of your acquaintance,”he said with dignity,“I do not understand what sort of business you can have with me.”“Kindly listen to me first, and you can then let me know your ideas on the subject,”observed the young gentleman, pulling out his tortoiseshell glasses, and focusing the champagne bottle with them. Having deliberately inspected that object, he put up his glasses again, and fixing his attention once more upon Pavel Pavlovitch, remarked:“Alexander Loboff.”“What about Alexander Loboff?”“That's my name. You've not heard of me?”“No.”“H'm! Well, I don't know when you should have, now I think of it; but I've come on important business concerning yourself. I suppose I can sit down? I'm tired.”“Oh, pray sit down,”said Velchaninoff, but not before the young man had taken a chair. In spite of the pain at his heart Velchaninoff could not help being interested in this impudent youngling.There seemed to be something in his good-looking, fresh young face that reminded him of Nadia.“You can sit down too,”observed Loboff, indicating an empty seat to Pavel Pavlovitch, with a careless nod of his head.“Thank you; I shall stand.”“Very well, but you'll soon get tired. You need not go away, I think, Mr. Velchaninoff.”“I have nowhere to go to, my good sir, I am at home.”“As you like; I confess I should prefer your being present while I have an explanation with this gentleman. Nadejda Fedosievna has given you a flattering enough character, sir, to me.”“Nonsense; how could she have had time to do so?”“Immediately after you left. Now, Mr. Trusotsky, this is what I wish to observe,”he continued to Pavel, the latter still standing in front of him;“we, that is Nadejda Fedosievna and myself, have long loved one another, and have plighted our troth. You have suddenly come between us as an obstruction; I have come to tell you that you had better clear out of the way at once. Are you prepared to adopt my suggestion?”Pavel Pavlovitch took a step backward in amazement; his face paled visibly, but in a moment a spiteful smile curled his lip.“Not in the slightest degree prepared, sir,”he said, laconically.“Dear me,”said the young fellow, settling himself comfortably in his chair, and throwing one leg over the other.“Indeed, I do not know whom I am speaking to,”added Pavel Pavlovitch,“so that it can't hardly be worth your while to continue.”So saying he sat down at last.“Isaidyou'd get tired,”remarked the youth.“I informed you just now,”he added,“that my name is Alexander Loboff, and that Nadejda and I have plighted our troth; consequently you cannot truthfully say, as you did say just now, that you don't know who I am, nor can you honestly assert that you do not see what we can have to talk about. Not to speak of myself—there is Nadejda Fedosievna to be considered—the lady to whom you have so impudently attached yourself: that alone is matter sufficient for explanation between us.”All this the young fellow rattled off carelessly enough, as if the thing were so self-evident that it hardly needed mentioning. While talking, he raised his eye-glass once more, and inspected some object for an instant, putting the glass back in his pocket immediately afterwards.“Excuse me, young man,”began Pavel Pavlovitch: but the words“young man”were fatal.“At any other moment,”observed the youth,“I should of course forbid your calling me‘young man’at once; but you must admit that in this case my youth is my principal advantage over yourself, and that even this very day you would have given anything—nay, at the moment when you presented your bracelet—to be just a little bit younger.”“Cheeky young brat!”muttered Velchaninoff.“In any case,”began Pavel Pavlovitch, with dignity,“I do not consider your reasons as set forth—most questionable and improper reasons at the best—sufficient to justify the continuance of this conversation. I see your 'business' is mere childishness and nonsense: to-morrow I shall have the pleasure of an explanation with Mr. Zachlebnikoff, my respected friend. Meanwhile, sir, perhaps you will make it convenient to—depart.”“That's the sort of man he is,”cried the youth, hotly, turning to Velchaninoff:“he is not content with being as good as kicked out of the place, and having faces made at him, but he must go down again to-morrow to carry tales about us to Mr. Zachlebnikoff. Do you not prove by this, you obstinate man, that you wish to carry off the young lady by force? that you desire tobuyher of people who preserve—thanks to the relics of barbarism still triumphant among us—a species of power over her? Surely she showed you sufficiently clearly that shedespisesyou? You have had your wretched tasteless present of to-day—that bracelet thing—returned to you; what more do you want?”“Excuse me, no bracelet has been, or can be returned to me,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with a shudder of anxiety, however.“How so? hasn't Mr. Velchaninoff given it to you?”“Oh, the deuce take you, sir,”thought Velchaninoff.“Nadejda Fedosievna certainly did give me this case for you, Pavel Pavlovitch,”he said;“I did not wish to take it, but she was anxious that I should: here it is, I'm very sorry.”He took out the case and laid it down on the table before the enraged Pavel Pavlovitch.“How is it you have not handed it to him before?”asked the young man severely.“I had no time, as you may conclude,”said Velchaninoff with a frown.“H'm! Strange circumstance!”“What, sir?”“Well, you must admit itisstrange! However, I am quite prepared to believe that there has been some mistake.”Velchaninoff would have given worlds to get up and drub the impertinent young rascal and drag him out of the house by the ear; but he could not contain himself, and burst out laughing. The boy immediately followed suit and laughed too.But for Pavel Pavlovitch it was no laughing matter.If Velchaninoff had seen the ferocious look which the former cast at him at the moment when he and Loboff laughed, he would have realized that Pavel Pavlovitch was in the act of passing a fatal limit of forbearance. He did not see the look; but it struck him that it was only fair to stand up for Pavel now.“Listen, Mr. Loboff,”he said, in friendly tones,“not to enter into the consideration of other matters, I may point out that Mr. Trusotsky brings with him, in his wooing of Miss Zachlebnikoff, a name and circumstances fully well-known to that esteemed family; in the second place, he brings a fairly respectable position in the world; and thirdly, he brings wealth. Therefore he may well be surprised to find himself confronted by such a rival as yourself—a gentleman of great wealth, doubtless, but at the same time so very young, that he could not possibly look upon you as a serious rival; therefore, again, he is quite right in begging you to bring the conversation to an end.”“What do you mean by‘so very young’? I was nineteen a month since; by the law I might have been married long ago. That's a sufficient answer to your argument.”“But what father would consent to allowing his daughter to marry younow—even though you may be a Rothschild to come, or a benefactor to humanity in the future. A man of nineteen years old is not capable of answering for himself and yet you are ready to take on your own responsibility another being—in other words, a being who is as much a child as you are yourself. Why, it is hardly even honourable on your part, is it? I have presumed to address you thus, because you yourself referred the matter to me as a sort of arbiter between yourself and Pavel Pavlovitch.”“Yes, by-the-bye,‘Pavel Pavlovitch,’I forgot he was called that,”remarked the youth.“I wonder why I thought of him all along as‘Vassili Petrovitch.’Look here, sir (addressing Velchaninoff), you have not surprised me in the least. I knew you were all tarred with one brush. It is strange that you should have been described to me as a man of some originality. However, to business. All that you have said is, of course, utter nonsense; not only is there nothing‘dishonourable’about my intentions, as you permitted yourself to suggest, but the fact of the matter is entirely the reverse, as I hope to prove to you by-and-bye. In the first place, we have promised each other marriage, besides which I have given her my word that if she ever repents of her promise she shall have her full liberty to throw me over. I have given her surety to that effect before witnesses.”“I bet anything your friend—what's his name?—Predposiloff invented that idea,”cried Velchaninoff.“He-he-he!”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch contemptuously.“What is that person giggling about? You are right, sir, it was Predposiloff's idea. But I don't think you and I quite understand one another, do we? and I had such a good report of you. How old are you? Are you fifty yet?”“Stick to business, if you please.”“Forgive the liberty. I did not mean anything offensive. Well, to proceed. I am no millionaire, and I am no great benefactor to humanity (to reply to your arguments), but I shall manage to keep myself and my wife. Of course I have nothing now; I was brought up, in fact, in their house from my childhood.”“How so?”“Oh, because I am a distant relative of this Mr. Zachlebnikoff's wife. When my people died, he took me in and sent me to school. The old fellow is really quite a kind-hearted man, if you only knew it.”“I do know it!”“Yes, he's an old fogey rather, but a kind-hearted old fellow; but I left him four months ago and began to keep myself. I first joined a railway office at ten roubles a month, and am now in a notary's place at twenty-five. I made him a formal proposal for her a fortnight since. He first laughed like mad, and afterwards fell into a violent rage, and Nadia was locked up. She bore it heroically. He had been furious with me before for throwing up a post in his department which he procured for me. You see he is a good and kind old fellow at home, but get him in his office and—oh, my word!—he's a sort ofJupiter Tonans! I told him straight out that I didn't like his ways; but the great row was—thanks to the second chief at the office; he said I insulted him, but I only told him he was an ignorant beggar. So I threw them all up, and went in for the notary business. Listen to that! What a clap! We shall have a thunder-storm directly! What a good thing I arrived before the rain! I came here on foot, you know, all the way, nearly at a run, too!”“How in the world did you find an opportunity of speaking to Miss Nadia then? especially since you are not allowed to meet.”“Oh, one can always get over the railing; then there's that red-haired girl, she helps, and Maria Nikitishna—oh, but she's a snake, that girl! What's the matter? Are you afraid of the thunder-storm?”“No, I'm ill—seriously ill!”Velchaninoff had risen from his seat with a fearful sudden pain in his chest, and was trying to walk up and down the room.“Oh, really! then I'm disturbing you. I shall go at once,”said the youth, jumping up.“No, you don't disturb me!”said Velchaninoff ceremoniously.“How not; of course I do, if you've got the stomach ache! Well now, Vassili—what's your name—Pavel Pavlovitch, let's conclude this matter. I will formulate my question for once into words which will adapt themselves to your understanding: Are you prepared to renounce your claim to the hand of Nadejda Fedosievna before her parents, and in my presence, with all due formality?”“No, sir; not in the slightest degree prepared,”said Pavel Pavlovitch witheringly;“and allow me to say once more that all this is childish and absurd, and that you had better clear out!”“Take care,”said the youth, holding up a warning forefinger;“better give it up now, for I warn you that otherwise you will spend a lot of money down there, and take a lot of trouble; and when you come back in nine months you will be turned out of the house by Nadejda Fedosievna herself; and if you don't gothen, it will be the worse for you. Excuse me for saying so, but at present you are like the dog in the manger. Think over it, and be sensible for once in your life.”“Spare me the moral, if you please,”began Pavel Pavlovitch furiously;“and as for your low threats I shall take my measures to-morrow—seriousmeasures.”“Low threats? pooh! You are low yourself to take them as such. Very well, I'll wait till to-morrow then; but if you—there's the thunder again!—au revoir—very glad to have met you, sir.”He nodded to Velchaninoff and made off hurriedly, evidently anxious to reach home before the rain.CHAPTER XV.“You see, you see!”cried Pavel to Velchaninoff, the instant that the young fellow's back was turned.“Yes; you are not going to succeed there,”said Velchaninoff. He would not have been so abrupt and careless of Pavel's feelings if it had not been for the dreadful pain in his chest.Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered as though from a sudden scald.“Well, sir, and you—you were loth to give me back the bracelet, eh?”“I hadn't time.”“Oh! you were sorry—you pitied me, as true friend pities friend!”“Oh, well, I pitied you, then!”Velchaninoff was growing angrier every moment. However, he informed Pavel Pavlovitch shortly as to how he had received the bracelet, and how Nadia had almost forced it upon him.“You must understand,”he added,“that otherwise I should never have agreed to accept the commission; there are quite enough disagreeables already.”“You liked the job, and accepted it with pleasure,”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch.“That is foolish on your part; but I suppose you must be forgiven. You must have seen from that boy's behaviour that I play no part in this matter. Others are the principal actors, not I!”“At all events the job had attractions for you.”Pavel Pavlovitch sat down and poured out a glass of wine.“You think I shall knuckle under to that young gentleman? Pooh! I shall drive him out to-morrow, sir, like dust. I'll smoke this little gentleman out of his nursery, sir; you see if I don't.”He drank his wine off at a gulp, and poured out some more. He seemed to grow freer as the moments went by; he talked glibly now.“Ha-ha! Sachinka and Nadienka!2darling little children. Ha-ha-ha!”He was beside himself with fury.At this moment, a terrific crash of thunder startled the silence, and was followed by flashes of lightning and sheets of heavy rain. Pavel Pavlovitch rose and shut the window.“The fellow asked you if you were afraid of the thunder; do you remember? Ha-ha-ha! Velchaninoff afraid of thunder! And all that about‘fifty years old’wasn't bad, eh? Ha-ha-ha!”Pavel Pavlovitch was in a spiteful mood.“You seem to have settled yourself here,”said Velchaninoff, who could hardly speak for agony.“Do as you like, I must lie down.”“Come, you wouldn't turn adogout to-night!”replied Pavel, glad of a grievance.“Of course, sit down; drink your wine—do anything you like,”murmured Velchaninoff, as he laid himself flat on his divan, and groaned with pain.“Am I to spend the night? Aren't you afraid?”“What of?”asked Velchaninoff, raising his head slightly.“Oh, nothing. Only last time you seemed to be a little alarmed, that's all.”“You are a fool!”said the other angrily, as he turned his face to the wall.“Very well, sir; all right,”said Pavel.Velchaninoff fell asleep within a minute or so of lying down. The unnatural strain of the day, and his sickly state of health together, had suddenly undermined his strength, and he was as weak as a child. But physical pain would have its own, and soon conquered weakness and sleep; in an hour he was wide awake again, and rose from the divan in anguish. Pavel Pavlovitch was asleep on the other sofa. He was dressed, and in his boots; his hat lay on the floor, and his eye-glass hung by its cord almost to the ground. Velchaninoff did not wake his guest. The room was full of tobacco smoke, and the bottle was empty; he looked savagely at the sleeping drunkard.Having twisted himself painfully off his bed, Velchaninoff began to walk about, groaning and thinking of his agony; he could lie no longer.He was alarmed for this pain in his chest, and not without reason. He was subject to these attacks, and had been so for many years; but they came seldom, luckily—once a year or two years. On such occasions, his agony was so dreadful for some ten hours or so that he invariably believed that he must be actually dying.This night, his anguish was terrible; it was too late to send for the doctor, but it was far from morning yet. He staggered up and down the room, and before long his groans became loud and frequent.The noise awoke Pavel Pavlovitch. He sat up on his divan, and for some time gazed in terror and perplexity upon Velchaninoff, as the latter walked moaning up and down. At last he gathered his senses, and enquired anxiously what was the matter.Velchaninoff muttered something unintelligible.“It's your kidneys—I'm sure it is,”cried Pavel, very wide awake of a sudden.“I remember Peter Kuzmich used to have the same sort of attacks. The kidneys—why, one can die of it. Let me go and fetch Mavra.”“No, no; I don't want anything,”muttered Velchaninoff, waving him off irritably.But Pavel Pavlovitch—goodness knows why—was beside himself with anxiety; he was as much exercised as though the matter at issue were the saving of his own son's life. He insisted on immediate compresses, and told Velchaninoff he must drink two or three cups of very hot weak tea—boiling hot. He ran for Mavra, lighted the fire in the kitchen, put the kettle on, put the sick man back to bed, covered him up, and within twenty minutes had the first hot application all ready, as well as the tea.“Hot plates, sir, hot plates,”he cried, as he clapped the first, wrapped in a napkin, on to Velchaninoff's chest.“I have nothing else handy; but I give you my word it's as good as anything else. Drink this tea quick, never mind if you scald your tongue—life is dearer. You can die of this sort of thing, you know.”He sent sleepy Mavra out of her wits with flurry; the plates were changed every couple of minutes. At the third application, and after having taken two cups of scalding tea, Velchaninoff suddenly felt decidedly better.“Capital! thank God! if we can once get the better of the pain it's a good sign!”cried Pavel, delightedly, and away he ran for another plate and some more tea.“If only we can beat the pain down!”he kept muttering to himself every minute.In half an hour the agony was passed, but the sick man was so completely knocked up that, in spite of Pavel's repeated entreaties to be allowed to apply“just one more plate,”he could bear no more. His eyes were drooping from weakness.“Sleep—sleep,”he muttered faintly.“Very well,”consented Pavel,“go to sleep.”“Are you spending the night here? What time is it?”“Nearly two.”“You must sleep here.”“Yes, yes—all right. I will.”A moment after the sick man called to Pavel again.“You—you—”muttered the former faintly, as Pavel ran up and bent over him,“you are better than I am. I understand all—all—thank you!”“Go to sleep!”whispered Pavel Pavlovitch, as he crept back to his divan on tip-toes.Velchaninoff, dozing off, heard Pavel quietly make his bed, undress and lie down, all very softly, and then put the light out.Undoubtedly Velchaninoff fell asleep very quietly when the light was once out; he remembered that much afterwards. Yet all the while he was asleep, and until he awoke, he dreamed that he could not go to sleep in spite of his weakness. At length he dreamed that he was delirious, and that he could not for the life of him chase away the visions which crowded in upon him, although he was conscious the whole while theywerebut visions and not reality. The apparition was familiar to him. He thought that his front door was open, and that his room gradually filled with people pouring in. At the table in the middle of the room, sat one man exactly as had been the case a month before, during one of his dreams. As on the previous occasion, this man leant on his elbow at the table and would not speak; he was in a round hat with a crape band.“How?”thought the dreamer.“Was it really Pavel Pavlovitch last time as well?”However, when he looked at the man's face, he was convinced that it was quite another person.“Why has he a crape band, then?”thought Velchaninoff in perplexity.The noise and chattering of all these people was dreadful; they seemed even more exasperated with Velchaninoff than on the former occasion. They were all threatening him with something or other, shaking their fists at him, and shouting something which he could not understand.“It's all a vision,”he dreamed,“I know quite well that I am up and about, because I could not lie still for anguish!”Yet the cries and noise at times seemed so real that he was now and again half-convinced of their reality.“Surely thiscan'tbe delirium!”he thought.“What on earth do all these people want of me—my God!”Yet if it were not a vision, surely all these cries would have roused Pavel Pavlovitch? There he was, fast asleep in his divan!Then something suddenly occurred as in the old dream. Another crowd of people surged in, crushing those who were already collected inside. These new arrivals carried something large and heavy; he could judge of the weight by their footsteps labouring upstairs.Those in the room cried,“They're bringing it! they're bringing it!”Every eye flashed as it turned and glared at Velchaninoff; every hand threatened him and then pointed to the stairs.Undoubtedly it was reality, not delirium. Velchaninoff thought that he stood up and raised himself on tip-toes, in order to see over the heads of the crowd. He wanted to know what was being carried in.His heart beat wildly, wildly, wildly; and suddenly, as in his former dream, there came one—two—three loud rings at the bell.And again, the sound of the bell was so distinct and clear that he felt itcouldnot be a dream. He gave a cry, and awoke; but he did not rush to the door as on the former occasion.What sudden idea was it that guided his movements? Had he any idea at all, or was it impulse that prompted him what to do? He sprang up in bed, with arms outstretched, as though to ward off an attack, straight towards the divan where Pavel Pavlovitch was sleeping.His hands encountered other hands outstretched in his direction; consequently some one must have been standing over him.The curtains were drawn, but it was not absolutely dark, because a faint light came from the next room, which had no curtains.Suddenly something cut the palm of his left hand, some of his fingers causing him sharp pain. He instantly realized that he had seized a knife or a razor, and he closed his hand upon it with the rapidity of thought.At that moment something fell to the ground with a hard metallic sound.Velchaninoff was probably three times as strong as Pavel Pavlovitch, but the struggle lasted for a long while—at least three minutes.The former, however, forced his adversary to the earth, and bent his arms back behind his head; then he paused, for he was most anxious to tie the hands. Holding the assassin's wrist with his wounded left hand, he felt for the blind cord with his right. For a long while he could not find it; at last he grasped it, and tore it down.He was amazed afterwards at the unnatural strength which he must have displayed during all this.During the whole of the struggle neither man spoke a word; only their heavy breathing was audible, and the inarticulate sounds emitted by both as they fought.At length, having secured his opponent's hands, Velchaninoff left him on the ground, rose, drew the curtains, and pulled up the blind.The deserted street was light now. He opened the window, and stood breathing in the fresh air for a few moments. It was a little past four o'clock. He shut the window once more, fetched a towel and bound up his cut hand as tightly as he could to stop the flow of blood.At his feet he caught sight of the opened razor lying on the carpet; he picked it up, wiped it, and put it by in its own case, which he now saw he had left upon the little cupboard beside the divan which Pavel Pavlovitch occupied. He locked the cupboard.Having completed all these arrangements, he approached Pavel Pavlovitch and looked at him. Meanwhile the latter had managed to raise himself from the floor and reach a chair; he was now sitting in it—undressed to his shirt, which was stained with marks of blood both back and front—Velchaninoff's blood, not his own.Of course this was Pavel Pavlovitch; but it would have been only natural for any one who had known him before, and saw him at this moment, to doubt his identity. He sat upright in his chair—very stiffly, owing to the uncomfortable position of his tightly bound hands behind his back; his face looked yellow and crooked, and he shuddered every other moment. He gazed intently, but with an expression of dazed perplexity, at Velchaninoff.Suddenly he smiled gravely, and nodding towards a carafe of water on the table, muttered,“A little drop!”Velchaninoff poured some into a glass, and held it for him to drink.Pavel gulped a couple of mouthfuls greedily—then suddenly raised his head and gazed intently at Velchaninoff standing over him; he said nothing, however, but finished the water. He then sighed deeply.Velchaninoff took his pillows and some of his clothing, and went into the next room, locking Pavel Pavlovitch behind him.His pain had quite disappeared, but he felt very weak after the strain of his late exertion. Goodness knows whence came his strength for the trial; he tried to think, but he could not collect his ideas, the shock had been too great.His eyes would droop now and again, sometimes for ten minutes at a time; then he would shudder, wake up, remember all that had passed and raise the blood-stained rag bound about his hand to prove the reality of his thoughts; then he would relapse into eager, feverish thought. One thing was quite certain, Pavel Pavlovitch had intended to cut his throat, though, perhaps, a quarter of an hour before the fatal moment he had not known that he would make the attempt. Perhaps he had seen the razor case last evening, and thought nothing of it, only remembering the fact that it was there. The razors were usually locked up, and only yesterday Velchaninoff had taken one out in order to make himself neat for his visit to the country, and had omitted to lock it up again.“If he had premeditated murdering me, he would certainly have provided himself with a knife or a pistol long ago; he could not have relied on my razors, which he never saw until yesterday,”concluded Velchaninoff.At last the clock struck six. Velchaninoff arose, dressed himself, and went into Pavel Pavlovitch's room. As he opened the door he wondered why he had ever locked it, and why he had not allowed Pavel to go away at once.To his surprise the prisoner was dressed, he had doubtless found means to get his hands loose. He was sitting in an arm-chair, but rose when Velchaninoff entered. His hat was in his hand.His anxious look seemed to say as plain as words:—“Don't talk to me! It's no use talking—don't talk to me!”“Go!”said Velchaninoff.“Take your jewel-case!”he added.Pavel Pavlovitch turned back and seized his bracelet-case, stuffing it into his pocket, and went out.Velchaninoff stood in the hall, waiting to shut the front door after him.Their looks met for the last time. Pavel Pavlovitch stopped, and the two men gazed into each others eyes for five seconds or so, as though in indecision. At length Velchaninoff faintly waved him away with his hand.“Go!”he said, only half aloud, as he closed the door and turned the key.

CHAPTER XIII.In spite of Velchaninoff's apparently happy day, the feeling of annoyance and suffering at his heart had hardly actually left him for a single moment. Before he sang the song he had not known what to do with himself, or suppressed anger and melancholy—perhaps that was the reason why he had sung with so much feeling and passion.“To think that I could so have lowered myself as to forget everything!”he thought—and then despised himself for thinking it;“it is more humiliating still to cry over what is done,”he continued.“Far better to fly into a passion with someone instead.”“Fool!”he muttered—looking askance at Pavel Pavlovitch, who sat beside him as still as a mouse. Pavel Pavlovitch preserved a most obstinate silence—probably concentrating and ranging his energies. He occasionally took his hat off, impatiently, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.Once—and once only—Pavel spoke, to the coachman, he asked whether there was going to be a thunder-storm.“Wheugh!”said the man,“I should think so! It's been a steamy day—just the day for it!”By the time town was reached—half-past ten—the whole sky was overcast.“I am coming to your house,”said Pavel to Velchaninoff, when almost at the door.“Quite so; but I warn you, I feel very unwell to-night!”“All right—I won't stay too long.”When the two men passed under the gateway, Pavel Pavlovitch disappeared into the 'dvornik's' room for a minute, to speak to Mavra.“What did you go in there for?”asked Velchaninoff severely as they mounted the stairs and reached his own door.“Oh—nothing—nothing at all,—just to tell them about the coachman.——”“Very well. Mind, I shall not allow you to drink!”Pavel Pavlovitch did not answer.Velchaninoff lit a candle, while Pavel threw himself into a chair;—then the former came and stood menacingly before him.“I may have told you I should havemylast word to say to-night, as well as you!”he said with suppressed anger in his voice and manner:“Here it is. I consider conscientiously that things are square between you and me, now; and therefore there is no more to be said, understand me, aboutanything. Since this is so, had you not better go, and let me close the door after you?”“Let's cry‘quits’first, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, gazing into Velchaninoff's eyes with great sweetness.“Quits?”cried the latter, in amazement;“you strange man, what are we to cry quits about? Are you harping upon your promise of a‘last word’?”“Yes.”“Oh, well, we have nothing more to cry quits for. We have been quits long since,”said Velchaninoff.“Dear me, do you really think so?”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, in a shrill, sharp voice, pressing his two hands tightly together, finger to finger, as he held them up before his breast.Velchaninoff said nothing. He rose from his seat and began to walk up and down the room. The word“Liza”resounded through and through his soul like the voice of a bell.“Well, what is there that you still consider unsettled between us?”he asked at last, looking angrily at Pavel, who had never ceased to follow him with his eyes—always holding his hands before his breast, finger tip to finger tip.“Don't go down there any more,”said Pavel, almost in a whisper, and rising from his seat with every indication of humble entreaty.“What!isthatall?”cried Velchaninoff, bursting into an angry laugh;“good heavens, man, you have done nothing but surprise me all day.”He had begun in a tone of exasperation, but he now abruptly changed both voice and expression, and continued with an air of deep feeling.“Listen,”he said,“listen to me. I don't think I have ever felt so deeply humiliated as I am feeling now, in consequence of the events of to-day. In the first place, that I should have condescended to go down with you at all, and in the second place, all that happened there. It has been such a day of pettifogging—pitiful pettifogging. I have profaned and lowered myself by taking a share in it all, and forgetting——Well, it's done now. But look here—you fell upon me to-day, unawares—upon a sick man. Oh, you needn't excuse yourself; at all events I shall certainlynotgo there again. I have not the slightest interest in so doing,”he concluded, with an air of decision.“No, really!”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, making no secret of his delight and exultation.Velchaninoff glanced contemptuously at him, and recommenced his march up and down the room.“You have determined to be happy under any circumstances, I suppose?”he observed, after a pause. He could not resist making the remark disdainfully.“Yes, I have,”said Pavel, quietly.“It's no business of mine that he's a fool and a knave, out of pure idiocy!”thought Velchaninoff.“I can't help hating him, though I feel that he is not even worth hating.”“I'm a permanent husband,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with the most exquisitely servile irony, at his own expense.“I remember you using that expression, Alexey Ivanovitch, long ago, when you were with us at T——. I remember many of your original phrases of that time, and when you spoke of‘permanent husbands,’the other day, I recollected the expression.”At this point Mavra entered the room with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.“Forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel,“you know I can't get on without it. Don't consider it an audacity on my part—think of it as a mere bit of by-play unworthy your notice.”“Well,”consented Velchaninoff, with a look of disgust,“but I must remind you that I don't feel well, and that—”“One little moment—I'll go at once, I really will—Imustjust drinkoneglass, my throat is so——”He seized the bottle eagerly, and poured himself out a glass, drank it greedily at a gulp, and sat down. He looked at Velchaninoff almost tenderly.“What a nasty looking beast!”muttered the latter to himself.“It's all her friends that make her like that,”said Pavel, suddenly, with animation.“What? Oh, you refer to the lady. I——”“And, besides, she is so very young still, you see,”resumed Pavel.“I shall be her slave—she shall see a little society, and a bit of the world. She will change, sir, entirely.”“I mustn't forget to give him back the bracelet, by-the-bye,”thought Velchaninoff, frowning, as he felt for the case in his coat pocket.“You said just now that I am determined to be happy, Alexey Ivanovitch,”continued Pavel, confidentially, and with almost touching earnestness.“Imustmarry, else what will become of me? You see for yourself”(he pointed to the bottle),“and that's only a hundredth part of what I demean myself to nowadays. I cannot get on without marrying again, sir; Imusthave a new faith. If I can but believe in some one again, sir, I shall rise—I shall be saved.”“Why are you tellingmeall this?”exclaimed Velchaninoff, very nearly laughing in his face; it seemed so absurdly inconsistent.“Look here,”he continued, roaring the words out,“let me know now, once for all, why did you drag me down there? what good was I to do you there?”“I—I wished to try——,”began Pavel, with some confusion.“Try what?”“The effect, sir. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, I have only been visiting there a week”(he grew more and more confused),“and yesterday, when I met you, I thought to myself that I had never seen her yet in society; that is, in the society of othermenbesides myself—a stupid idea, I know it is—I was very anxious to try—you know my wretchedly jealous nature.”He suddenly raised his head and blushed violently.“Hecan'tbe telling me the truth!”thought Velchaninoff; he was struck dumb with surprise.“Well, go on!”he muttered at last.“Well, I see it was all her pretty childish nature, sir—that and her friends together. You must forgive my stupid conduct towards yourself to-day, Alexey Ivanovitch. I will never do it again—never again, sir, I assure you!”“I shall never be there to give you the opportunity,”replied Velchaninoff with a laugh.“That's partly why I say it,”said Pavel.“Oh, come! I'm not the only man in the world you know!”said the other irritably.“I am sorry to hear you say that, Alexey Ivanovitch. My esteem for Nadejda is such that I——”“Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I meant nothing, I assure you! Only it surprises me that you should have expected so much of me—that you trusted me so completely.”“I trusted you entirely, sir, solely on account of—all that has passed.”“So that you still consider me the most honourable of men?”Velchaninoff paused, the naïve nature of his sudden question surprised even himself.“I always did think you that, sir!”said Pavel, hanging his head.“Of course, quite so—I didn't mean quite that—I wanted to say, in spite of all prejudices you may have formed, you——”“Yes, in spite of all prejudices!”“And when you first came to Petersburg?”asked Velchaninoff, who himself felt the monstrosity of his own inquisitive questions, but could not resist putting them.“I considered you the most honourable of men when I first came to Petersburg, sir; no less. I always respected you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”Pavel Pavlovitch raised his eyes and looked at his companion without the smallest trace of confusion.Velchaninoff suddenly felt cowed and afraid. He was anxious that nothing should result—nothing disagreeable—from this conversation, since he himself was responsible for having initiated it.“I loved you, Alexey Ivanovitch; all that year at T—— I loved you—you did not observe it,”continued Pavel Pavlovitch, his voice trembling with emotion, to the great discomfiture of his companion.“You did not observe my affection, because I was too lowly a being to deserve any sort of notice; but it was unnecessary that you should observe my love. Well, sir, and all these nine years I have thought of you, for I have never known such a year of life as that year was.”(Pavel's eyes seemed to have a special glare in them at this point.)“I remembered many of your sayings and expressions, sir, and I thought of you always as a man imbued with the loftiest sentiments, and gifted with knowledge and intellect, sir—of the highest order—a man of grand ideas.‘Great ideas do not proceed so frequently from greatness of intellect, as from elevation of taste and feeling.’You yourself said that, sir, once. I dare say you have forgotten the fact, but you did say it. Therefore I always thought of you, sir, as a man of taste and feeling; consequently I concluded—consequently I trusted you, in spite of everything.”Pavel Pavlovitch's chin suddenly began to tremble. Velchaninoff was frightened out of his wits. This unexpected tone must be put an end to at all hazards.“Enough, Pavel Pavlovitch!”he said softly, blushing violently and with some show of irritation.“And why—why (Velchaninoff suddenly began to shout passionately)—why do you come hanging round the neck of a sick man, a worried man—a man who is almost out of his wits with fever and annoyance of all sorts, and drag him into this abyss of lies and mirage and vision and shame—and unnatural, disproportionate, distorted nonsense! Yes, sir, that's the most shameful part of the whole business—the disproportionate nonsense of what you say! You know it's all humbug; both of us are mean wretches—both of us; and if you like I'll prove to you at once that not only you don't love me, but that you loathe and hate me with all your heart, and that you are a liar, whether you know it or not! You took me down to see your bride, not—not a bit in the world to try how she would behave in the society of other men—absurd idea!—You simply saw me, yesterday, and your vile impulse led you to carry me off there in order that you might show me the girl, and say, as it were. There, look at that! She's to be mine! Try your handthereif you can! It was nothing but your challenge to me! You may not have known it, but this was so, as I say; and you felt the impulse which I have described. Such a challenge could not be made without hatred; consequently you hate me.”Velchaninoff almostrushedup and down the room as he shouted the above words; and with every syllable the humiliating consciousness that he was allowing himself to descend to the level of Pavel Pavlovitch afflicted him and tormented him more and more!“I was only anxious to be at peace with you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”said Pavel sadly, his chin and lips working again.Velchaninoff flew into a violent rage, as if he had been insulted in the most unexampled manner.“I tell you once more, sir,”he cried,“that you have attached yourself to a sick and irritated man, in order that you may surprise him into saying something unseemly in his madness! We are, I tell you, man, we are men of different worlds. Understand me! between us two there is a grave,”he hissed in his fury, and stopped.“And how do you know,—sir,”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, his face suddenly becoming all twisted, and deadly white to look at, as he strode up to Velchaninoff,“how do you know what that grave means to me, sir, here!”(He beat his breast with terrible earnestness, droll though he looked.)“Yes, sir, we both stand on the brink of the grave, but on my side there is more, sir, than on yours—yes, more, more, more!”he hissed, beating his breast without pause—“more than on yours—the grave means more to me than to you!”But at this moment a loud ring at the bell brought both men to their senses. Someone was ringing so loud that the bell-wire was in danger of snapping.“People don't ring like that for me, observed Velchaninoff angrily.”“No more they do for me, sir! I assure you they don't!”said Pavel Pavlovitch anxiously. He had become the quiet timid Pavel again in a moment. Velchaninoff frowned and went to open the door.“Mr. Velchaninoff, if I am not mistaken?”said a strange voice, apparently belonging to some young and very self-satisfied person, at the door.“What is it?”“I have been informed that Mr. Trusotsky is at this moment in your rooms. I must see him at once.”Velchaninoff felt inclined to send this self-satisfied looking young gentleman flying downstairs again; but he reflected—refrained, stood aside and let him in.“Here is Mr. Trusotsky. Come in.”CHAPTER XIV.A young fellow of some nineteen summers entered the room; he might have been even younger, to judge by his handsome but self-satisfied and very juvenile face.He was not badly dressed, at all events his clothes fitted him well; in stature he was a little above the middle height; he had thick black hair, and dark, bold eyes—and these were the striking features of his face. Unfortunately his nose was a little too broad and tip-tilted, otherwise he would have been a really remarkably good-looking young fellow.—He came in with some pretension.“I believe I have the opportunity of speaking to Mr. Trusotsky?”he observed deliberately, and bringing out the word opportunity with much apparent satisfaction, as though he wished to accentuate the fact that he could not possibly be supposed to feel either honour or pleasure in meeting Mr. Trusotsky. Velchaninoff thought he knew what all this meant; Pavel Pavlovitch seemed to have an inkling of the state of affairs, too. His expression was one of anxiety, but he did not show the white feather.“Not having the honour of your acquaintance,”he said with dignity,“I do not understand what sort of business you can have with me.”“Kindly listen to me first, and you can then let me know your ideas on the subject,”observed the young gentleman, pulling out his tortoiseshell glasses, and focusing the champagne bottle with them. Having deliberately inspected that object, he put up his glasses again, and fixing his attention once more upon Pavel Pavlovitch, remarked:“Alexander Loboff.”“What about Alexander Loboff?”“That's my name. You've not heard of me?”“No.”“H'm! Well, I don't know when you should have, now I think of it; but I've come on important business concerning yourself. I suppose I can sit down? I'm tired.”“Oh, pray sit down,”said Velchaninoff, but not before the young man had taken a chair. In spite of the pain at his heart Velchaninoff could not help being interested in this impudent youngling.There seemed to be something in his good-looking, fresh young face that reminded him of Nadia.“You can sit down too,”observed Loboff, indicating an empty seat to Pavel Pavlovitch, with a careless nod of his head.“Thank you; I shall stand.”“Very well, but you'll soon get tired. You need not go away, I think, Mr. Velchaninoff.”“I have nowhere to go to, my good sir, I am at home.”“As you like; I confess I should prefer your being present while I have an explanation with this gentleman. Nadejda Fedosievna has given you a flattering enough character, sir, to me.”“Nonsense; how could she have had time to do so?”“Immediately after you left. Now, Mr. Trusotsky, this is what I wish to observe,”he continued to Pavel, the latter still standing in front of him;“we, that is Nadejda Fedosievna and myself, have long loved one another, and have plighted our troth. You have suddenly come between us as an obstruction; I have come to tell you that you had better clear out of the way at once. Are you prepared to adopt my suggestion?”Pavel Pavlovitch took a step backward in amazement; his face paled visibly, but in a moment a spiteful smile curled his lip.“Not in the slightest degree prepared, sir,”he said, laconically.“Dear me,”said the young fellow, settling himself comfortably in his chair, and throwing one leg over the other.“Indeed, I do not know whom I am speaking to,”added Pavel Pavlovitch,“so that it can't hardly be worth your while to continue.”So saying he sat down at last.“Isaidyou'd get tired,”remarked the youth.“I informed you just now,”he added,“that my name is Alexander Loboff, and that Nadejda and I have plighted our troth; consequently you cannot truthfully say, as you did say just now, that you don't know who I am, nor can you honestly assert that you do not see what we can have to talk about. Not to speak of myself—there is Nadejda Fedosievna to be considered—the lady to whom you have so impudently attached yourself: that alone is matter sufficient for explanation between us.”All this the young fellow rattled off carelessly enough, as if the thing were so self-evident that it hardly needed mentioning. While talking, he raised his eye-glass once more, and inspected some object for an instant, putting the glass back in his pocket immediately afterwards.“Excuse me, young man,”began Pavel Pavlovitch: but the words“young man”were fatal.“At any other moment,”observed the youth,“I should of course forbid your calling me‘young man’at once; but you must admit that in this case my youth is my principal advantage over yourself, and that even this very day you would have given anything—nay, at the moment when you presented your bracelet—to be just a little bit younger.”“Cheeky young brat!”muttered Velchaninoff.“In any case,”began Pavel Pavlovitch, with dignity,“I do not consider your reasons as set forth—most questionable and improper reasons at the best—sufficient to justify the continuance of this conversation. I see your 'business' is mere childishness and nonsense: to-morrow I shall have the pleasure of an explanation with Mr. Zachlebnikoff, my respected friend. Meanwhile, sir, perhaps you will make it convenient to—depart.”“That's the sort of man he is,”cried the youth, hotly, turning to Velchaninoff:“he is not content with being as good as kicked out of the place, and having faces made at him, but he must go down again to-morrow to carry tales about us to Mr. Zachlebnikoff. Do you not prove by this, you obstinate man, that you wish to carry off the young lady by force? that you desire tobuyher of people who preserve—thanks to the relics of barbarism still triumphant among us—a species of power over her? Surely she showed you sufficiently clearly that shedespisesyou? You have had your wretched tasteless present of to-day—that bracelet thing—returned to you; what more do you want?”“Excuse me, no bracelet has been, or can be returned to me,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with a shudder of anxiety, however.“How so? hasn't Mr. Velchaninoff given it to you?”“Oh, the deuce take you, sir,”thought Velchaninoff.“Nadejda Fedosievna certainly did give me this case for you, Pavel Pavlovitch,”he said;“I did not wish to take it, but she was anxious that I should: here it is, I'm very sorry.”He took out the case and laid it down on the table before the enraged Pavel Pavlovitch.“How is it you have not handed it to him before?”asked the young man severely.“I had no time, as you may conclude,”said Velchaninoff with a frown.“H'm! Strange circumstance!”“What, sir?”“Well, you must admit itisstrange! However, I am quite prepared to believe that there has been some mistake.”Velchaninoff would have given worlds to get up and drub the impertinent young rascal and drag him out of the house by the ear; but he could not contain himself, and burst out laughing. The boy immediately followed suit and laughed too.But for Pavel Pavlovitch it was no laughing matter.If Velchaninoff had seen the ferocious look which the former cast at him at the moment when he and Loboff laughed, he would have realized that Pavel Pavlovitch was in the act of passing a fatal limit of forbearance. He did not see the look; but it struck him that it was only fair to stand up for Pavel now.“Listen, Mr. Loboff,”he said, in friendly tones,“not to enter into the consideration of other matters, I may point out that Mr. Trusotsky brings with him, in his wooing of Miss Zachlebnikoff, a name and circumstances fully well-known to that esteemed family; in the second place, he brings a fairly respectable position in the world; and thirdly, he brings wealth. Therefore he may well be surprised to find himself confronted by such a rival as yourself—a gentleman of great wealth, doubtless, but at the same time so very young, that he could not possibly look upon you as a serious rival; therefore, again, he is quite right in begging you to bring the conversation to an end.”“What do you mean by‘so very young’? I was nineteen a month since; by the law I might have been married long ago. That's a sufficient answer to your argument.”“But what father would consent to allowing his daughter to marry younow—even though you may be a Rothschild to come, or a benefactor to humanity in the future. A man of nineteen years old is not capable of answering for himself and yet you are ready to take on your own responsibility another being—in other words, a being who is as much a child as you are yourself. Why, it is hardly even honourable on your part, is it? I have presumed to address you thus, because you yourself referred the matter to me as a sort of arbiter between yourself and Pavel Pavlovitch.”“Yes, by-the-bye,‘Pavel Pavlovitch,’I forgot he was called that,”remarked the youth.“I wonder why I thought of him all along as‘Vassili Petrovitch.’Look here, sir (addressing Velchaninoff), you have not surprised me in the least. I knew you were all tarred with one brush. It is strange that you should have been described to me as a man of some originality. However, to business. All that you have said is, of course, utter nonsense; not only is there nothing‘dishonourable’about my intentions, as you permitted yourself to suggest, but the fact of the matter is entirely the reverse, as I hope to prove to you by-and-bye. In the first place, we have promised each other marriage, besides which I have given her my word that if she ever repents of her promise she shall have her full liberty to throw me over. I have given her surety to that effect before witnesses.”“I bet anything your friend—what's his name?—Predposiloff invented that idea,”cried Velchaninoff.“He-he-he!”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch contemptuously.“What is that person giggling about? You are right, sir, it was Predposiloff's idea. But I don't think you and I quite understand one another, do we? and I had such a good report of you. How old are you? Are you fifty yet?”“Stick to business, if you please.”“Forgive the liberty. I did not mean anything offensive. Well, to proceed. I am no millionaire, and I am no great benefactor to humanity (to reply to your arguments), but I shall manage to keep myself and my wife. Of course I have nothing now; I was brought up, in fact, in their house from my childhood.”“How so?”“Oh, because I am a distant relative of this Mr. Zachlebnikoff's wife. When my people died, he took me in and sent me to school. The old fellow is really quite a kind-hearted man, if you only knew it.”“I do know it!”“Yes, he's an old fogey rather, but a kind-hearted old fellow; but I left him four months ago and began to keep myself. I first joined a railway office at ten roubles a month, and am now in a notary's place at twenty-five. I made him a formal proposal for her a fortnight since. He first laughed like mad, and afterwards fell into a violent rage, and Nadia was locked up. She bore it heroically. He had been furious with me before for throwing up a post in his department which he procured for me. You see he is a good and kind old fellow at home, but get him in his office and—oh, my word!—he's a sort ofJupiter Tonans! I told him straight out that I didn't like his ways; but the great row was—thanks to the second chief at the office; he said I insulted him, but I only told him he was an ignorant beggar. So I threw them all up, and went in for the notary business. Listen to that! What a clap! We shall have a thunder-storm directly! What a good thing I arrived before the rain! I came here on foot, you know, all the way, nearly at a run, too!”“How in the world did you find an opportunity of speaking to Miss Nadia then? especially since you are not allowed to meet.”“Oh, one can always get over the railing; then there's that red-haired girl, she helps, and Maria Nikitishna—oh, but she's a snake, that girl! What's the matter? Are you afraid of the thunder-storm?”“No, I'm ill—seriously ill!”Velchaninoff had risen from his seat with a fearful sudden pain in his chest, and was trying to walk up and down the room.“Oh, really! then I'm disturbing you. I shall go at once,”said the youth, jumping up.“No, you don't disturb me!”said Velchaninoff ceremoniously.“How not; of course I do, if you've got the stomach ache! Well now, Vassili—what's your name—Pavel Pavlovitch, let's conclude this matter. I will formulate my question for once into words which will adapt themselves to your understanding: Are you prepared to renounce your claim to the hand of Nadejda Fedosievna before her parents, and in my presence, with all due formality?”“No, sir; not in the slightest degree prepared,”said Pavel Pavlovitch witheringly;“and allow me to say once more that all this is childish and absurd, and that you had better clear out!”“Take care,”said the youth, holding up a warning forefinger;“better give it up now, for I warn you that otherwise you will spend a lot of money down there, and take a lot of trouble; and when you come back in nine months you will be turned out of the house by Nadejda Fedosievna herself; and if you don't gothen, it will be the worse for you. Excuse me for saying so, but at present you are like the dog in the manger. Think over it, and be sensible for once in your life.”“Spare me the moral, if you please,”began Pavel Pavlovitch furiously;“and as for your low threats I shall take my measures to-morrow—seriousmeasures.”“Low threats? pooh! You are low yourself to take them as such. Very well, I'll wait till to-morrow then; but if you—there's the thunder again!—au revoir—very glad to have met you, sir.”He nodded to Velchaninoff and made off hurriedly, evidently anxious to reach home before the rain.CHAPTER XV.“You see, you see!”cried Pavel to Velchaninoff, the instant that the young fellow's back was turned.“Yes; you are not going to succeed there,”said Velchaninoff. He would not have been so abrupt and careless of Pavel's feelings if it had not been for the dreadful pain in his chest.Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered as though from a sudden scald.“Well, sir, and you—you were loth to give me back the bracelet, eh?”“I hadn't time.”“Oh! you were sorry—you pitied me, as true friend pities friend!”“Oh, well, I pitied you, then!”Velchaninoff was growing angrier every moment. However, he informed Pavel Pavlovitch shortly as to how he had received the bracelet, and how Nadia had almost forced it upon him.“You must understand,”he added,“that otherwise I should never have agreed to accept the commission; there are quite enough disagreeables already.”“You liked the job, and accepted it with pleasure,”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch.“That is foolish on your part; but I suppose you must be forgiven. You must have seen from that boy's behaviour that I play no part in this matter. Others are the principal actors, not I!”“At all events the job had attractions for you.”Pavel Pavlovitch sat down and poured out a glass of wine.“You think I shall knuckle under to that young gentleman? Pooh! I shall drive him out to-morrow, sir, like dust. I'll smoke this little gentleman out of his nursery, sir; you see if I don't.”He drank his wine off at a gulp, and poured out some more. He seemed to grow freer as the moments went by; he talked glibly now.“Ha-ha! Sachinka and Nadienka!2darling little children. Ha-ha-ha!”He was beside himself with fury.At this moment, a terrific crash of thunder startled the silence, and was followed by flashes of lightning and sheets of heavy rain. Pavel Pavlovitch rose and shut the window.“The fellow asked you if you were afraid of the thunder; do you remember? Ha-ha-ha! Velchaninoff afraid of thunder! And all that about‘fifty years old’wasn't bad, eh? Ha-ha-ha!”Pavel Pavlovitch was in a spiteful mood.“You seem to have settled yourself here,”said Velchaninoff, who could hardly speak for agony.“Do as you like, I must lie down.”“Come, you wouldn't turn adogout to-night!”replied Pavel, glad of a grievance.“Of course, sit down; drink your wine—do anything you like,”murmured Velchaninoff, as he laid himself flat on his divan, and groaned with pain.“Am I to spend the night? Aren't you afraid?”“What of?”asked Velchaninoff, raising his head slightly.“Oh, nothing. Only last time you seemed to be a little alarmed, that's all.”“You are a fool!”said the other angrily, as he turned his face to the wall.“Very well, sir; all right,”said Pavel.Velchaninoff fell asleep within a minute or so of lying down. The unnatural strain of the day, and his sickly state of health together, had suddenly undermined his strength, and he was as weak as a child. But physical pain would have its own, and soon conquered weakness and sleep; in an hour he was wide awake again, and rose from the divan in anguish. Pavel Pavlovitch was asleep on the other sofa. He was dressed, and in his boots; his hat lay on the floor, and his eye-glass hung by its cord almost to the ground. Velchaninoff did not wake his guest. The room was full of tobacco smoke, and the bottle was empty; he looked savagely at the sleeping drunkard.Having twisted himself painfully off his bed, Velchaninoff began to walk about, groaning and thinking of his agony; he could lie no longer.He was alarmed for this pain in his chest, and not without reason. He was subject to these attacks, and had been so for many years; but they came seldom, luckily—once a year or two years. On such occasions, his agony was so dreadful for some ten hours or so that he invariably believed that he must be actually dying.This night, his anguish was terrible; it was too late to send for the doctor, but it was far from morning yet. He staggered up and down the room, and before long his groans became loud and frequent.The noise awoke Pavel Pavlovitch. He sat up on his divan, and for some time gazed in terror and perplexity upon Velchaninoff, as the latter walked moaning up and down. At last he gathered his senses, and enquired anxiously what was the matter.Velchaninoff muttered something unintelligible.“It's your kidneys—I'm sure it is,”cried Pavel, very wide awake of a sudden.“I remember Peter Kuzmich used to have the same sort of attacks. The kidneys—why, one can die of it. Let me go and fetch Mavra.”“No, no; I don't want anything,”muttered Velchaninoff, waving him off irritably.But Pavel Pavlovitch—goodness knows why—was beside himself with anxiety; he was as much exercised as though the matter at issue were the saving of his own son's life. He insisted on immediate compresses, and told Velchaninoff he must drink two or three cups of very hot weak tea—boiling hot. He ran for Mavra, lighted the fire in the kitchen, put the kettle on, put the sick man back to bed, covered him up, and within twenty minutes had the first hot application all ready, as well as the tea.“Hot plates, sir, hot plates,”he cried, as he clapped the first, wrapped in a napkin, on to Velchaninoff's chest.“I have nothing else handy; but I give you my word it's as good as anything else. Drink this tea quick, never mind if you scald your tongue—life is dearer. You can die of this sort of thing, you know.”He sent sleepy Mavra out of her wits with flurry; the plates were changed every couple of minutes. At the third application, and after having taken two cups of scalding tea, Velchaninoff suddenly felt decidedly better.“Capital! thank God! if we can once get the better of the pain it's a good sign!”cried Pavel, delightedly, and away he ran for another plate and some more tea.“If only we can beat the pain down!”he kept muttering to himself every minute.In half an hour the agony was passed, but the sick man was so completely knocked up that, in spite of Pavel's repeated entreaties to be allowed to apply“just one more plate,”he could bear no more. His eyes were drooping from weakness.“Sleep—sleep,”he muttered faintly.“Very well,”consented Pavel,“go to sleep.”“Are you spending the night here? What time is it?”“Nearly two.”“You must sleep here.”“Yes, yes—all right. I will.”A moment after the sick man called to Pavel again.“You—you—”muttered the former faintly, as Pavel ran up and bent over him,“you are better than I am. I understand all—all—thank you!”“Go to sleep!”whispered Pavel Pavlovitch, as he crept back to his divan on tip-toes.Velchaninoff, dozing off, heard Pavel quietly make his bed, undress and lie down, all very softly, and then put the light out.Undoubtedly Velchaninoff fell asleep very quietly when the light was once out; he remembered that much afterwards. Yet all the while he was asleep, and until he awoke, he dreamed that he could not go to sleep in spite of his weakness. At length he dreamed that he was delirious, and that he could not for the life of him chase away the visions which crowded in upon him, although he was conscious the whole while theywerebut visions and not reality. The apparition was familiar to him. He thought that his front door was open, and that his room gradually filled with people pouring in. At the table in the middle of the room, sat one man exactly as had been the case a month before, during one of his dreams. As on the previous occasion, this man leant on his elbow at the table and would not speak; he was in a round hat with a crape band.“How?”thought the dreamer.“Was it really Pavel Pavlovitch last time as well?”However, when he looked at the man's face, he was convinced that it was quite another person.“Why has he a crape band, then?”thought Velchaninoff in perplexity.The noise and chattering of all these people was dreadful; they seemed even more exasperated with Velchaninoff than on the former occasion. They were all threatening him with something or other, shaking their fists at him, and shouting something which he could not understand.“It's all a vision,”he dreamed,“I know quite well that I am up and about, because I could not lie still for anguish!”Yet the cries and noise at times seemed so real that he was now and again half-convinced of their reality.“Surely thiscan'tbe delirium!”he thought.“What on earth do all these people want of me—my God!”Yet if it were not a vision, surely all these cries would have roused Pavel Pavlovitch? There he was, fast asleep in his divan!Then something suddenly occurred as in the old dream. Another crowd of people surged in, crushing those who were already collected inside. These new arrivals carried something large and heavy; he could judge of the weight by their footsteps labouring upstairs.Those in the room cried,“They're bringing it! they're bringing it!”Every eye flashed as it turned and glared at Velchaninoff; every hand threatened him and then pointed to the stairs.Undoubtedly it was reality, not delirium. Velchaninoff thought that he stood up and raised himself on tip-toes, in order to see over the heads of the crowd. He wanted to know what was being carried in.His heart beat wildly, wildly, wildly; and suddenly, as in his former dream, there came one—two—three loud rings at the bell.And again, the sound of the bell was so distinct and clear that he felt itcouldnot be a dream. He gave a cry, and awoke; but he did not rush to the door as on the former occasion.What sudden idea was it that guided his movements? Had he any idea at all, or was it impulse that prompted him what to do? He sprang up in bed, with arms outstretched, as though to ward off an attack, straight towards the divan where Pavel Pavlovitch was sleeping.His hands encountered other hands outstretched in his direction; consequently some one must have been standing over him.The curtains were drawn, but it was not absolutely dark, because a faint light came from the next room, which had no curtains.Suddenly something cut the palm of his left hand, some of his fingers causing him sharp pain. He instantly realized that he had seized a knife or a razor, and he closed his hand upon it with the rapidity of thought.At that moment something fell to the ground with a hard metallic sound.Velchaninoff was probably three times as strong as Pavel Pavlovitch, but the struggle lasted for a long while—at least three minutes.The former, however, forced his adversary to the earth, and bent his arms back behind his head; then he paused, for he was most anxious to tie the hands. Holding the assassin's wrist with his wounded left hand, he felt for the blind cord with his right. For a long while he could not find it; at last he grasped it, and tore it down.He was amazed afterwards at the unnatural strength which he must have displayed during all this.During the whole of the struggle neither man spoke a word; only their heavy breathing was audible, and the inarticulate sounds emitted by both as they fought.At length, having secured his opponent's hands, Velchaninoff left him on the ground, rose, drew the curtains, and pulled up the blind.The deserted street was light now. He opened the window, and stood breathing in the fresh air for a few moments. It was a little past four o'clock. He shut the window once more, fetched a towel and bound up his cut hand as tightly as he could to stop the flow of blood.At his feet he caught sight of the opened razor lying on the carpet; he picked it up, wiped it, and put it by in its own case, which he now saw he had left upon the little cupboard beside the divan which Pavel Pavlovitch occupied. He locked the cupboard.Having completed all these arrangements, he approached Pavel Pavlovitch and looked at him. Meanwhile the latter had managed to raise himself from the floor and reach a chair; he was now sitting in it—undressed to his shirt, which was stained with marks of blood both back and front—Velchaninoff's blood, not his own.Of course this was Pavel Pavlovitch; but it would have been only natural for any one who had known him before, and saw him at this moment, to doubt his identity. He sat upright in his chair—very stiffly, owing to the uncomfortable position of his tightly bound hands behind his back; his face looked yellow and crooked, and he shuddered every other moment. He gazed intently, but with an expression of dazed perplexity, at Velchaninoff.Suddenly he smiled gravely, and nodding towards a carafe of water on the table, muttered,“A little drop!”Velchaninoff poured some into a glass, and held it for him to drink.Pavel gulped a couple of mouthfuls greedily—then suddenly raised his head and gazed intently at Velchaninoff standing over him; he said nothing, however, but finished the water. He then sighed deeply.Velchaninoff took his pillows and some of his clothing, and went into the next room, locking Pavel Pavlovitch behind him.His pain had quite disappeared, but he felt very weak after the strain of his late exertion. Goodness knows whence came his strength for the trial; he tried to think, but he could not collect his ideas, the shock had been too great.His eyes would droop now and again, sometimes for ten minutes at a time; then he would shudder, wake up, remember all that had passed and raise the blood-stained rag bound about his hand to prove the reality of his thoughts; then he would relapse into eager, feverish thought. One thing was quite certain, Pavel Pavlovitch had intended to cut his throat, though, perhaps, a quarter of an hour before the fatal moment he had not known that he would make the attempt. Perhaps he had seen the razor case last evening, and thought nothing of it, only remembering the fact that it was there. The razors were usually locked up, and only yesterday Velchaninoff had taken one out in order to make himself neat for his visit to the country, and had omitted to lock it up again.“If he had premeditated murdering me, he would certainly have provided himself with a knife or a pistol long ago; he could not have relied on my razors, which he never saw until yesterday,”concluded Velchaninoff.At last the clock struck six. Velchaninoff arose, dressed himself, and went into Pavel Pavlovitch's room. As he opened the door he wondered why he had ever locked it, and why he had not allowed Pavel to go away at once.To his surprise the prisoner was dressed, he had doubtless found means to get his hands loose. He was sitting in an arm-chair, but rose when Velchaninoff entered. His hat was in his hand.His anxious look seemed to say as plain as words:—“Don't talk to me! It's no use talking—don't talk to me!”“Go!”said Velchaninoff.“Take your jewel-case!”he added.Pavel Pavlovitch turned back and seized his bracelet-case, stuffing it into his pocket, and went out.Velchaninoff stood in the hall, waiting to shut the front door after him.Their looks met for the last time. Pavel Pavlovitch stopped, and the two men gazed into each others eyes for five seconds or so, as though in indecision. At length Velchaninoff faintly waved him away with his hand.“Go!”he said, only half aloud, as he closed the door and turned the key.

CHAPTER XIII.In spite of Velchaninoff's apparently happy day, the feeling of annoyance and suffering at his heart had hardly actually left him for a single moment. Before he sang the song he had not known what to do with himself, or suppressed anger and melancholy—perhaps that was the reason why he had sung with so much feeling and passion.“To think that I could so have lowered myself as to forget everything!”he thought—and then despised himself for thinking it;“it is more humiliating still to cry over what is done,”he continued.“Far better to fly into a passion with someone instead.”“Fool!”he muttered—looking askance at Pavel Pavlovitch, who sat beside him as still as a mouse. Pavel Pavlovitch preserved a most obstinate silence—probably concentrating and ranging his energies. He occasionally took his hat off, impatiently, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.Once—and once only—Pavel spoke, to the coachman, he asked whether there was going to be a thunder-storm.“Wheugh!”said the man,“I should think so! It's been a steamy day—just the day for it!”By the time town was reached—half-past ten—the whole sky was overcast.“I am coming to your house,”said Pavel to Velchaninoff, when almost at the door.“Quite so; but I warn you, I feel very unwell to-night!”“All right—I won't stay too long.”When the two men passed under the gateway, Pavel Pavlovitch disappeared into the 'dvornik's' room for a minute, to speak to Mavra.“What did you go in there for?”asked Velchaninoff severely as they mounted the stairs and reached his own door.“Oh—nothing—nothing at all,—just to tell them about the coachman.——”“Very well. Mind, I shall not allow you to drink!”Pavel Pavlovitch did not answer.Velchaninoff lit a candle, while Pavel threw himself into a chair;—then the former came and stood menacingly before him.“I may have told you I should havemylast word to say to-night, as well as you!”he said with suppressed anger in his voice and manner:“Here it is. I consider conscientiously that things are square between you and me, now; and therefore there is no more to be said, understand me, aboutanything. Since this is so, had you not better go, and let me close the door after you?”“Let's cry‘quits’first, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, gazing into Velchaninoff's eyes with great sweetness.“Quits?”cried the latter, in amazement;“you strange man, what are we to cry quits about? Are you harping upon your promise of a‘last word’?”“Yes.”“Oh, well, we have nothing more to cry quits for. We have been quits long since,”said Velchaninoff.“Dear me, do you really think so?”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, in a shrill, sharp voice, pressing his two hands tightly together, finger to finger, as he held them up before his breast.Velchaninoff said nothing. He rose from his seat and began to walk up and down the room. The word“Liza”resounded through and through his soul like the voice of a bell.“Well, what is there that you still consider unsettled between us?”he asked at last, looking angrily at Pavel, who had never ceased to follow him with his eyes—always holding his hands before his breast, finger tip to finger tip.“Don't go down there any more,”said Pavel, almost in a whisper, and rising from his seat with every indication of humble entreaty.“What!isthatall?”cried Velchaninoff, bursting into an angry laugh;“good heavens, man, you have done nothing but surprise me all day.”He had begun in a tone of exasperation, but he now abruptly changed both voice and expression, and continued with an air of deep feeling.“Listen,”he said,“listen to me. I don't think I have ever felt so deeply humiliated as I am feeling now, in consequence of the events of to-day. In the first place, that I should have condescended to go down with you at all, and in the second place, all that happened there. It has been such a day of pettifogging—pitiful pettifogging. I have profaned and lowered myself by taking a share in it all, and forgetting——Well, it's done now. But look here—you fell upon me to-day, unawares—upon a sick man. Oh, you needn't excuse yourself; at all events I shall certainlynotgo there again. I have not the slightest interest in so doing,”he concluded, with an air of decision.“No, really!”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, making no secret of his delight and exultation.Velchaninoff glanced contemptuously at him, and recommenced his march up and down the room.“You have determined to be happy under any circumstances, I suppose?”he observed, after a pause. He could not resist making the remark disdainfully.“Yes, I have,”said Pavel, quietly.“It's no business of mine that he's a fool and a knave, out of pure idiocy!”thought Velchaninoff.“I can't help hating him, though I feel that he is not even worth hating.”“I'm a permanent husband,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with the most exquisitely servile irony, at his own expense.“I remember you using that expression, Alexey Ivanovitch, long ago, when you were with us at T——. I remember many of your original phrases of that time, and when you spoke of‘permanent husbands,’the other day, I recollected the expression.”At this point Mavra entered the room with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.“Forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel,“you know I can't get on without it. Don't consider it an audacity on my part—think of it as a mere bit of by-play unworthy your notice.”“Well,”consented Velchaninoff, with a look of disgust,“but I must remind you that I don't feel well, and that—”“One little moment—I'll go at once, I really will—Imustjust drinkoneglass, my throat is so——”He seized the bottle eagerly, and poured himself out a glass, drank it greedily at a gulp, and sat down. He looked at Velchaninoff almost tenderly.“What a nasty looking beast!”muttered the latter to himself.“It's all her friends that make her like that,”said Pavel, suddenly, with animation.“What? Oh, you refer to the lady. I——”“And, besides, she is so very young still, you see,”resumed Pavel.“I shall be her slave—she shall see a little society, and a bit of the world. She will change, sir, entirely.”“I mustn't forget to give him back the bracelet, by-the-bye,”thought Velchaninoff, frowning, as he felt for the case in his coat pocket.“You said just now that I am determined to be happy, Alexey Ivanovitch,”continued Pavel, confidentially, and with almost touching earnestness.“Imustmarry, else what will become of me? You see for yourself”(he pointed to the bottle),“and that's only a hundredth part of what I demean myself to nowadays. I cannot get on without marrying again, sir; Imusthave a new faith. If I can but believe in some one again, sir, I shall rise—I shall be saved.”“Why are you tellingmeall this?”exclaimed Velchaninoff, very nearly laughing in his face; it seemed so absurdly inconsistent.“Look here,”he continued, roaring the words out,“let me know now, once for all, why did you drag me down there? what good was I to do you there?”“I—I wished to try——,”began Pavel, with some confusion.“Try what?”“The effect, sir. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, I have only been visiting there a week”(he grew more and more confused),“and yesterday, when I met you, I thought to myself that I had never seen her yet in society; that is, in the society of othermenbesides myself—a stupid idea, I know it is—I was very anxious to try—you know my wretchedly jealous nature.”He suddenly raised his head and blushed violently.“Hecan'tbe telling me the truth!”thought Velchaninoff; he was struck dumb with surprise.“Well, go on!”he muttered at last.“Well, I see it was all her pretty childish nature, sir—that and her friends together. You must forgive my stupid conduct towards yourself to-day, Alexey Ivanovitch. I will never do it again—never again, sir, I assure you!”“I shall never be there to give you the opportunity,”replied Velchaninoff with a laugh.“That's partly why I say it,”said Pavel.“Oh, come! I'm not the only man in the world you know!”said the other irritably.“I am sorry to hear you say that, Alexey Ivanovitch. My esteem for Nadejda is such that I——”“Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I meant nothing, I assure you! Only it surprises me that you should have expected so much of me—that you trusted me so completely.”“I trusted you entirely, sir, solely on account of—all that has passed.”“So that you still consider me the most honourable of men?”Velchaninoff paused, the naïve nature of his sudden question surprised even himself.“I always did think you that, sir!”said Pavel, hanging his head.“Of course, quite so—I didn't mean quite that—I wanted to say, in spite of all prejudices you may have formed, you——”“Yes, in spite of all prejudices!”“And when you first came to Petersburg?”asked Velchaninoff, who himself felt the monstrosity of his own inquisitive questions, but could not resist putting them.“I considered you the most honourable of men when I first came to Petersburg, sir; no less. I always respected you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”Pavel Pavlovitch raised his eyes and looked at his companion without the smallest trace of confusion.Velchaninoff suddenly felt cowed and afraid. He was anxious that nothing should result—nothing disagreeable—from this conversation, since he himself was responsible for having initiated it.“I loved you, Alexey Ivanovitch; all that year at T—— I loved you—you did not observe it,”continued Pavel Pavlovitch, his voice trembling with emotion, to the great discomfiture of his companion.“You did not observe my affection, because I was too lowly a being to deserve any sort of notice; but it was unnecessary that you should observe my love. Well, sir, and all these nine years I have thought of you, for I have never known such a year of life as that year was.”(Pavel's eyes seemed to have a special glare in them at this point.)“I remembered many of your sayings and expressions, sir, and I thought of you always as a man imbued with the loftiest sentiments, and gifted with knowledge and intellect, sir—of the highest order—a man of grand ideas.‘Great ideas do not proceed so frequently from greatness of intellect, as from elevation of taste and feeling.’You yourself said that, sir, once. I dare say you have forgotten the fact, but you did say it. Therefore I always thought of you, sir, as a man of taste and feeling; consequently I concluded—consequently I trusted you, in spite of everything.”Pavel Pavlovitch's chin suddenly began to tremble. Velchaninoff was frightened out of his wits. This unexpected tone must be put an end to at all hazards.“Enough, Pavel Pavlovitch!”he said softly, blushing violently and with some show of irritation.“And why—why (Velchaninoff suddenly began to shout passionately)—why do you come hanging round the neck of a sick man, a worried man—a man who is almost out of his wits with fever and annoyance of all sorts, and drag him into this abyss of lies and mirage and vision and shame—and unnatural, disproportionate, distorted nonsense! Yes, sir, that's the most shameful part of the whole business—the disproportionate nonsense of what you say! You know it's all humbug; both of us are mean wretches—both of us; and if you like I'll prove to you at once that not only you don't love me, but that you loathe and hate me with all your heart, and that you are a liar, whether you know it or not! You took me down to see your bride, not—not a bit in the world to try how she would behave in the society of other men—absurd idea!—You simply saw me, yesterday, and your vile impulse led you to carry me off there in order that you might show me the girl, and say, as it were. There, look at that! She's to be mine! Try your handthereif you can! It was nothing but your challenge to me! You may not have known it, but this was so, as I say; and you felt the impulse which I have described. Such a challenge could not be made without hatred; consequently you hate me.”Velchaninoff almostrushedup and down the room as he shouted the above words; and with every syllable the humiliating consciousness that he was allowing himself to descend to the level of Pavel Pavlovitch afflicted him and tormented him more and more!“I was only anxious to be at peace with you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”said Pavel sadly, his chin and lips working again.Velchaninoff flew into a violent rage, as if he had been insulted in the most unexampled manner.“I tell you once more, sir,”he cried,“that you have attached yourself to a sick and irritated man, in order that you may surprise him into saying something unseemly in his madness! We are, I tell you, man, we are men of different worlds. Understand me! between us two there is a grave,”he hissed in his fury, and stopped.“And how do you know,—sir,”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, his face suddenly becoming all twisted, and deadly white to look at, as he strode up to Velchaninoff,“how do you know what that grave means to me, sir, here!”(He beat his breast with terrible earnestness, droll though he looked.)“Yes, sir, we both stand on the brink of the grave, but on my side there is more, sir, than on yours—yes, more, more, more!”he hissed, beating his breast without pause—“more than on yours—the grave means more to me than to you!”But at this moment a loud ring at the bell brought both men to their senses. Someone was ringing so loud that the bell-wire was in danger of snapping.“People don't ring like that for me, observed Velchaninoff angrily.”“No more they do for me, sir! I assure you they don't!”said Pavel Pavlovitch anxiously. He had become the quiet timid Pavel again in a moment. Velchaninoff frowned and went to open the door.“Mr. Velchaninoff, if I am not mistaken?”said a strange voice, apparently belonging to some young and very self-satisfied person, at the door.“What is it?”“I have been informed that Mr. Trusotsky is at this moment in your rooms. I must see him at once.”Velchaninoff felt inclined to send this self-satisfied looking young gentleman flying downstairs again; but he reflected—refrained, stood aside and let him in.“Here is Mr. Trusotsky. Come in.”

In spite of Velchaninoff's apparently happy day, the feeling of annoyance and suffering at his heart had hardly actually left him for a single moment. Before he sang the song he had not known what to do with himself, or suppressed anger and melancholy—perhaps that was the reason why he had sung with so much feeling and passion.

“To think that I could so have lowered myself as to forget everything!”he thought—and then despised himself for thinking it;“it is more humiliating still to cry over what is done,”he continued.“Far better to fly into a passion with someone instead.”

“Fool!”he muttered—looking askance at Pavel Pavlovitch, who sat beside him as still as a mouse. Pavel Pavlovitch preserved a most obstinate silence—probably concentrating and ranging his energies. He occasionally took his hat off, impatiently, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

Once—and once only—Pavel spoke, to the coachman, he asked whether there was going to be a thunder-storm.

“Wheugh!”said the man,“I should think so! It's been a steamy day—just the day for it!”

By the time town was reached—half-past ten—the whole sky was overcast.

“I am coming to your house,”said Pavel to Velchaninoff, when almost at the door.

“Quite so; but I warn you, I feel very unwell to-night!”

“All right—I won't stay too long.”

When the two men passed under the gateway, Pavel Pavlovitch disappeared into the 'dvornik's' room for a minute, to speak to Mavra.

“What did you go in there for?”asked Velchaninoff severely as they mounted the stairs and reached his own door.

“Oh—nothing—nothing at all,—just to tell them about the coachman.——”

“Very well. Mind, I shall not allow you to drink!”

Pavel Pavlovitch did not answer.

Velchaninoff lit a candle, while Pavel threw himself into a chair;—then the former came and stood menacingly before him.

“I may have told you I should havemylast word to say to-night, as well as you!”he said with suppressed anger in his voice and manner:“Here it is. I consider conscientiously that things are square between you and me, now; and therefore there is no more to be said, understand me, aboutanything. Since this is so, had you not better go, and let me close the door after you?”

“Let's cry‘quits’first, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, gazing into Velchaninoff's eyes with great sweetness.

“Quits?”cried the latter, in amazement;“you strange man, what are we to cry quits about? Are you harping upon your promise of a‘last word’?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, well, we have nothing more to cry quits for. We have been quits long since,”said Velchaninoff.

“Dear me, do you really think so?”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, in a shrill, sharp voice, pressing his two hands tightly together, finger to finger, as he held them up before his breast.

Velchaninoff said nothing. He rose from his seat and began to walk up and down the room. The word“Liza”resounded through and through his soul like the voice of a bell.

“Well, what is there that you still consider unsettled between us?”he asked at last, looking angrily at Pavel, who had never ceased to follow him with his eyes—always holding his hands before his breast, finger tip to finger tip.

“Don't go down there any more,”said Pavel, almost in a whisper, and rising from his seat with every indication of humble entreaty.

“What!isthatall?”cried Velchaninoff, bursting into an angry laugh;“good heavens, man, you have done nothing but surprise me all day.”He had begun in a tone of exasperation, but he now abruptly changed both voice and expression, and continued with an air of deep feeling.“Listen,”he said,“listen to me. I don't think I have ever felt so deeply humiliated as I am feeling now, in consequence of the events of to-day. In the first place, that I should have condescended to go down with you at all, and in the second place, all that happened there. It has been such a day of pettifogging—pitiful pettifogging. I have profaned and lowered myself by taking a share in it all, and forgetting——Well, it's done now. But look here—you fell upon me to-day, unawares—upon a sick man. Oh, you needn't excuse yourself; at all events I shall certainlynotgo there again. I have not the slightest interest in so doing,”he concluded, with an air of decision.

“No, really!”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, making no secret of his delight and exultation.

Velchaninoff glanced contemptuously at him, and recommenced his march up and down the room.

“You have determined to be happy under any circumstances, I suppose?”he observed, after a pause. He could not resist making the remark disdainfully.

“Yes, I have,”said Pavel, quietly.

“It's no business of mine that he's a fool and a knave, out of pure idiocy!”thought Velchaninoff.“I can't help hating him, though I feel that he is not even worth hating.”

“I'm a permanent husband,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with the most exquisitely servile irony, at his own expense.“I remember you using that expression, Alexey Ivanovitch, long ago, when you were with us at T——. I remember many of your original phrases of that time, and when you spoke of‘permanent husbands,’the other day, I recollected the expression.”

At this point Mavra entered the room with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

“Forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch,”said Pavel,“you know I can't get on without it. Don't consider it an audacity on my part—think of it as a mere bit of by-play unworthy your notice.”

“Well,”consented Velchaninoff, with a look of disgust,“but I must remind you that I don't feel well, and that—”

“One little moment—I'll go at once, I really will—Imustjust drinkoneglass, my throat is so——”

He seized the bottle eagerly, and poured himself out a glass, drank it greedily at a gulp, and sat down. He looked at Velchaninoff almost tenderly.

“What a nasty looking beast!”muttered the latter to himself.

“It's all her friends that make her like that,”said Pavel, suddenly, with animation.

“What? Oh, you refer to the lady. I——”

“And, besides, she is so very young still, you see,”resumed Pavel.“I shall be her slave—she shall see a little society, and a bit of the world. She will change, sir, entirely.”

“I mustn't forget to give him back the bracelet, by-the-bye,”thought Velchaninoff, frowning, as he felt for the case in his coat pocket.

“You said just now that I am determined to be happy, Alexey Ivanovitch,”continued Pavel, confidentially, and with almost touching earnestness.“Imustmarry, else what will become of me? You see for yourself”(he pointed to the bottle),“and that's only a hundredth part of what I demean myself to nowadays. I cannot get on without marrying again, sir; Imusthave a new faith. If I can but believe in some one again, sir, I shall rise—I shall be saved.”

“Why are you tellingmeall this?”exclaimed Velchaninoff, very nearly laughing in his face; it seemed so absurdly inconsistent.

“Look here,”he continued, roaring the words out,“let me know now, once for all, why did you drag me down there? what good was I to do you there?”

“I—I wished to try——,”began Pavel, with some confusion.

“Try what?”

“The effect, sir. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, I have only been visiting there a week”(he grew more and more confused),“and yesterday, when I met you, I thought to myself that I had never seen her yet in society; that is, in the society of othermenbesides myself—a stupid idea, I know it is—I was very anxious to try—you know my wretchedly jealous nature.”He suddenly raised his head and blushed violently.

“Hecan'tbe telling me the truth!”thought Velchaninoff; he was struck dumb with surprise.

“Well, go on!”he muttered at last.

“Well, I see it was all her pretty childish nature, sir—that and her friends together. You must forgive my stupid conduct towards yourself to-day, Alexey Ivanovitch. I will never do it again—never again, sir, I assure you!”

“I shall never be there to give you the opportunity,”replied Velchaninoff with a laugh.

“That's partly why I say it,”said Pavel.

“Oh, come! I'm not the only man in the world you know!”said the other irritably.

“I am sorry to hear you say that, Alexey Ivanovitch. My esteem for Nadejda is such that I——”

“Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I meant nothing, I assure you! Only it surprises me that you should have expected so much of me—that you trusted me so completely.”

“I trusted you entirely, sir, solely on account of—all that has passed.”

“So that you still consider me the most honourable of men?”Velchaninoff paused, the naïve nature of his sudden question surprised even himself.

“I always did think you that, sir!”said Pavel, hanging his head.

“Of course, quite so—I didn't mean quite that—I wanted to say, in spite of all prejudices you may have formed, you——”

“Yes, in spite of all prejudices!”

“And when you first came to Petersburg?”asked Velchaninoff, who himself felt the monstrosity of his own inquisitive questions, but could not resist putting them.

“I considered you the most honourable of men when I first came to Petersburg, sir; no less. I always respected you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”

Pavel Pavlovitch raised his eyes and looked at his companion without the smallest trace of confusion.

Velchaninoff suddenly felt cowed and afraid. He was anxious that nothing should result—nothing disagreeable—from this conversation, since he himself was responsible for having initiated it.

“I loved you, Alexey Ivanovitch; all that year at T—— I loved you—you did not observe it,”continued Pavel Pavlovitch, his voice trembling with emotion, to the great discomfiture of his companion.“You did not observe my affection, because I was too lowly a being to deserve any sort of notice; but it was unnecessary that you should observe my love. Well, sir, and all these nine years I have thought of you, for I have never known such a year of life as that year was.”(Pavel's eyes seemed to have a special glare in them at this point.)“I remembered many of your sayings and expressions, sir, and I thought of you always as a man imbued with the loftiest sentiments, and gifted with knowledge and intellect, sir—of the highest order—a man of grand ideas.‘Great ideas do not proceed so frequently from greatness of intellect, as from elevation of taste and feeling.’You yourself said that, sir, once. I dare say you have forgotten the fact, but you did say it. Therefore I always thought of you, sir, as a man of taste and feeling; consequently I concluded—consequently I trusted you, in spite of everything.”

Pavel Pavlovitch's chin suddenly began to tremble. Velchaninoff was frightened out of his wits. This unexpected tone must be put an end to at all hazards.

“Enough, Pavel Pavlovitch!”he said softly, blushing violently and with some show of irritation.“And why—why (Velchaninoff suddenly began to shout passionately)—why do you come hanging round the neck of a sick man, a worried man—a man who is almost out of his wits with fever and annoyance of all sorts, and drag him into this abyss of lies and mirage and vision and shame—and unnatural, disproportionate, distorted nonsense! Yes, sir, that's the most shameful part of the whole business—the disproportionate nonsense of what you say! You know it's all humbug; both of us are mean wretches—both of us; and if you like I'll prove to you at once that not only you don't love me, but that you loathe and hate me with all your heart, and that you are a liar, whether you know it or not! You took me down to see your bride, not—not a bit in the world to try how she would behave in the society of other men—absurd idea!—You simply saw me, yesterday, and your vile impulse led you to carry me off there in order that you might show me the girl, and say, as it were. There, look at that! She's to be mine! Try your handthereif you can! It was nothing but your challenge to me! You may not have known it, but this was so, as I say; and you felt the impulse which I have described. Such a challenge could not be made without hatred; consequently you hate me.”

Velchaninoff almostrushedup and down the room as he shouted the above words; and with every syllable the humiliating consciousness that he was allowing himself to descend to the level of Pavel Pavlovitch afflicted him and tormented him more and more!

“I was only anxious to be at peace with you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”said Pavel sadly, his chin and lips working again.

Velchaninoff flew into a violent rage, as if he had been insulted in the most unexampled manner.

“I tell you once more, sir,”he cried,“that you have attached yourself to a sick and irritated man, in order that you may surprise him into saying something unseemly in his madness! We are, I tell you, man, we are men of different worlds. Understand me! between us two there is a grave,”he hissed in his fury, and stopped.

“And how do you know,—sir,”cried Pavel Pavlovitch, his face suddenly becoming all twisted, and deadly white to look at, as he strode up to Velchaninoff,“how do you know what that grave means to me, sir, here!”(He beat his breast with terrible earnestness, droll though he looked.)“Yes, sir, we both stand on the brink of the grave, but on my side there is more, sir, than on yours—yes, more, more, more!”he hissed, beating his breast without pause—“more than on yours—the grave means more to me than to you!”

But at this moment a loud ring at the bell brought both men to their senses. Someone was ringing so loud that the bell-wire was in danger of snapping.

“People don't ring like that for me, observed Velchaninoff angrily.”

“No more they do for me, sir! I assure you they don't!”said Pavel Pavlovitch anxiously. He had become the quiet timid Pavel again in a moment. Velchaninoff frowned and went to open the door.

“Mr. Velchaninoff, if I am not mistaken?”said a strange voice, apparently belonging to some young and very self-satisfied person, at the door.

“What is it?”

“I have been informed that Mr. Trusotsky is at this moment in your rooms. I must see him at once.”

Velchaninoff felt inclined to send this self-satisfied looking young gentleman flying downstairs again; but he reflected—refrained, stood aside and let him in.

“Here is Mr. Trusotsky. Come in.”

CHAPTER XIV.A young fellow of some nineteen summers entered the room; he might have been even younger, to judge by his handsome but self-satisfied and very juvenile face.He was not badly dressed, at all events his clothes fitted him well; in stature he was a little above the middle height; he had thick black hair, and dark, bold eyes—and these were the striking features of his face. Unfortunately his nose was a little too broad and tip-tilted, otherwise he would have been a really remarkably good-looking young fellow.—He came in with some pretension.“I believe I have the opportunity of speaking to Mr. Trusotsky?”he observed deliberately, and bringing out the word opportunity with much apparent satisfaction, as though he wished to accentuate the fact that he could not possibly be supposed to feel either honour or pleasure in meeting Mr. Trusotsky. Velchaninoff thought he knew what all this meant; Pavel Pavlovitch seemed to have an inkling of the state of affairs, too. His expression was one of anxiety, but he did not show the white feather.“Not having the honour of your acquaintance,”he said with dignity,“I do not understand what sort of business you can have with me.”“Kindly listen to me first, and you can then let me know your ideas on the subject,”observed the young gentleman, pulling out his tortoiseshell glasses, and focusing the champagne bottle with them. Having deliberately inspected that object, he put up his glasses again, and fixing his attention once more upon Pavel Pavlovitch, remarked:“Alexander Loboff.”“What about Alexander Loboff?”“That's my name. You've not heard of me?”“No.”“H'm! Well, I don't know when you should have, now I think of it; but I've come on important business concerning yourself. I suppose I can sit down? I'm tired.”“Oh, pray sit down,”said Velchaninoff, but not before the young man had taken a chair. In spite of the pain at his heart Velchaninoff could not help being interested in this impudent youngling.There seemed to be something in his good-looking, fresh young face that reminded him of Nadia.“You can sit down too,”observed Loboff, indicating an empty seat to Pavel Pavlovitch, with a careless nod of his head.“Thank you; I shall stand.”“Very well, but you'll soon get tired. You need not go away, I think, Mr. Velchaninoff.”“I have nowhere to go to, my good sir, I am at home.”“As you like; I confess I should prefer your being present while I have an explanation with this gentleman. Nadejda Fedosievna has given you a flattering enough character, sir, to me.”“Nonsense; how could she have had time to do so?”“Immediately after you left. Now, Mr. Trusotsky, this is what I wish to observe,”he continued to Pavel, the latter still standing in front of him;“we, that is Nadejda Fedosievna and myself, have long loved one another, and have plighted our troth. You have suddenly come between us as an obstruction; I have come to tell you that you had better clear out of the way at once. Are you prepared to adopt my suggestion?”Pavel Pavlovitch took a step backward in amazement; his face paled visibly, but in a moment a spiteful smile curled his lip.“Not in the slightest degree prepared, sir,”he said, laconically.“Dear me,”said the young fellow, settling himself comfortably in his chair, and throwing one leg over the other.“Indeed, I do not know whom I am speaking to,”added Pavel Pavlovitch,“so that it can't hardly be worth your while to continue.”So saying he sat down at last.“Isaidyou'd get tired,”remarked the youth.“I informed you just now,”he added,“that my name is Alexander Loboff, and that Nadejda and I have plighted our troth; consequently you cannot truthfully say, as you did say just now, that you don't know who I am, nor can you honestly assert that you do not see what we can have to talk about. Not to speak of myself—there is Nadejda Fedosievna to be considered—the lady to whom you have so impudently attached yourself: that alone is matter sufficient for explanation between us.”All this the young fellow rattled off carelessly enough, as if the thing were so self-evident that it hardly needed mentioning. While talking, he raised his eye-glass once more, and inspected some object for an instant, putting the glass back in his pocket immediately afterwards.“Excuse me, young man,”began Pavel Pavlovitch: but the words“young man”were fatal.“At any other moment,”observed the youth,“I should of course forbid your calling me‘young man’at once; but you must admit that in this case my youth is my principal advantage over yourself, and that even this very day you would have given anything—nay, at the moment when you presented your bracelet—to be just a little bit younger.”“Cheeky young brat!”muttered Velchaninoff.“In any case,”began Pavel Pavlovitch, with dignity,“I do not consider your reasons as set forth—most questionable and improper reasons at the best—sufficient to justify the continuance of this conversation. I see your 'business' is mere childishness and nonsense: to-morrow I shall have the pleasure of an explanation with Mr. Zachlebnikoff, my respected friend. Meanwhile, sir, perhaps you will make it convenient to—depart.”“That's the sort of man he is,”cried the youth, hotly, turning to Velchaninoff:“he is not content with being as good as kicked out of the place, and having faces made at him, but he must go down again to-morrow to carry tales about us to Mr. Zachlebnikoff. Do you not prove by this, you obstinate man, that you wish to carry off the young lady by force? that you desire tobuyher of people who preserve—thanks to the relics of barbarism still triumphant among us—a species of power over her? Surely she showed you sufficiently clearly that shedespisesyou? You have had your wretched tasteless present of to-day—that bracelet thing—returned to you; what more do you want?”“Excuse me, no bracelet has been, or can be returned to me,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with a shudder of anxiety, however.“How so? hasn't Mr. Velchaninoff given it to you?”“Oh, the deuce take you, sir,”thought Velchaninoff.“Nadejda Fedosievna certainly did give me this case for you, Pavel Pavlovitch,”he said;“I did not wish to take it, but she was anxious that I should: here it is, I'm very sorry.”He took out the case and laid it down on the table before the enraged Pavel Pavlovitch.“How is it you have not handed it to him before?”asked the young man severely.“I had no time, as you may conclude,”said Velchaninoff with a frown.“H'm! Strange circumstance!”“What, sir?”“Well, you must admit itisstrange! However, I am quite prepared to believe that there has been some mistake.”Velchaninoff would have given worlds to get up and drub the impertinent young rascal and drag him out of the house by the ear; but he could not contain himself, and burst out laughing. The boy immediately followed suit and laughed too.But for Pavel Pavlovitch it was no laughing matter.If Velchaninoff had seen the ferocious look which the former cast at him at the moment when he and Loboff laughed, he would have realized that Pavel Pavlovitch was in the act of passing a fatal limit of forbearance. He did not see the look; but it struck him that it was only fair to stand up for Pavel now.“Listen, Mr. Loboff,”he said, in friendly tones,“not to enter into the consideration of other matters, I may point out that Mr. Trusotsky brings with him, in his wooing of Miss Zachlebnikoff, a name and circumstances fully well-known to that esteemed family; in the second place, he brings a fairly respectable position in the world; and thirdly, he brings wealth. Therefore he may well be surprised to find himself confronted by such a rival as yourself—a gentleman of great wealth, doubtless, but at the same time so very young, that he could not possibly look upon you as a serious rival; therefore, again, he is quite right in begging you to bring the conversation to an end.”“What do you mean by‘so very young’? I was nineteen a month since; by the law I might have been married long ago. That's a sufficient answer to your argument.”“But what father would consent to allowing his daughter to marry younow—even though you may be a Rothschild to come, or a benefactor to humanity in the future. A man of nineteen years old is not capable of answering for himself and yet you are ready to take on your own responsibility another being—in other words, a being who is as much a child as you are yourself. Why, it is hardly even honourable on your part, is it? I have presumed to address you thus, because you yourself referred the matter to me as a sort of arbiter between yourself and Pavel Pavlovitch.”“Yes, by-the-bye,‘Pavel Pavlovitch,’I forgot he was called that,”remarked the youth.“I wonder why I thought of him all along as‘Vassili Petrovitch.’Look here, sir (addressing Velchaninoff), you have not surprised me in the least. I knew you were all tarred with one brush. It is strange that you should have been described to me as a man of some originality. However, to business. All that you have said is, of course, utter nonsense; not only is there nothing‘dishonourable’about my intentions, as you permitted yourself to suggest, but the fact of the matter is entirely the reverse, as I hope to prove to you by-and-bye. In the first place, we have promised each other marriage, besides which I have given her my word that if she ever repents of her promise she shall have her full liberty to throw me over. I have given her surety to that effect before witnesses.”“I bet anything your friend—what's his name?—Predposiloff invented that idea,”cried Velchaninoff.“He-he-he!”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch contemptuously.“What is that person giggling about? You are right, sir, it was Predposiloff's idea. But I don't think you and I quite understand one another, do we? and I had such a good report of you. How old are you? Are you fifty yet?”“Stick to business, if you please.”“Forgive the liberty. I did not mean anything offensive. Well, to proceed. I am no millionaire, and I am no great benefactor to humanity (to reply to your arguments), but I shall manage to keep myself and my wife. Of course I have nothing now; I was brought up, in fact, in their house from my childhood.”“How so?”“Oh, because I am a distant relative of this Mr. Zachlebnikoff's wife. When my people died, he took me in and sent me to school. The old fellow is really quite a kind-hearted man, if you only knew it.”“I do know it!”“Yes, he's an old fogey rather, but a kind-hearted old fellow; but I left him four months ago and began to keep myself. I first joined a railway office at ten roubles a month, and am now in a notary's place at twenty-five. I made him a formal proposal for her a fortnight since. He first laughed like mad, and afterwards fell into a violent rage, and Nadia was locked up. She bore it heroically. He had been furious with me before for throwing up a post in his department which he procured for me. You see he is a good and kind old fellow at home, but get him in his office and—oh, my word!—he's a sort ofJupiter Tonans! I told him straight out that I didn't like his ways; but the great row was—thanks to the second chief at the office; he said I insulted him, but I only told him he was an ignorant beggar. So I threw them all up, and went in for the notary business. Listen to that! What a clap! We shall have a thunder-storm directly! What a good thing I arrived before the rain! I came here on foot, you know, all the way, nearly at a run, too!”“How in the world did you find an opportunity of speaking to Miss Nadia then? especially since you are not allowed to meet.”“Oh, one can always get over the railing; then there's that red-haired girl, she helps, and Maria Nikitishna—oh, but she's a snake, that girl! What's the matter? Are you afraid of the thunder-storm?”“No, I'm ill—seriously ill!”Velchaninoff had risen from his seat with a fearful sudden pain in his chest, and was trying to walk up and down the room.“Oh, really! then I'm disturbing you. I shall go at once,”said the youth, jumping up.“No, you don't disturb me!”said Velchaninoff ceremoniously.“How not; of course I do, if you've got the stomach ache! Well now, Vassili—what's your name—Pavel Pavlovitch, let's conclude this matter. I will formulate my question for once into words which will adapt themselves to your understanding: Are you prepared to renounce your claim to the hand of Nadejda Fedosievna before her parents, and in my presence, with all due formality?”“No, sir; not in the slightest degree prepared,”said Pavel Pavlovitch witheringly;“and allow me to say once more that all this is childish and absurd, and that you had better clear out!”“Take care,”said the youth, holding up a warning forefinger;“better give it up now, for I warn you that otherwise you will spend a lot of money down there, and take a lot of trouble; and when you come back in nine months you will be turned out of the house by Nadejda Fedosievna herself; and if you don't gothen, it will be the worse for you. Excuse me for saying so, but at present you are like the dog in the manger. Think over it, and be sensible for once in your life.”“Spare me the moral, if you please,”began Pavel Pavlovitch furiously;“and as for your low threats I shall take my measures to-morrow—seriousmeasures.”“Low threats? pooh! You are low yourself to take them as such. Very well, I'll wait till to-morrow then; but if you—there's the thunder again!—au revoir—very glad to have met you, sir.”He nodded to Velchaninoff and made off hurriedly, evidently anxious to reach home before the rain.

A young fellow of some nineteen summers entered the room; he might have been even younger, to judge by his handsome but self-satisfied and very juvenile face.

He was not badly dressed, at all events his clothes fitted him well; in stature he was a little above the middle height; he had thick black hair, and dark, bold eyes—and these were the striking features of his face. Unfortunately his nose was a little too broad and tip-tilted, otherwise he would have been a really remarkably good-looking young fellow.—He came in with some pretension.

“I believe I have the opportunity of speaking to Mr. Trusotsky?”he observed deliberately, and bringing out the word opportunity with much apparent satisfaction, as though he wished to accentuate the fact that he could not possibly be supposed to feel either honour or pleasure in meeting Mr. Trusotsky. Velchaninoff thought he knew what all this meant; Pavel Pavlovitch seemed to have an inkling of the state of affairs, too. His expression was one of anxiety, but he did not show the white feather.

“Not having the honour of your acquaintance,”he said with dignity,“I do not understand what sort of business you can have with me.”

“Kindly listen to me first, and you can then let me know your ideas on the subject,”observed the young gentleman, pulling out his tortoiseshell glasses, and focusing the champagne bottle with them. Having deliberately inspected that object, he put up his glasses again, and fixing his attention once more upon Pavel Pavlovitch, remarked:

“Alexander Loboff.”

“What about Alexander Loboff?”

“That's my name. You've not heard of me?”

“No.”

“H'm! Well, I don't know when you should have, now I think of it; but I've come on important business concerning yourself. I suppose I can sit down? I'm tired.”

“Oh, pray sit down,”said Velchaninoff, but not before the young man had taken a chair. In spite of the pain at his heart Velchaninoff could not help being interested in this impudent youngling.

There seemed to be something in his good-looking, fresh young face that reminded him of Nadia.

“You can sit down too,”observed Loboff, indicating an empty seat to Pavel Pavlovitch, with a careless nod of his head.

“Thank you; I shall stand.”

“Very well, but you'll soon get tired. You need not go away, I think, Mr. Velchaninoff.”

“I have nowhere to go to, my good sir, I am at home.”

“As you like; I confess I should prefer your being present while I have an explanation with this gentleman. Nadejda Fedosievna has given you a flattering enough character, sir, to me.”

“Nonsense; how could she have had time to do so?”

“Immediately after you left. Now, Mr. Trusotsky, this is what I wish to observe,”he continued to Pavel, the latter still standing in front of him;“we, that is Nadejda Fedosievna and myself, have long loved one another, and have plighted our troth. You have suddenly come between us as an obstruction; I have come to tell you that you had better clear out of the way at once. Are you prepared to adopt my suggestion?”

Pavel Pavlovitch took a step backward in amazement; his face paled visibly, but in a moment a spiteful smile curled his lip.

“Not in the slightest degree prepared, sir,”he said, laconically.

“Dear me,”said the young fellow, settling himself comfortably in his chair, and throwing one leg over the other.

“Indeed, I do not know whom I am speaking to,”added Pavel Pavlovitch,“so that it can't hardly be worth your while to continue.”

So saying he sat down at last.

“Isaidyou'd get tired,”remarked the youth.“I informed you just now,”he added,“that my name is Alexander Loboff, and that Nadejda and I have plighted our troth; consequently you cannot truthfully say, as you did say just now, that you don't know who I am, nor can you honestly assert that you do not see what we can have to talk about. Not to speak of myself—there is Nadejda Fedosievna to be considered—the lady to whom you have so impudently attached yourself: that alone is matter sufficient for explanation between us.”

All this the young fellow rattled off carelessly enough, as if the thing were so self-evident that it hardly needed mentioning. While talking, he raised his eye-glass once more, and inspected some object for an instant, putting the glass back in his pocket immediately afterwards.

“Excuse me, young man,”began Pavel Pavlovitch: but the words“young man”were fatal.

“At any other moment,”observed the youth,“I should of course forbid your calling me‘young man’at once; but you must admit that in this case my youth is my principal advantage over yourself, and that even this very day you would have given anything—nay, at the moment when you presented your bracelet—to be just a little bit younger.”

“Cheeky young brat!”muttered Velchaninoff.

“In any case,”began Pavel Pavlovitch, with dignity,“I do not consider your reasons as set forth—most questionable and improper reasons at the best—sufficient to justify the continuance of this conversation. I see your 'business' is mere childishness and nonsense: to-morrow I shall have the pleasure of an explanation with Mr. Zachlebnikoff, my respected friend. Meanwhile, sir, perhaps you will make it convenient to—depart.”

“That's the sort of man he is,”cried the youth, hotly, turning to Velchaninoff:“he is not content with being as good as kicked out of the place, and having faces made at him, but he must go down again to-morrow to carry tales about us to Mr. Zachlebnikoff. Do you not prove by this, you obstinate man, that you wish to carry off the young lady by force? that you desire tobuyher of people who preserve—thanks to the relics of barbarism still triumphant among us—a species of power over her? Surely she showed you sufficiently clearly that shedespisesyou? You have had your wretched tasteless present of to-day—that bracelet thing—returned to you; what more do you want?”

“Excuse me, no bracelet has been, or can be returned to me,”said Pavel Pavlovitch, with a shudder of anxiety, however.

“How so? hasn't Mr. Velchaninoff given it to you?”

“Oh, the deuce take you, sir,”thought Velchaninoff.“Nadejda Fedosievna certainly did give me this case for you, Pavel Pavlovitch,”he said;“I did not wish to take it, but she was anxious that I should: here it is, I'm very sorry.”

He took out the case and laid it down on the table before the enraged Pavel Pavlovitch.

“How is it you have not handed it to him before?”asked the young man severely.

“I had no time, as you may conclude,”said Velchaninoff with a frown.

“H'm! Strange circumstance!”

“What, sir?”

“Well, you must admit itisstrange! However, I am quite prepared to believe that there has been some mistake.”

Velchaninoff would have given worlds to get up and drub the impertinent young rascal and drag him out of the house by the ear; but he could not contain himself, and burst out laughing. The boy immediately followed suit and laughed too.

But for Pavel Pavlovitch it was no laughing matter.

If Velchaninoff had seen the ferocious look which the former cast at him at the moment when he and Loboff laughed, he would have realized that Pavel Pavlovitch was in the act of passing a fatal limit of forbearance. He did not see the look; but it struck him that it was only fair to stand up for Pavel now.

“Listen, Mr. Loboff,”he said, in friendly tones,“not to enter into the consideration of other matters, I may point out that Mr. Trusotsky brings with him, in his wooing of Miss Zachlebnikoff, a name and circumstances fully well-known to that esteemed family; in the second place, he brings a fairly respectable position in the world; and thirdly, he brings wealth. Therefore he may well be surprised to find himself confronted by such a rival as yourself—a gentleman of great wealth, doubtless, but at the same time so very young, that he could not possibly look upon you as a serious rival; therefore, again, he is quite right in begging you to bring the conversation to an end.”

“What do you mean by‘so very young’? I was nineteen a month since; by the law I might have been married long ago. That's a sufficient answer to your argument.”

“But what father would consent to allowing his daughter to marry younow—even though you may be a Rothschild to come, or a benefactor to humanity in the future. A man of nineteen years old is not capable of answering for himself and yet you are ready to take on your own responsibility another being—in other words, a being who is as much a child as you are yourself. Why, it is hardly even honourable on your part, is it? I have presumed to address you thus, because you yourself referred the matter to me as a sort of arbiter between yourself and Pavel Pavlovitch.”

“Yes, by-the-bye,‘Pavel Pavlovitch,’I forgot he was called that,”remarked the youth.“I wonder why I thought of him all along as‘Vassili Petrovitch.’Look here, sir (addressing Velchaninoff), you have not surprised me in the least. I knew you were all tarred with one brush. It is strange that you should have been described to me as a man of some originality. However, to business. All that you have said is, of course, utter nonsense; not only is there nothing‘dishonourable’about my intentions, as you permitted yourself to suggest, but the fact of the matter is entirely the reverse, as I hope to prove to you by-and-bye. In the first place, we have promised each other marriage, besides which I have given her my word that if she ever repents of her promise she shall have her full liberty to throw me over. I have given her surety to that effect before witnesses.”

“I bet anything your friend—what's his name?—Predposiloff invented that idea,”cried Velchaninoff.

“He-he-he!”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch contemptuously.

“What is that person giggling about? You are right, sir, it was Predposiloff's idea. But I don't think you and I quite understand one another, do we? and I had such a good report of you. How old are you? Are you fifty yet?”

“Stick to business, if you please.”

“Forgive the liberty. I did not mean anything offensive. Well, to proceed. I am no millionaire, and I am no great benefactor to humanity (to reply to your arguments), but I shall manage to keep myself and my wife. Of course I have nothing now; I was brought up, in fact, in their house from my childhood.”

“How so?”

“Oh, because I am a distant relative of this Mr. Zachlebnikoff's wife. When my people died, he took me in and sent me to school. The old fellow is really quite a kind-hearted man, if you only knew it.”

“I do know it!”

“Yes, he's an old fogey rather, but a kind-hearted old fellow; but I left him four months ago and began to keep myself. I first joined a railway office at ten roubles a month, and am now in a notary's place at twenty-five. I made him a formal proposal for her a fortnight since. He first laughed like mad, and afterwards fell into a violent rage, and Nadia was locked up. She bore it heroically. He had been furious with me before for throwing up a post in his department which he procured for me. You see he is a good and kind old fellow at home, but get him in his office and—oh, my word!—he's a sort ofJupiter Tonans! I told him straight out that I didn't like his ways; but the great row was—thanks to the second chief at the office; he said I insulted him, but I only told him he was an ignorant beggar. So I threw them all up, and went in for the notary business. Listen to that! What a clap! We shall have a thunder-storm directly! What a good thing I arrived before the rain! I came here on foot, you know, all the way, nearly at a run, too!”

“How in the world did you find an opportunity of speaking to Miss Nadia then? especially since you are not allowed to meet.”

“Oh, one can always get over the railing; then there's that red-haired girl, she helps, and Maria Nikitishna—oh, but she's a snake, that girl! What's the matter? Are you afraid of the thunder-storm?”

“No, I'm ill—seriously ill!”

Velchaninoff had risen from his seat with a fearful sudden pain in his chest, and was trying to walk up and down the room.

“Oh, really! then I'm disturbing you. I shall go at once,”said the youth, jumping up.

“No, you don't disturb me!”said Velchaninoff ceremoniously.

“How not; of course I do, if you've got the stomach ache! Well now, Vassili—what's your name—Pavel Pavlovitch, let's conclude this matter. I will formulate my question for once into words which will adapt themselves to your understanding: Are you prepared to renounce your claim to the hand of Nadejda Fedosievna before her parents, and in my presence, with all due formality?”

“No, sir; not in the slightest degree prepared,”said Pavel Pavlovitch witheringly;“and allow me to say once more that all this is childish and absurd, and that you had better clear out!”

“Take care,”said the youth, holding up a warning forefinger;“better give it up now, for I warn you that otherwise you will spend a lot of money down there, and take a lot of trouble; and when you come back in nine months you will be turned out of the house by Nadejda Fedosievna herself; and if you don't gothen, it will be the worse for you. Excuse me for saying so, but at present you are like the dog in the manger. Think over it, and be sensible for once in your life.”

“Spare me the moral, if you please,”began Pavel Pavlovitch furiously;“and as for your low threats I shall take my measures to-morrow—seriousmeasures.”

“Low threats? pooh! You are low yourself to take them as such. Very well, I'll wait till to-morrow then; but if you—there's the thunder again!—au revoir—very glad to have met you, sir.”He nodded to Velchaninoff and made off hurriedly, evidently anxious to reach home before the rain.

CHAPTER XV.“You see, you see!”cried Pavel to Velchaninoff, the instant that the young fellow's back was turned.“Yes; you are not going to succeed there,”said Velchaninoff. He would not have been so abrupt and careless of Pavel's feelings if it had not been for the dreadful pain in his chest.Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered as though from a sudden scald.“Well, sir, and you—you were loth to give me back the bracelet, eh?”“I hadn't time.”“Oh! you were sorry—you pitied me, as true friend pities friend!”“Oh, well, I pitied you, then!”Velchaninoff was growing angrier every moment. However, he informed Pavel Pavlovitch shortly as to how he had received the bracelet, and how Nadia had almost forced it upon him.“You must understand,”he added,“that otherwise I should never have agreed to accept the commission; there are quite enough disagreeables already.”“You liked the job, and accepted it with pleasure,”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch.“That is foolish on your part; but I suppose you must be forgiven. You must have seen from that boy's behaviour that I play no part in this matter. Others are the principal actors, not I!”“At all events the job had attractions for you.”Pavel Pavlovitch sat down and poured out a glass of wine.“You think I shall knuckle under to that young gentleman? Pooh! I shall drive him out to-morrow, sir, like dust. I'll smoke this little gentleman out of his nursery, sir; you see if I don't.”He drank his wine off at a gulp, and poured out some more. He seemed to grow freer as the moments went by; he talked glibly now.“Ha-ha! Sachinka and Nadienka!2darling little children. Ha-ha-ha!”He was beside himself with fury.At this moment, a terrific crash of thunder startled the silence, and was followed by flashes of lightning and sheets of heavy rain. Pavel Pavlovitch rose and shut the window.“The fellow asked you if you were afraid of the thunder; do you remember? Ha-ha-ha! Velchaninoff afraid of thunder! And all that about‘fifty years old’wasn't bad, eh? Ha-ha-ha!”Pavel Pavlovitch was in a spiteful mood.“You seem to have settled yourself here,”said Velchaninoff, who could hardly speak for agony.“Do as you like, I must lie down.”“Come, you wouldn't turn adogout to-night!”replied Pavel, glad of a grievance.“Of course, sit down; drink your wine—do anything you like,”murmured Velchaninoff, as he laid himself flat on his divan, and groaned with pain.“Am I to spend the night? Aren't you afraid?”“What of?”asked Velchaninoff, raising his head slightly.“Oh, nothing. Only last time you seemed to be a little alarmed, that's all.”“You are a fool!”said the other angrily, as he turned his face to the wall.“Very well, sir; all right,”said Pavel.Velchaninoff fell asleep within a minute or so of lying down. The unnatural strain of the day, and his sickly state of health together, had suddenly undermined his strength, and he was as weak as a child. But physical pain would have its own, and soon conquered weakness and sleep; in an hour he was wide awake again, and rose from the divan in anguish. Pavel Pavlovitch was asleep on the other sofa. He was dressed, and in his boots; his hat lay on the floor, and his eye-glass hung by its cord almost to the ground. Velchaninoff did not wake his guest. The room was full of tobacco smoke, and the bottle was empty; he looked savagely at the sleeping drunkard.Having twisted himself painfully off his bed, Velchaninoff began to walk about, groaning and thinking of his agony; he could lie no longer.He was alarmed for this pain in his chest, and not without reason. He was subject to these attacks, and had been so for many years; but they came seldom, luckily—once a year or two years. On such occasions, his agony was so dreadful for some ten hours or so that he invariably believed that he must be actually dying.This night, his anguish was terrible; it was too late to send for the doctor, but it was far from morning yet. He staggered up and down the room, and before long his groans became loud and frequent.The noise awoke Pavel Pavlovitch. He sat up on his divan, and for some time gazed in terror and perplexity upon Velchaninoff, as the latter walked moaning up and down. At last he gathered his senses, and enquired anxiously what was the matter.Velchaninoff muttered something unintelligible.“It's your kidneys—I'm sure it is,”cried Pavel, very wide awake of a sudden.“I remember Peter Kuzmich used to have the same sort of attacks. The kidneys—why, one can die of it. Let me go and fetch Mavra.”“No, no; I don't want anything,”muttered Velchaninoff, waving him off irritably.But Pavel Pavlovitch—goodness knows why—was beside himself with anxiety; he was as much exercised as though the matter at issue were the saving of his own son's life. He insisted on immediate compresses, and told Velchaninoff he must drink two or three cups of very hot weak tea—boiling hot. He ran for Mavra, lighted the fire in the kitchen, put the kettle on, put the sick man back to bed, covered him up, and within twenty minutes had the first hot application all ready, as well as the tea.“Hot plates, sir, hot plates,”he cried, as he clapped the first, wrapped in a napkin, on to Velchaninoff's chest.“I have nothing else handy; but I give you my word it's as good as anything else. Drink this tea quick, never mind if you scald your tongue—life is dearer. You can die of this sort of thing, you know.”He sent sleepy Mavra out of her wits with flurry; the plates were changed every couple of minutes. At the third application, and after having taken two cups of scalding tea, Velchaninoff suddenly felt decidedly better.“Capital! thank God! if we can once get the better of the pain it's a good sign!”cried Pavel, delightedly, and away he ran for another plate and some more tea.“If only we can beat the pain down!”he kept muttering to himself every minute.In half an hour the agony was passed, but the sick man was so completely knocked up that, in spite of Pavel's repeated entreaties to be allowed to apply“just one more plate,”he could bear no more. His eyes were drooping from weakness.“Sleep—sleep,”he muttered faintly.“Very well,”consented Pavel,“go to sleep.”“Are you spending the night here? What time is it?”“Nearly two.”“You must sleep here.”“Yes, yes—all right. I will.”A moment after the sick man called to Pavel again.“You—you—”muttered the former faintly, as Pavel ran up and bent over him,“you are better than I am. I understand all—all—thank you!”“Go to sleep!”whispered Pavel Pavlovitch, as he crept back to his divan on tip-toes.Velchaninoff, dozing off, heard Pavel quietly make his bed, undress and lie down, all very softly, and then put the light out.Undoubtedly Velchaninoff fell asleep very quietly when the light was once out; he remembered that much afterwards. Yet all the while he was asleep, and until he awoke, he dreamed that he could not go to sleep in spite of his weakness. At length he dreamed that he was delirious, and that he could not for the life of him chase away the visions which crowded in upon him, although he was conscious the whole while theywerebut visions and not reality. The apparition was familiar to him. He thought that his front door was open, and that his room gradually filled with people pouring in. At the table in the middle of the room, sat one man exactly as had been the case a month before, during one of his dreams. As on the previous occasion, this man leant on his elbow at the table and would not speak; he was in a round hat with a crape band.“How?”thought the dreamer.“Was it really Pavel Pavlovitch last time as well?”However, when he looked at the man's face, he was convinced that it was quite another person.“Why has he a crape band, then?”thought Velchaninoff in perplexity.The noise and chattering of all these people was dreadful; they seemed even more exasperated with Velchaninoff than on the former occasion. They were all threatening him with something or other, shaking their fists at him, and shouting something which he could not understand.“It's all a vision,”he dreamed,“I know quite well that I am up and about, because I could not lie still for anguish!”Yet the cries and noise at times seemed so real that he was now and again half-convinced of their reality.“Surely thiscan'tbe delirium!”he thought.“What on earth do all these people want of me—my God!”Yet if it were not a vision, surely all these cries would have roused Pavel Pavlovitch? There he was, fast asleep in his divan!Then something suddenly occurred as in the old dream. Another crowd of people surged in, crushing those who were already collected inside. These new arrivals carried something large and heavy; he could judge of the weight by their footsteps labouring upstairs.Those in the room cried,“They're bringing it! they're bringing it!”Every eye flashed as it turned and glared at Velchaninoff; every hand threatened him and then pointed to the stairs.Undoubtedly it was reality, not delirium. Velchaninoff thought that he stood up and raised himself on tip-toes, in order to see over the heads of the crowd. He wanted to know what was being carried in.His heart beat wildly, wildly, wildly; and suddenly, as in his former dream, there came one—two—three loud rings at the bell.And again, the sound of the bell was so distinct and clear that he felt itcouldnot be a dream. He gave a cry, and awoke; but he did not rush to the door as on the former occasion.What sudden idea was it that guided his movements? Had he any idea at all, or was it impulse that prompted him what to do? He sprang up in bed, with arms outstretched, as though to ward off an attack, straight towards the divan where Pavel Pavlovitch was sleeping.His hands encountered other hands outstretched in his direction; consequently some one must have been standing over him.The curtains were drawn, but it was not absolutely dark, because a faint light came from the next room, which had no curtains.Suddenly something cut the palm of his left hand, some of his fingers causing him sharp pain. He instantly realized that he had seized a knife or a razor, and he closed his hand upon it with the rapidity of thought.At that moment something fell to the ground with a hard metallic sound.Velchaninoff was probably three times as strong as Pavel Pavlovitch, but the struggle lasted for a long while—at least three minutes.The former, however, forced his adversary to the earth, and bent his arms back behind his head; then he paused, for he was most anxious to tie the hands. Holding the assassin's wrist with his wounded left hand, he felt for the blind cord with his right. For a long while he could not find it; at last he grasped it, and tore it down.He was amazed afterwards at the unnatural strength which he must have displayed during all this.During the whole of the struggle neither man spoke a word; only their heavy breathing was audible, and the inarticulate sounds emitted by both as they fought.At length, having secured his opponent's hands, Velchaninoff left him on the ground, rose, drew the curtains, and pulled up the blind.The deserted street was light now. He opened the window, and stood breathing in the fresh air for a few moments. It was a little past four o'clock. He shut the window once more, fetched a towel and bound up his cut hand as tightly as he could to stop the flow of blood.At his feet he caught sight of the opened razor lying on the carpet; he picked it up, wiped it, and put it by in its own case, which he now saw he had left upon the little cupboard beside the divan which Pavel Pavlovitch occupied. He locked the cupboard.Having completed all these arrangements, he approached Pavel Pavlovitch and looked at him. Meanwhile the latter had managed to raise himself from the floor and reach a chair; he was now sitting in it—undressed to his shirt, which was stained with marks of blood both back and front—Velchaninoff's blood, not his own.Of course this was Pavel Pavlovitch; but it would have been only natural for any one who had known him before, and saw him at this moment, to doubt his identity. He sat upright in his chair—very stiffly, owing to the uncomfortable position of his tightly bound hands behind his back; his face looked yellow and crooked, and he shuddered every other moment. He gazed intently, but with an expression of dazed perplexity, at Velchaninoff.Suddenly he smiled gravely, and nodding towards a carafe of water on the table, muttered,“A little drop!”Velchaninoff poured some into a glass, and held it for him to drink.Pavel gulped a couple of mouthfuls greedily—then suddenly raised his head and gazed intently at Velchaninoff standing over him; he said nothing, however, but finished the water. He then sighed deeply.Velchaninoff took his pillows and some of his clothing, and went into the next room, locking Pavel Pavlovitch behind him.His pain had quite disappeared, but he felt very weak after the strain of his late exertion. Goodness knows whence came his strength for the trial; he tried to think, but he could not collect his ideas, the shock had been too great.His eyes would droop now and again, sometimes for ten minutes at a time; then he would shudder, wake up, remember all that had passed and raise the blood-stained rag bound about his hand to prove the reality of his thoughts; then he would relapse into eager, feverish thought. One thing was quite certain, Pavel Pavlovitch had intended to cut his throat, though, perhaps, a quarter of an hour before the fatal moment he had not known that he would make the attempt. Perhaps he had seen the razor case last evening, and thought nothing of it, only remembering the fact that it was there. The razors were usually locked up, and only yesterday Velchaninoff had taken one out in order to make himself neat for his visit to the country, and had omitted to lock it up again.“If he had premeditated murdering me, he would certainly have provided himself with a knife or a pistol long ago; he could not have relied on my razors, which he never saw until yesterday,”concluded Velchaninoff.At last the clock struck six. Velchaninoff arose, dressed himself, and went into Pavel Pavlovitch's room. As he opened the door he wondered why he had ever locked it, and why he had not allowed Pavel to go away at once.To his surprise the prisoner was dressed, he had doubtless found means to get his hands loose. He was sitting in an arm-chair, but rose when Velchaninoff entered. His hat was in his hand.His anxious look seemed to say as plain as words:—“Don't talk to me! It's no use talking—don't talk to me!”“Go!”said Velchaninoff.“Take your jewel-case!”he added.Pavel Pavlovitch turned back and seized his bracelet-case, stuffing it into his pocket, and went out.Velchaninoff stood in the hall, waiting to shut the front door after him.Their looks met for the last time. Pavel Pavlovitch stopped, and the two men gazed into each others eyes for five seconds or so, as though in indecision. At length Velchaninoff faintly waved him away with his hand.“Go!”he said, only half aloud, as he closed the door and turned the key.

“You see, you see!”cried Pavel to Velchaninoff, the instant that the young fellow's back was turned.

“Yes; you are not going to succeed there,”said Velchaninoff. He would not have been so abrupt and careless of Pavel's feelings if it had not been for the dreadful pain in his chest.

Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered as though from a sudden scald.“Well, sir, and you—you were loth to give me back the bracelet, eh?”

“I hadn't time.”

“Oh! you were sorry—you pitied me, as true friend pities friend!”

“Oh, well, I pitied you, then!”Velchaninoff was growing angrier every moment. However, he informed Pavel Pavlovitch shortly as to how he had received the bracelet, and how Nadia had almost forced it upon him.

“You must understand,”he added,“that otherwise I should never have agreed to accept the commission; there are quite enough disagreeables already.”

“You liked the job, and accepted it with pleasure,”giggled Pavel Pavlovitch.

“That is foolish on your part; but I suppose you must be forgiven. You must have seen from that boy's behaviour that I play no part in this matter. Others are the principal actors, not I!”

“At all events the job had attractions for you.”Pavel Pavlovitch sat down and poured out a glass of wine.

“You think I shall knuckle under to that young gentleman? Pooh! I shall drive him out to-morrow, sir, like dust. I'll smoke this little gentleman out of his nursery, sir; you see if I don't.”He drank his wine off at a gulp, and poured out some more. He seemed to grow freer as the moments went by; he talked glibly now.

“Ha-ha! Sachinka and Nadienka!2darling little children. Ha-ha-ha!”He was beside himself with fury.

At this moment, a terrific crash of thunder startled the silence, and was followed by flashes of lightning and sheets of heavy rain. Pavel Pavlovitch rose and shut the window.

“The fellow asked you if you were afraid of the thunder; do you remember? Ha-ha-ha! Velchaninoff afraid of thunder! And all that about‘fifty years old’wasn't bad, eh? Ha-ha-ha!”Pavel Pavlovitch was in a spiteful mood.

“You seem to have settled yourself here,”said Velchaninoff, who could hardly speak for agony.“Do as you like, I must lie down.”

“Come, you wouldn't turn adogout to-night!”replied Pavel, glad of a grievance.

“Of course, sit down; drink your wine—do anything you like,”murmured Velchaninoff, as he laid himself flat on his divan, and groaned with pain.

“Am I to spend the night? Aren't you afraid?”

“What of?”asked Velchaninoff, raising his head slightly.

“Oh, nothing. Only last time you seemed to be a little alarmed, that's all.”

“You are a fool!”said the other angrily, as he turned his face to the wall.

“Very well, sir; all right,”said Pavel.

Velchaninoff fell asleep within a minute or so of lying down. The unnatural strain of the day, and his sickly state of health together, had suddenly undermined his strength, and he was as weak as a child. But physical pain would have its own, and soon conquered weakness and sleep; in an hour he was wide awake again, and rose from the divan in anguish. Pavel Pavlovitch was asleep on the other sofa. He was dressed, and in his boots; his hat lay on the floor, and his eye-glass hung by its cord almost to the ground. Velchaninoff did not wake his guest. The room was full of tobacco smoke, and the bottle was empty; he looked savagely at the sleeping drunkard.

Having twisted himself painfully off his bed, Velchaninoff began to walk about, groaning and thinking of his agony; he could lie no longer.

He was alarmed for this pain in his chest, and not without reason. He was subject to these attacks, and had been so for many years; but they came seldom, luckily—once a year or two years. On such occasions, his agony was so dreadful for some ten hours or so that he invariably believed that he must be actually dying.

This night, his anguish was terrible; it was too late to send for the doctor, but it was far from morning yet. He staggered up and down the room, and before long his groans became loud and frequent.

The noise awoke Pavel Pavlovitch. He sat up on his divan, and for some time gazed in terror and perplexity upon Velchaninoff, as the latter walked moaning up and down. At last he gathered his senses, and enquired anxiously what was the matter.

Velchaninoff muttered something unintelligible.

“It's your kidneys—I'm sure it is,”cried Pavel, very wide awake of a sudden.“I remember Peter Kuzmich used to have the same sort of attacks. The kidneys—why, one can die of it. Let me go and fetch Mavra.”

“No, no; I don't want anything,”muttered Velchaninoff, waving him off irritably.

But Pavel Pavlovitch—goodness knows why—was beside himself with anxiety; he was as much exercised as though the matter at issue were the saving of his own son's life. He insisted on immediate compresses, and told Velchaninoff he must drink two or three cups of very hot weak tea—boiling hot. He ran for Mavra, lighted the fire in the kitchen, put the kettle on, put the sick man back to bed, covered him up, and within twenty minutes had the first hot application all ready, as well as the tea.

“Hot plates, sir, hot plates,”he cried, as he clapped the first, wrapped in a napkin, on to Velchaninoff's chest.“I have nothing else handy; but I give you my word it's as good as anything else. Drink this tea quick, never mind if you scald your tongue—life is dearer. You can die of this sort of thing, you know.”He sent sleepy Mavra out of her wits with flurry; the plates were changed every couple of minutes. At the third application, and after having taken two cups of scalding tea, Velchaninoff suddenly felt decidedly better.

“Capital! thank God! if we can once get the better of the pain it's a good sign!”cried Pavel, delightedly, and away he ran for another plate and some more tea.

“If only we can beat the pain down!”he kept muttering to himself every minute.

In half an hour the agony was passed, but the sick man was so completely knocked up that, in spite of Pavel's repeated entreaties to be allowed to apply“just one more plate,”he could bear no more. His eyes were drooping from weakness.

“Sleep—sleep,”he muttered faintly.

“Very well,”consented Pavel,“go to sleep.”

“Are you spending the night here? What time is it?”

“Nearly two.”

“You must sleep here.”

“Yes, yes—all right. I will.”

A moment after the sick man called to Pavel again.

“You—you—”muttered the former faintly, as Pavel ran up and bent over him,“you are better than I am. I understand all—all—thank you!”

“Go to sleep!”whispered Pavel Pavlovitch, as he crept back to his divan on tip-toes.

Velchaninoff, dozing off, heard Pavel quietly make his bed, undress and lie down, all very softly, and then put the light out.

Undoubtedly Velchaninoff fell asleep very quietly when the light was once out; he remembered that much afterwards. Yet all the while he was asleep, and until he awoke, he dreamed that he could not go to sleep in spite of his weakness. At length he dreamed that he was delirious, and that he could not for the life of him chase away the visions which crowded in upon him, although he was conscious the whole while theywerebut visions and not reality. The apparition was familiar to him. He thought that his front door was open, and that his room gradually filled with people pouring in. At the table in the middle of the room, sat one man exactly as had been the case a month before, during one of his dreams. As on the previous occasion, this man leant on his elbow at the table and would not speak; he was in a round hat with a crape band.

“How?”thought the dreamer.“Was it really Pavel Pavlovitch last time as well?”However, when he looked at the man's face, he was convinced that it was quite another person.

“Why has he a crape band, then?”thought Velchaninoff in perplexity.

The noise and chattering of all these people was dreadful; they seemed even more exasperated with Velchaninoff than on the former occasion. They were all threatening him with something or other, shaking their fists at him, and shouting something which he could not understand.

“It's all a vision,”he dreamed,“I know quite well that I am up and about, because I could not lie still for anguish!”

Yet the cries and noise at times seemed so real that he was now and again half-convinced of their reality.

“Surely thiscan'tbe delirium!”he thought.“What on earth do all these people want of me—my God!”

Yet if it were not a vision, surely all these cries would have roused Pavel Pavlovitch? There he was, fast asleep in his divan!

Then something suddenly occurred as in the old dream. Another crowd of people surged in, crushing those who were already collected inside. These new arrivals carried something large and heavy; he could judge of the weight by their footsteps labouring upstairs.

Those in the room cried,“They're bringing it! they're bringing it!”

Every eye flashed as it turned and glared at Velchaninoff; every hand threatened him and then pointed to the stairs.

Undoubtedly it was reality, not delirium. Velchaninoff thought that he stood up and raised himself on tip-toes, in order to see over the heads of the crowd. He wanted to know what was being carried in.

His heart beat wildly, wildly, wildly; and suddenly, as in his former dream, there came one—two—three loud rings at the bell.

And again, the sound of the bell was so distinct and clear that he felt itcouldnot be a dream. He gave a cry, and awoke; but he did not rush to the door as on the former occasion.

What sudden idea was it that guided his movements? Had he any idea at all, or was it impulse that prompted him what to do? He sprang up in bed, with arms outstretched, as though to ward off an attack, straight towards the divan where Pavel Pavlovitch was sleeping.

His hands encountered other hands outstretched in his direction; consequently some one must have been standing over him.

The curtains were drawn, but it was not absolutely dark, because a faint light came from the next room, which had no curtains.

Suddenly something cut the palm of his left hand, some of his fingers causing him sharp pain. He instantly realized that he had seized a knife or a razor, and he closed his hand upon it with the rapidity of thought.

At that moment something fell to the ground with a hard metallic sound.

Velchaninoff was probably three times as strong as Pavel Pavlovitch, but the struggle lasted for a long while—at least three minutes.

The former, however, forced his adversary to the earth, and bent his arms back behind his head; then he paused, for he was most anxious to tie the hands. Holding the assassin's wrist with his wounded left hand, he felt for the blind cord with his right. For a long while he could not find it; at last he grasped it, and tore it down.

He was amazed afterwards at the unnatural strength which he must have displayed during all this.

During the whole of the struggle neither man spoke a word; only their heavy breathing was audible, and the inarticulate sounds emitted by both as they fought.

At length, having secured his opponent's hands, Velchaninoff left him on the ground, rose, drew the curtains, and pulled up the blind.

The deserted street was light now. He opened the window, and stood breathing in the fresh air for a few moments. It was a little past four o'clock. He shut the window once more, fetched a towel and bound up his cut hand as tightly as he could to stop the flow of blood.

At his feet he caught sight of the opened razor lying on the carpet; he picked it up, wiped it, and put it by in its own case, which he now saw he had left upon the little cupboard beside the divan which Pavel Pavlovitch occupied. He locked the cupboard.

Having completed all these arrangements, he approached Pavel Pavlovitch and looked at him. Meanwhile the latter had managed to raise himself from the floor and reach a chair; he was now sitting in it—undressed to his shirt, which was stained with marks of blood both back and front—Velchaninoff's blood, not his own.

Of course this was Pavel Pavlovitch; but it would have been only natural for any one who had known him before, and saw him at this moment, to doubt his identity. He sat upright in his chair—very stiffly, owing to the uncomfortable position of his tightly bound hands behind his back; his face looked yellow and crooked, and he shuddered every other moment. He gazed intently, but with an expression of dazed perplexity, at Velchaninoff.

Suddenly he smiled gravely, and nodding towards a carafe of water on the table, muttered,“A little drop!”Velchaninoff poured some into a glass, and held it for him to drink.

Pavel gulped a couple of mouthfuls greedily—then suddenly raised his head and gazed intently at Velchaninoff standing over him; he said nothing, however, but finished the water. He then sighed deeply.

Velchaninoff took his pillows and some of his clothing, and went into the next room, locking Pavel Pavlovitch behind him.

His pain had quite disappeared, but he felt very weak after the strain of his late exertion. Goodness knows whence came his strength for the trial; he tried to think, but he could not collect his ideas, the shock had been too great.

His eyes would droop now and again, sometimes for ten minutes at a time; then he would shudder, wake up, remember all that had passed and raise the blood-stained rag bound about his hand to prove the reality of his thoughts; then he would relapse into eager, feverish thought. One thing was quite certain, Pavel Pavlovitch had intended to cut his throat, though, perhaps, a quarter of an hour before the fatal moment he had not known that he would make the attempt. Perhaps he had seen the razor case last evening, and thought nothing of it, only remembering the fact that it was there. The razors were usually locked up, and only yesterday Velchaninoff had taken one out in order to make himself neat for his visit to the country, and had omitted to lock it up again.

“If he had premeditated murdering me, he would certainly have provided himself with a knife or a pistol long ago; he could not have relied on my razors, which he never saw until yesterday,”concluded Velchaninoff.

At last the clock struck six. Velchaninoff arose, dressed himself, and went into Pavel Pavlovitch's room. As he opened the door he wondered why he had ever locked it, and why he had not allowed Pavel to go away at once.

To his surprise the prisoner was dressed, he had doubtless found means to get his hands loose. He was sitting in an arm-chair, but rose when Velchaninoff entered. His hat was in his hand.

His anxious look seemed to say as plain as words:—

“Don't talk to me! It's no use talking—don't talk to me!”

“Go!”said Velchaninoff.“Take your jewel-case!”he added.

Pavel Pavlovitch turned back and seized his bracelet-case, stuffing it into his pocket, and went out.

Velchaninoff stood in the hall, waiting to shut the front door after him.

Their looks met for the last time. Pavel Pavlovitch stopped, and the two men gazed into each others eyes for five seconds or so, as though in indecision. At length Velchaninoff faintly waved him away with his hand.

“Go!”he said, only half aloud, as he closed the door and turned the key.

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