XXXV.
For more than two hours Lavretsky wandered about the streets. The night he had spent in the suburbs of Paris came back into his mind. His heart seemed rent within him, and his brain felt vacant and as it were numbed, while the same set of evil, gloomy, mad thoughts went ever circling in his mind. "She is alive; she is here," he whispered to himself with constantly recurring amazement. He felt that he had lost Liza. Wrath seemed to suffocate him. The blow had too suddenly descended upon him. How could he have so readily believed the foolish gossip of a feuilleton, a mere scrap of paper? "But if I had not believed it," he thought, "what would have been the difference? I should not have known that Liza loves me. She would not have known it herself." He could not drive the thought of his wife out of his mind; her form, her voice, her eyes haunted him. He cursed himself, he cursed every thing in the world.
Utterly tired out, he came to Lemm's house before the dawn. For a long time he could not get the door opened; at last the old man's nightcapped head appeared at the window. Peevish and wrinkled, his face bore scarcely any resemblance to that which, austerely inspired, had looked royally down upon Lavretsky twenty-four hours before, from all the height of its artistic grandeur.
"What do you want?" asked Lemm. "I cannot play every night. I have taken a tisane."
But Lavretsky's face wore a strong expression which could not escape notice. The old man shaded his eyes with his hand, looked hard at his nocturnal visitor, and let him in.
Lavretsky came into the room and dropped on a chair. The old man remained standing before him, wrapping the skirts of his motley old dressing-gown around him, stooping very much, and biting his lips.
"My wife has come," said Lavretsky, with drooping head, and then he suddenly burst into a fit of involuntary laughter.
Lemm's face expressed astonishment, but he preserved a grave silence, only wrapping his dressing-gown tighter around him.
"I suppose you don't know," continued Lavretsky. "I supposed—I saw in a newspaper that she was dead."
"O—h! Was it lately you saw that?" asked Lemm.
"Yes."
"O—h!" repeated the old man, raising his eyebrows, "and she has come here?"
"Yes. She is now in my house, and I—I am a most unfortunate man."
And he laughed again.
"You are a most unfortunate man," slowly repeated Lemm.
"Christopher Fedorovich," presently said Lavretsky, "will you undertake to deliver a note?"
"Hm! To whom, may I ask?"
"To Lizav—"
"Ah! yes, yes, I understand. Very well. But when must the note be delivered?"
"To-morrow, as early as possible."
"Hm! I might send my cook, Katrin. No, I will go myself."
"And will you bring me back the answer?"
"I will."
Lemm sighed.
"Yes, my poor young friend," he said, "you certainly are—a most unfortunate young man."
Lavretsky wrote a few words to Liza, telling her of his wife's arrival, and begging her to make an appointment for an interview. Then he flung himself on the narrow sofa, with his face to the wall. The old man also lay down on his bed, and there long tossed about, coughing and swallowing mouthfuls of his tisane.
The morning came; they both arose—strange were the looks they exchanged. Lavretsky would have liked to kill himself just then. Katrin the cook brought them some bad coffee, and then, when eight o'clock struck, Lemm put on his hat and went out saying that he was to have given a lesson at the Kalitines' at ten o'clock, but that he would find a fitting excuse for going there sooner.
Lavretsky again threw himself on the couch, and again a bitter laugh broke out from the depths of his heart. He thought of how his wife had driven him out of the house; he pictured to himself Liza's position, and then he shut his eyes, and wrung his hands above his head.
At length Lemm returned and brought him a scrap of paper, on which Liza had traced the following words in pencil: "We cannot see each other to-day; perhaps we may to-morrow evening. Farewell." Lavretsky thanked Lemm absently and stiffly, and then went home.
He found his wife at breakfast. Ada, with her hair all in curl-papers, and dressed in a short white frock with blue ribbons, was eating a mutton cutlet. Varvara Pavlovna rose from her seat the moment Lavretsky entered the room, and came towards him with an expression of humility on her face. He asked her to follow him into his study, and when there he shut the door and began to walk up and down the room. She sat down, folded her hands, and began to follow his movements with eyes which were still naturally beautiful, besides having their lids dyed a little.
For a long time Lavretsky could not begin what he had to say, feeling that he had not complete mastery over himself. As for his wife, he saw that she was not at all afraid of him, although she looked as if she might at any moment go off into a fainting fit.
"Listen, Madame," at last he began, breathing with difficulty, and at times setting his teeth hard. "There is no reason why we should be hypocritical towards each other. I do not believe in your repentance; but even if it were genuine, it would be impossible for me to rejoin you and live with you again."
Varvara Pavlovna bit her lips and half closed her eyes. "That's dislike," she thought. "It's all over. I'm not even a woman for him."
"Impossible," repeated Lavretsky, and buttoned his coat. "I don't know why you have been pleased to honor me by coming here. Most probably you are out of funds."
"Don't say that—you wound my feelings," whispered Varvara Pavlovna.
"However that may be, you are still, to my sorrow, my wife. I cannot drive you away, so this is what I propose. You can go to Lavriki—to-day if you like—and live there! There is an excellent house there, as you know. You shall have every thing you can want, besides your allowance. Do you consent?"
Varvara Pavlovna raised her embroidered handkerchief to her face.
"I have already told you," she said, with a nervous twitching of her lips, "that I will agree to any arrangement you may please to make for me. At present I have only to ask you—will you at least allow me to thank you for your generosity?"
"No thanks, I beg of you—we shall do much better without them," hastily exclaimed Lavretsky. "Then, he added, approaching the door, I may depend upon—"
"To-morrow I will be at Lavriki," replied Varvara Pavlovna, rising respectfully from her seat. "But Fedor Ivanich—" ("She no longer familiarly called him Theodore).
"What do you wish to say?"
"I am aware that I have not yet in any way deserved forgiveness. But may I hope that, at least, in time—"
"Ah, Varvara Pavlovna," cried Lavretsky, interrupting her, "you are a clever woman; but I, too, am not a fool. I know well that you have no need of forgiveness. Besides, I forgave you long ago; but there has always been a gulf between you and me."
"I shall know how to submit," answered Varvara Pavlovna, and bowed her head. "I have not forgotten my fault. I should not have wondered if I had learnt that you had even been glad to hear of my death," she added in a soft voice, with a slight wave of her hand towards the newspaper, which was lying on the table where Lavretsky had forgotten it.
Lavretsky shuddered. The feuilleton had a pencil mark against it. Varvara Pavlovna gazed at him with an expression of even greater humility than before on her face. She looked very handsome at that moment. Her grey dress, made by a Parisian milliner, fitted closely to her pliant figure, which seemed almost like that of a girl of seventeen. Her soft and slender neck, circled by a white collar, her bosom's gentle movement under the influence of her steady breathing, her arms and hands, on which she wore neither bracelets nor rings, her whole figure, from her lustrous hair to the tip of the scarcely visible bottine, all was so artistic!
Lavretsky eyed her with a look of hate, feeling hardly able to abstain from crying brava, hardly able to abstain from striking her down—and went away.
An hour later he was already on the road to Vasilievskoe, and two hours later Varvara Pavlovna ordered the best carriage on hire in the town to be got for her, put on a simple straw hat with a black veil, and a modest mantilla, left Justine in charge of Ada, and went to the Kalitines'. From the inquiries Justine had made, Madame Lavretsky had learnt that her husband was in the habit of going there every day.