II
When Basmanof overtook the tall lady he raised his hat deferentially and bowed to her. But the lady showed no sign of recognition.
“Is it possible you do not recognise me, Elizavieta Vasilievna?” asked Basmanof, speaking in Russian.
After some hesitation the lady answered in Russian, though with a slight accent.
“Pardon me, but you’ve probably made a mistake. I am not an acquaintance of yours.”
“Elizavieta Vasilievna!” exclaimed Basmanof deeply hurt by such a reply. “Surely you must recognise me! I am Peter Andreyevitch Basmanof.”
“It’s the first time I’ve heard that name,” said the lady, “and I don’t know you at all.”
For several seconds Basmanof gazed at the lady who thus spoke to him, asking himself whether he had not made a mistake. But there was such an undoubted likeness, he so definitely recognised her as Elizavieta, that blocking up the pathway to this lady in the large Paris hat, he repeated insistently—
“I recognise you, Elizavieta Vasilievna! I understand that you may have reasons for concealing your true name. I understand that you may not wish to meet your former acquaintances. But you must know that it’s absolutely necessary for me to speak a few words to you. I have gone through too much since we separated. I must put myself right with you. I don’t want you to despise me.”
Basmanof hardly knew himself what he was saying. He wanted only one thing—that Elizavieta would acknowledge that it was she. He was afraid that she might go away and not come back, might vanish for evermore, and that this meeting might prove to be a dream.
The lady moved quietly to one side, and said in French:
“Monsieur, laissez-moi passer, s’il vous plaît! Je ne vous connais pas.”
She showed no agitation whatever, and at Basmanof’s words the expression of her face did not change in the least. But all the same he could not let her go, but followed her.
“Elizavieta!” cried he. “Curse me if you will, call me the most worthless of men, tell me that you no longer wish to know me—I will take it all humbly, as I ought. But do not pretend that you do not recognise me; that I cannot endure. You dare not, ought not, to insult me so.”
“I assure you,” the lady interrupted in a more severe tone, “that you mistake me for someone else. You call me Elizavieta Vasilievna, but that is not my name. I am Ekaterina Vladimirovna Sadikova, and my maiden name was Armand. Surely that is sufficient evidence for you to allow me to continue my walk, as I wish to do?”
“But why, then,” cried Basmanof, making a last attempt, “why have you borne with me so long? If I am an utter stranger to you why didn’t you at once order me to be silent, or call a policeman? No one behaves as gently as you have done towards a scoundrel of the street!”
“I see quite clearly,” answered the lady, “that you are not a street scoundrel, and that you would not allow yourself to take any liberties. You’ve simply made a mistake: my likeness to some lady of your acquaintance has led you into an error. That is no crime, and I’ve no occasion whatever to call the police. But now everything has been explained—good-bye!”
Basmanof could insist no longer. He stood aside, and the lady walked slowly past him. But the whole of the conversation, the tone of the lady’s voice, her movements, everything about her—only accentuated his belief that this was—Elizavieta.
Disturbed and agitated, he went back to his room at the hotel. Beyond the green meadow, like some gigantic phantom, shone the eternal snow of the Yungfrau. It seemed near, but was immeasurably far. Was it not like to Elizavieta, who had seemed risen from the dead, but who had again retreated into the far unknown?
It was not difficult for Basmanof to discover the address of the lady whom he had met. After some hesitation he wrote her a letter, in which he said that he had no wish to argue about what was evident. He had clearly made a mistake in taking an unknown lady for an old acquaintance of his, but their short encounter had made a deep impression on him, and he begged permission to bow to her when they met, in memory of an accidental acquaintance. The letter was couched in extremely cautious and respectful terms. When on the following day Basmanof met the lady who called herself Mme. Sadikova she bowed to him first and herself began to speak to him. And so their acquaintance began.