“Is it possible that you have forgotten? The former Princess Zasyékin, with whom we were all in love, you included. At the villa, near Neskútchny Park, you remember?”
“Did she marry Dólsky?”
“And is she here in the theatre?”
“No, in Petersburg; she arrived here a few days ago; she is preparing to go abroad.”
“What sort of a man is her husband?”—I asked.
“A very fine young fellow and wealthy. He’s my comrade in the service, a Moscow man. You understand—after that scandal ... you must be well acquainted with all that ...” (Maidánoff smiled significantly), “it was not easy for her to find a husband; there were consequences ... but with her brains everything is possible. Go to her; she will be delighted to see you. She is handsomer than ever.”
Maidánoff gave me Zinaída’s address. She was stopping in the Hotel Demuth. Old memories began to stir in me.... I promised myself that I would call upon my former “passion” the next day. But certain affairs turned up: a week elapsed, and when, at last, I betook myself to the Hotel Demuth and inquired for Madame Dólsky I learned that she had died four days previously, almost suddenly, in childbirth.
Something seemed to deal me a blow in the heart. The thought that I might have seen her but had not, and that I should never see her,—that bitter thought seized upon me with all the force of irresistible reproach. “Dead!” I repeated, staring dully at the door-porter, then quietly made my way to the street and walked away, without knowing whither. The whole past surged up at one blow and stood before me. And now this was the way it had ended, this was the goal of that young, fiery, brilliant life? I thought that—I pictured to myself those dear features, those eyes, those curls in the narrow box, in the damp, underground gloom,—right there, not far from me, who was still alive, and, perchance, only a few paces from my father.... I thought all that, I strained my imagination, and yet—
From a mouth indifferent I heard the news of death,
And with indifference did I receive it—