Yes, it was all over--all. The bond between him and her was broken. He was beside himself when he discovered what had taken place, begged for a meeting, wrote her the tenderest letters. She left his letters unanswered.
Then a wild defiance overcame him. It angered him that she had placed herself under her brother's protection--that brother, who from the beginning had wished to sow discord between him and her. He also could not be persuaded that the prince had not alone been the cause of the separation.
The circumstance that Natalie travelled in advance with her sister-in-law to Baden-Baden, while Assanow remained in Dresden to arrange with Lensky, strengthened him in his conviction.
It did not come to a legal separation. Lensky was not the man to use compulsion with a woman; if she did not wish to stay with him, he let her go voluntarily. That she wished to keep the child with her was understood of itself; he could see the child from time to time, for a couple of weeks, on neutral ground. Nikolas, as one could not interrupt him in his studies, quite naturally remained with his father in St. Petersburg.
"All that is understood of itself; why lose words over it?" thought Lensky to himself, while he quite passively consented to all the propositions of the diplomat.
For what reason did the unendurable man remain sitting there and tormenting him?
Quite everything was wound up between them--it was afternoon, and the brothers-in-law sat opposite each other at a long table strewn with papers, in a large, gloomy room, with dark green damask hangings, in the Hôtel du Saxe. A pause had occurred.
"What does he still wish?" thought Lensky, and drummed unrestrainedly on the top of the table, while at the same time he gave a significant glance toward the door.
Assanow coughed a couple of times; at last he began: "In conclusion, I must touch upon a delicate point--the question of money. My sister formally rejects all assistance on your part, Boris Nikolaivitch, and wishes strictly to limit herself to live on her own income!"
Then Lensky flew into a rage: "And you have declared yourself agreed to that?" he cried, to his brother-in-law.