For the remainder of the evening Natalie's whole being betrayed only haste and uneasiness. She spoke more and quicker than formerly, laughed frequently, and told the gayest stories.
When her Petersburg cousins wished to tease her with Lensky's enthusiasm for her, and laughingly called him "your genius," she mentioned him indifferently, quite disapprovingly, shrugged her shoulders over his talent as composer--yes, even found fault with his playing. She was friendly, quite inviting, to Pachotin; she no longer knew what she did, only when he wished to give the conversation a more earnest turn she broke it off suddenly and remorselessly.
When at last, at last, the drawing-room was empty and she might withdraw, she locked herself in her room, threw herself down before the holy picture before which she always said her evening prayer. But, however she tried to pray, she could not. She did not know for what she should pray. Her cheeks burned with dreadful shame. How could he have so far forgotten himself with her!
She threw open a window. What did it matter to her that they said the Roman night air was poisonous? She would have liked to take the Roman fever, would have liked to die. Her window opened on the street. The Via Giulia was divided by the moonlight into two parts, one light and one dark. All was quiet, empty, deserted. Then there was a sound of slow, dragging steps, and two lowered voices whispered down there in the silent solitude. It was probably a pair of belated lovers, and suddenly there was a soft, tender sound through the mild May night. She caught her breath, closed the window, and turned back to her room. Half-undressed, she sat on the edge of her little cool white bed and thought again and again--of the same thing--of his kiss.
* * * * * *
"Why has 'your genius' so suddenly tired of Rome? He leaves to-day," remarked the Jeliagins, who had come to lunch the next morning in the Palazzo Morsini.
They were staying at the same hotel as Lensky--that is to say, in the "Europe"--and had spoken to him in the court of the hotel. "He looked miserably," they added, with a haughty glance. "Either he has Roman fever or you have broken his heart."
Then they spoke of other things. Soon after lunch they went away.
Meanwhile Lensky stumbled up and down, up and down, in his room. A sick lady whose room was beneath his, at last sent up by the waiter and begged him to be quiet.
His departure was fixed for seven o'clock; it struck one, it struck four.