Should he leave without having made a parting call upon the Princess Assanow run away like any fellow who has borrowed thirty rubles? "But they will not receive me," he thought, "if the princess has told her mother. But, no, she will have said nothing; she is too proud. What a lovely being! How could I only-- Oh, if I might at least ask her pardon! But what kind of a pardon would it be? Such a thing a woman pardons only if she loves, and how should she love me, a beast as I am? She must have an aversion for me."
He resolved to take leave by letter. He tried it in French and Russian, but could complete nothing. Ashamed of his laughable incapacity, he tore up the different sheets of letter-paper adorned with "Des circonstances imprévues," or "La reconnaissance sincère que."
Five o'clock! He hastened across the courtyard, sprang into a carriage. "Palazzo Morsini, Via Giulia," he called to the coachman, and commanded him to drive fast.
When he ascended the well-known stairs he asked himself a last time if he would be received.
The servant conducted him to the boudoir of the old princess. She broke off her game of patience to greet him, only betrayed a slight astonishment at his sudden departure, and said that she and Natalie should soon follow his example and go North, probably to Baden-Baden, for the heat in Rome began to be unbearable. Then she rang for the maid, whom she commissioned to tell the princess that Boris Nikolaivitch had come to take leave.
Lensky waited in breathless excitement. The maid came back with the decision: The princess was very ill and had lain down with a headache.
"Quite as I expected," thought Lensky, while the princess remarked politely, "She will be very sorry."
Then he kissed the old lady's hand, she touched his forehead with her lips in the Russian custom, wished him a pleasant journey, he thanked her a last time for all the friendship she had shown him, and went--went quite slowly through the large empty room, in which the dust danced in a broad sunbeam which lay across the marble floor, and in which the flowers which she had arranged so charmingly yesterday now stood withered in their vases.
"Shall I never see her again, never--never?" he asked himself. He would have given his life for a last friendly glance from her. What use was it to think of that--it was all over!
Then suddenly he heard something near him like the rustling of an angel's wings. He looked up. Natalie stood before him, deathly pale, with black rings around her eyes, with carelessly arranged hair. A passionate pity, a tender anxiety overcame him. "How she has suffered through my offence!" he told himself and rushed up to her. "Natalie, can you forgive me?" he called.