The little one nodded earnestly; he was quite crimson with pride and embarrassment. His father took him between his knees, called him "Umnitza," which in Russian means paragon of wisdom, kissed and caressed him, then rang the bell for Palagea, and told him he must go now and wash his hands, and have his curls brushed smooth, and then he should take dinner with his parents, because he had been so clever.
When the child had tripped out at the nurse's hand, Lensky threw himself down on the stool at his wife's feet. It had now become quite dark. The heavy, regular-falling rain still rustled in the foliage without, in a dreamy, melancholy cadence.
"Listen; how sweet, how sad!" said Natalie, turning her head to the window, through which the landscape, behind its double veil of rain and twilight, looked to one like a greenish-gray chaos only, without any distinct outlines.
"The D-flat major prelude of Chopin," said Lensky.
She shook her head. "No, I did not think of that," whispered she. "But see! Sometimes it seems to me that the ghost of the poor young wife who died here creeps around the Hermitage, and sighs for the happiness which she might not finish enjoying. She died after the first year, while I, Boris--I was happy six years. It is too much for one human life. Sometimes--it is a sin; I know it--and still, sometimes I quite wished I might die, but I dare not; Kolia still needs me."
* * * * * *
Soon after this she brought a little girl into the world, who was baptized Marie, after the grandmother and the little dead sister.
A few weeks passed, she convalesced rapidly. The day of farewell came, on which everyone hastened, with everything overhurried, incessantly imagined there was too much to do in preparing for the journey, and finally had nothing more to do. The day on which all the usual occupations were sacrificed in honor of the pain of parting, when one aimlessly trifled away the hours, tormented by nervous unrest, which finally expressed itself in the dullest ennui.
* * * * * *
They sat together; now here, now there, and did not know what to do. Lensky was to take the six o'clock train to Paris; from there, the same evening, he would travel with Morinsky's troupe to Boulogne, for they would take ship in Liverpool for America.