Can he, indeed, close the mouth of all Paris? To-morrow the gossips will tell it to each other before the house-doors in the half light--it will be in all the newspapers.
And he sits there as if petrified, and does not move; listens--listens as if he could hear up-stairs what they say to each other. Sweat is on his brow, the blood burns in his cheeks, and now he really hears something, Anna's thin, icy voice, which cries out: "Quelle honte, quelle horreur!"
Mascha holds her hands over her ears. Lensky springs up, hurries to the door which Madame Jeliagin has neglected to close tight behind her. He closes it carefully, draws the portière over it, only that Mascha may not hear anything else offensive. Then he goes up to her bed again, and notices that she is glowing with fever. He passes his hand over her cheeks; she clutches his hand, presses it first to her mouth, and then holds it before her eyes.
"Shall I put out the light?" he asks, gently.
She nods. Then he sits by her in the dark. Ever stronger he has the feeling as if the despotic yoke of a misfortune to which he must bow because he is powerless against it, were weighing down upon him. In all his nerves trembles the fearful shock. It seems to him that he has seen something fall together before him--all that he clung to, the future of his child!
He thinks of his ambitious dreams; of the money he has saved for her--he, who formerly squandered everything. A boundless shame torments him; it is all over--all.
The whole night long, restless, without peace, he seeks only a hand-breadth of blue sky for his child, seeks no great, brilliant happiness such as he has dreamed of for Mascha; no, the most moderate, only a tolerable life--seeks a salvation--in vain--nothing--nothing! His mind is like a captive bird which wounds itself at every beat of its wings against the bars of a too small cage. And yet he is not weary of seeking, of tormenting himself.
The longest night has an end, and the nights in early June are not long. Morning dawns. In ruthlessly plain outlines, all the objects in Mascha's room meet Lensky's eyes. All looks soiled, everywhere the dark spots of mud; there the shawl in which the men had wrapped the suicide after they drew her from the water, there a heap of soiled, wet clothes. It goes to his heart. On that morning when he took leave of his darling, on the same spot lay a dress also, but as white, as pure, as fresh as spring blossoms.
The picture of the light, fragrant room, the dear picture which he had continually carried about in his heart during his last journey, rises in his mind. It is indeed the same room, the same girl. She sleeps as also at that time--no, not as at that time. Her cheeks are flushed with fever, her limbs twitch incessantly. Softly he draws the covers up over her uncovered shoulders. She murmurs something in her sleep; he listens; always the same word: "Mother--mother!"