With the manner of a being weighed down by a burden, he sinks into an arm-chair. What had he done? how was it, really? He had loved them all so boundlessly--Natalie and the children--and still, what had really driven him into this desolate, restless existence which resolved itself into disgust and misery? It had always been the same, even in these last years it had sometimes come over him; but now it was over, his nature had entered upon a new phase, the wild thirst for pleasure was quenched; he was weary--weary unto death.
He sought something supernatural to support him. A mysterious longing tormented him. From without sounded the plashing of the waves, monotonous, sad, hopeless, like the sobs of a rejected human being driven out into the cold.
Had no one knocked on the window? He sprang up, flung open the window. He trembled in every limb, cold sweat stood on his brow. The lamp threw long, trembling, wavering rays of light on the rippling water. As if built of shadows, like the ghosts of a city long dead, rose the palaces in the moonlight, dimmed by drifting clouds. The sirocco brooded over the lagunes. A soft breeze, the gentle warmth of a passing caress, blew over his cheek. He heard the tender sound of a sympathetic human voice close to his ear; it was Natalie's voice, but she spoke a strange language. He did not understand her. His heart stopped beating in breathless listening; he stretched out his arms--it was over, all vanished, all was vacancy!
He closed his lips tightly and groped for a chair. For years, at times, the same alluring, incomprehensible fancy pervaded him. The first time, he had fought against it with the whole strength of his intellect, had ascribed it all to an overexcitement of his nerves; now he firmly believed in a supernatural apparition. She came ever nearer, but he could never reach her. He tried to think of other things. He sought a book, a newspaper, which he might read to distract his mind, but found none. He remembered that he had left a new romance by Daudet, which he had glanced over before dinner, when Mascha had left him to dress, in the drawing-room. With a light in his hand, he went to get the book. He fancied that Mascha had long since retired. To his great astonishment, he heard voices in the drawing-room. He opened the door. There sat the young couple. Bärenburg was very pale. His head was bowed. An expression of deep shame lay on his finely cut face. One saw plainly that this was no bad man, but only a weak one, who, torn from his natural condition of life, could not thrive in strange ground. A thick necklace of pearls lay on the table.
At Lensky's entrance, Mascha, as well as her husband, turned her head. She had evidently been crying, but still tried to take on a pleasant, indifferent expression. It went to Lensky's heart to see how she restrained herself to spare him a pang.
"Do not force yourself to smile," said he, going straight up to her. "It is of no use." He seized the pearl necklace and looked at it with peculiar emotion. "I have understood!"
For a moment there was utter silence, then Bärenburg began, constrainedly: "You must not take the situation so desperately--it is only an inconvenient moment--naturally very painful to me, very----"
Lensky interrupted him. "It is better that we do not speak of it," cried he, crimson with restrained rage, and with hoarse, quite gasping voice; "if I once begin, I would say things to you which a nobleman could not pardon me, and I do not wish to quarrel with you--not on account of my child--but--but--" He grasped his throat with both hands. "No, I shall suffocate; it must out!"
"Father, hush, for God's sake!" cried Mascha. "You do him an injustice. Think how hard it was for him--another in his position--" She leaned against her father, pleadingly, tearfully.
"She is right," he murmured. "Who knows, another would have perhaps been still worse, still worse! But now leave me alone with my child; it would be better."