Smoke Part 20

'No, not long.'

'Why do I ask though; I've just seen you come out of the _Hotel de l'Europe_.'

'Then you've been following me?'

'Yes.'

'You have something to say to me?'

'Yes,' Potugin repeated, hardly audibly.

Litvinov stopped and looked at his uninvited companion. His face was pale, his eyes moved restlessly; his contorted features seemed overshadowed by old, long-standing grief.

'What do you specially want to say to me?' Litvinov said slowly, and he moved forward.

'Ah, with your permission ... directly. If it's all the same to you, let us sit down here on this seat. It will be most convenient.'

'Why, this is something mysterious,' Litvinov declared, seating himself near him. 'You don't seem quite yourself, Sozont Ivanitch.'

'No; I'm all right; and it's nothing mysterious either. I specially wanted to tell you ... the impression made on me by your betrothed ...

she is betrothed to you, I think?... well, anyway, by the girl to whom you introduced me to-day. I must say that in the course of my whole existence I have never met a more attractive creature. A heart of gold, a really angelic nature.'

Potugin uttered all these words with the same bitter and mournful air, so that even Litvinov could not help noticing the incongruity between his expression of face and his speech.

'You have formed a perfectly correct estimate of Tatyana Petrovna,'

Litvinov began, 'though I can't help being surprised, first that you should be aware of the relation in which I stand to her; and secondly, that you should have understood her so quickly. She really has an angelic nature; but allow me to ask, did you want to talk to me about this?'

'It's impossible not to understand her at once,' Potugin replied quickly, as though evading the last question. 'One need only take one look into her eyes. She deserves every possible happiness on earth, and enviable is the fate of the man whose lot it is to give her that happiness! One must hope he may prove worthy of such a fate.'

Litvinov frowned slightly.

'Excuse me, Sozont Ivanitch,' he said, 'I must confess our conversation strikes me as altogether rather original.... I should like to know, does the hint contained in your words refer to me?'

Potugin did not at once answer Litvinov; he was visibly struggling with himself.

'Grigory Mihalitch,' he began at last, 'either I am completely mistaken in you, or you are capable of hearing the truth, from whomsoever it may come, and in however unattractive a form it may present itself. I told you just now, that I saw where you came from.'

'Why, from the _Hotel de l'Europe_. What of that?'

'I know, of course, whom you have been to see there.'

'What?'

'You have been to see Madame Ratmirov.'

'Well, I have been to see her. What next?'

'What next?... You, betrothed to Tatyana Petrovna, have been to see Madame Ratmirov, whom you love ... and who loves you.'

Litvinov instantly got up from the seat; the blood rushed to his head.

'What's this?' he cried at last, in a voice of concentrated exasperation: 'stupid jesting, spying? Kindly explain yourself.'

Potugin turned a weary look upon him.

'Ah! don't be offended at my words. Grigory Mihalitch, me you cannot offend. I did not begin to talk to you for that, and I'm in no joking humour now.'

'Perhaps, perhaps. I'm ready to believe in the excellence of your intentions; but still I may be allowed to ask you by what right you meddle in the private affairs, in the inner life, of another man, a man who is nothing to you; and what grounds you have for so confidently giving out your own ... invention for the truth?'

'My invention! If I had imagined it, it should not have made you angry; and as for my right, well I never heard before that a man ought to ask himself whether he had the right to hold out a hand to a drowning man.'

'I am humbly grateful for your tender solicitude,' cried Litvinov pa.s.sionately, 'but I am not in the least in need of it, and all the phrases about the ruin of inexperienced young men wrought by society women, about the immorality of fas.h.i.+onable society, and so on, I look upon merely as stock phrases, and indeed in a sense I positively despise them; and so I beg you to spare your rescuing arm, and to let me drown in peace.'

Potugin again raised his eyes to Litvinov. He was breathing hard, his lips were twitching.

'But look at me, young man,' broke from him at last, and he clapped himself on the breast: 'can you suppose I have anything in common with the ordinary, self-satisfied moralist, a preacher? Don't you understand that simply from interest in you, however strong it might be, I would never have let fall a word, I would never have given you grounds for reproaching me with what I hate above all things--indiscretion, intrusiveness? Don't you see that this is something of a different kind altogether, that before you is a man crushed, utterly obliterated by the very pa.s.sion, from the results of which he would save you, and ... and for the same woman!'

Litvinov stepped back a pace.

'Is it possible? What did you say?... You ... you ... Sozont Ivanitch?

But Madame Byelsky ... that child?'

'Ah, don't cross-examine me.... Believe me! That is a dark terrible story, and I'm not going to tell you it. Madame Byelsky I hardly knew, that child is not mine, but I took it all upon myself ... because ...

_she_ wished it, because it was necessary for _her_. Why am I here in your hateful Baden? And, in fact, could you suppose, could you for one instant imagine, that I'd have brought myself to caution you out of sympathy for you? I'm sorry for that sweet, good girl, your _fiancee_, but what have I to do with your future, with you both?... But I am afraid for her ... for her.'

'You do me great honour, Mr. Potugin,' began Litvinov, 'but since, according to you, we are both in the same position, why is it you don't apply such exhortations to yourself, and ought I not to ascribe your apprehensions to another feeling?'

'That is to jealousy, you mean? Ah, young man, young man, it's shameful of you to shuffle and make pretences, it's shameful of you not to realise what a bitter sorrow is speaking to you now by my lips! No, I am not in the same position as you! I, I am old, ridiculous, an utterly harmless old fool--but you! But there's no need to talk about it! You would not for one second agree to accept the position I fill, and fill with grat.i.tude! Jealousy? A man is not jealous who has never had even a drop of hope, and this is not the first time it has been my lot to endure this feeling. I am only afraid ... afraid for her, understand that. And could I have guessed when she sent me to you that the feeling of having wronged you--she owned to feeling that--would carry her so far?'

'But excuse me, Sozont Ivanitch, you seem to know....'

'I know nothing, and I know everything! I know,' he added, turning away, 'I know where she was yesterday. But there's no holding her back now; like a stone set rolling, she must roll on to the bottom. I should be a great idiot indeed, if I imagined my words could hold you back at once ... you, when a woman like that.... But that's enough of this. I couldn't restrain myself, that's my whole excuse. And after all how can one know, and why not try? Perhaps, you will think again; perhaps, some word of mine will go to your heart, you will not care to ruin her and yourself, and that innocent sweet creature.... Ah! don't be angry, don't stamp about! What have I to fear? Why should I mince matters? It's not jealousy speaking in me, not anger.... I'm ready to fall at your feet, to beseech you.... Good-bye, though. You needn't be afraid, all this will be kept secret. I wished for your good.'

Potugin strode off along the avenue and quickly vanished in the now falling darkness. Litvinov did not detain him.

'A terrible dark story....' Potugin had said to Litvinov, and would not tell it.... Let us pa.s.s it over with a few words only.

Eight years before, it had happened to him to be sent by his department to Count Reisenbach as a temporary clerk. It was in the summer. Potugin used to drive to his country villa with papers, and be whole days there at a time. Irina was then living at the count's. She was never haughty with people in a humbler station, at least she never treated them superciliously, and the countess more than once reproved her for her excessive Moscow familiarity. Irina soon detected a man of intelligence in the humble clerk, attired in the stiffly b.u.t.toned frockcoat that was his uniform. She used often and eagerly to talk to him ... while he ...

he fell in love with her pa.s.sionately, profoundly, secretly....

Secretly! So _he_ thought. The summer pa.s.sed; the count no longer needed any outside a.s.sistance. Potugin lost sight of Irina but could not forget her. Three years after, he utterly unexpectedly received an invitation, through a third person, to go to see a lady slightly known to him. This lady at first was reluctant to speak out, but after exacting an oath from him to keep everything he was going to hear absolutely secret, she proposed to him ... to marry a girl, who occupied a conspicuous position in society, and for whom marriage had become a necessity. The lady scarcely ventured to hint at the princ.i.p.al personage, and then promised Potugin money ... a large sum of money. Potugin was not offended, astonishment stifled all feeling of anger in him; but, of course, he point-blank declined. Then the lady handed him a note--from Irina. 'You are a generous, n.o.ble man,' she wrote, 'and I know you would do anything for me; I beg of you this sacrifice. You will save one who is very dear to me. In saving her, you will save me too.... Do not ask me how. I could never have brought myself to any one with such an entreaty, but to you I hold out my hands and say to you, do it for my sake.' Potugin pondered, and said that for Irina Pavlovna, certainly he was ready to do a great deal; but he should like to hear her wishes from her own lips.

The interview took place the same evening; it did not last long, and no one knew of it, except the same lady. Irina was no longer living at Count Reisenbach's.

'What made you think of me, of all people?' Potugin asked her.

She was beginning to expatiate on his n.o.ble qualities, but suddenly she stopped....

'No,' she said, 'you must be told the truth. I know, I know that you love me; so that was why I made up my mind ...' and then she told him everything.