Smoke Part 24

'May I come in?' asked Ratmirov from the other room.

'Yes ... yes.'

The door opened, and in the doorway appeared the general. He scowled on seeing Litvinov; however, he bowed to them, that is to say, he bent the upper portion of his person.

'I did not know you had a visitor,' he said: '_je vous demande pardon de mon indiscretion_. So you still find Baden entertaining, M'sieu--Litvinov?'

Ratmirov always uttered Litvinov's surname with hesitation, every time, as though he had forgotten it, and could not at once recall it.... In this way, as well as by the lofty flourish of his hat in saluting him, he meant to insult his pride.

'I am not bored here, _m'sieu le general_.'

'Really? Well, I find Baden fearfully boring. We are soon going away, are we not, Irina Pavlovna? _a.s.sez de Bade comme ca._ By the way, I've won you five hundred francs to-day.'

Irina stretched out her hand coquettishly.

'Where are they? Please let me have them for pin-money.'

'You shall have them, you shall have them.... You are going, M'sieu--Litvinov?'

'Yes, I am going, as you see.'

Ratmirov again bent his body.

'Till we meet again!'

'Good-bye, Grigory Mihalitch,' said Irina. 'I will keep my promise.'

'What is that? May I be inquisitive?' her husband queried.

Irina smiled.

'No, it was only ... something we've been talking of. _C'est a propos du voyage ... ou il vous plaira._ You know--Stael's book?'

'Ah! ah! to be sure, I know. Charming ill.u.s.trations.'

Ratmirov seemed on the best of terms with his wife; he called her by her pet name in addressing her.

XXII

'Better not think now, really,' Litvinov repeated, as he strode along the street, feeling that the inward riot was rising up again in him.

'The thing's decided. She will keep her promise, and it only remains for me to take all necessary steps.... Yet she hesitates, it seems.'... He shook his head. His own designs struck even his own imagination in a strange light; there was a smack of artificiality, of unreality about them. One cannot dwell long upon the same thoughts; they gradually s.h.i.+ft like the bits of gla.s.s in a kaleidoscope ... one peeps in, and already the shapes before one's eyes are utterly different. A sensation of intense weariness overcame Litvinov.... If he could for one short hour but rest!... But Tanya? He started, and, without reflecting even, turned submissively homewards, merely struck by the idea, that this day was tossing him like a ball from one to the other.... No matter; he must make an end. He went back to his hotel, and with the same submissiveness, insensibility, numbness, without hesitation or delay, he went to see Tatyana.

He was met by Kapitolina Markovna. From the first glance at her, he knew that she knew about it all; the poor maiden lady's eyes were swollen with weeping, and her flushed face, fringed with her dishevelled white locks, expressed dismay and an agony of indignation, sorrow, and boundless amazement. She was on the point of rus.h.i.+ng up to Litvinov, but she stopped short, and, biting her quivering lip, she looked at him as though she would supplicate him, and kill him, and a.s.sure herself that it was a dream, a senseless, impossible thing, wasn't it?

'Here you ... you are come,' she began.... The door from the next room opened instantaneously, and with a light tread Tatyana came in; she was of a transparent pallor, but she was quite calm.

She gently put one arm round her aunt and made her sit down beside her.

'You sit down too, Grigory Mihalitch,' she said to Litvinov, who was standing like one distraught at the door. 'I am very glad to see you once more. I have informed auntie of your decision, our common decision; she fully shares it and approves of it.... Without mutual love there can be no happiness, mutual esteem alone is not enough' (at the word 'esteem' Litvinov involuntarily looked down) 'and better to separate now, than to repent later. Isn't it, aunt?'

'Yes, of course,' began Kapitolina Markovna, 'of course, Tanya darling, the man who does not know how to appreciate you ... who could bring himself----'

'Aunt, aunt,' Tatyana interrupted, 'remember what you promised me. You always told me yourself: truth, Tatyana, truth before everything--and independence. Well, truth's not always sweet, nor independence either; or else where would be the virtue of it?'

She kissed Kapitolina Markovna on her white hair, and turning to Litvinov, she went on:

'We propose, aunt and I, leaving Baden.... I think it will be more comfortable so for all of us.'

'When do you think of going?' Litvinov said thickly. He remembered that Irina had said the very same words to him not long before.

Kapitolina Markovna was darting forward, but Tatyana held her back, with a caressing touch on her shoulder.

'Probably soon, very soon.'

'And will you allow me to ask where you intend going?' Litvinov said in the same voice.

'First to Dresden, then probably to Russia.'

'But what can you want to know that for now, Grigory Mihalitch?' ...

cried Kapitolina Markovna.

'Aunt, aunt,' Tatyana interposed again. A brief silence followed.

'Tatyana Petrovna,' began Litvinov, 'you know how agonisingly painful and bitter my feelings must be at this instant.'

Tatyana got up.

'Grigory Mihalitch,' she said, 'we will not talk about that ... if you please, I beg you for my sake, if not for your own. I have known you long enough, and I can very well imagine what you must be feeling now.

But what's the use of talking, of touching a sore' (she stopped; it was clear she wanted to stem the emotion rus.h.i.+ng upon her, to swallow the rising tears; she succeeded)--'why fret a sore we cannot heal? Leave that to time. And now I have to ask a service of you, Grigory Mihalitch; if you will be so good, I will give you a letter directly: take it to the post yourself, it is rather important, but aunt and I have no time now.... I shall be much obliged to you. Wait a minute.... I will bring it directly....'

In the doorway Tatyana glanced uneasily at Kapitolina Markovna; but she was sitting with such dignity and decorum, with such a severe expression on her knitted brows and tightly compressed lips, that Tatyana merely gave her a significant nod and went out.

But scarcely had the door closed behind her, when every trace of dignity and severity instantaneously vanished from Kapitolina Markovna's face; she got up, ran on tiptoe up to Litvinov, and all hunched together and trying to look him in the face, she began in a quaking tearful whisper:

'Good G.o.d,' she said, 'Grigory Mihalitch, what does it mean? is it a dream or what? _You_ give up Tanya, you tired of her, you breaking your word! You doing this, Grigory Mihalitch, you on whom we all counted as if you were a stone wall! You? you? you, Grisha?'... Kapitolina Markovna stopped. 'Why, you will kill her, Grigory Mihalitch,' she went on, without waiting for an answer, while her tears fairly coursed in fine drops over her cheeks. 'You mustn't judge by her bearing up now, you know her character! She never complains; she does not think of herself, so others must think of her! She keeps saying to me, "Aunt, we must save our dignity!" but what's dignity, when I foresee death, death before us?'... Tatyana's chair creaked in the next room. 'Yes, I foresee death,' the old lady went on still more softly. 'And how can such a thing have come about? Is it witchcraft, or what? It's not long since you were writing her the tenderest letters. And in fact can an honest man act like this? I'm a woman, free, as you know, from prejudice of any sort, _esprit fort_, and I have given Tanya too the same sort of education, she too has a free mind....'

'Aunt!' came Tatyana's voice from the next room.

'But one's word of honour is a duty, Grigory Mihalitch, especially for people of your, of my principles! If we're not going to recognise duty, what is left us? This cannot be broken off in this way, at your whim, without regard to what may happen to another! It's unprincipled ... yes, it's a crime; a strange sort of freedom!'

'Aunt, come here please,' was heard again.

'I'm coming, my love, I'm coming....' Kapitolina Markovna clutched at Litvinov's hand.--'I see you are angry, Grigory Mihalitch.'... ('Me! me angry?' he wanted to exclaim, but his tongue was dumb.) 'I don't want to make you angry--oh, really, quite the contrary! I've come even to entreat you; think again while there is time; don't destroy her, don't destroy your own happiness, she will still trust you, Grisha, she will believe in you, nothing is lost yet; why, she loves you as no one will ever love you! Leave this hateful Baden-Baden, let us go away together, only throw off this enchantment, and, above all, have pity, have pity----'