Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 23

"Nothing--nothing!" she cried with animation. "I know that I have no right to demand anything. I am no fool, believe me. I don't hope, I don't dare to hope, for pardon. I only venture to entreat you to tell me what I ought to do, where I ought to live. I will obey your orders like a slave, whatever they may be."

"I have no orders to give," replied Lavretsky in the same tone as before. "You know that all is over between us--and more than ever now.

You can live where you like; and if your allowance is too small--"

"Ah, don't say such terrible things!" she said, interrupting him.

"Forgive me, if only--if only for the sake of this angel."

And having uttered these words, Varvara Pavlovna suddenly rushed into the other room, and immediately returned with a very tastefully-dressed little girl in her arms. Thick flaxen curls fell about the pretty little rosy face and over the great black, sleepy eyes of the child, who smilingly blinked at the light, and held on to her mother's neck by a chubby little arm.

"_Ada, vois, c'est ton pere_," said Varvara Pavlovna, removing the curls from the child's eyes, and kissing her demonstratively.

"_Prie-le avec moi_."

"_C'est la, papa_?" the little girl lispingly began to stammer.

"_Oui, mon enfant, n'est-ce pas que tu l'aimes_?"

But the interview had become intolerable to Lavretsky. ;'

"What melodrama is it just such a scene occurs; in?" he muttered, and left the room.

Varvara Pavlovna remained standing where she was for some time, then she slightly shrugged her shoulders, took the little girl back into the other room, undressed her, and put her to bed. Then she took a book and sat down near the lamp. There she waited about an hour, but at last she went to bed herself.

"_Eh bien, madame_?" asked her maid,--a Frenchwoman whom she had brought with her from Paris,--as she unlaced her stays.

"_Eh bien_, Justine!" replied Varvara Pavlovna. "He has aged a great deal, but I think he is just as good as ever. Give me my gloves for the night, and get the gray dress, the high one, ready for to-morrow morning--and don't forget the mutton cutlets for Ada. To be sure it will be difficult to get them here, but we must try."

"_A la guerre comme a la guerre_!" replied Justine as she put out the light.

x.x.xV.

For more than two hours Lavretsky wandered about the streets. The night he had spent in the suburbs of Paris came back into his mind.

His heart seemed rent within him, and his brain felt vacant and as it were numbed, while the same set of evil, gloomy, mad thoughts went ever circling in his mind. "She is alive; she is here," he whispered to himself with constantly recurring amazement. He felt that he had lost Liza. Wrath seemed to suffocate him. The blow had too suddenly descended upon him. How could he have so readily believed the foolish gossip of a _feuilleton_, a mere sc.r.a.p of paper? "But if I had not believed it," he thought, "what would have been the difference? I should not have known that Liza loves me. She would not have known it herself." He could not drive the thought of his wife out of his mind; her form, her voice, her eyes haunted him. He cursed himself, he cursed every thing in the world.

Utterly tired out, he came to Lemm's house before the dawn. For a long time he could not get the door opened; at last the old man's nightcapped head appeared at the window. Peevish and wrinkled, his face bore scarcely any resemblance to that which, austerely inspired, had looked royally down upon Lavretsky twenty-four hours before, from all the height of its artistic grandeur.

"What do you want?" asked Lemm. "I cannot play every night. I have taken a _tisane_."

But Lavretsky's face wore a strong expression which could not escape notice. The old man shaded his eyes with his hand, looked hard at his nocturnal visitor, and let him in.

Lavretsky came into the room and dropped on a chair. The old man remained standing before him, wrapping the skirts of his motley old dressing-gown around him, stooping very much, and biting his lips.

"My wife has come," said Lavretsky, with drooping head, and then he suddenly burst into a fit of involuntary laughter.

Lemm's face expressed astonishment, but he preserved a grave silence, only wrapping his dressing-gown tighter around him.

"I suppose you don't know," continued Lavretsky. "I supposed--I saw in a newspaper that she was dead."

"O--h! Was it lately you saw that?" asked Lemm.

"Yes."

"O--h!" repeated the old man, raising his eyebrows, "and she has come here?"

"Yes. She is now in my house, and I--I am a most unfortunate man."

And he laughed again.

"You are a most unfortunate man," slowly repeated Lemm.

"Christopher Fedorovich," presently said Lavretsky, "will you undertake to deliver a note?"

"Hm! To whom, may I ask?"

"To Lizav--"

"Ah! yes, yes, I understand. Very well. But when must the note be delivered?"

"To-morrow, as early as possible."

"Hm! I might send my cook, Katrin. No, I will go myself."

"And will you bring me back the answer?"

"I will."

Lemm sighed.

"Yes, my poor young friend," he said, "you certainly are--a most unfortunate young man."

Lavretsky wrote a few words to Liza, telling her of his wife's arrival, and begging her to make an appointment for an interview. Then he flung himself on the narrow sofa, with his face to the wall.

The old man also lay down on his bed, and there long tossed about, coughing and swallowing mouthfuls of his _tisane_.

The morning came; they both arose--strange were the looks they exchanged. Lavretsky would have liked to kill himself just then.

Katrin the cook brought them some bad coffee, and then, when eight o'clock struck, Lemm put on his hat and went out saying that he was to have given a lesson at the Kalitines' at ten o'clock, but that he would find a fitting excuse for going there sooner.

Lavretsky again threw himself on the couch, and again a bitter laugh broke out from the depths of his heart. He thought of how his wife had driven him out of the house; he pictured to himself Liza's position, and then he shut his eyes, and wrung his hands above his head.

At length Lemm returned and brought him a sc.r.a.p of paper, on which Liza had traced the following words in pencil: "We cannot see each other to-day; perhaps we may to-morrow evening. Farewell." Lavretsky thanked Lemm absently and stiffly, and then went home.

He found his wife at breakfast. Ada, with her hair all in curl-papers, and dressed in a short white frock with blue ribbons, was eating a mutton cutlet. Varvara Pavlovna rose from her seat the moment Lavretsky entered the room, and came towards him with an expression of humility on her face. He asked her to follow him into his study, and when there he shut the door and began to walk up and down the room.

She sat down, folded her hands, and began to follow his movements with eyes which were still naturally beautiful, besides having their lids dyed a little.

For a long time Lavretsky could not begin what he had to say, feeling that he had not complete mastery over himself. As for his wife, he saw that she was not at all afraid of him, although she looked as if she might at any moment go off into a fainting fit.