He found them all at home, but he did not at once disclose his plan to them; he wanted to discuss it first with Lisa alone. Fortune favoured him; they were left alone in the drawing-room. They had some talk; she had had time by now to grow used to him — and she was not shy as a rule with any one. He listened to her, watched her, and mentally repeated Lemm’s words, and agreed with them. It sometimes happens that two people who are acquainted, but not on intimate terms with one another, all of sudden grow rapidly more intimate in a few minutes, and the consciousness of this greater intimacy is at once expressed in their eyes, in their soft and affectionate smiles, and in their very gestures. This was exactly what came to pass with Lavretsky and Lisa. “So he is like that,” was her thought, as she turned a friendly glance on him; “so you are like that,” he too was thinking. And so he was not very much surprised when she informed him, not without a little faltering, however, that she had long wished to say something to him, but she was afraid of offending him.
“Don’t be afraid; tell me,” he replied, and stood still before her.
Lisa raised her clear eyes to him.
“You are so good,” she began, and at the same time, she thought: “Yes, I am sure he is good” . . . “you will forgive me, I ought not dare to speak of it to you . . . but — how could you . . . why did you separate from your wife?”
Lavretsky shuddered: he looked at Lisa, and sat down near her.
“My child,” he began, “I beg you, do not touch upon that wound; your hands are tender, but it will hurt me all the same.”
“I know,” Lisa went on, as though she did not hear him, “she has been to blame towards you. I don’t want to defend her; but what God has joined, how can you put asunder?”
“Our convictions on that subject are too different, Lisaveta Mihalovna,” Lavretsky observed, rather sharply; “we cannot understand one another.”
Lisa grew paler: her whole frame was trembling slightly; but she was not silenced.
“You must forgive,” she murmured softly, “if you wish to be forgiven.”
“Forgive!” broke in Lavretsky. “Ought you not first to know whom you are interceding for? Forgive that woman, take her back into my home, that empty, heartless creature! And who told you she wants to return to me? She is perfectly contented with her position, I can assure you . . . But what a subject to discuss here! Her name ought never to be uttered by you. You are too pure, you are not capable of understanding such a creature.
“Why abuse her?” Lisa articulated with an effort. The trembling of her hands was perceptible now. “You left her yourself, Fedor Ivanitch.”
“But I tell you,” retorted Lavretsky with an involuntary outburst of impatience, “you don’t know what that woman is!”
“Then why did you marry her?” whispered Lisa, and her eyes feel.
Lavretsky got up quickly from his seat.
“Why did I marry her? I was young and inexperienced; I was deceived, I was carried away by a beautiful exterior. I knew no women. I knew nothing. God grant you may make a happier marriage! but let me tell you, you can be sure of nothing.”
“I too might be unhappy,” said Lisa (her voice had begun to be unsteady), “but then I ought to submit, I don’t know how to say it; but if we do not submit”—
Lavretsky clenched his hands and stamped with his foot.
“Don’t be angry, forgive me,” Lisa faltered hurriedly.
At that instant Marya Dmitrievna came in. Lisa got up and was going away.
“Stop a minute,” Lavretsky cried after her unexpectedly. “I have a great favour to beg of your mother and you; to pay me a visit in my new abode. You know, I have had a piano sent over; Lemm is staying with me; the lilac is in flower now; you will get a breath of country air, and you can return the same day — will you consent?” Lisa looked towards her mother; Marya Dmitrievna was assuming an expression of suffering; but Lavretsky did not give her time to open her mouth; he at once kissed both her hands. Marya Dmitrievna, who was always susceptible to demonstrations of feeling, and did not at all anticipate such effusivements from the “dolt,” was melted and gave her consent. While she was deliberating which day to fix, Lavretsky went up to Lisa, and, still greatly moved, whispered to her aside: “Thank you, you are a good girl; I was to blame.” And her pale face glowed with a bright, shy smile; her eyes smiled too — up to that instant she had been afraid she had offended him.
“Vladimir Nikolaitch can come with us?” inquired Marya Dmitrievna.
“Yes,” replied Lavretsky, “but would it not be better to be just a family party?”
“Well, you know, it seems,” began Marya Dmitrievna. “But as you please,” she added.
It was decided to take Lenotchka and Shurotchka. Marfa Timofyevna refused to join in the expedition.
“It is hard for me, my darling,” she said, “to give my old bones a shaking; and to be sure there’s nowhere for me to sleep at your place: besides, I can’t sleep in a strange bed. Let the young folks go frolicking.”
Lavretsky did not succeed in being alone again with Lisa; but he looked at her in such a way that she felt her heart at rest, and a little ashamed, and sorry for him. He pressed her hand warmly at parting; left alone, she fell to musing.
When Lavretsky reached home, he was met at the door of the drawing-room by a tall, thin man, in a thread-bare blue coat, with a wrinkled, but lively face, with disheveled grey whiskers, a long straight nose, and small fiery eyes. This was Mihalevitch, who had been his friend at the university. Lavretsky did not at first recognise him, but embraced him warmly directly he told his name.
They had not met since their Moscow days. Torrents of exclamations and questions followed; long-buried recollections were brought to light. Hurriedly smoking pipe after pipe, tossing off tea at a gulp, and gesticulating with his long hands, Mihalevitch related his adventures to Lavretsky; there was nothing very inspiriting in them, he could not boast of success in his undertakings — but he was constantly laughing a hoarse, nervous laugh. A month previously he had received a position in the private counting-house of a spirit-tax contractor, two hundred and fifty miles from the town of O——-, and hearing of Lavretsky returned from abroad he had turned out of his way so as to see his old friend. Mihalevitch and talked as impetuously as in his youth; made as much noise and was as effervescent as of old. Lavretsky was about to acquaint him with his new position, but Mihalevitch interrupted him, muttering hurriedly, “I have heard, my dear fellow, I have heard — who could have anticipated it?” and at once turned the conversation upon general subjects.
“I must set off to-morrow, my dear fellow,” he observed; “to-day if you will excuse it, we will sit up late. I want above all to know what you are like, what are your views and convictions, what you have become, what life has taught you.” (Mihalevitch still preserved the phraseology of 1830.) “As for me, I have changed in much; the waves of life have broken over my breast — who was it said that?— though in what is important, essential I have not changed; I believe as of old in the good, the true: but I do not only believe — I have faith now, yes, I have faith, faith. Listen, you know I write verses; there is no poetry in them, but there is truth. I will read you aloud my last poem; I have expressed my truest convictions in it. Listen.” Mihalevitch fell to reading his poem: it was rather long, and ended with the following lines:
“I gave myself to new feelings with all my heart,
And my soul became as a child’s!
And I have burnt all I adored
And now adore all that I burnt.”
As he uttered the two last lines, Mihalevitch all but shed tears; a slight spasm — the sign of deep emotion — passed over his wide mouth, his ugly face lighted up. Lavretsky listened, and listened to him — and the spirit of antagonism was aroused in him; he was irritated by the ever-ready enthusiasm of the Moscow student, perpetually at boiling-point. Before a quarter of an hour had elapsed a heated argument had broken out between them, one of these endless arguments, of which only Russians are capable. After a separation of many years spent in two different worlds, with no clear understanding of the other’s ideas or even of their own, catching at words and replying only in words, they disputed about the most abstract subjects, and they disputed as though it were a matter of life and death for both: they shouted and vociferated so that every one in the house was startled, and poor Lemm, who had locked himself up in his room directly after Mihalevitch arrived, was bewildered, and began even to feel vaguely alarmed.
“What are you after all? a pessimist?” cried Mihalevitch at one o’clock in the night.
“Are pessimists usually like this?” replied Lavretsky. “They are usually all pale and sickly — would you like me to lift you with one hand?”
“Well, if you are not a pessimist you are a scepteec, that’s still worse.” Mihalevitch’s talk had a strong flavour of his mother-country, Little Russia. “And what right have you to be a scepteec? You have had ill-luck in life, let us admit; that was not your fault; you were born with a passionate loving heart, and you were unnaturally kept out of the society of women: the first woman you came across was bound to deceive you.”
“She deceived you too,” observed Lavretsky grimly.
“Granted, granted; I was the tool of destiny in it — what nonsense I talk, though — there is no such thing as destiny; it is an old habit of expressing things inexactly. But what does that prove?”
“It proves this, that they distorted me from my childhood.”
“Well, it’s for you to straighten yourself! What’s the good of being a man, a male animal? And however that may be, is it possible, is it permissible, to reduce a personal, so to speak, fact to a general law, to an infallible principle?”
“How a principle?” interrupted Lavretsky; “I don’t admit —”
“No, it is your principle, your principle,” Mihalevitch interrupted in his turn.
“You are an egoist, that’s what it is!” he was thundering an hour later: “you wanted personal happiness, you wanted enjoyment in life, you wanted to live only for yourself.”
“What do you mean by personal happiness?”
“And everything deceived you; everything crumbled away under your feet.”
“What do you mean by personal happiness, I ask you?”
“And it was bound to crumble away. Either you sought support where it could not be found, or you built your house on shifting sands, or —”
“Speak more plainly, or I can’t understand you.”
“Or — you may laugh if you like — or you had no faith, no warmth of heart; intellect, nothing but one farthing’s worth of intellect . . . you are simply a pitiful, antiquated Voltairean, that’s what you are!”
“I’m a Voltairean?”
“Yes, like your father, and you yourself do not suspect it.”
“After that,” exclaimed Lavretsky, “I have the right to call you a fanatic.”
“Alas!” replied Mihalevitch with a contrite air, “I have not so far deserved such an exalted title, unhappily.”
“I have found out now what to call you,” cried the same Mihalevitch, at three o’clock in the morning. “You are not a sceptic, nor a pessimist, nor a Voltairean, you are a loafer, and you are a vicious loafer, a conscious loafer, not a simple loafer. Simple loafers lie on the stove and do nothing because they don’t know how to do anything; they don’t think about anything either, but you are a man of ideas — and yet you lie on the stove; you could do something — and you do nothing; you lie idle with a full stomach and look down from above and say, ‘It’s best to lie idle like this, because whatever people do, is all rubbish, leading to nothing.’”
“And from what do you infer that I lie idle?” Lavretsky protested stoutly. “Why do you attribute such ideas to me?”
“And, besides that, you are all, all the tribe of you,” continued Mihalevitch, “cultivated loafers. You know which leg the German limps on, you know what’s amiss with the English and the French, and your pitiful culture goes to make it worse, your shameful idleness, your abominable inactivity is justified by it. Some are even proud of it: ‘I’m such a clever fellow,’ they say, ‘I do nothing, while these fools are in a fuss.’ Yes! and there are fine gentlemen among us — though I don’t say this as to you — who reduce their whole life to a kind of stupor of boredom, get used to it, live in it, like — like a mushroom in white sauce,” Mihalevitch added hastily, and he laughed at his own comparison. “Oh! this stupor of boredom is the ruin of Russians. Ours is the age for work, and the sickening loafer” . . .
“But what is all this abuse about?” Lavretsky clamoured in his turn. “Work — doing — you’d better say what is to be done, instead of abusing me, Desmosthenes of Poltava!”
“There, what a thing to ask! I can’t tell you that brother; that every one ought to know for himself,” retorted the Desmosthenes ironically. “A landowner, a nobleman, and not know what to do? You have no faith, or else you would know; no faith — and no intuition.”
“Let me at least have time to breathe; you don’t let me have time to look round,” Lavretsky besought him.
“Not a minute, nor a second!” retorted Mihalevitch with an imperious wave of the hand. “Not one second: death does not delay, and life ought not to delay.”
“And what a time, what a place for men to think of loafing!” he cried at four o’clock, in a voice, however, which showed signs of sleepiness; “among us! now! in Russia where every separate individual has a duty resting upon him, a solemn responsibility to God, to the people, to himself. We are sleeping, and the time is slipping away; we are sleeping.” . . . .
“Permit me to observe,” remarked Lavretsky, “that we are not sleeping at present but rather preventing others from sleeping. We are straining our throats like the cocks — listen! there is one crowing for the third time.”
This sally made Mihalevitch laugh, and calmed him down. “Good-bye till to-morrow,” he said with a smile, and thrust his pipe into his pouch.
“Till to-morrow,” repeated Lavretsky. But the friends talked for more than hour longer. Their voices were no longer raised, however, and their talk was quiet, sad, friendly talk.
Mihalevitch set off the next day, in spite of all Lavretsky’s efforts to keep him. Fedor Ivanitch did not succeed in persuading him to remain; but he talked to him to his heart’s content. Mihalevitch, it appeared, had not a penny to bless himself with. Lavretsky had noticed with pain the evening before all the tokens and habits of years of poverty; his boots were shabby, a button was off on the back of his coat, on his arrival, he had not even thought of asking to wash, and at supper he ate like a shark, tearing his meat in his fingers, and crunching the bones with his strong black teeth. It appeared, too, that he had made nothing out of his employment, that he now rested all his hopes on the contractor who was taking him solely in order to have an “educated man” in his office.
For all that Mihalevitch was not discouraged, but as idealist or cynic, lived on a crust of bread, sincerely rejoicing or grieving over the destinies of humanity, and his own vocation, and troubling himself very little as to how to escape dying of hunger. Mihalevitch was not married: but had been in love times beyond number, and had written poems to all the objects of his adoration; he sang with especial fervour the praises of a mysterious black-tressed “noble Polish lady.” There were rumours, it is true, that this “noble Polish lady” was a simple Jewess, very well known to a good many cavalry officers — but, after all, what do you think — does it really make any difference?
With Lemm, Mihalevitch did not get on; his noisy talk and brusque manners scared the German, who was unused to such behaviour. One poor devil detects another by instinct at once, but in old age he rarely gets on with him, and that is hardly astonishing, he has nothing to share with him, not even hopes.
Before setting off, Mihalevitch had another long discussion with Lavretsky, foretold his ruin, if he did not see the error of his ways, exhorted him to devote himself seriously to the welfare of his peasants, and pointed to himself as an example, saying that he had been purified in the furnace of suffering; and in the same breath called himself several times a happy man, comparing himself with the fowl of the air and the lily of the field.
“A black lily, any way,” observed Lavretsky.
“Ah, brother, don’t be a snob!” retorted Mihalevitch, good-naturedly, “but thank God rather there is a pure plebeian blood in your veins too. But I see that you want some pure, heavenly creature to draw you out of your apathy.”
“Thanks, brother,” remarked Lavretsky. “I have had quite enough of those heavenly creatures.”
“Silence, ceeneec!” cried Mihalevitch.
“Cynic,” Lavretsky corrected him.
“Ceeneec, just so,” repeated Mihalevitch unabashed.
Even when he had taken his seat in the carriage, to which his flat, yellow, strangely light trunk was carried, he still talked; muffled in a kind of Spanish cloak with a collar, brown with age, and a clasp of two lion’s paws; he went on developing his views on the destiny of Russian, and waving his swarthy hand in the air, as though he were sowing the seeds of her future prosperity. The horses started at last.
“Remember my three last words,” he cried, thrusting his whole body out of the carriage and balancing so, “Religion, progress, humanity! . . . Farewell.”
His head, with a foraging cap pulled down over his eyes, disappeared. Lavretsky was left standing alone on the steps, and he gazed steadily into the distance along the road till the carriage disappeared out of sight. “Perhaps he is right, after all,” he thought as he went back into the house; “perhaps I am a loafer.” Many of Mihalevitch’s words had sunk irresistibly into his heart, though he had disputed and disagreed with him. If a man only has a good heart, no one can resist him.
Two days later, Marya Dmitrievna visited Vassilyevskoe according to her promise, with all her young people. The little girls ran at once into the garden, while Marya Dmitrievna languidly walked through the rooms and languidly admired everything. She regarded her visit to Lavretsky as a sign of great condescension, almost as a deed of charity. She smiled graciously when Anton and Apraxya kissed her hand in the old-fashioned house-servants’ style; and in a weak voice, speaking through her nose, asked for some tea. To the great vexation of Anton, who had put on knitted white gloves for the purpose, tea was not handed to the grand lady visitor by him, but by Lavretsky’s hired valet, who in the old man’s words, had not a notion of what was proper. To make up for this, Anton resumed his rights at dinner: he took up a firm position behind Marya Dmitrievna’s chair; and he would not surrender his post to any one. The appearance of guests after so long an interval at Vassilyevskoe fluttered and delighted the old man. It was a pleasure to him to see that his master was acquainted with such fine gentlefolk. He was not, however, the only one who was fluttered that day; Lemm, too, was in agitation. He had put on a rather short snuff-coloured coat with a swallow-tail, and tied his neck handkerchief stiffly, and he kept incessantly coughing and making way for people with a cordial and affable air. Lavretsky noticed with pleasure that his relations with Lisa were becoming more intimate; she had held out her hand to him affectionately directly she came in. After dinner Lemm drew out of his coat-tail pocket, into which he had continually been fumbling, a small roll of music-paper and compressing his lips he laid it without speaking on the pianoforte. It was a song composed by him the evening before, to some old-fashioned German words, in which mention was made of the stars. Lisa sat down at once to the piano and played at sight the song . . . . Alas! the music turned out to be complicated and painfully strained; it was clear that the composer had striven to express something passionate and deep, but nothing had come of it; the effort had remained an effort. Lavretsky and Lisa both felt this, and Lemm understood it. Without uttering a single word, he put his song back into his pocket, and in reply to Lisa’s proposal to play it again, he only shook his head and said significantly: “Now — enough!” and shrinking into himself he turned away.
Towards evening the whole party went out to fish. In the pond behind the garden there were plenty of carp and groundlings. Marya Dmitrievna was put in an arm-chair near the banks, in the shade, with a rug under her feet and the best line was given to her. Anton as an old experienced angler offered her his services. He zealously put on the worms, and clapped his hand on them, spat on them and even threw in the line with a graceful forward swing of his whole body. Marya Dmitrievna spoke of him the same day to Fedor Ivanitch in the following phrase, in boarding-school French: “Il n’y a plus maintenant de ces gens comme ca, comme autrefois.” Lemm with the two little girls went off further to the dam of the pond; Lavretsky took up his position near Lisa. The fish were continually biting, the carp were constantly flashing in the air with golden and silvery sides as they were drawn in; the cries of pleasure of the little girls were incessant, even Marya Dmitrievna uttered a little feminine shriek on two occasions. The fewest fish were caught by Lavretsky and Lisa; probably this was because they paid less attention than the others to the angling, and allowed their floats to swim back right up to the bank. The high reddish reeds rustled quietly around, the still water shone quietly before them, and quietly too they talked together. Lisa was standing on a small raft; Lavretsky sat on the inclined trunk of a willow; Lisa wore a white gown, tied round the waist with a broad ribbon, also white; her straw hat was hanging on one hand, and in the other with some effort she held up the crooked rod. Lavretsky gazed at her pure, somewhat severe profile, at her hair drawn back behind her ears, at her soft cheeks, which glowed like a little child’s, and thought, “Oh, how sweet you are, bending over my pond!” Lisa did not turn to him, but looked at the water, half frowning, to keep the sun out of her eyes, half smiling. The shade of the lime-tree near fell upon both.
“Do you know,” began Lavretsky, “I have been thinking over our last conversation a great deal, and have come to the conclusion that you are exceedingly good.”
“That was not at all my intention in ——-” Lisa was beginning to reply, and she was overcome with embarrassment.
“You are good,” repeated Lavretsky. “I am a rough fellow, but I feel that every one must love you. There’s Lemm for instance; he is simply in love with you.”
Lisa’s brows did not exactly frown, they contracted slightly; it always happened with her when she heard something disagreeable to her.
“I was very sorry for him to-day,” Lavretsky added, “with his unsuccessful song. To be young and to fail is bearable; but to be old and not be successful is hard to bear. And how mortifying it is to feel that one’s forces are deserting one! It is hard for an old man to bear such blows! . . . Be careful, you have a bite . . . . They say,” added Lavretsky after a short pause, “that Vladimir Nikolaitch has written a very pretty song.”
“Yes,” replied Lisa, “it is only a trifle, but not bad.”
“And what do you think,” inquired Lavretsky; “is he a good musician?”
“I think he has great talent for music; but so far he has not worked at it, as he should.”
“Ah! And is he a good sort of man?”
Lisa laughed and glanced quickly at Fedor Ivanitch.
“What a queer question!” she exclaimed, drawing up her line and throwing it in again further off.
“Why is it queer? I ask you about him, as one who has only lately come here, as a relation.”
“A relation?”
“Yes. I am, it seems, a sort of uncle of yours?”
“Vladimir Nikolaitch has a good heart,” said Lisa, “and he is clever; maman likes him very much.”
“And do you like him?”
“He is nice; why should I not like him?”
“Ah!” Lavretsky uttered and ceased speaking. A half-mournful, half-ironical expression passed over his face. His steadfast gaze embarrassed Lisa, but he went on smiling.—“Well, God grant them happiness!” he muttered at last, as though to himself, and turned away his head.
Lisa flushed.
“You are mistaken, Fedor Ivanitch,” she said: “you are wrong in thinking . . . . But don’t you like Vladimir Nikolaitch?” she asked suddenly.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“I think he has no heart.”
The smile left Lisa’s face.
“It is your habit to judge people severely,” she observed after a long silence.
“I don’t think it is. What right have I to judge others severely, do you suppose, when I must ask for indulgency myself? Or have you forgotten that I am a laughing stock to everyone, who is not too indifferent even to scoff? . . . By the way,” he added, “did you keep your promise?”
“What promise?”
“Did you pray for me?”
“Yes, I prayed for you, and I pray for you every day. But please do not speak lightly of that.”
Lavretsky began to assure Lisa that the idea of doing so had never entered his head, that he had the deepest reverence for every conviction; then he went off into a discourse upon religion, its significance in the history of mankind, the significance of Christianity.
“One must be a Christian,” observed Lisa, not without some effort, “not so as to know the divine . . . and the . . . earthly, because every man has to die.”
Lavretsky raised his eyes in involuntary astonishment upon Lisa and met her gaze.
“What a strange saying you have just uttered!” he said.
“It is not my saying,” she replied.
“Not yours . . . . But what made you speak of death?”
“I don’t know. I often think of it.”
“Often?”
“Yes.”
“One would not suppose so, looking at you now; you have such a bright, happy face, you are smiling.”
“Yes, I am very happy just now,” replied Lisa simply.
Lavretsky would have liked to seize both her hands, and press them warmly.
“Lisa, Lisa!” cried Marya Dmitrievna, “do come here, and look what a fine carp I have caught.”
“In a minute, maman,” replied Lisa, and went towards her, but Lavretsky remained sitting on his willow. “I talk to her just as if life were not over for me,” he thought. As she went away, Lisa hung her hat on a twig; with strange, almost tender emotion, Lavretsky looked at the hat, and its long rather crumpled ribbons. Lisa soon came back to him, and again took her stand on the platform.
“What makes you think Vladimir Nikolaitch has no heart?” she asked a few minutes later.
“I have told you already that I may be mistaken; time will show, however.”
Lisa grew thoughtful. Lavretsky began to tell her about his daily life at Vassilyevskoe, about Mihalevitch, and about Anton; he felt a need to talk to Lisa, to share with her everything that was passing in his heart; she listened so sweetly, so attentively; her few replies and observations seemed to him so simple and so intelligent. He even told her so.
Lisa was surprised.
“Really?” she said; “I thought that I was like my maid, Nastya; I had no words of my own. She said one day to her sweetheart: ‘You must be dull with me; you always talk so finely to me, and I have no words of my own.’”
“And thank God for it!” thought Lavretsky.
Meanwhile the evening had come on, Marya Dmitrievna expressed a desire to return home, and the little girls were with difficulty torn away from the pond, and made ready. Lavretsky declared that he would escort his guests half-way, and ordered his horse to be saddled. As he was handing Marya Dmitrievna into the coach, he bethought himself of Lemm; but the old man could nowhere be found. He had disappeared directly after the angling was over. Anton, with an energy remarkable for his years, slammed the doors, and called sharply, “Go on, coachman!” the coach started. Marya Dmitrievna and Lisa were seated in the back seat; the children and their maid in the front. The evening was warm and still, and the windows were open on both sides. Lavretsky trotted near the coach on the side of Lisa, with his arm leaning on the door — he had thrown the reigns on the neck of his smoothly-pacing horse — and now and then he exchanged a few words with the young girl. The glow of sunset was! disappearing; night came on, but the air seemed to grow even warmer. Marya Dmitrievna was soon slumbering, the little girls and the maid fell asleep also. The coach rolled swiftly and smoothly along; Lisa was bending forward, she felt happy; the rising moon lighted up her face, the fragrant night on breeze breathed on her eyes and cheeks. Her hand rested on the coach door near Lavretsky’s hand. And he was happy; borne along in the still warmth of the night, never taking his eyes off the good young face, listening to the young voice that was melodious even in a whisper, as it spoke of simple, good things, he did not even notice that he had gone more than half-way. He did not want to wake Marya Dmitrievna, he lightly pressed Lisa’s hand and said, I think we are friends now, aren’t we?” She nodded, he stopped his horse, and the coach rolled away, lightly swaying and oscillating up and down; Lavretsky turned homeward at a walking pace. The witchery of the summer night enfolded him; all around him seemed suddenly so strange — and at the same time so long known; so sweetly familiar. Everywhere near and afar — and one could see in to the far distance, though the eye could not make out clearly much of what was seen — all was at peace; youthful, blossoming life seemed expressed in this deep peace. Lavretsky’s horse stepped out bravely, swaying evenly to right and left; its great black shadow moved along beside it. There was something strangely sweet in the tramp of its hoofs, a strange charm in the ringing cry of the quails. The stars were lost in a bright mist; the moon, not yet at the full, shone with steady brilliance; its light was shot in an azure stream over the sky, and fell in patches of smoky gold on the thin clouds as they drifted near. The freshness of the air drew a slight moisture into the eyes, sweetly folded all the limbs, and flowed freely into the lungs. Lavretsky rejoiced in it, and was glad at his own rejoicing. “Come, we are still alive,” he thought; “we have not been altogether destroyed by”— he did not say — by whom or by what. Then he fell to thinking of Lisa, that she could hardly love Panshin, that if he had met her under different circumstances — God knows what might have come of it; that he undertook Lemm though Lisa had no words of “her own:” but that, he thought, was not true; she had words of her own. “Don’t speak light of that,” came back to Lavretsky’s mind. He rode a long way with his head bent in thought, then drawing himself up, he slowly repeated aloud:
“And I have burnt all I adored,
And now I adore all that I burnt.”
Then he gave his horse a switch with the whip, and galloped all the way home.
Dismounting from his horse, he looked round for the last time with an involuntary smile of gratitude. Night, still, kindly night stretched over hills and valleys; from afar, out of its fragrant depths — God knows whence — whether from the heavens or the earth — rose a soft, gentle warmth. Lavretsky sent a last greeting to Lisa, and ran up the steps.
The next day passed rather dully. Rain was falling from early morning; Lemm wore a scowl, and kept more and more tightly compressing his lips, as though he had taken an oath never to open them again. When he went to his room, Lavretsky took up to bed with him a whole bundle of French newspapers, which had been lying for more than fortnight on his table unopened. He began indifferently to tear open the wrappings, and glanced hastily over the columns of the newspapers — in which, however, there was nothing new. He was just about to throw them down — and all at once he leaped out of bed as if he had been stung. In an article in one of the papers, M. Jules, with whom we are already familiar, communicated to his readers a “mournful intelligence, that charming, fascinating Moscow lady,” he wrote, “one of the queens of fashion, who adorned Parisian salons, Madame de Lavretsky, had died almost suddenly, and this intelligence, unhappily only too well-founded, had only just reached him, M. Jules. He was,” so he continued, “he might say a friend of the deceased.”
Lavretsky dressed, went out into the garden, and till morning he walked up and down the same path.
The next morning, over their tea, Lemm asked Lavretsky to let him have the horses to return to town. “It’s time for me to set to work, that is, to my lessons,” observed the old man. “Besides, I am only wasting time here.” Lavretsky did not reply at once; he seemed abstracted. “Very good,” he said at last; “I will come with you myself.” Unaided by the servants, Lemm, groaning and wrathful, packed his small box and tore up and burnt a few sheets of music-paper. The horses were harnessed. As he came out of his own room, Lavretsky put the paper he had read last night in his pocket. During the whole course of the journey both Lemm and Lavretsky spoke little to one another; each was occupied with his own thoughts, and each was glad not to be disturbed by the other; and they parted rather coolly; which is often the way, however, with friends in Russia. Lavretsky conducted the old man to his little house; the latter got out, took his trunk and without holding out his hand to his friend (he was holding his trunk in both arms before his breast), without even looking at him, he said to him in Russian, “good-bye!” “Good-bye,” repeated Lavretsky, and bade the coachman drive to his lodging. He had taken rooms in the town of O——— . . . After writing a few letters and hastily dining, Lavretsky went to the Kalitins’. In their drawing-room he found only Panshin, who informed him that Marya Dmitrievna would be in directly, and at once, with charming cordiality, entered into conversation with him. Until that day, Panshin had always treated Lavretsky, not exactly haughtily, but at least condescendingly; but Lisa, in describing her expedition of the previous day to Panshin, had spoken of Lavretsky as an excellent and clever man, that was enough; he felt bound to make a conquest of an “excellent man.” Panshin began with compliments to Lavretsky, with a description of the rapture in which, according to him, the whole family of Marya Dmitrievna! spoke of Vassilyevskoe; and then, according to his custom, passing neatly to himself, began to talk about his pursuits, and his views on life, the world and government service; uttered a sentence or two upon the future of Russia, and the duty of rulers to keep a strict hand over the country; and at this point laughed light-heartedly at his own expense, and added that among other things he had been intrusted in Petersburg with the duty de poplariser l’idee du cadastre. He spoke somewhat at length, passing over all difficulties with careless self-confidence, and playing with the weightiest administrative and political questions, as a juggler plays with balls. The expressions: “That’s what I would do if I were in the government;” “you as a man of intelligence, will agree with me at once,” were constantly on his lips. Lavretsky listened coldly to Panshin’s chatter; he did not like this handsome, clever, easily-elegant young man, with his bright smile, affable voice, and inquisitive eyes. Panshin, with the quick insight into the feelings of others, which was peculiar to him, soon guessed that he was not giving his companion any special satisfaction, and made a plausible excuse to go away, inwardly deciding that Lavretsky might be an “excellent man,” but he was unattractive, aigri, and, en somme, rather absurd. Marya Dmitrievna made her appearance escorted by Gedeonovsky, then Marfa Timofyevna and Lisa came in; and after them the other members of the household; and then the musical amateur, Madame Byelenitsin, arrived, a little thinnish lady, with a languid, pretty, almost childish little face, wearing a rusting dress, a striped fan, and heavy gold bracelets. Her husband was with her, a fat red-faced man, with large hands and feet, white eye-lashes, and an immovable smile on his thick lips; his wife never spoke to him in company, but at home, in moments of tenderness, she used to call him her little sucking-pig. Panshin returned; the rooms were very full of people and noise. Such a crowd was not to Lavretsky’s taste; and he was particularly irritated by Madame Byelenitsin, who kept staring at him through her eye-glasses. He would have gone away at once but for Lisa; he wanted to say a few words to her alone, but for a long time he could not get a favourable opportunity, and had to content himself with following her in secret delight with his eyes; never had her face seemed sweeter and more noble to him. She gained much from being near Madame Byelenitsin. The latter was for ever fidgeting in her chair, shrugging her narrow shoulders, giving little girlish giggles, and screwing up her eyes and then opening them wide; Lisa sat quietly, looked directly at every one and did not laugh at all. Madame Kalitin sat down to a game of cards with Marfa Timofyevna, Madame Byelenitsin, and Gedeonovsky, who played very slowly, and constantly made mistakes, frowning and wiping his face with his handkerchief. Panshin assumed a melancholy air, and expressed himself in brief, pregnant, and gloomy phrases, played the part, in fact, of the unappreciated genius, but in spite of the entreaties of Madame Byelenitsin, who was very coquettish with him, he would not consent to sing his son; he felt Lavretsky’s presence a constraint. Fedor Ivanitch also spoke little the peculiar expression of his face struck Lisa directly he came into the room; she felt at once that he had something to tell her, and though she could not herself have said why, she was afraid to question him. At last, as she was going into the next room to pour out tea, she involuntarily turned her head in his direction. He at once went after her.
“What is the matter?” she said, setting the teapot on the samovar.
“Why, have you noticed anything?” he asked.
“You are not the same to-day as I have always seen you before.”
Lavretsky bent over the table.
“I wanted,” he began, “to tell you a piece of news, but now it is impossible. However, you can read what is marked with pencil in that article,” he added, handing her the paper he had brought with him. “Let me ask you to keep it a secret; I will come to-morrow morning.”
Lisa was greatly bewildered. Panshin appeared in the doorway. She put the newspaper in her pocket.
“Have you read Obermann, Lisaveta Mihalovna?” Panshin asked her pensively.
Lisa made him a reply in passing, and went out of the room and up-stairs. Lavretsky went back to the drawing-room and drew near the card-table. Marfa Timofyevna, flinging back the ribbons of her cap and flushing with annoyance, began to complain of her partner, Gedeonovsky, who in her words, could not play a bit.
“Car-playing, you see,” she said, “is not so easy as talking scandal.”
The latter continued to blink and wipe his face. Lisa came into the drawing-room and sat down in a corner; Lavretsky looked at her, she looked at him, and both the felt the position insufferable. He read perplexity and a kind of secret reproachfulness in her face. He could not talk to her as he would have liked to do; to remain in the same room with her, a guest among other guests, was too painful; he decided to go away. As he took leave of her, he managed to repeat that he would come to-morrow, and added that he trusted in her friendship.
“Come,” she answered with the same perplexity on her face.
Panshin brightened up at Lavretsky’s departure: he began to give advice to Gedeonovsky, paid ironical attentions to Madame Byelenitsin, and at last sang his song. But with Lisa he still spoke and looked as before, impressively and rather mournfully.
Again Lavretsky did not sleep all night. He was not sad, he was not agitated, he was quite clam; but he could not sleep. He did not even remember the past; he simply looked at his life; his heart beat slowly and evenly; the hours glided by; he did not even think of sleep. Only at times the thought flashed through his brain: “But it is not true, it is all nonsense,” and he stood still, bowed his head and again began to ponder on the life before him.
Marya Dmitrievna did not give Lavretsky an over-cordial welcome when he made his appearance the following day. “Upon my word, he’s always in and out,” she thought. She did not much care for him, and Panshin, under whose influence she was, had been very artful and disparaging in his praises of him the evening before. And as she did not regard him as a visitor, and did not consider it necessary to entertain a relation, almost one of the family, it came to pass that in less than half-an hour’s time he found himself walking in an avenue in the grounds with Lisa. Lenotchka and Shurotchka were running about a few paces from them in the flower-garden.
Lisa was as calm as usual but more than usually pale. She took out of her pocket and held out to Lavretsky the sheet of the newspaper folded up small.
“That is terrible!” she said.
Lavretsky made no reply.
“But perhaps it is not true, though,” added Lisa.
“That is why I asked you not to speak of it to any one.”
Lisa walked on a little.
“Tell me,” she began: “you are not grieved? not at all?”
“I do not know myself what I feel,” replied Lavretsky.
“But you loved her once?”
“Yes.”
“Very much?”
“Yes.”
“So you are not grieved at her death?”
“She was dead to me long ago.”
“It is sinful to say that. Do not be angry with me. You call me your friend: a friend may say everything. To me it is really terrible . . . . Yesterday there was an evil look in your face . . . . Do you remember not long ago how you abused her, and she, perhaps, at that very time was dead? It is terrible. It has been sent to you as a punishment.”
Lavretsky smiled bitterly.
“Do you think so? At least, I am now free.”
Lisa gave a slight shudder.
“Stop, do not talk like that. Of what use is your freedom to you? You ought not to be thinking of that now, but of forgiveness.”
“I forgave her long ago,” Lavretsky interposed with a gesture of the hand.
“No, that is not it,” replied Lisa, flushing. “You did not understand me. You ought to be seeking to be forgiven.”
“To be forgiven by whom?”
“By whom? God. Who can forgive us, but God?”
Lavretsky seized her hand.
“Ah, Lisaveta Mihalovna, believe me,” he cried, “I have been punished enough as it is. I have expiated everything already, believe me.”
“That you cannot know,” Lisa murmured in an undertone. “You have forgotten — not long ago, when you were talking to me — you were not ready to forgive her.”
She walked in silence along the avenue.
“And what about your daughter?” Lisa asked, suddenly stopping short.
Lavretsky started.
“Oh, don’t be uneasy! I have already sent letters in all directions. The future of my daughter, as you call — as you say — is assured. Do not be uneasy.”
Lisa smiled mournfully.
“But you are right,” continued Lavretsky, “what can I do with my freedom? What good is it to me?”
“When did you get that paper?” said Lisa, without replying to his question.
“The day after your visit.”
“And is it possible you did not even shed tears?”
“No. I was thunderstruck; but where were tears to come from? Should I weep over the past? but it is utterly extinct for me! Her very fault did not destroy my happiness, but only showed me that it had never been at all. What is there to weep over now? Though indeed, who knows? I might, perhaps, have been more grieved if I had got this news a fortnight sooner.”
“A fortnight?” repeated Lisa. “But what has happened then in the last fortnight?”
Lavretsky made no answer, and suddenly Lisa flushed even more than before.
“Yes, yes, you guess why,” Lavretsky cried suddenly, “in the course of this fortnight I have come to know the value of a pure woman’s heart, and my past seems further from me than ever.”
Lisa was confused, and went gently into the flower-garden towards Lenotchka and Shurotchka.
“But I am glad I showed you that newspaper,” said Lavretsky, walking after her; “already I have grown used to hiding nothing from you, and I hope you will repay me with the same confidence.”
“Do you expect it?” said Lisa, standing still. “In that case I ought — but no! It is impossible.”
“What is it? Tell me, tell me.”
“Really, I believe I ought not — after all, though,” added Lisa, turning to Lavretsky with a smile, “what’s the good of half confidence? Do you know I received a letter today?”
“From Panshin?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“He asks for your hand?”
“Yes,” replied Lisa, looking Lavretsky straight in the face with a serious expression.
Lavretsky on his side looked seriously at Lisa.
“Well, and what answer have you given him?” he managed to say at last.
“I don’t know what answer to give,” replied Lisa, letting her clasped hands fall.
“How is that? Do you love him, then?”
“Yes, I like him; he seems a nice man.”
“You said the very same thing, and in the very same words, three days ago. I want to know do you love him with that intense passionate feeling which we usually call love?”
“As you understand it — no.”
“You’re not in love with him?”
“No. But is that necessary?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mamma likes him,” continued Lisa, “he is kind; I have nothing against him.”
“You hesitate, however.”
“Yes — and perhaps — you, your words are the cause of it. Do you remember what you said three days ago? But that is weakness.”
“O my child!” cried Lavretsky suddenly, and his voice was shaking, “don’t cheat yourself with sophistries, don’t call weakness the cry of your heart, which is not ready to give itself without love. Do not take on yourself such a fearful responsibility to this man, whom you don’t love, though you are ready to belong to him.”
“I’m obeying, I take nothing on myself,” Lisa was murmuring.
“Obey your heart; only that will tell you the truth,” Lavretsky interrupted her. “Experience, prudence, all that is dust and ashes! Do not deprive yourself of the best, of the sole happiness on earth.”
“Do you say that, Fedor Ivanitch? You yourself married for love, and were you happy?”
Lavretsky threw up his arms.
“Ah, don’t talk about me! You can’t even understand all that a young, inexperienced, badly brought-up boy may mistake for love! Indeed though, after all, why should I be unfair to myself? I told you just now that I had not had happiness. No! I was not happy!”
“It seems to me, Fedor Ivanitch,” Lisa murmured in a low voice — when she did not agree with the person whom she was talking, she always dropped her voice; and now too she was deeply moved —“happiness on earth does not depend on ourselves.”
“On ourselves, ourselves, believe me” (he seized both her hands; Lisa grew pale and almost with terror but still steadfastly looked at him): “if only we do not ruin our lives. For some people marriage for love may be unhappiness; but not for you, with your calm temperament, and your clear soul; I beseech you, do not marry without love, from a sense of duty, self-sacrifice, or anything . . . . That is infidelity, that is mercenary, and worse still. Believe me,— I have the right to say so; I have paid dearly for the right. And if your God —.”
At that instant Lavretsky noticed that Lenotchka and Shurotchka were standing near Lisa, and staring in dumb amazement at him. He dropped Lisa’s hands, saying hurriedly, “I beg your pardon,” and turned away towards the house.
“One thing only I beg of you,” he added, returning again to Lisa; “don’t decide at once, wait a little, think of what I have said to you. Even if you don’t believe me, even if you did decide on a marriage of prudence — even in that case you mustn’t marry Panshin. He can’t be your husband. You will promise me not to be in a hurry, won’t you?”
Lisa tried to answer Lavretsky, but she did not utter a word — not because she was resolved to “be in a hurry,” but because her heart was beating too violently and a feeling, akin to terror, stopped her breath.