On the following day at twelve o’clock, Lavretsky set off to the
Kalitins. On the way he met Panshin, who galloped past him on horseback,
his hat pulled down to his very eyebrows. At the Kalitins’, Lavretsky
was not admitted for the first time since he had been acquainted with
them. Marya Dmitrievna was “resting,” so the footman informed him; her
excellency had a headache. Marfa Timofyevna and Lisaveta Mihalovna were
not at home. Lavretsky walked round the garden in the faint hope of
meeting Lisa, but he saw no one. He came back two hours later and
received the same answer, accompanied by a rather dubious look from the
footman. Lavretsky thought it would be unseemly to call for a third time
the same day, and he decided to drive over to Vassilyevskoe, where he
had business moreover. On the road he made various plans for the future,
each better than the last; but he was overtaken by a melancholy mood
when he reached his aunt’s little village. He fell into conversation
with Anton; the old man, as if purposely, seemed full of cheerless
fancies. He told Lavretsky how, at her death, Glafira Petrovna had
bitten her own arm, and after a brief pause, added with a sigh: “Every
man, dear master, is destined to devour himself.” It was late when
Lavretsky set off on the way back. He was haunted by the music of
the day before, and Lisa’s image returned to him in all its sweet
distinctness; he mused with melting tenderness over the thought that she
loved him, and reached his little house in the town, soothed and happy.
The first thing that struck him as he went into the entrance hall was
a scent of patchouli, always distasteful to him; there were some high
travelling-trunks standing there. The face of his groom, who ran out
to meet him, seemed strange to him. Not stopping to analyse his
impressions, he crossed the threshold of the drawing room.... On his
entrance there rose from the sofa a lady in a black silk dress with
flounces, who, raising a cambric handkerchief to her pale face, made a
few paces forward, bent her carefully dressed, perfumed head, and fell
at his feet.... Then, only, he recognised her: this lady was his wife!
He caught his breath.... He leaned against the wall.
“Théodore, do not repulse me!” she said in French, and her voice cut to
his heart like a knife.
He looked at her senselessly, and yet he noticed involuntarily at once
that she had grown both whiter and fatter.
“Théodore!” she went on, from time to time lifting her eyes and
discreetly wringing her marvellously-beautiful fingers with their rosy,
polished nails. “Théodore, I have wronged you, deeply wronged you; I
will say more, I have sinned: but hear me; I am tortured by remorse, I
have grown hateful to myself, I could endure my position no longer; how
many times have I thought of turning to you, but I feared your anger;
I resolved to break every tie with the past.... Puis j’ai été si
malade.... I have been so ill,” she added, and passed her hand over
her brow and cheek. “I took advantage of the widely-spread rumour of my
death, I gave up everything; without resting day or night I hastened
hither; I hesitated long to appear before you, my judge... paraître
devant vous, mon juge; but I resolved at last, remembering your constant
goodness, to come to you; I found your address at Moscow. Believe me,”
she went on, slowly getting up from the floor and sitting on the very
edge of an arm-chair, “I have often thought of death, and I should have
found courage enough to take my life... ah! life is a burden unbearable
for me now!... but the thought of my daughter, my little Ada, stopped
me. She is here, she is asleep in the next room, the poor child! She is
tired--you shall see her; she at least has done you no wrong, and I am
so unhappy, so unhappy!” cried Madame Lavretsky, and she melted into
tears.
Lavretsky came to himself at last; he moved away from the wall and
turned towards the door.
“You are going?” cried his wife in a voice of despair. “Oh, this is
cruel! Without uttering one word to me, not even a reproach. This
contempt will kill me, it is terrible!”
Lavretsky stood still.
“What do you want to hear from me?” he articulated in an expressionless
voice.
“Nothing, nothing,” she rejoined quickly, “I know I have no right to
expect anything; I am not mad, believe me; I do not hope, I do not dare
to hope for your forgiveness; I only venture to entreat you to command
me what I am to do, where I am to live. Like a slave I will fulfil your
commands whatever they may be.”
“I have no commands to give you,” replied Lavretsky in the same
colourless voice; “you know, all is over between us... and now more
than ever; you can live where you like; and if your allowance is too
little--”
“Ah, don’t say such dreadful things,” Varvara Pavlovna interrupted him,
“spare me, if only... if only for the sake of this angel.” And as she
uttered these words, Varvara Pavlovna ran impulsively into the next
room, and returned at once with a small and very elegantly dressed
little girl in her arms.
Thick flaxen curls fell over her pretty rosy little face, and on to her
large sleepy black eyes; she smiled and blinked her eyes at the light
and laid a chubby little hand on her mother’s neck.
“Ada, vois, c’est ton père,” said Varvara Pavlovna, pushing the curls
back from her eyes and kissing her vigorously, “prie le avec moi.”
“C’est ça, papa?” stammered the little girl lisping.
“Oui, mon enfant, n’est-ce pas que tu l’aimes?”
But this was more than Lavretsky could stand.
“In such a melodrama must there really be a scene like this?” he
muttered, and went out of the room.
Varvara Pavlovna stood still for some time in the same place, slightly
shrugged her shoulders, carried the little girl off into the next room,
undressed her and put her to bed. Then she took up a book and sat down
near the lamp, and after staying up for an hour she went to bed herself.
“Eh bien, madame?” queried her maid, a Frenchwoman whom she had brought
from Paris, as she unlaced her corset.
“Eh bien, Justine,” she replied, “he is a good deal older, but I fancy he
is just the same good-natured fellow. Give me my gloves for the night,
and get out my grey high-necked dress for to-morrow, and don’t forget
the mutton cutlets for Ada.... I daresay it will be difficult to get
them here; but we must try.”
“A la guerre comme à la guerre,” replied Justine as she put out the
candle.