How he passed this long, terrible Sunday afternoon, what he did
during these endless hours, Nikolai could later not have told. He
walked--walked without looking round, like a man who has no more aim in
the world, who seeks nothing but weariness.
If she had given him a friendly word! But no! He does not understand,
does not understand! Somewhere there is a secret.
It is dark when he returns to the Hotel Westminster. He finds his
servant in the middle of his room, on his knees before an open trunk.
Clothes hang over all the chair backs. Nikolai remembers that he is to
travel to-morrow evening. At first he wishes impatiently to send away
the servant, who conscientiously questions him about the packing. Then
he draws himself up. Life must still be borne, even if there were no
more joy in it. He gives orders as to the arrangement of his things.
The windows of his room are open. A carriage stops before the hotel.
That voice! He leans out of the window, but sees nothing but an open
cab; from without approaches a step, the door opens, Lensky enters.
"Colia!" The musician's rough voice expressed such hearty, violent joy
that Nikolai quite forgets his despair. Never before has he had the
feeling of close, intimate relationship with his father so warmly as
now. With unspeakable joy his gaze rests on the old artist. It seems to
him as if there were something new, noble about him. He has grown thin,
the furrows in his forehead are deeper, his hair is gray. He has aged
greatly. But how well it becomes him! The lovable, benevolent
expression of the lips, the patient, one might almost say pardoning,
sadness of his gaze.
"Father! You--what a surprise!" fairly rejoices Nikolai, and rushes in
the arms which his father stretches out to him. And Lensky, however
spoiled he is otherwise, each time rejoices anew when his children show
their love for him.
"I came upon the message which you sent me of your transferment. I
wished to be with you at least twenty-four hours before you leave.
Naturally you have already dined. I have ordered the waiter to bring my
supper up here, that is, if I am welcome to my son. Send away your
valet," with a glance over his shoulder at the servant; "we will wait
on ourselves. We could go down-stairs, but then Braun would appear with
my travelling accounts, and--and we would like to be alone, my boy,
eh?"
The waiter has come and covered a little table and placed upon it tea
and cold meat, whereupon he goes. Lensky pours tea. "You will take a
cup, Colia? One can always drink tea."
And Nikolai, to whom until then the thought of taking any nourishment
to-day had caused a true horror, sets his lips to the cup.
"I hope that you have much to tell me," says Lensky, good-naturedly.
"In your letter there was indeed much; I have sufficiently questioned
you, have I not? But still not all that I would like to know. Mascha,
little rascal, did not write at all. Apropos, what is the matter with
the silly girl? I drove to her directly from the station. She is
completely changed. I had so looked forward to seeing her. She was
fresh and crisp as a moss-rosebud when I left in January, and now she
is flabby and yellow as a withered flower left forgotten in a glass.
She is no longer even pretty, our little beauty! What is the matter?"
Lensky lays down knife and fork, and looks uneasily, questioningly, at
Nikolai. "You wrote me nothing of it," he continues; "and still you
must have noticed the change in her."
"What use to write you of it? I consulted a physician; he ordered
something for her which had no effect. Her condition is not dangerous,
only tediously unpleasant--anaemia in a high degree, nothing else. Why
worry you?"
"Anaemia! It is incredible that I should have an anaemic daughter. Poor
Mascha!" said Lensky. "Well, I drove to the Avenue Wagram, pleased at
the thought of seeing my gay, vivacious darling, like the old child
that I am. 'Mademoiselle Lensky at home?' asked I. 'Yes; she is in the
garden.' There sits something wrapped in a shawl, shivering and bent
over her folded hands; a pale thing, with black circles around her
eyes. At first I did not recognize her; then, 'Maschenka,' said I, 'my
little dove, my soul!' If you perhaps believe that she rushed in my
arms with the little bird-cry which you know--of all the music in the
world, that little cry was perhaps the dearest--far from it! She
started, quite as if I had frightened her, came very slowly up to me,
gave me her cheek. When I wished to inquire the cause of her change,
she grew irritable and excited; she was not well, she said; she had a
headache--would lie down. But when I prepared to go, she clung to my
neck and sobbed, oh! so bitterly. I could not calm her at all. She was
alone at home. The Jeliagins were dining out. They must have left her
much alone."
He is silent awhile; then, throwing back his head, and in an obstinate
tone, as if he wished to cut short some one's argument, he said:
"Anaemia! She must have some unhappy love affair. It is too foolish,
just like any other girl! And I thought it must need, at least, a
Siegfried to unsettle my daughter. Now I have it!" He pushes the hair
back from his temples with both hands, and sighs with humorous
exaggeration. "Do you know who is in her mind? She certainly did not
wish to confess to me."
"I really did not know," stammered Nikolai, uneasily, "if she had an
interest--" He suddenly ceases.
"It is evidently one-sided," said Lensky. "But, even then, it needs a
cause. Has no one, then, made love to her?"
"I have noticed nothing," says Nikolai, growing more embarrassed. He
knows what a burst of rage against aristocrats the mention of the only
reason he could give for Mascha's unhappiness would call forth from his
father.
"Poor thing!" grumbles Lensky. "And one must have a pair of such pretty
eyes only to attain that!"
"You must not take it so seriously," consoles Nikolai. "A little
distraction, one of the water-cures. Aunt Barbara spoke of St.
Maurice."
"Ah, yes; and she will probably sacrifice herself," says Lensky, with a
grim laugh. "But none of that. I will not leave my poor little dove any
longer to strange oversight. If the child must go to St. Maurice, I
will go with her. If only these stupid, insolent women would not follow
me everywhere! I am so weary of that, so heartily weary. You are
astonished! Yes, it has suddenly dawned upon me that it is all
over--all--I am old. Ah! how pleasant it is to be old, no longer
perpetually to have a storm in one's veins, to be able to calmly
rejoice in those whom one loves." He laughs, and takes Nikolai
good-naturedly by the arm. "Well, now, about your great affair. When
shall I learn to know my daughter-in-law? You are not the only one who
raves about her. Lady Banbury swears by no one more than by her. I
wrote you it. I knew it would please you. I was very foolish with my
mistrust. Why do you say nothing? How do matters stand between you?"
"How do they stand?" murmurs Nikolai, dully, half confused, as one who
has suddenly been awakened from a peaceful dream. "How do they stand?"
"Well?" says Lensky, becoming impatient, harshly.
Nikolai passes his hand slowly here and there over the table-cloth,
coughs, says nothing. Lensky takes the shade from the lamp, bends down,
squints, looks in a pale face with a stiff, unexpressive smile on the
lips.
He strikes his fist on the table so that everything rattles. "That is
not to be borne!" cries he, springs up, and walks up and down the room.
He hums some musical motive to himself, does not finish it, then turns
again to Nikolai. "You are not a whit better than Mascha," grumbles he.
"So, have I looked forward to that!" He sits down again opposite
Nikolai, and vexedly pushes his plate away. "Nothing but
unpleasantness! Scarcely had I reached Paris when an acquaintance met
me at the station. 'Do you know that your _protege_, Bulatow, has
hanged himself?' cries he, naturally to please me; and then a relation
of particulars: the most absolute need; he had eaten nothing for three
days; his wife half mad with grief; they were too proud to beg--yes,
yes, proud--they were not too proud with me, if I had not shown him the
door! I would like to cudgel Braun; as if I were happier for the few
hundred rubles which he saved me! Then I hurry to Mascha to enliven me,
find a hysteric, leaden-footed, melancholy being, and now--it is enough
to make one beside himself! Out with it! Why do you make a face as if
chickens had eaten your bread? What about your love affair?"
His tone is rough, quite harsh. He belongs to the men who at times
ill-treat their kin from rage at not being able to make them happy.
"She has refused me, to-day, that is all," murmured Nikolai, turning
away his head, as if in shame.
"Refused--you!" bursts out Lensky; then uneasy, confused, he draws his
chair nearer to Nikolai's. "Refused you! I do not understand it!"
Suddenly he takes his son's head between his hands, and looking at him
with quite childish pride in his beautiful eyes, he cries out: "But
that is absurd, boundlessly absurd! What will she, then, the princess,
if my splendid boy is not good enough for her? No; do not think
anything of it, my boy. Hold up your head, it was a misunderstanding!"
"Really--certainly! It is only the first time," murmurs Nikolai, with
the same stiff smile. Then suddenly, with a gasping sob, which shakes
his whole frame, he buries his face in his crossed arms on the table.
"Colia! Nikolinka! Poor boy, poor fellow!" murmurs Lensky, stroking his
head very gently. "So it cuts so deep. See, I do not understand it. At
first I was only vexed, reviled her because she wounded my paternal
pride. But if you really love her so, we will consider the affair more
closely. You poor fellow, you are quite beside yourself, and all on
account of a woman! I never suffered so. I really cannot feel for you.
Truly, if your mother had not wished me at that time in Rome! But she
was the only one; except her, they were all alike to me. I always said
one woman was only like the others. You shake your head, you are right;
it is nonsense; but one always speaks so when one is vexed. Heavens!
if any one permitted himself to tell me that my Mascha is no better
than--but that does not belong here; we wish to speak of your affairs.
I cannot believe that a girl could refuse you unless there was some one
else whom she loved."
"It still seems to be the case," said Nikolai, who now, having mastered
his unmanly weakness, calmly listened to his father.
"There must be some misunderstanding," says Lensky, thoughtfully.
"Especially as, if your letters told the truth, she did not seem to
repel you, but rather encouraged you to repeat your visits to the
studio. Tell me--there were always three of you, Sonia was there--what
kind of a _role_ did the little prude play between you?"
"What _role_?" Nikolai blushed. "None at all. We were always very
pleasant to each other; we love each other quite like brother and
sister."
"So! And the other one loves her?"
"She cares for her as the tenderest mother."
"H-m! And she refused you to-day?"
"Yes; how often do you wish to hear it from me? My God, if she had said
a kind word to me, but she fairly drove me away!" Nikolai's eyes
sparkle quite angrily; then he adds, slowly, heavily, but speaking
plainly: "I let myself be so carried away as to kiss her hand, and she
shook me off as if she had a horror of me."
"So; did she? The simpleton! Do you really believe that a girl would so
rudely refuse a boy like you if she were quite sure of her heart?
Torment yourself no more, Colia."
"Father!"
"The thing is plain; she sacrifices herself from friendship for Sonia.
You have done a fine thing, you shy lover, you." Lensky laughs. "Never
mind, we will set it all right. To-morrow, in the course of the day, I
will speak with her, and, if she pleases me--you must grant me that
condition, my dear--if she pleases me, then," stretching out both hands
to the young man, "what reward shall I obtain if I win your plaything
for you?"
Colia did not answer, only buried his long, slender hands in his
father's.
"The first kiss of your betrothed, do you hear, the first," jests
Lensky. "I will not do it for less. You shall only receive the second."
"Yes, father."
"Fine!" Lensky has risen. "It is almost midnight; go to bed. When do
you set out?"
"To-morrow evening at nine, to Calais."
"If I bring you a happy message, will you not concede another
twenty-four hours?"
Nikolai only smiles thoughtfully.
"Now be of good courage, you childish fellow; dream the most beautiful
dreams, consoled. I will manage my affair well; and I will not tell her
that I have seen you weep like a little girl on her account." This he
whispers in his ear, while he once more embraces him before retiring.
This evening no one might have dared remind Nikolai of any of the
excesses which he had formerly, not without bitterness, reproached his
father with. All that had ever offended him in the great artist he had
forgotten. To-day he understood the boundless love which his mother,
despite all the injuries he had done her, had felt for this man. "What
a wonderful man," he murmurs, "what a golden heart!"
He was really a wonderful man in his way, and generously good. Few knew
how good he was. Like most prominent men, in the course of his life he
had been much calumniated, by no one with more convincing cleverness
than by himself. Roused by the flattery which he met everywhere to
angry opposition, he ascribed his noblest actions to the lowest
motives, and flatly denied every lofty emotion; and, as the Russian
national peculiarity of self-depreciation is quite unknown in Western
Europe, his listeners took all that he said about himself as plain
truth.
But, indeed, he was a thoroughly large-hearted man, and unusually
conscientious to his colleagues. One could not charge him with
smallness, or any trace of pitiful envy. He had injured few men but
himself. He had never crushed a weaker than he in order to take his
place, but, on the contrary, was always ready to raise all strugglers
and cordially give them his hand.
Bulatow's suicide had deeply concerned him. While Nikolai slept
peacefully, Lensky did not close his eyes. Incessantly the thought of
the unfortunate whom he had driven from his door the last time he had
applied to him for a loan pursued him--the thought of the dead, and of
his widow, half mad with grief.
When he joined Nikolai at breakfast the next morning he looked
miserably, and the first that he said to his son was: "I have thought
over your affair; everything confirms my suspicion. You need have no
fear, my poor boy, but you must have a little patience. With the best
will I cannot visit her this morning. I must go to this poor Bulatow
and see how things are with her, what she will let me do for her; I
cannot bear the thought of her misery."