Pavel Pavlovitch was not thinking of “running away,” and goodness knows
why Velchaninoff should have asked him such a question last night—he did
not know himself why he had said it!
He was directed to the Petrofsky Hotel, and found the building at once. At
the hotel he was told that Pavel Pavlovitch had now engaged a furnished
lodging in the back part of the same house.
Mounting the dirty and narrow stairs indicated, as far as the third
storey, he suddenly became aware of someone crying. It sounded like the
weeping of a child of some seven or eight years of age; it was a bitter,
but a more or less suppressed sort of crying, and with it came the sound
of a grown man’s voice, apparently trying to quiet the child—anxious that
its sobbing and crying should not be heard,—and yet only succeeding in
making it cry the louder.
The man’s voice did not seem in any way sympathetic with the child’s
grief; and the latter appeared to be begging for forgiveness.
Making his way into a narrow dark passage with two doors on each side of
it, Velchaninoff met a stout-looking, elderly woman, in very careless
morning attire, and inquired for Pavel Pavlovitch.
She tapped the door with her fingers in response to his inquiry—the same
door, apparently, whence issued the noises just mentioned. Her fat face
seemed to flush with indignation as she did so.
“He appears to be amusing himself in there!” she said, and proceeded
downstairs.
Velchaninoff was about to knock, but thought better of it and opened the
door without ceremony.
In the very middle of a room furnished with plain, but abundant furniture,
stood Pavel Pavlovitch in his shirt-sleeves, very red in the face, trying
to persuade a little girl to do something or other, and using cries and
gestures, and what looked to Velchaninoff very like kicks, in order to
effect his purpose. The child appeared to be some seven or eight years of
age, and was poorly dressed in a short black stuff frock. She seemed to be
in a most hysterical condition, crying and stretching out her arms to
Pavel Pavlovitch, as though begging and entreating him to allow her to do
whatever it might be she desired.
On Velchaninoff’s appearance the scene changed in an instant. No sooner
did her eyes fall on the visitor than the child made for the door of the
next room, with a cry of alarm; while Pavel Pavlovitch—thrown out for one
little instant—immediately relaxed into smiles of great sweetness—exactly
as he had done last night, when Velchaninoff suddenly opened his front
door and caught him standing outside.
“Alexey Ivanovitch!” he cried in real surprise; “who ever would have
thought it! Sit down—sit down—take the sofa—or this chair,—sit down, my
dear sir! I’ll just put on——” and he rushed for his coat and threw it on,
leaving his waistcoat behind.
“Don’t stand on ceremony with me,” said Velchaninoff sitting down; “stay
as you are!”
“No, sir, no! excuse me—I insist upon standing on ceremony. There, now!
I’m a little more respectable! Dear me, now, who ever would have thought
of seeing _you_ here!—not I, for one!”
Pavel Pavlovitch sat down on the edge of a chair, which he turned so as to
face Velchaninoff.
“And pray _why_ shouldn’t you have expected me? I told you last night that
I was coming this morning!”
“I thought you wouldn’t come, sir—I did indeed; in fact, when I thought
over yesterday’s visit, I despaired of ever seeing you again: I did
indeed, sir!”
Velchaninoff glanced round the room meanwhile. The place was very untidy;
the bed was unmade; the clothes thrown about the floor; on the table were
two coffee tumblers with the dregs of coffee still in them, and a bottle
of champagne half finished, and with a tumbler standing alongside it. He
glanced at the next room, but all was quiet there; the little girl had
hidden herself, and was as still as a mouse.
“You don’t mean to say you drink that stuff at this time of day?” he
asked, indicating the champagne bottle.
“It’s only a remnant,” explained Pavel Pavlovitch, a little confused.
“My word! You _are_ a changed man!”
“Bad habits, sir; and all of a sudden. All dating from that time, sir.
Give you my word, I couldn’t resist it. But I’m all right now—I’m not
drunk—I shan’t talk twaddle as I did last night; don’t be afraid sir, it’s
all right! From that very day, sir; give you my word it is! And if anyone
had told me half a year ago that I should become like this,—if they had
shown me my face in a glass then as I should be _now_, I should have given
them the lie, sir; I should indeed!”
“Hem! Then you _were_ drunk last night?”
“Yes—I was!” admitted Pavel Pavlovitch, a little guiltily—“not exactly
_drunk_, a little _beyond_ drunk!—I tell you this by way of explanation,
because I’m always worse _after_ being drunk! If I’m only a little drunk,
still the violence and unreasonableness of intoxication come out
afterwards, and stay out too; and then I feel my grief the more keenly. I
daresay my grief is responsible for my drinking. I am capable of making an
awful fool of myself and offending people when I’m drunk. I daresay I
seemed strange enough to you last night?”
“Don’t you remember what you said and did?”
“Assuredly I do—I remember everything!”
“Listen to me, Pavel Pavlovitch: I have thought it over and have come to
very much the same conclusion as you did yourself,” began Velchaninoff
gently; “besides—I believe I was a little too irritable towards you last
night—too impatient,—I admit it gladly; the fact is—I am not very well
sometimes, and your sudden arrival, you know, in the middle of the
night——”
“In the middle of the night: you are quite right—it was!” said Pavel
Pavlovitch, wagging his head assentingly; “how in the world could I have
brought myself to do such a thing? I shouldn’t have come in, though, if
you hadn’t opened the door. I should have gone as I came. I called on you
about a week ago, and did not find you at home, and I daresay I should
never have called again; for I am rather proud—Alexey Ivanovitch—in spite
of my present state. Whenever I have met you in the streets I have always
said to myself, ‘What if he doesn’t know me and rejects me—nine years is
no joke!’ and I did not dare try you for fear of being snubbed. Yesterday,
thanks to that sort of thing, you know,” (he pointed to the bottle), “I
didn’t know what time it was, and—it’s lucky you are the kind of man you
are, Alexey Ivanovitch, or I should despair of preserving your
acquaintance, after yesterday! You remember old times, Alexey Ivanovitch!”
Velchaninoff listened keenly to all this. The man seemed to be talking
seriously enough, and even with some dignity; and yet he had not believed
a single word that Pavel Pavlovitch had uttered from the very first moment
that he entered the room.
“Tell me, Pavel Pavlovitch,” said Velchaninoff at last, “—I see you are
not quite alone here,—whose little girl is that I saw when I came in?”
Pavel Pavlovitch looked surprised and raised his eyebrow; but he gazed
back at Velchaninoff with candour and apparent amiability:
“Whose little girl? Why that’s our Liza!” he said, smiling affably.
“What Liza?” asked Velchaninoff,—and something seemed to cause him to
shudder inwardly.
The sensation was dreadfully sudden. Just now, on entering the room and
seeing Liza, he had felt surprised more or less,—but had not been
conscious of the slightest feeling of presentiment,—indeed he had had no
special thought about the matter, at the moment.
“Why—_our_ Liza!—our daughter Liza!” repeated Pavel Pavlovitch, smiling.
“Your daughter? Do you mean to say that you and Natalia Vasilievna had
children?” asked Velchaninoff timidly, and in a very low tone of voice
indeed!
“Of course—but—what a fool I am—how in the world should _you_ know!
Providence sent us the gift after you had gone!”
Pavel Pavlovitch jumped off his chair in apparently pleasurable
excitement.
“I heard nothing of it!” said Velchaninoff, looking very pale.
“How should you? how should you?” repeated Pavel Pavlovitch with ineffable
sweetness. “We had quite lost hope of any children—as you may
remember,—when suddenly Heaven sent us this little one. And, oh! my
feelings—Heaven alone knows what I felt! Just a year after you went, I
think—no, wait a bit—not a year by a long way!—Let’s see, you left us in
October, or November, didn’t you?”
“I left T—— on the twelfth of September, I remember well.”
“Hum! September was it? Dear me! Well, then, let’s see—September, October,
November, December, January, February, March, April—to the 8th of May—that
was Liza’s birthday—eight months all but a bit; and if you could only have
seen the dear departed, how rejoiced——”
“Show her to me—call her in!” the words seemed to tear themselves from
Velchaninoff, whether he liked it or no.
“Certainly—this moment!” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, forgetting that he had
not finished his previous sentence, or ignoring the fact; and he hastily
left the room, and entered the small chamber adjoining.
Three or four minutes passed by, while Velchaninoff heard the rapid
interchange of whispers going on, and an occasional rather louder sound of
Liza’s voice, apparently entreating her father to leave her alone—so
Velchaninoff concluded.
At last the two came out.
“There you are—she’s dreadfully shy and proud,” said Pavel Pavlovitch;
“just like her mother.”
Liza entered the room without tears, but with eyes downcast, her father
leading her by the hand. She was a tall, slight, and very pretty little
girl. She raised her large blue eyes to the visitor’s face with curiosity;
but only glanced surlily at him, and dropped them again. There was that in
her expression that one always sees in children when they look on some new
guest for the first time—retiring to a corner, and looking out at him
thence seriously and mistrustingly; only that there was a something in her
manner beyond the usual childish mistrust—so, at least thought
Velchaninoff.
Her father brought her straight up to the visitor.
“There—this gentleman knew mother very well. He was our friend; you
mustn’t be shy,—give him your hand!”
The child bowed slightly, and timidly stretched out her hand.
“Natalia Vasilievna never would teach her to curtsey; she liked her to
bow, English fashion, and give her hand,” explained Pavel Pavlovitch,
gazing intently at Velchaninoff.
Velchaninoff knew perfectly well that the other was keenly examining him
at this moment, but he made no attempt to conceal his agitation: he sat
motionless on his chair and held the child’s hand in his, gazing into her
face the while.
But Liza was apparently much preoccupied, and did not take her eyes off
her father’s face; she listened timidly to every word he said.
Velchaninoff recognised her large blue eyes at once; but what specially
struck him was the refined pallor of her face, and the colour of her hair;
these traits were altogether too significant, in his eyes! Her features,
on the other hand, and the set of her lips, reminded him keenly of Natalia
Vasilievna. Meanwhile Pavel Pavlovitch was in the middle of some
apparently most interesting tale—one of great sentiment seemingly,—but
Velchaninoff did not hear a word of it until the last few words struck
upon his ear:
“... So that you can’t imagine what our joy was when Providence sent us
this gift, Alexey Ivanovitch! She was everything to me, for I felt that if
it should be the will of Heaven to deprive me of my other joy, I should
still have Liza left to me; that’s what I felt, sir, I did indeed!”
“And Natalia Vasilievna?” asked Velchaninoff.
“Oh, Natalia Vasilievna—” began Pavel Pavlovitch, smiling with one side of
his mouth; “she never used to like to say much—as you know yourself; but
she told me on her deathbed—deathbed! you know, sir—to the very day of her
death she used to get so angry and say that they were trying to cure her
with a lot of nasty medicines when she had nothing the matter but a simple
little feverish attack; and that when Koch arrived (you remember our old
doctor Koch?) he would make her all right in a fortnight. Why, five hours
before she died she was talking of fixing that day three weeks for a visit
to her Aunt, Liza’s godmother, at her country place!” Velchaninoff here
started from his seat, but still held the child’s hand. He could not help
thinking that there was something reproachful in the girl’s persistent
stare in her father’s face.
“Is she ill?” he asked hurriedly, and his voice had a strange tone in it.
“No! I don’t think so” said Pavel Pavlovitch; “but, you see our way of
living here, and all that: she’s a strange child and very nervous,
besides! After her mother’s death she was quite ill and hysterical for a
fortnight. Just before you came in she was crying like anything; and do
you know what about, sir? Do you hear me, Liza?—You listen!—Simply because
I was going out, and wished to leave her behind, and because she said I
didn’t love her so well as I used to in her mother’s time. That’s what she
pitches into me for! Fancy a child like this getting hold of such an
idea!—a child who ought to be playing at dolls, instead of developing
ideas of that sort! The thing is, she has no one to play with here.”
“Then—then—are you two quite alone here?”
“Quite! a servant comes in once a day, that’s all!”
“And when you go out, do you leave her quite alone?”
“Of course! What else am I to do? Yesterday I locked her in that room, and
that’s what all the tears were about this morning. What could I do? the
day before yesterday she went down into the yard all by herself, and a boy
took a shot at her head with a stone! Not only that, but she must needs go
and cling on to everybody she met, and ask where I had gone to! That’s not
so very pleasant, you see! But I oughtn’t to complain when I say I am
going out for an hour and then stay out till four in the morning, as I did
last night! The landlady came and let her out: she had the door broken
open! Nice for my feelings, eh! It’s all the result of the eclipse that
came over my life; nothing but that, sir!”
“Papa!” said the child, timidly and anxiously.
“Now, then! none of that again! What did I tell you yesterday?”
“I won’t; I won’t!” cried the child hurriedly, clasping her hands before
her entreatingly.
“Come! things can’t be allowed to go on in this way!” said Velchaninoff
impatiently, and with authority. “In the first place, you are a man of
property; how can you possibly live in a hole like this, and in such
disorder?”
“This place! Oh, but we shall probably have left this place within a week;
and I’ve spent a lot of money here, as it is, though I may be ’a man of
property;’ and——”
“Very well, that’ll do,” interrupted Velchaninoff with growing impatience,
“now, I’ll make you a proposition: you have just said that you intend to
stay another week—perhaps two. I have a house here—or rather I know a
family where I am as much at home as at my own fireside, and have been so
for twenty years. The family I mean is the Pogoryeltseffs—Alexander
Pavlovitch Pogoryeltseff is a state councillor (he may be of use to you in
your business!) They are now living in the country—they have a beautiful
country villa; Claudia Petrovna, the lady of the house, is like a
sister—like a mother to me; they have eight children. Let me take Liza
down to them without loss of time! they’ll receive her with joy, and
they’ll treat her like their own little daughter—they will, indeed!”
Velchaninoff was in a great hurry, and much excited, and he did not
conceal his feelings.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible!” said Pavel Pavlovitch with a grimace,
looking straight into his visitor’s eyes, very cunningly, as it seemed to
Velchaninoff.
“Why! why, impossible?”
“Oh, why! to let the child go—so suddenly, you know, of course with such a
sincere well-wisher as yourself—it’s not that!—but a strange house—and
such swells, too!—I don’t know whether they would receive her!”
“But I tell you I’m like a son of the house!” cried Velchaninoff, almost
angrily. “Claudia Petrovna will be delighted to take her, at one word from
me! She’d receive her as though she were my own daughter. Deuce take it,
sir, you know you are only humbugging me,—what’s the use of talking about
it?”
He stamped his foot.
“No—no! I mean to say—don’t it look a little strange? Oughtn’t I to call
once or twice first?—such a smart house as you say theirs is—don’t you
see——”
“I tell you it’s the simplest house in the world; it isn’t ‘smart’ in the
least bit,” cried Velchaninoff; “they have a lot of children: it will make
another girl of her!—I’ll introduce you there myself, to-morrow, if you
like. Of course you’ll have to go and thank them, and all that. You shall
go down every day with me, if you please.”
“Oh, but——”
“Nonsense! You know it’s nonsense! Now look here: you come to me this
evening—I’ll put you up for the night—and we’ll start off early to-morrow
and be down there by twelve.”
“Benefactor!—and I may spend the night at your house?” cried Pavel
Pavlovitch, instantly consenting to the plan with the greatest
cordiality,—“you are really _too_ good! And where’s their country house?”
“At the Liesnoy.”
“But look here, how about her dress? Such a house, you know,—a father’s
heart shrinks——”
“Nonsense!—she’s in mourning—what else could she wear but a black dress
like this? it’s exactly the thing; you couldn’t imagine anything more
so!—you might let her have some clean linen with her, and give her a
cleaner neck-handkerchief.”
“Directly, directly. We’ll get her linen together in a couple of
minutes—it’s just home from the wash!”
“Send for a carriage—can you? Tell them to let us have it at once, so as
not to waste time.”
But now an unexpected obstacle arose: Liza absolutely rejected the plan;
she had listened to it with terror, and if Velchaninoff had, in his
excited argument with Pavel Pavlovitch, had time to glance at the child’s
face, he would have observed her expression of absolute despair at this
moment.
“I won’t go!” she said, quietly but firmly.
“There—look at that! Just like her mamma!”
“I’m _not_ like mamma, I’m _not_ like mamma!” cried Liza, wringing her
little hands in despair. “Oh, papa—papa!” she added, “if you desert me—”
she suddenly threw herself upon the alarmed Velchaninoff—“If you take me
away—” she cried—“I’ll——”
But Liza had no time to finish her sentence, for Pavel Pavlovitch suddenly
seized her by the arm and collar and hustled her into the next room with
unconcealed rage. For several minutes Velchaninoff listened to the
whispering going on there,—whisperings and seemingly subdued crying on the
part of Liza. He was about to follow the pair, when suddenly out came
Pavel Pavlovitch, and stated—with a disagreeable grin—that Liza would come
directly.
Velchaninoff tried not to look at him and kept his eyes fixed on the other
side of the room.
The elderly woman whom Velchaninoff had met on the stairs also made her
appearance, and packed Liza’s things into a neat little carpet bag.
“Is it you that are going to take the little lady away, sir?” she asked;
“if so, you are doing a good deed! She’s a nice quiet child, and you are
saving her from goodness knows what, here!”
“Oh! come—Maria Sisevna,”—began Pavel Pavlovitch.
“Well? What? Isn’t it true! Arn’t you ashamed to let a girl of her
intelligence see the things that you allow to go on here? The carriage has
arrived for you, sir,—_you_ ordered one for the Liesnoy, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good luck to you!”
Liza came out, looking very pale and with downcast eyes; she took her bag,
but never glanced in Velchaninoff’s direction. She restrained herself and
did not throw herself upon her father, as she had done before—not even to
say good-bye. She evidently did not wish to look at him.
Her father kissed her and patted her head in correct form; her lip curled
during the operation, the chin trembled a little, but she did not raise
her eyes to her father’s.
Pavel Pavlovitch looked pale, and his hands shook; Velchaninoff saw that
plainly enough, although he did his best not to see the man at all. He
(Velchaninoff) had but one thought, and that was how to get away at once!
Downstairs was old Maria Sisevna, waiting to say good-bye; and more
kissing was done. Liza had just climbed into the carriage when suddenly
she caught sight of her father’s face; she gave a loud cry and wrung her
hands,—in another minute she would have been out of the carriage and away,
but luckily the vehicle went on and she was too late!