In spite of Velchaninoff’s apparently happy day, the feeling of annoyance
and suffering at his heart had hardly actually left him for a single
moment. Before he sang the song he had not known what to do with himself,
or suppressed anger and melancholy—perhaps that was the reason why he had
sung with so much feeling and passion.
“To think that I could so have lowered myself as to forget everything!” he
thought—and then despised himself for thinking it; “it is more humiliating
still to cry over what is done,” he continued. “Far better to fly into a
passion with someone instead.”
“Fool!” he muttered—looking askance at Pavel Pavlovitch, who sat beside
him as still as a mouse. Pavel Pavlovitch preserved a most obstinate
silence—probably concentrating and ranging his energies. He occasionally
took his hat off, impatiently, and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead.
Once—and once only—Pavel spoke, to the coachman, he asked whether there
was going to be a thunder-storm.
“Wheugh!” said the man, “I should think so! It’s been a steamy day—just
the day for it!”
By the time town was reached—half-past ten—the whole sky was overcast.
“I am coming to your house,” said Pavel to Velchaninoff, when almost at
the door.
“Quite so; but I warn you, I feel very unwell to-night!”
“All right—I won’t stay too long.”
When the two men passed under the gateway, Pavel Pavlovitch disappeared
into the ’dvornik’s’ room for a minute, to speak to Mavra.
“What did you go in there for?” asked Velchaninoff severely as they
mounted the stairs and reached his own door.
“Oh—nothing—nothing at all,—just to tell them about the coachman.——”
“Very well. Mind, I shall not allow you to drink!”
Pavel Pavlovitch did not answer.
Velchaninoff lit a candle, while Pavel threw himself into a chair;—then
the former came and stood menacingly before him.
“I may have told you I should have _my_ last word to say to-night, as well
as you!” he said with suppressed anger in his voice and manner: “Here it
is. I consider conscientiously that things are square between you and me,
now; and therefore there is no more to be said, understand me, about
_anything_. Since this is so, had you not better go, and let me close the
door after you?”
“Let’s cry ‘quits’ first, Alexey Ivanovitch,” said Pavel Pavlovitch,
gazing into Velchaninoff’s eyes with great sweetness.
“Quits?” cried the latter, in amazement; “you strange man, what are we to
cry quits about? Are you harping upon your promise of a ‘last word’?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, we have nothing more to cry quits for. We have been quits long
since,” said Velchaninoff.
“Dear me, do you really think so?” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, in a shrill,
sharp voice, pressing his two hands tightly together, finger to finger, as
he held them up before his breast.
Velchaninoff said nothing. He rose from his seat and began to walk up and
down the room. The word “Liza” resounded through and through his soul like
the voice of a bell.
“Well, what is there that you still consider unsettled between us?” he
asked at last, looking angrily at Pavel, who had never ceased to follow
him with his eyes—always holding his hands before his breast, finger tip
to finger tip.
“Don’t go down there any more,” said Pavel, almost in a whisper, and
rising from his seat with every indication of humble entreaty.
“_What!_ is _that_ all?” cried Velchaninoff, bursting into an angry laugh;
“good heavens, man, you have done nothing but surprise me all day.” He had
begun in a tone of exasperation, but he now abruptly changed both voice
and expression, and continued with an air of deep feeling. “Listen,” he
said, “listen to me. I don’t think I have ever felt so deeply humiliated
as I am feeling now, in consequence of the events of to-day. In the first
place, that I should have condescended to go down with you at all, and in
the second place, all that happened there. It has been such a day of
pettifogging—pitiful pettifogging. I have profaned and lowered myself by
taking a share in it all, and forgetting——Well, it’s done now. But look
here—you fell upon me to-day, unawares—upon a sick man. Oh, you needn’t
excuse yourself; at all events I shall certainly _not_ go there again. I
have not the slightest interest in so doing,” he concluded, with an air of
decision.
“No, really!” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, making no secret of his delight and
exultation.
Velchaninoff glanced contemptuously at him, and recommenced his march up
and down the room.
“You have determined to be happy under any circumstances, I suppose?” he
observed, after a pause. He could not resist making the remark
disdainfully.
“Yes, I have,” said Pavel, quietly.
“It’s no business of mine that he’s a fool and a knave, out of pure
idiocy!” thought Velchaninoff. “I can’t help hating him, though I feel
that he is not even worth hating.”
“I’m a permanent husband,” said Pavel Pavlovitch, with the most
exquisitely servile irony, at his own expense. “I remember you using that
expression, Alexey Ivanovitch, long ago, when you were with us at T——. I
remember many of your original phrases of that time, and when you spoke of
‘permanent husbands,’ the other day, I recollected the expression.”
At this point Mavra entered the room with a bottle of champagne and two
glasses.
“Forgive me, Alexey Ivanovitch,” said Pavel, “you know I can’t get on
without it. Don’t consider it an audacity on my part—think of it as a mere
bit of by-play unworthy your notice.”
“Well,” consented Velchaninoff, with a look of disgust, “but I must remind
you that I don’t feel well, and that—”
“One little moment—I’ll go at once, I really will—I _must_ just drink
_one_ glass, my throat is so——”
He seized the bottle eagerly, and poured himself out a glass, drank it
greedily at a gulp, and sat down. He looked at Velchaninoff almost
tenderly.
“What a nasty looking beast!” muttered the latter to himself.
“It’s all her friends that make her like that,” said Pavel, suddenly, with
animation.
“What? Oh, you refer to the lady. I——”
“And, besides, she is so very young still, you see,” resumed Pavel. “I
shall be her slave—she shall see a little society, and a bit of the world.
She will change, sir, entirely.”
“I mustn’t forget to give him back the bracelet, by-the-bye,” thought
Velchaninoff, frowning, as he felt for the case in his coat pocket.
“You said just now that I am determined to be happy, Alexey Ivanovitch,”
continued Pavel, confidentially, and with almost touching earnestness. “I
_must_ marry, else what will become of me? You see for yourself” (he
pointed to the bottle), “and that’s only a hundredth part of what I demean
myself to nowadays. I cannot get on without marrying again, sir; I _must_
have a new faith. If I can but believe in some one again, sir, I shall
rise—I shall be saved.”
“Why are you telling _me_ all this?” exclaimed Velchaninoff, very nearly
laughing in his face; it seemed so absurdly inconsistent.
“Look here,” he continued, roaring the words out, “let me know now, once
for all, why did you drag me down there? what good was I to do you there?”
“I—I wished to try——,” began Pavel, with some confusion.
“Try what?”
“The effect, sir. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, I have only been visiting
there a week” (he grew more and more confused), “and yesterday, when I met
you, I thought to myself that I had never seen her yet in society; that
is, in the society of other _men_ besides myself—a stupid idea, I know it
is—I was very anxious to try—you know my wretchedly jealous nature.” He
suddenly raised his head and blushed violently.
“He _can’t_ be telling me the truth!” thought Velchaninoff; he was struck
dumb with surprise.
“Well, go on!” he muttered at last.
“Well, I see it was all her pretty childish nature, sir—that and her
friends together. You must forgive my stupid conduct towards yourself
to-day, Alexey Ivanovitch. I will never do it again—never again, sir, I
assure you!”
“I shall never be there to give you the opportunity,” replied Velchaninoff
with a laugh.
“That’s partly why I say it,” said Pavel.
“Oh, come! I’m not the only man in the world you know!” said the other
irritably.
“I am sorry to hear you say that, Alexey Ivanovitch. My esteem for Nadejda
is such that I——”
“Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I meant nothing, I assure you! Only it
surprises me that you should have expected so much of me—that you trusted
me so completely.”
“I trusted you entirely, sir, solely on account of—all that has passed.”
“So that you still consider me the most honourable of men?” Velchaninoff
paused, the naïve nature of his sudden question surprised even himself.
“I always did think you that, sir!” said Pavel, hanging his head.
“Of course, quite so—I didn’t mean quite that—I wanted to say, in spite of
all prejudices you may have formed, you——”
“Yes, in spite of all prejudices!”
“And when you first came to Petersburg?” asked Velchaninoff, who himself
felt the monstrosity of his own inquisitive questions, but could not
resist putting them.
“I considered you the most honourable of men when I first came to
Petersburg, sir; no less. I always respected you, Alexey Ivanovitch!”
Pavel Pavlovitch raised his eyes and looked at his companion without the
smallest trace of confusion.
Velchaninoff suddenly felt cowed and afraid. He was anxious that nothing
should result—nothing disagreeable—from this conversation, since he
himself was responsible for having initiated it.
“I loved you, Alexey Ivanovitch; all that year at T—— I loved you—you did
not observe it,” continued Pavel Pavlovitch, his voice trembling with
emotion, to the great discomfiture of his companion. “You did not observe
my affection, because I was too lowly a being to deserve any sort of
notice; but it was unnecessary that you should observe my love. Well, sir,
and all these nine years I have thought of you, for I have never known
such a year of life as that year was.” (Pavel’s eyes seemed to have a
special glare in them at this point.) “I remembered many of your sayings
and expressions, sir, and I thought of you always as a man imbued with the
loftiest sentiments, and gifted with knowledge and intellect, sir—of the
highest order—a man of grand ideas. ‘Great ideas do not proceed so
frequently from greatness of intellect, as from elevation of taste and
feeling.’ You yourself said that, sir, once. I dare say you have forgotten
the fact, but you did say it. Therefore I always thought of you, sir, as a
man of taste and feeling; consequently I concluded—consequently I trusted
you, in spite of everything.”
Pavel Pavlovitch’s chin suddenly began to tremble. Velchaninoff was
frightened out of his wits. This unexpected tone must be put an end to at
all hazards.
“Enough, Pavel Pavlovitch!” he said softly, blushing violently and with
some show of irritation. “And why—why (Velchaninoff suddenly began to
shout passionately)—why do you come hanging round the neck of a sick man,
a worried man—a man who is almost out of his wits with fever and annoyance
of all sorts, and drag him into this abyss of lies and mirage and vision
and shame—and unnatural, disproportionate, distorted nonsense! Yes, sir,
that’s the most shameful part of the whole business—the disproportionate
nonsense of what you say! You know it’s all humbug; both of us are mean
wretches—both of us; and if you like I’ll prove to you at once that not
only you don’t love me, but that you loathe and hate me with all your
heart, and that you are a liar, whether you know it or not! You took me
down to see your bride, not—not a bit in the world to try how she would
behave in the society of other men—absurd idea!—You simply saw me,
yesterday, and your vile impulse led you to carry me off there in order
that you might show me the girl, and say, as it were. There, look at that!
She’s to be mine! Try your hand _there_ if you can! It was nothing but
your challenge to me! You may not have known it, but this was so, as I
say; and you felt the impulse which I have described. Such a challenge
could not be made without hatred; consequently you hate me.”
Velchaninoff almost _rushed_ up and down the room as he shouted the above
words; and with every syllable the humiliating consciousness that he was
allowing himself to descend to the level of Pavel Pavlovitch afflicted him
and tormented him more and more!
“I was only anxious to be at peace with you, Alexey Ivanovitch!” said
Pavel sadly, his chin and lips working again.
Velchaninoff flew into a violent rage, as if he had been insulted in the
most unexampled manner.
“I tell you once more, sir,” he cried, “that you have attached yourself to
a sick and irritated man, in order that you may surprise him into saying
something unseemly in his madness! We are, I tell you, man, we are men of
different worlds. Understand me! between us two there is a grave,” he
hissed in his fury, and stopped.
“And how do you know,—sir,” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, his face suddenly
becoming all twisted, and deadly white to look at, as he strode up to
Velchaninoff, “how do you know what that grave means to me, sir, here!”
(He beat his breast with terrible earnestness, droll though he looked.)
“Yes, sir, we both stand on the brink of the grave, but on my side there
is more, sir, than on yours—yes, more, more, more!” he hissed, beating his
breast without pause—“more than on yours—the grave means more to me than
to you!”
But at this moment a loud ring at the bell brought both men to their
senses. Someone was ringing so loud that the bell-wire was in danger of
snapping.
“People don’t ring like that for me, observed Velchaninoff angrily.”
“No more they do for me, sir! I assure you they don’t!” said Pavel
Pavlovitch anxiously. He had become the quiet timid Pavel again in a
moment. Velchaninoff frowned and went to open the door.
“Mr. Velchaninoff, if I am not mistaken?” said a strange voice, apparently
belonging to some young and very self-satisfied person, at the door.
“What is it?”
“I have been informed that Mr. Trusotsky is at this moment in your rooms.
I must see him at once.”
Velchaninoff felt inclined to send this self-satisfied looking young
gentleman flying downstairs again; but he reflected—refrained, stood aside
and let him in.
“Here is Mr. Trusotsky. Come in.”