Litvinov felt much annoyed with himself, as though he had lost money at
roulette, or failed to keep his word. An inward voice told him that
he--on the eve of marriage, a man of sober sense, not a boy--ought not
to have given way to the promptings of curiosity, nor the allurements of
recollection. ‘Much need there was to go!’ he reflected. ‘On her side
simply flirtation, whim, caprice.... She’s bored, she’s sick of
everything, she clutched at me ... as some one pampered with dainties
will suddenly long for black bread ... well, that’s natural enough....
But why did I go? Can I feel anything but contempt for her?’ This last
phrase he could not utter even in thought without an effort.... ‘Of
course, there’s no kind of danger, and never could be,’ he pursued his
reflections. ‘I know whom I have to deal with. But still one ought not
to play with fire.... I’ll never set my foot in her place again.’
Litvinov dared not, or could not as yet, confess to himself how
beautiful Irina had seemed to him, how powerfully she had worked upon
his feelings.
Again the day passed dully and drearily. At dinner, Litvinov chanced to
sit beside a majestic _belhomme_, with dyed moustaches, who said
nothing, and only panted and rolled his eyes ... but, being suddenly
taken with a hiccup, proved himself to be a fellow-countryman, by at
once exclaiming, with feeling, in Russian, ‘There, I said I ought not to
eat melons!’ In the evening, too, nothing happened to compensate for a
lost day; Bindasov, before Litvinov’s very eyes, won a sum four times
what he had borrowed from him, but, far from repaying his debt, he
positively glared in his face with a menacing air, as though he were
prepared to borrow more from him just because he had been a witness of
his winnings. The next morning he was again invaded by a host of his
compatriots; Litvinov got rid of them with difficulty, and setting off
to the mountains, he first came across Irina--he pretended not to
recognise her, and passed quickly by--and then Potugin. He was about to
begin a conversation with Potugin, but the latter did not respond to him
readily. He was leading by the hand a smartly dressed little girl, with
fluffy, almost white curls, large black eyes, and a pale, sickly little
face, with that peculiar peremptory and impatient expression
characteristic of spoiled children. Litvinov spent two hours in the
mountains, and then went back homewards along the Lichtenthaler
Allee.... A lady, sitting on a bench, with a blue veil over her face,
got up quickly, and came up to him.... He recognised Irina.
‘Why do you avoid me, Grigory Mihalitch?’ she said, in the unsteady
voice of one who is boiling over within.
Litvinov was taken aback. ‘I avoid you, Irina Pavlovna?’
‘Yes, you ... you----’
Irina seemed excited, almost angry.
‘You are mistaken, I assure you.’
‘No, I am not mistaken. Do you suppose this morning--when we met, I
mean--do you suppose I didn’t see that you knew me? Do you mean to say
you did not know me? Tell me.’
‘I really ... Irina Pavlovna----’
‘Grigory Mihalitch, you’re a straightforward man, you have always told
the truth; tell me, tell me, you knew me, didn’t you? you turned away on
purpose?’
Litvinov glanced at Irina. Her eyes shone with a strange light, while
her cheeks and lips were of a deathly pallor under the thick net of her
veil. In the expression of her face, in the very sound of her abruptly
jerked-out whisper, there was something so irresistibly mournful,
beseeching ... Litvinov could not pretend any longer.
‘Yes ... I knew you,’ he uttered not without effort.
Irina slowly shuddered, and slowly dropped her hands.
‘Why did you not come up to me?’ she whispered.
‘Why ... why!’ Litvinov moved on one side, away from the path, Irina
followed him in silence. ‘Why?’ he repeated once more, and suddenly his
face was aflame, and he felt his chest and throat choking with a passion
akin to hatred. ‘You ... you ask such a question, after all that has
passed between us? Not now, of course, not now; but there ... there ...
in Moscow.’
‘But, you know, we decided; you know, you promised----’ Irina was
beginning.
‘I have promised nothing! Pardon the harshness of my expressions, but
you ask for the truth--so think for yourself: to what but a
caprice--incomprehensible, I confess, to me--to what but a desire to try
how much power you still have over me, can I attribute your ... I don’t
know what to call it ... your persistence? Our paths have lain so far
apart! I have forgotten it all, I’ve lived through all that suffering
long ago, I’ve become a different man completely; you are
married--happy, at least, in appearance--you fill an envied position in
the world; what’s the object, what’s the use of our meeting? What am I
to you? what are you to me? We cannot even understand each other now;
there is absolutely nothing in common between us now, neither in the
past nor in the present! Especially ... especially in the past!’
Litvinov uttered all this speech hurriedly, jerkily, without turning his
head. Irina did not stir, except from time to time she faintly stretched
her hands out to him. It seemed as though she were beseeching him to
stop and listen to her, while, at his last words, she slightly bit her
lower lip, as though to master the pain of a sharp, rapid wound.
‘Grigory Mihalitch,’ she began at last, in a calmer voice; and she moved
still further away from the path, along which people from time to time
passed.
Litvinov in his turn followed her.
‘Grigory Mihalitch, believe me, if I could imagine I had one
hair’s-breadth of power over you left, I would be the first to avoid
you. If I have not done so, if I made up my mind, in spite of my ... of
the wrong I did you in the past, to renew my acquaintance with you, it
was because ... because----’
‘Because what?’ asked Litvinov, almost rudely.
‘Because,’ Irina declared with sudden force--‘it’s too insufferable, too
unbearably stifling for me in society, in the envied position you talk
about; because meeting you, a live man, after all these dead
puppets--you have seen samples of them three days ago, there _au Vieux
Château_,--I rejoice over you as an oasis in the desert, while you
suspect me of flirting, and despise me and repulse me on the ground that
I wronged you--as indeed I did--but far more myself!’
‘You chose your lot yourself, Irina Pavlovna,’ Litvinov rejoined
sullenly, as before not turning his head.
‘I chose it myself, yes ... and I don’t complain, I have no right to
complain,’ said Irina hurriedly; she seemed to derive a secret
consolation from Litvinov’s very harshness. ‘I know that you must think
ill of me, and I won’t justify myself; I only want to explain my feeling
to you, I want to convince you I am in no flirting humour now.... Me
flirting with you! Why, there is no sense in it.... When I saw you, all
that was good, that was young in me, revived ... that time when I had
not yet chosen my lot, everything that lies behind in that streak of
brightness behind those ten years....’
‘Come, really, Irina Pavlovna! So far as I am aware, the brightness in
your life began precisely with the time we separated....’
Irina put her handkerchief to her lips.
‘That’s very cruel, what you say, Grigory Mihalitch; but I can’t feel
angry with you. Oh, no, that was not a bright time, it was not for
happiness I left Moscow; I have known not one moment, not one instant of
happiness ... believe me, whatever you have been told. If I were happy,
could I talk to you as I am talking now.... I repeat to you, you don’t
know what these people are.... Why, they understand nothing, feel for
nothing; they’ve no intelligence even, _ni esprit ni intelligence_,
nothing but tact and cunning; why, in reality, music and poetry and art
are all equally remote from them.... You will say that I was rather
indifferent to all that myself; but not to the same degree, Grigory
Mihalitch ... not to the same degree! It’s not a woman of the world
before you now, you need only look at me--not a society queen.... That’s
what they call us, I believe ... but a poor, poor creature, really
deserving of pity. Don’t wonder at my words.... I am beyond feeling
pride now! I hold out my hand to you as a beggar, will you understand,
just as a beggar.... I ask for charity,’ she added suddenly, in an
involuntary, irrepressible outburst, ‘I ask for charity, and you----’
Her voice broke. Litvinov raised his head and looked at Irina; her
breathing came quickly, her lips were quivering. Suddenly his heart beat
fast, and the feeling of hatred vanished.
‘You say that our paths have lain apart,’ Irina went on. ‘I know you are
about to marry from inclination, you have a plan laid out for your whole
life; yes, that’s all so, but we have not become strangers to one
another, Grigory Mihalitch; we can still understand each other. Or do
you imagine I have grown altogether dull--altogether debased in the
mire? Ah, no, don’t think that, please! Let me open my heart, I beseech
you--there--even for the sake of those old days, if you are not willing
to forget them. Do so, that our meeting may not have come to pass in
vain; that would be too bitter; it would not last long in any case.... I
don’t know how to say it properly, but you will understand me, because I
ask for little, so little ... only a little sympathy, only that you
should not repulse me, that you should let me open my heart----’
Irina ceased speaking, there were tears in her voice. She sighed, and
timidly, with a kind of furtive, searching look, gazed at Litvinov, held
out her hand to him....
Litvinov slowly took the hand and faintly pressed it.
‘Let us be friends,’ whispered Irina.
‘Friends,’ repeated Litvinov dreamily.
‘Yes, friends ... or if that is too much to ask, then let us at least be
friendly.... Let us be simply as though nothing had happened.’
‘As though nothing had happened,...’ repeated Litvinov again. ‘You said
just now, Irina Pavlovna, that I was unwilling to forget the old
days.... But what if I can’t forget them?’
A blissful smile flashed over Irina’s face, and at once disappeared, to
be replaced by a harassed, almost scared expression.
‘Be like me, Grigory Mihalitch, remember only what was good in them; and
most of all, give me your word.... Your word of honour....’
‘Well?’
‘Not to avoid me ... not to hurt me for nothing. You promise? tell me!’
‘Yes.’
‘And you will dismiss all evil thoughts of me from your mind.’
‘Yes ... but as for understanding you--I give it up.’
‘There’s no need of that ... wait a little, though, you will understand.
But you will promise?’
‘I have said yes already.’
‘Thanks. You see I am used to believe you. I shall expect you to-day,
to-morrow, I will not go out of the house. And now I must leave you. The
Grand Duchess is coming along the avenue.... She’s caught sight of me,
and I can’t avoid going up to speak to her.... Good-bye till we meet....
Give me your hand, _vite, vite_. Till we meet.’
And warmly pressing Litvinov’s hand, Irina walked towards a middle-aged
person of dignified appearance, who was coming slowly along the gravel
path, escorted by two other ladies, and a strikingly handsome groom in
livery.
‘_Eh bonjour, chère Madame_,’ said the personage, while Irina curtseyed
respectfully to her. ‘_Comment allez-vous aujourd’hui? Venez un peu avec
moi._’
‘_Votre Altesse a trop de bonté_,’ Irina’s insinuating voice was heard
in reply.