In the meantime, evening drew on, and Marya Dmitrievna expressed a
desire to return home. The little girls were, with difficulty, torn away
from the pond, and made ready. Lavretzky announced his intention to
escort his guests half way, and ordered his horse to be saddled. As he
seated Marya Dmitrievna in the carriage, he remembered Lemm; but the
old man was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared as soon as the
angling was over. Anton slammed to the carriage door, with a strength
remarkable for his years, and grimly shouted: "Drive on, coachman!" The
carriage rolled off. On the back seat sat Marya Dmitrievna and Liza; on
the front seat, the little girls and the maid. The evening was warm and
still, and the windows were lowered on both sides. Lavretzky rode at a
trot by Liza's side of the carriage, with his hand resting on the
door,--he had dropped the reins on the neck of his steed, which was
trotting smoothly,--and from time to time exchanged a few words with the
young girl. The sunset glow vanished; night descended, and the air grew
even warmer. Marya Dmitrievna soon fell into a doze; the little girls
and the maid also dropped off to sleep. The carriage rolled swiftly and
smoothly onward; Liza leaned forward; the moon, which had just risen,
shone on her face, the fragrant night breeze blew on her cheeks and neck.
She felt at ease. Her hand lay on the door of the carriage, alongside of
Lavretzky's hand. And he, also, felt at ease: he was being borne along
through the tranquil nocturnal warmth, never taking his eyes from the
kind young face, listening to the youthful voice, which was ringing even
in a whisper, saying simple, kindly things; he did not even notice that
he had passed the half-way point. He did not wish to awaken Marya
Dmitrievna, pressed Liza's hand lightly, and said:--"We are friends,
now, are we not?" She nodded, he drew up his horse. The carriage rolled
on, gently swaying and lurching: Lavretzky proceeded homeward at a
footpace. The witchery of the summer night took possession of him;
everything around him seemed so unexpectedly strange, and, at the same
time, so long, so sweetly familiar; far and near,--and things were
visible at a long distance, although the eye did not comprehend much of
what it beheld,--everything was at rest; young, blossoming life made
itself felt in that very repose. Lavretzky's horse walked briskly,
swaying regularly to right and left; its huge black shadow kept pace
alongside; there was something mysteriously pleasant in the tramp of its
hoofs, something cheerful and wondrous in the resounding call of the
quail. The stars were hidden in a sort of brilliant smoke; the moon, not
yet at the full, shone with a steady gleam; its light flooded the blue
sky in streams, and fell like a stain of smoky gold upon the thin
cloudlets which floated past; the crispness of the air called forth a
slight moisture in the eyes, caressingly enveloped all the limbs, poured
in an abundant flood into the breast. Lavretzky enjoyed himself, and
rejoiced at his enjoyment. "Come, life is still before us," he
thought:--"it has not been completely ruined yet by...." He did not
finish his sentence, and say who or what had ruined it.... Then he began
to think of Liza, that it was hardly likely that she loved Panshin; that
had he met her under different circumstances,--God knows what might have
come of it; that he understood Lemm, although she had no "words of her
own." Yes, but that was not true: she had words of her own.... "Do not
speak lightly of that," recurred to Lavretzky's memory. He rode for a
long time, with drooping head, then he straightened himself up, and
slowly recited:
"And I have burned all that I worshipped,
I have worshipped all that I burned...."
but immediately gave his horse a cut with the whip, and rode at a gallop
all the rest of the way home.
As he alighted from his horse, he cast a last glance around him, with an
involuntary, grateful smile. Night, the speechless, caressing night, lay
upon the hills and in the valleys; from afar, from its fragrant depths,
God knows whence,--whether from heaven or earth,--emanated a soft, quiet
warmth. Lavretzky wafted a last salutation to Liza, and ran up the
steps.
The following day passed rather languidly. Rain fell from early morning;
Lemm cast furtive glances from beneath his eyebrows, and pursed up his
lips more and more tightly, as though he had vowed to himself never to
open them again. On lying down to sleep, Lavretzky had taken to bed with
him a whole pile of French newspapers, which had already been lying on
his table for two weeks, with their wrappers unbroken. He set to work
idly to strip off the wrappers, and glance through the columns of the
papers, which, however, contained nothing new. He was on the point of
throwing them aside,--when, all of a sudden, he sprang out of bed as
though he had been stung. In the feuilleton of one of the papers, M'sieu
Jules, already known to us, imparted to his readers "a sad bit of news":
"The charming, bewitching native of Moscow," he wrote, "one of the queens
of fashion, the ornament of Parisian salons, Madame de Lavretzki, had
died almost instantaneously,--and this news, unhappily only too true, had
only just reached him, M. Jules. He was,"--he continued,--"he might say,
a friend of the deceased...."
Lavretzky dressed himself, went out into the garden, and until morning
dawned, he paced back and forth in one and the same alley.