As he was leaving the Kalitins' house, Lavretzky encountered Panshin;
they saluted each other coldly. Lavretzky went home to his apartment,
and locked himself in. He experienced a sensation such as he had, in all
probability, never experienced before. Had he remained long in that state
of "peaceful numbness"? had he long continued to feel, as he had
expressed it, "at the bottom of the river"? What had altered his
position? what had brought him out, to the surface? the most ordinary,
inevitable though always unexpected of events;--death? Yes: but he did
not think so much about the death of his wife, about his freedom,
as,--what sort of answer would Liza give to Panshin? He was conscious
that, in the course of the last three days, he had come to look upon her
with different eyes; he recalled how, on returning home, and thinking
about her in the silence of the night, he had said to himself: "If...."
That "if," wherein he had alluded to the past, to the impossible, had
come to pass, although not in the way he had anticipated,--but this was
little in itself. "She will obey her mother," he thought, "she will marry
Panshin; but even if she refuses him,--is it not all the same to me?" As
he passed in front of the mirror, he cast a cursory glance at his face,
and shrugged his shoulders.
The day sped swiftly by in these reflections; evening arrived. Lavretzky
wended his way to the Kalitins. He walked briskly, but approached their
house with lingering steps. In front of the steps stood Panshin's
drozhky. "Come,"--thought Lavretzky,--"I will not be an egoist," and
entered the house. Inside he met no one, and all was still in the
drawing-room; he opened the door, and beheld Marya Dmitrievna, playing
picquet with Panshin. Panshin bowed to him in silence, and the mistress
of the house uttered a little scream:--"How unexpected!"--and frowned
slightly. Lavretzky took a seat by her side, and began to look over her
cards.
"Do you know how to play picquet?"--she asked him, with a certain
dissembled vexation, and immediately announced that she discarded.
Panshin reckoned up ninety, and politely and calmly began to gather up
the tricks, with a severe and dignified expression on his countenance.
That is the way in which diplomats should play; probably, that is the way
in which he was wont to play in Petersburg, with some powerful dignitary,
whom he desired to impress with a favourable opinion as to his solidity
and maturity. "One hundred and one, one hundred and two, hearts; one
hundred and three,"--rang out his measured tone, and Lavretzky could not
understand what note resounded in it: reproach or self-conceit.
"Is Marfa Timofeevna to be seen?"--he asked, observing that Panshin,
still with great dignity, was beginning to shuffle the cards. Not a trace
of the artist was, as yet, to be observed in him.
"Yes, I think so. She is in her own apartments, up-stairs,"--replied
Marya Dmitrievna:--"you had better inquire."
Lavretzky went up-stairs, and found Marfa Timofeevna at cards also:
she was playing _duratchki_ (fools) with Nastasya Karpovna. Roska
barked at him; but both the old ladies welcomed him cordially, and Marfa
Timofeevna, in particular, seemed to be in high spirits.
"Ah! Fedya! Pray come in,"--she said:--"sit down, my dear little father.
We shall be through our game directly. Wouldst thou like some preserves?
Schurotchka, get him a jar of strawberries. Thou dost not want it? Well,
then sit as thou art; but as for smoking--thou must not: I cannot bear
thy tobacco, and, moreover, it makes Matros sneeze."
Lavretzky made haste to assert that he did not care to smoke.
"Hast thou been down-stairs?"--went on the old woman:--"whom didst thou
see there? Is Panshin still on hand, as usual? And didst thou see Liza?
No? She intended to come hither.... Yes, there she is; speak of an
angel...."
Liza entered the room and, on perceiving Lavretzky, she blushed.
"I have run in to see you for a minute, Marfa Timofeevna," she
began....
"Why for a minute?"--returned the old woman. "What makes all you young
girls such restless creatures? Thou seest, that I have a visitor: chatter
to him, entertain him."
Liza seated herself on the edge of a chair, raised her eyes to
Lavretzky,--and felt that it was impossible not to give him to
understand how her interview with Panshin had ended. But how was that to
be done? She felt both ashamed and awkward. She had not been acquainted
with him long, with that man who both went rarely to church and bore with
so much indifference the death of his wife,--and here she was already
imparting her secrets to him.... He took an interest in her, it is true;
she, herself, trusted him, and felt attracted to him; but, nevertheless,
she felt ashamed, as though a stranger had entered her pure, virgin
chamber.
Marfa Timofeevna came to her assistance.
"If thou wilt not entertain him,"--she began, "who will entertain him,
poor fellow? I am too old for him, he is too clever for me, and for
Nastasya Karpovna he is too old, you must give her nothing but very
young men."
"How can I entertain Feodor Ivanitch?"--said Liza.--"If he likes, I
will play something for him on the piano,"--she added, irresolutely.
"Very good indeed: that's my clever girl,"--replied Marfa
Timofeevna,--"Go down-stairs, my dear people; when you are through, come
back; for I have been left the 'fool,' and I feel insulted, and want to
win back."
Liza rose: Lavretzky followed her. As they were descending the
staircase, Liza halted.
"They tell the truth,"--she began:--"when they say that the hearts of men
are full of contradictions. Your example ought to frighten me, to render
me distrustful of marriage for love, but I...."
"You have refused him?"--interrupted Lavretzky.
"No; but I have not accepted him. I told him everything, everything that
I felt, and asked him to wait. Are you satisfied?"--she added, with a
swift smile,--and lightly touching the railing with her hand, she ran
down the stairs.
"What shall I play for you?"--she asked, as she raised the lid of the
piano.
"Whatever you like,"--replied Lavretzky, and seated himself in such a
position that he could watch her.
Liza began to play, and, for a long time, never took her eyes from her
fingers. At last, she glanced at Lavretzky, and stopped short: so
wonderful and strange did his face appear to her.
"What is the matter with you?"--she asked.
"Nothing,"--he replied:--"all is very well with me; I am glad for you, I
am glad to look at you,--go on."
"It seems to me,"--said Liza, a few moments later:--"that if he really
loved me, he would not have written that letter; he ought to have felt
that I could not answer him now."
"That is of no importance,"--said Lavretzky:--"the important point is,
that you do not love him."
"Stop,--what sort of a conversation is this! I keep having visions of
your dead wife, and you are terrible to me!"
"My Lizeta plays charmingly, does she not, Valdemar?"--Marya
Dmitrievna was saying to Panshin at the same moment.
"Yes,"--replied Panshin;--"very charmingly."
Marya Dmitrievna gazed tenderly at her young partner; but the latter
assumed a still more important and careworn aspect, and announced
fourteen kings.