Liza had not uttered a single word during the course of the dispute
between Lavretzky and Panshin, but had attentively followed it, and had
been entirely on Lavretzky's side. Politics possessed very little
interest for her; but the self-confident tone of the fashionable official
(he had never, hitherto, so completely expressed himself) had repelled
her; his scorn of Russia had wounded her. It had never entered Liza's
head, that she was a patriot; but she was at her ease with Russian
people; the Russian turn of mind gladdened her; without any affectation,
for hours at a time, she chatted with the overseer of her mother's
estate, when he came to town, and talked with him as with an equal,
without any lordly condescension. Lavretzky felt all this: he would not
have undertaken to reply to Panshin alone; he had been talking for Liza
only. They said nothing to each other, even their eyes met but rarely;
but both understood that they had come very close together that evening,
understood that they loved and did not love the same things. On only one
point did they differ; but Liza secretly hoped to bring him to God. They
sat beside Marfa Timofeevna, and appeared to be watching her play; and
they really were watching it,--but, in the meanwhile, their hearts had
waxed great in their bosoms, and nothing escaped them: for them the
nightingale was singing, the stars were shining, and the trees were
softly whispering, lulled both by slumber and by the softness of the
summer, and by the warmth. Lavretzky surrendered himself wholly to the
billow which was bearing him onward,--and rejoiced; but no word can
express that which took place in the young girl's pure soul: it was a
secret to herself; so let it remain for all others. No one knows, no one
has seen, and no one ever will see, how that which is called into life
and blossom pours forth and matures grain in the bosom of the earth.
The clock struck ten. Marfa Timofeevna went off to her rooms up-stairs,
with Nastasya Karpovna; Lavretzky and Liza strolled through the room,
halted in front of the open door to the garden, gazed into the dark
distance, then at each other--and smiled; they would have liked, it
appeared, to take each other by the hand, and talk their fill. They
returned to Marya Dmitrievna and Panshin, whose picquet had become
protracted. The last "king" came to an end at length, and the hostess
rose, groaning, and sighing, from the cushion-garnished arm-chair;
Panshin took his hat, kissed Marya Dmitrievna's hand, remarked that
nothing now prevented other happy mortals from going to bed, or enjoying
the night, but that he must sit over stupid papers until the morning
dawned, bowed coldly to Liza (he had not expected that in reply to his
offer of marriage, she would ask him to wait,--and therefore he was
sulking at her)--and went away. Lavretzky followed him. At the gate they
parted; Panshin aroused his coachman by poking him with the tip of his
cane in the neck, seated himself in his drozhky, and drove off.
Lavretzky did not feel like going home; he walked out beyond the town,
into the fields. The night was tranquil and bright, although there was no
moon; Lavretzky roamed about on the dewy grass for a long time; he came
by accident upon a narrow path; he walked along it. It led him to a long
fence, to a wicket-gate; he tried, without himself knowing why, to push
it open: it creaked softly, and opened, as though it had been awaiting
the pressure of his hand; Lavretzky found himself in a garden, advanced
a few paces along an avenue of lindens, and suddenly stopped short in
amazement: he recognised the garden of the Kalitins.
He immediately stepped into a black blot of shadow which was cast by a
thick hazel-bush, and stood for a long time motionless, wondering and
shrugging his shoulders.
"This has not happened for nothing," he thought.
Everything was silent round about; not a sound was borne to him from the
direction of the house. He cautiously advanced. Lo, at the turn in the
avenue, the whole house suddenly gazed at him with its dark front; only
in two of the upper windows were lights twinkling: in Liza's room, a
candle was burning behind a white shade, and in Marfa Timofeevna's
bedroom a shrine-lamp was glowing with a red gleam in front of the holy
pictures, reflecting itself in an even halo in the golden settings;
down-stairs, the door leading out on the balcony yawned broadly, as it
stood wide open. Lavretzky seated himself on a wooden bench, propped his
head on his hand, and began to gaze at the door and the window. Midnight
struck in the town; in the house, the small clocks shrilly rang out
twelve; the watchman beat with a riffle of taps on the board. Lavretzky
thought of nothing, expected nothing; it was pleasant to him to feel
himself near Liza, to sit in her garden on the bench, where she also had
sat more than once.... The light disappeared in Liza's room.
"Good night, my dear girl," whispered Lavretzky, as he continued to sit
motionless, and without taking his eyes from the darkened window.
Suddenly a light appeared in one of the windows of the lower storey,
passed to a second, a third.... Some one was walking through the rooms
with a candle. "Can it be Liza? Impossible!"... Lavretzky half rose to
his feet. A familiar figure flitted past, and Liza made her appearance in
the drawing-room. In a white gown, with her hair hanging loosely on her
shoulders, she softly approached a table, bent over it, set down the
candle, and searched for something; then, turning her face toward the
garden, she approached the open door, and, all white, light, graceful,
paused on the threshold. A quiver ran through Lavretzky's limbs.
"Liza!"--burst from his lips, in barely audible tones.
She started, and began to stare into the darkness.
"Liza!"--repeated Lavretzky more loudly, and emerged from the shadow of
the avenue.
Liza, in alarm, stretched forth her head, and staggered backward. He
called her for the third time, and held out his arms toward her. She left
the door, and advanced into the garden.
"Is it you?"--she said.--"Are you here?"
"It is I ... I ... listen to me,"--whispered Lavretzky, and, grasping
her hand, he led her to the bench.
She followed him without resistance; her pale face, her impassive eyes,
all her movements, were expressive of unutterable amazement. Lavretzky
seated her on the bench, and himself took up his stand in front of her.
"I had no thought of coming hither,"--he began:--"I came hither by
chance.... I ... I ... I love you,"--he said, with involuntary terror.
Liza slowly glanced at him; apparently, she had only that moment
comprehended where she was, and that she was with him. She tried to rise,
but could not, and covered her face with her hands.
"Liza,"--said Lavretzky:--"Liza,"--he repeated, and bowed down at her
feet....
Her shoulders began to quiver slightly, the fingers of her pale hands
were pressed more tightly to her face.
"What is the matter with you?"--Lavretzky uttered, and caught the sound
of soft sobbing. His heart turned cold.... He understood the meaning of
those tears. "Can it be that you love me?"--he whispered, and touched her
knee.
"Rise," he heard her voice:--"rise, Feodor Ivanitch. What is this that
you and I are doing?"
He rose, and seated himself by her side on the bench. She was no longer
weeping, but was gazing attentively at him with her wet eyes.
"I am frightened: what are we doing?"--she repeated.
"I love you,"--he said again:--"I am ready to give the whole of my life
to you."
Again she shuddered, as though something had stung her, and raised her
gaze heavenward.
"All this is in God's power,"--she said.
"But do you love me, Liza? Shall we be happy?"
She dropped her eyes; he softly drew her to him, and her head sank upon
his shoulder.... He turned her head a little to one side, and touched her
pale lips.
* * * * *
Half an hour later, Lavretzky was standing before the wicket. He found
it locked, and was obliged to leap across the fence. He returned to the
town, and walked through the sleeping streets. A sensation of great, of
unexpected happiness filled his soul; all doubts had died within him.
"Vanish, past, dark spectre," he thought: "she loves me, she will be
mine." All at once, it seemed to him that in the air, over his head,
wondrous, triumphant sounds rang out; the sounds rolled on still more
magnificently; in a chanting, mighty flood they streamed on,--and in
them, so it seemed, all his happiness was speaking and singing. He
glanced around him: the sounds were floating from two upper windows of a
tiny house.
"Lemm!"--cried Lavretzky, and ran to the house.--"Lemm! Lemm!"--he
repeated loudly.
The sounds died away, and the figure of the old man in his dressing-gown,
with breast bare, and hair dishevelled, made its appearance at the
window.
"Aha!"--he said, with dignity:--"is that you?"
"Christofor Feodoritch! what splendid music! For God's sake, let me
in."
The old man, without uttering a word, with a majestic movement of the arm
flung the door-key out of the window into the street. Lavretzky briskly
ran up-stairs, entered the room, and was on the point of rushing at Lemm,
but the latter imperiously motioned him to a chair; he said, abruptly, in
Russian: "Sit down and listen!" seated himself at the piano, gazed
proudly and sternly about him, and began to play. It was long since
Lavretzky had heard anything of the sort: a sweet, passionate melody,
which gripped the heart from its very first notes; it was all beaming and
languishing with inspiration, with happiness, with beauty; it swelled and
melted away; it touched everything which exists on earth of precious,
mysterious, holy; it breathed forth deathless sadness, and floated away
to die in heaven. Lavretzky straightened himself up and stood there,
cold and pale with rapture. Those sounds fairly sank into his soul, which
had only just been shaken with the bliss of love; they themselves were
flaming with love. "Repeat it,"--he whispered, as soon as the last chord
resounded. The old man cast upon him an eagle glance, struck his breast
with his hand, and saying deliberately, in his native language:--"I made
that, for I am a great musician,"--he again played his wonderful
composition. There was no candle in the room; the light of the rising
moon fell aslant through the window; the sensitive air trembled
resonantly; the pale, little room seemed a sanctuary, and the head of the
old man rose high and inspired in the silvery semi-darkness. Lavretzky
approached and embraced him. At first, Lemm did not respond to his
embrace, he even repulsed it with his elbow; for a long time, without
moving a single limb, he continued to gaze forth, as before, sternly,
almost roughly, and only bellowed a couple of times: "Aha!" At last his
transfigured face grew calm, relaxed, and, in reply to Lavretzky's warm
congratulations, he first smiled a little, then fell to weeping, feebly
sobbing like a child.
"This is marvellous,"--he said:--"that precisely you should now have
come; but I know--I know all."
"You know all?"--ejaculated Lavretzky, in confusion.
"You have heard me,"--returned Lemm:--"have not you understood that I
know all?"
Lavretzky could not get to sleep until the morning: all night long, he
sat on his bed. And Liza did not sleep: she prayed.