The days which followed were days of heaviness for Lavretsky. He felt
himself in a perpetual fever. Every morning he went to the post, and
impatiently tore open his letters and newspapers; but in none of them
did he find anything which could confirm or contradict that rumor, on
the truth of which he felt that so much now depended. At times he grew
disgusted with himself. "What am I," he then would think, "who am
waiting here, as a raven waits for blood, for certain intelligence of
my wife's death?"
He went to the Kalitines' every day; but even there he was not more at
his ease. The mistress of the house was evidently out of humor with
him, and treated him with cold condescension. Panshine showed him
exaggerated politeness; Lemm had become misanthropical, and scarcely
even returned his greeting; and, worst of all, Liza seemed to avoid
him. Whenever she happened to be left alone with him, she manifested
symptoms of embarrassment, instead of the frank manner of former days.
On such occasions she did not know what to say to him; and even he
felt confused. In the course of a few days Liza had become changed
from what he remembered her to have been. In her movements, in her
voice, even in her laugh itself, a secret uneasiness manifested
itself--something different from her former evenness of temper. Her
mother, like a true egotist, did not suspect anything; but Marfa
Timofeevna began to watch her favorite closely.
Lavretsky often blamed himself for having shown Liza the newspaper
he had received; he could not help being conscious that there was
something in his state of feeling which must be repugnant to a very
delicate mind. He supposed, moreover, that the change which had taken
place in Liza arose from a struggle with herself, from her doubt as to
what answer she should give to Panshine.
One day she returned him a book--one of Walter Scott's novels--which
she had herself asked him for.
"Have you read it?" he asked.
"No; I am not in a mood for books just now," she answered, and then
was going away.
"Wait a minute," he said. "It is so long since I got a talk with you
alone. You seem afraid of me. Is it so?"
"Yes."
"But why?"
"I don't know."
Lavretsky said nothing for a time.
"Tell me," he began again presently; "haven't you made up your mind
yet?"
"What do you mean?" she replied, without lifting her eyes from the
ground.
"Surely you understand me?"
Liza suddenly reddened.
"Don't ask me about anything!" she exclaimed with animation. "I know
nothing. I don't know myself."
And she went hastily away.
The next day Lavretsky arrived at the Kalitines' after dinner, and
found all the preparations going on there for an evening service. In
a corner of the dining-room, a number of small icons[A] in golden
frames, with tarnished little diamonds in the aureolas, were already
placed against the wall on a square table, which was covered with a
table-cloth of unspotted whiteness. An old servant, dressed in a grey
coat and wearing shoes, traversed the whole room deliberately and
noiselessly, placed two slender candle-sticks with wax tapers in them
before the icons, crossed himself, bowed, and silently left the room.
[Footnote A: Sacred Pictures.]
The drawing-room was dark and empty. Lavretsky went into the
dining-room, and asked if it was any one's name-day.[A] He was told in
a whisper that it was not, but that a service was to be performed
in accordance with the request of Lizaveta Mikhailovna and Marfa
Timofeevna. The miracle-working picture was to have been brought, but
it had gone to a sick person thirty versts off.
[Footnote A: A Russian keeps, not his birthday, but his name-day--that
is, the day set apart by the church in honor of the saint after whom
he is called.]
Soon afterwards the priest arrived with his acolytes--a middle-aged
man, with a large bald spot on his head, who coughed loudly in the
vestibule. The ladies immediately came out of the boudoir in a row,
and asked him for his blessing. Lavretsky bowed to them in silence,
and they as silently returned his greeting. The priest remained a
little longer where he was, then coughed again, and asked, in a low,
deep voice--
"Do you wish me to begin?"
"Begin, reverend father," replied Maria Dmitrievna.
The priest began to robe. An acolyte in a surplice humbly asked for a
coal from the fire. The scent of the incense began to spread around.
The footmen and the maid-servants came in from the ante-chamber and
remained standing in a compact body at the door. The dog Roska, which,
as a general rule, never came down-stairs from the upper story, now
suddenly made its appearance in the dining room. The servants tried
to drive it out, but it got frightened, first ran about, and then lay
down. At last a footman got hold of it and carried it off.
The service began. Lavretsky retired into a corner. His feelings were
strange and almost painful. He himself could not well define what it
was that he felt. Maria Dmitrievna stood in front of the rest, with an
arm-chair behind her. She crossed herself carelessly, languidly, like
a great lady. Sometimes she looked round, at others she suddenly
raised her eyes towards the ceiling. The whole affair evidently bored
her.
Marfa Timofeevna seemed pre-occupied. Nastasia Carpovna bowed down
to the ground, and raised herself up again, with a sort of soft and
modest sound. As for Liza, she did not stir from the spot where she
was standing, she did not change her position upon it; from the
concentrated expression of her face, it was evident that she was
praying uninterruptedly and fervently.
At the end of the service she approached the crucifix, and kissed both
it and the large red hand of the priest. Maria Dmitrievna invited him
to take tea. He threw off his stole, assumed a sort of mundane air,
and went into the drawing-room with the ladies. A conversation began,
not of a very lively nature. The priest drank four cups of tea, wiping
the bald part of his head the while with his handkerchief, stated
among other things that the merchant Avoshnikof had given several
hundred roubles towards the gilding of the church's "cumpola," and
favored the company with an unfailing cure for freckles.
Lavretsky tried to get a seat near Liza, but she maintained her
grave, almost austere air, and never once looked at him. She seemed
intentionally to ignore him. A kind of serious, cold enthusiasm
appeared to possess her. For some reason or other Lavretsky felt
inclined to smile, and to utter words of jesting; but his heart was
ill at ease, and at last he went away in a state of secret perplexity.
There was something, he felt, in Liza's mind, which he could not
understand.
On another occasion, as Lavretsky was sitting in the drawing-room,
listening to the insinuating tones of Gedeonovsky's wearisome
verbiage, he suddenly turned round, he knew not why, and caught the
deep, attentive, inquiring look of Liza's eyes. That enigmatical look
was directed towards him. The whole night long Lavretsky thought of
it. His love was not like that of a boy, nor was it consistent with
his age to sigh and to torment himself; and indeed it was not with a
feeling of a merely passionate nature that Liza had inspired him.
But love has its sufferings for every age--and he became perfectly
acquainted with them.