"It's time I went to my _vint_. . . . They will be waiting for me,"
said Laevsky. "Good-bye, my friends."
"I'll come with you; wait a minute," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and
she took his arm.
They said good-bye to the company and went away. Kirilin took leave
too, and saying that he was going the same way, went along beside
them.
"What will be, will be," thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "So be
it. . . ."
And it seemed to her that all the evil memories in her head had
taken shape and were walking beside her in the darkness, breathing
heavily, while she, like a fly that had fallen into the inkpot, was
crawling painfully along the pavement and smirching Laevsky's side
and arm with blackness.
If Kirilin should do anything horrid, she thought, not he but she
would be to blame for it. There was a time when no man would have
talked to her as Kirilin had done, and she had torn up her security
like a thread and destroyed it irrevocably--who was to blame for
it? Intoxicated by her passions she had smiled at a complete stranger,
probably just because he was tall and a fine figure. After two
meetings she was weary of him, had thrown him over, and did not
that, she thought now, give him the right to treat her as he chose?
"Here I'll say good-bye to you, darling," said Laevsky. "Ilya
Mihalitch will see you home."
He nodded to Kirilin, and, quickly crossing the boulevard, walked
along the street to Sheshkovsky's, where there were lights in the
windows, and then they heard the gate bang as he went in.
"Allow me to have an explanation with you," said Kirilin. "I'm not
a boy, not some Atchkasov or Latchkasov, Zatchkasov. . . . I demand
serious attention."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's heart began beating violently. She made no
reply.
"The abrupt change in your behaviour to me I put down at first to
coquetry," Kirilin went on; "now I see that you don't know how to
behave with gentlemanly people. You simply wanted to play with me,
as you are playing with that wretched Armenian boy; but I'm a
gentleman and I insist on being treated like a gentleman. And so I
am at your service. . . ."
"I'm miserable," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna beginning to cry, and
to hide her tears she turned away.
"I'm miserable too," said Kirilin, "but what of that?"
Kirilin was silent for a space, then he said distinctly and
emphatically:
"I repeat, madam, that if you do not give me an interview this
evening, I'll make a scandal this very evening."
"Let me off this evening," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and she did
not recognise her own voice, it was so weak and pitiful.
"I must give you a lesson. . . . Excuse me for the roughness of my
tone, but it's necessary to give you a lesson. Yes, I regret to say
I must give you a lesson. I insist on two interviews--to-day and
to-morrow. After to-morrow you are perfectly free and can go wherever
you like with any one you choose. To-day and to-morrow."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went up to her gate and stopped.
"Let me go," she murmured, trembling all over and seeing nothing
before her in the darkness but his white tunic. "You're right: I'm
a horrible woman. . . . I'm to blame, but let me go . . . I beg
you." She touched his cold hand and shuddered. "I beseech you. . . ."
"Alas!" sighed Kirilin, "alas! it's not part of my plan to let you
go; I only mean to give you a lesson and make you realise. And
what's more, madam, I've too little faith in women."
"I'm miserable. . . ."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna listened to the even splash of the sea, looked
at the sky studded with stars, and longed to make haste and end it
all, and get away from the cursed sensation of life, with its sea,
stars, men, fever.
"Only not in my home," she said coldly. "Take me somewhere else."
"Come to Muridov's. That's better."
"Where's that?"
"Near the old wall."
She walked quickly along the street and then turned into the
side-street that led towards the mountains. It was dark. There were
pale streaks of light here and there on the pavement, from the
lighted windows, and it seemed to her that, like a fly, she kept
falling into the ink and crawling out into the light again. At one
point he stumbled, almost fell down and burst out laughing.
"He's drunk," thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "Never mind. . . . Never
mind. . . . So be it."
Atchmianov, too, soon took leave of the party and followed Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna to ask her to go for a row. He went to her house and
looked over the fence: the windows were wide open, there were no
lights.
"Nadyezhda Fyodorovna!" he called.
A moment passed, he called again.
"Who's there?" he heard Olga's voice.
"Is Nadyezhda Fyodorovna at home?"
"No, she has not come in yet."
"Strange . . . very strange," thought Atchmianov, feeling very
uneasy. "She went home. . . ."
He walked along the boulevard, then along the street, and glanced
in at the windows of Sheshkovsky's. Laevsky was sitting at the table
without his coat on, looking attentively at his cards.
"Strange, strange," muttered Atchmianov, and remembering Laevsky's
hysterics, he felt ashamed. "If she is not at home, where is she?"
He went to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's lodgings again, and looked at the
dark windows.
"It's a cheat, a cheat . . ." he thought, remembering that, meeting
him at midday at Marya Konstantinovna's, she had promised to go in
a boat with him that evening.
The windows of the house where Kirilin lived were dark, and there
was a policeman sitting asleep on a little bench at the gate.
Everything was clear to Atchmianov when he looked at the windows
and the policeman. He made up his mind to go home, and set off in
that direction, but somehow found himself near Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's
lodgings again. He sat down on the bench near the gate and took off
his hat, feeling that his head was burning with jealousy and
resentment.
The clock in the town church only struck twice in the twenty-four
hours--at midday and midnight. Soon after it struck midnight he
heard hurried footsteps.
"To-morrow evening, then, again at Muridov's," Atchmianov heard,
and he recognised Kirilin's voice. "At eight o'clock; good-bye!"
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna made her appearance near the garden. Without
noticing that Atchmianov was sitting on the bench, she passed beside
him like a shadow, opened the gate, and leaving it open, went into
the house. In her own room she lighted the candle and quickly
undressed, but instead of getting into bed, she sank on her knees
before a chair, flung her arms round it, and rested her head on it.
It was past two when Laevsky came home.