Part 33 (1/2)
And then again imaginary dialogues would run through his head:
”You have no right to hold this girl against her wish.”
”Yes, but let her herself give notice about going away.”
”I act at her instruction.”
”All right; but how can you prove this?” and again he would mentally cut himself short.
The city common began, on which cows were browsing; a board sidewalk along a fence; shaky little bridges over little brooklets and ditches.
Then he turned into the Yamskaya. In the house of Anna Markovna all the windows were closed with shutters, with openings, in the form of hearts, cut out in the middle. And all of the remaining houses on the deserted street, desolated as though after a pestilence, were closed as well. With a contracting heart Lichonin pulled the bell-handle.
A maid, barefooted, with skirt caught up, with a wet rag in her hand, with face striped from dirt, answered the bell--she had just been was.h.i.+ng the floor.
”I'd like to see Jennka,” timidly requested Lichonin.
”Well, now, the young lady is busy with a guest. They haven't waked up yet.”
”Well, Tamara then.”
The maid looked at him mistrustfully.
”Miss Tamara--I don't know... I think she's busy too. But what you want--to pay a visit, or what?”
”Ah, isn't it all the same! A visit, let's say.”
”I don't know. I'll go and look. Wait a while.”
She went away, leaving Lichonin in the half-dark drawing room. The blue pillars of dust, coming from the openings in the shutters, pierced the heavy obscurity in all directions. Like hideous spots stood out of the gray murkiness the bepainted furniture and the sweetish oleographs on the walls. It smelt of yesterday's tobacco, of dampness, sourness; and of something else peculiar, indeterminate, uninhabited, of which places that are lived in only temporarily always smell in the morning--such as empty theatres, dance-halls, auditoriums. Far off in the city a droshky rumbled intermittently. The wall-clock monotonously ticked behind the wall. In a strange agitation Lichonin walked back and forth through the drawing room and rubbed and kneaded his trembling hands, and for some reason was stooping and felt cold.
”I shouldn't have started all this false comedy,” he thought with irritation. ”It goes without saying that I've now become the by-word of the entire university. The devil nudged me! And even during the day yesterday it wasn't too late, when she was saying that she was ready to go back. All I had to do was to give her for a cabby and a little pin money, and she'd have gone, and all would have been fine; and I would be independent now, free, and wouldn't be undergoing this tormenting and ignominious state of spirits. But it's too late to retreat now.
To-morrow it'll be still later, and the day after to-morrow--still more. Having pulled off one fool stunt, it must be immediately put a stop to; but on the other hand, if you don't do that in time, it draws two others after it, and they--twenty new ones. Or, perhaps, it's not too late now? Why, she's silly, undeveloped, and, probably, a hysteric, like the rest of them. She's an animal, fit only for stuffing herself and for the bed. Oh! The devil!” Lichonin forcefully squeezed his cheeks and his forehead between his hands and shut his eyes. ”And if I had but held out against the common, coa.r.s.e, physical temptation!
There, you see for yourself, this has happened twice already; and then it'll go on and on ...”
But side by side with these ran other thoughts, opposed to them:
”But then, I'm a man. I am master of my word. For that which urged me on to this deed was splendid, n.o.ble, lofty. I remember very well that rapture which seized me when my thought transpired into action! That was a pure, tremendous feeling. Or was it simply an extravagance of the mind, whipped up by alcohol; the consequence of a sleepless night, smoking, and long, abstract conversations?”
And immediately Liubka would appear before him, appear at a distance, as though out of the misty depths of time; awkward, timid, with her homely and endearing face, which had at once come to seem of infinitely close kins.h.i.+p; long, long familiar, and at the same time unpleasant--unjustly, without cause.
”Can it be that I'm a coward and a rag?” cried Lichonin inwardly and wrung his hands. ”What am I afraid of, before whom am I embarra.s.sed?
Have I not always prided myself upon being sole master of my life?
Let's suppose, even, that the phantasy, the extravagance, of making a psychological experiment upon a human soul--a rare experiment, unsuccessful in ninety-nine percent--has entered my head. Is it possible that I must render anybody an account in this, or fear anybody's opinion? Lichonin! Look down upon mankind from above!”
Jennie walked into the room, dishevelled, sleepy, in a night jacket on top of a white underskirt.
”A-a!” she yawned, extending her hand to Lichonin. ”How d'you do, my dear student! How does your Liubochka feel herself in the new place?
Call me in as a guest some time. Or are you spending your honeymoon on the quiet? Without any outside witnesses?”
”Drop the silly stuff, Jennechka. I came about the pa.s.sport.”