Part 16 (1/2)

But Lavretsky remained sitting on his willow stem.

”I talk to her just as if I still had an interest in life,” he thought.

Liza had hung up her hat on a bough when she went away. It was with a strange and almost tender feeling that Lavretsky looked at the hat, and at its long, slightly rumpled ribbons.

Liza soon came back again and took up her former position on the platform.

”Why do you think that Vladimir Nikolaevich has no heart?” she asked, a few minutes afterwards.

”I have already told you that I may be mistaken. However, time will reveal all.”

Liza became contemplative. Lavretsky began to talk about his mode of life al Vasilievskoe, about Mikhalevich, about Anton. He felt compelled to talk to Liza, to communicate to her all that went on in his heart. And she listened to him so attentively, with such kindly interest; the few remarks and answers she made appeared to him so sensible and so natural. He even told her so.

Liza was astonished. ”Really?” she said. ”As for me, I thought I was like my maid, Nastasia, and had no words 'of my own.' She said one day to her betrothed, 'You will be sure to be bored with me. You talk to me so beautifully about every thing, but I have no words of my own.'”

”Heaven be praised!” thought Lavretsky.

XXVI.

In the meantime the evening had arrived, and Maria Dmitrievna evinced a desire to return home. With some difficulty the little girls were torn away from the lake, and got ready for the journey. Lavretsky said he would accompany his guests half-way home, and ordered a horse to be saddled for him. After seeing Maria Dmitrievna into her carriage he looked about for Lemm; but the old man could nowhere be found. He had disappeared the moment the fis.h.i.+ng was over, Anton slammed the carriage door to, with a strength remarkable at his age, and cried in a stern voice, ”Drive on, coachman!” The carriage set off. Maria Dmitrievna and Liza occupied the back seats; the two girls and the maid sat in front.

The evening was warm and still, and the windows were open on both sides. Lavretsky rode close by the carriage on Liza's side, resting a hand on the door--he had thrown the reins on the neck of his easily trotting horse--and now and then exchanged two or three words with the young girl. The evening glow disappeared. Night came on, but the air seemed to grow even warmer than before. Maria Dmitrievna soon went to sleep; the little girls and the maid servant slept also. Smoothly and rapidly the carriage rolled on. As Liza bent forwards, the moon, which had only just made its appearance, lighted up her face, the fragrant night air breathed on her eyes and cheeks, and she felt herself happy. Her hand rested on the door of the carriage by the side of Lavretsky's. He too felt himself happy as he floated on in the calm warmth of the night, never moving his eyes away from the good young face, listening to the young voice, clear even in its whispers, which spoke simple, good words.

It even escaped his notice for a time that he had gone more than half of the way. Then he would not disturb Madame Kalitine, but he pressed Liza's hand lightly and said, ”We are friends now, are we not?” She nodded a.s.sent, and he pulled up his horse. The carriage rolled on its way quietly swinging and curtseying.

Lavretsky returned home at a walk. The magic of the summer night took possession of him. All that spread around him seemed so wonderfully strange, and yet at the same time so well known and so dear. Far and near all was still--and the eye could see very far, though it could not distinguish much of what it saw--but underneath that very stillness a young and flowering life made itself felt.

Lavretsky's horse walked on vigorously, swinging itself steadily to right and left. Its great black shadow moved by its side. There was a sort of secret charm in the tramp of its hoofs, something strange and joyous in the noisy cry of the quails. The stars disappeared in a kind of luminous mist. The moon, not yet at its full, shone with steady l.u.s.tre. Its light spread in a blue stream over the sky, and fell in a streak of vaporous gold on the thin clouds which went past close at hand.

The freshness of the air called a slight moisture into Lavretsky's eyes, pa.s.sed caressingly over all his limbs, and flowed with free current into his chest. He was conscious of enjoying, and felt glad of that enjoyment. ”Well, we will live on still; she has not entirely deprived us--” he did not say who, or of what.--Then he began to think about Liza; that she could scarcely be in love with Pans.h.i.+ne; that if he had met her under other circ.u.mstances--G.o.d knows what might have come of it; that he understood Lemm's feelings about her now, although she had ”no words of her own.” And, moreover, that that was not true; for she had words of her own. ”Do not speak lightly about that,”

recurred to Lavretsky's memory. For a long time he rode on with bent head, then he slowly drew himself up repeating,--

”And I have burnt all that I used to wors.h.i.+p, I wors.h.i.+p all that I used to burn--”

then he suddenly struck his horse with his whip and and galloped straight away home.

On alighting from his horse he gave a final look round, a thankful smile playing involuntarily on his lips. Night--silent, caressing night--lay on the hills and dales. From its fragrant depths afar--whether from heaven or from earth could not be told--there poured a soft and quiet warmth. Lavretsky wished a last farewell to Liza--and hastened up the steps.

The next day went by rather slowly, rain setting in early in the morning. Lemm looked askance, and compressed his lips even tighter and tighter, as if he had made a vow never to open them again. When Lavretsky lay down at night he took to bed with him a whole bundle of French newspapers, which had already lain unopened on his table for two or three weeks. He began carelessly to tear open their covers and to skim the contents of their columns, in which, for the matter of that, there was but little that was new. He was just on the point of throwing them aside, when he suddenly bounded out of bed as if something had stung him. In the _feuilleton_ of one of the papers our former acquaintance, M. Jules, communicated to his readers a ”painful piece of intelligence.” ”The fascinating, fair Muscovite,” he wrote, ”one of the queens of fas.h.i.+on, the ornament of Parisian salons, Madame de Lavretski,” had died almost suddenly. And this news, unfortunately but too true, had just reached him, M. Jules. He was, so he continued, he might say, a friend of the deceased--

Lavretsky put on his clothes, went out into the garden, and walked up and down one of its alleys until the break of day.

At breakfast, next morning, Lemm asked Lavretsky to let him have horses in order to get back to town.

”It is time for me to return to business, that is to lessons,”

remarked the old man. ”I am only wasting my time here uselessly.”

Lavretsky did not reply at once. He seemed lost in a reverie.

”Very good,” he said at last; ”I will go with you myself.”