Part 19 (1/2)

Potugin bowed respectfully to the ladies sitting on the seat.

'Let me introduce you, Sozont Ivanitch. Old friends and relatives of mine, who have only just arrived in Baden. Potugin, Sozont Ivanitch, a countryman of ours, also staying in Baden.'

Both ladies rose a little. Potugin renewed his bows.

'It's quite a levee here,' Kapitolina Markovna began in a delicate voice; the kind-hearted old lady was easily intimidated, but she tried before all to keep up her dignity. 'Every one regards it as an agreeable duty to stay here.'

'Baden is an agreeable place, certainly,' answered Potugin, with a sidelong look at Tatyana; 'a very agreeable place, Baden.'

'Yes; but it's really too aristocratic, so far as I can form an opinion.

You see we have been staying all this time in Dresden ... a very interesting town; but here there's positively a levee.'

'She's pleased with the word,' thought Potugin. 'You are perfectly right in that observation,' he said aloud; 'but then the scenery here is exquisite, and the site of the place is something one cannot often find.

Your fellow-traveller especially is sure to appreciate that. Are you not, madam?' he added, addressing himself this time directly to Tatyana.

Tatyana raised her large, clear eyes to Potugin. It seemed as though she were perplexed. What was wanted of her, and why had Litvinov introduced her, on the first day of her arrival, to this unknown man, who had, though, a kind and clever face, and was looking at her with cordial and friendly eyes.

'Yes,' she said at last, 'it's very nice here.'

'You ought to visit the old castle,' Potugin went on; 'I especially advise a drive to----'

'The Saxon Switzerland----' Kapitolina Markovna was beginning.

The blare of wind instruments floated up the avenue; it was the Prussian military band from Rastadt (in 1862 Rastadt was still an allied fortress), beginning its weekly concert in the pavilion. Kapitolina Markovna got up.

'The music!' she said; 'the music _a la Conversation_!... We must go there. It's four o'clock now ... isn't it? Will the fas.h.i.+onable world be there now?'

'Yes,' answered Potugin: 'this is the most fas.h.i.+onable time, and the music is excellent.'

'Well, then, don't let us linger. Tanya, come along.'

'You allow me to accompany you?' asked Potugin, to Litvinov's considerable astonishment; it was not possible for it even to enter his head that Irina had sent Potugin.

Kapitolina Markovna simpered.

'With the greatest pleasure--M'sieu ... M'sieu----'

'Potugin,' he murmured, and he offered her his arm.

Litvinov gave his to Tatyana, and both couples walked towards the Konversation Hall.

Potugin went on talking with Kapitolina Markovna. But Litvinov walked without uttering a word; yet twice, without any cause, he smiled, and faintly pressed Tatyana's arm against his. There was a falsehood in those demonstrations, to which she made no response, and Litvinov was conscious of the lie. They did not express a mutual confidence in the close union of two souls given up to one another; they were a temporary subst.i.tute--for words which he could not find. That unspoken something which was beginning between them grew and gained strength. Once more Tatyana looked attentively, almost intently, at him.

It was the same before the Konversation Hall at the little table round which they all four seated themselves, with this sole difference, that, in the noisy bustle of the crowd, the clash and roar of the music, Litvinov's silence seemed more comprehensible. Kapitolina Markovna became quite excited; Potugin hardly had time to answer her questions, to satisfy her curiosity. Luckily for him, there suddenly appeared in the ma.s.s of moving figures the lank person and everlastingly leaping eyes of Madame Suhantchikov. Kapitolina Markovna at once recognised her, invited her to their table, made her sit down, and a hurricane of words arose.

Potugin turned to Tatyana, and began a conversation with her in a soft, subdued voice, his face bent slightly down towards her with a very friendly expression; and she, to her own surprise, answered him easily and freely; she was glad to talk with this stranger, this outsider, while Litvinov sat immovable as before, with the same fixed and unpleasant smile on his lips.

Dinner-time came at last. The music ceased, the crowd thinned.