Part 26 (2/2)

'Where are you going, Irina Pavlovna?' she heard a voice utter with effort behind her.

She turned with nervous swiftness.... Potugin ran up to her.

She stopped short, thought a moment, and fairly flung herself towards him, took his arm, and drew him away.

'Take me away, take me away,' she repeated breathlessly.

'What is it, Irina Pavlovna?' he muttered in bewilderment.

'Take me away,' she reiterated with redoubled force, 'if you don't want me to remain for ever ... there.'

Potugin bent his head submissively, and hurriedly they went away together.

The following morning early Litvinov was perfectly ready for his journey--into his room walked ... Potugin.

He went up to him in silence, and in silence shook his hand. Litvinov, too, said nothing. Both of them wore long faces, and both vainly tried to smile.

'I came to wish you a good journey,' Potugin brought out at last.

'And how did you know I was going to-day?' asked Litvinov.

Potugin looked on the floor around him.... 'I became aware of it ... as you see. Our last conversation took in the end such a strange turn.... I did not want to part from you without expressing my sincere good feeling for you.'

'You have good feeling for me now ... when I am going away?'

Potugin looked mournfully at Litvinov. 'Ah, Grigory Mihalitch, Grigory Mihalitch,' he began with a short sigh, 'it's no time for that with us now, no time for delicacy or fencing. You don't, so far as I have been able to perceive, take much interest in our national literature, and so, perhaps, you have no clear conception of Vaska Buslaev?'

'Of whom?'

'Of Vaska Buslaev, the hero of Novgorod ... in Kirsch-Danilov's collection.'

'What Buslaev?' said Litvinov, somewhat puzzled by the unexpected turn of the conversation. 'I don't know.'

'Well, never mind. I only wanted to draw your attention to something.

Vaska Buslaev, after he had taken away his Novgorodians on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and there, to their horror, bathed all naked in the holy river Jordan, for he believed not ”in omen nor in dream, nor in the flight of birds,” this logical Vaska Buslaev climbed up Mount Tabor, and on the top of this mountain there lies a great stone, over which men of every kind have tried in vain to jump.... Vaska too ventured to try his luck. And he chanced upon a dead head, a human skull in his road; he kicked it away with his foot. So the skull said to him; ”Why do you kick me? I knew how to live, and I know how to roll in the dust--and it will be the same with you.” And in fact, Vaska jumps over the stone, and he did quite clear it, but he caught his heel and broke his skull. And in this place, I must by the way observe that it wouldn't be amiss for our friends, the Slavophils, who are so fond of kicking dead heads and decaying nationalities underfoot to ponder over that legend.'

'But what does all that mean?' Litvinov interposed impatiently at last.

'Excuse me, it's time for me....'

'Why, this,' answered Potugin, and his eyes beamed with such affectionate warmth as Litvinov had not even expected of him, 'this, that you do not spurn a dead human head, and for your goodness, perhaps you may succeed in leaping over the fatal stone. I won't keep you any longer, only let me embrace you at parting.'

'I'm not going to try to leap over it even,' Litvinov declared, kissing Potugin three times, and the bitter sensations filling his soul were replaced for an instant by pity for the poor lonely creature.

'But I must go, I must go ...' he moved about the room.

'Can I carry anything for you?' Potugin proffered his services.

'No, thank you, don't trouble, I can manage....'

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