_ CHAPTER XXVIII
As Lavretsky was leaving the Kalitines' house he met Panshine, with whom he exchanged a cold greeting. Then he went home and shut himself up in his room. The sensations he experienced were such as he had hardly ever known before. Was it long ago that he was in a condition of "peaceful torpor?" Was it long ago that he felt himself, as he had expressed it, "at the very bottom of the river?" What then had changed his condition? What had brought him to the surface, to the light of day? Was the most ordinary and inevitable, though always unexpected, of occurrences--death? Yes. But yet it was not so much his wife's death, his own freedom, that he was thinking about, as this--what answer will Liza give to Panshine?
He felt that in the course of the last three days he had begun to look on Liza with different eyes. He remembered how, when he was returning home and thinking of her in the silence of the night, he said to himself "If!--" This "if," by which at that time he had referred to the past, to the impossible, now applied to an actual state of things, but not exactly such a one as he had then supposed. Freedom by itself was little to him now. "She will obey her mother," he thought. "She will marry Panshine. But even if she refuses him--will it not be just the same as far as I am concerned?" Passing at that moment in front of a looking-glass, he just glanced at his face in it, and then shrugged his shoulders.
Amid such thoughts as these the day passed swiftly by. The evening arrived, and Lavretsky went to the Kalitines. He walked fast until he drew near to the house, but then he slackened his pace. Panshine's carriage was standing before the door. "Well," thought Lavretsky, as he entered the house, "I will not be selfish." No one met him in-doors, and all seemed quiet in the drawing-room. He opened the door, and found that Madame Kalitine was playing piquet with Panshine. That gentleman bowed to him silently, while the lady of the house exclaimed, "Well, this is an unexpected pleasure," and slightly frowned. Lavretsky sat down beside her and began looking at her cards.
"So you can play piquet?" she asked, with a shade of secret vexation in her voice, and then remarked that she had thrown away a wrong card.
Panshine counted ninety, and began to take up the tricks calmly and politely, his countenance the while wearing a grave and dignified expression. It was thus, he thought, that diplomatists ought to play. It was thus, in all probability, that he used to play with some influential dignitary at St. Petersburg, whom he wished to impress with a favorable idea of his solidity and perspicacity. "One hundred and one, hundred and two, heart, hundred and three," said the measured tones of his voice, and Lavretsky could not tell which it expressed--dislike or assurance.
"Can't I see Marfa Timofeevna?" asked Lavretsky, observing that Panshine, with a still more dignified air than before, was about to shuffle the cards; not even a trace of the artist was visible in him now.
"I suppose so. She is up-stairs in her room," answered Maria Dmitrievna. "You can ask for her."
Lavretsky went up-stairs. He found Marfa Timofeevna also at cards. She was playing at _Durachki_ with Nastasia Carpovna. Roska barked at him, but both the old ladies received him cordially. Marfa Timofeevna seemed in special good humor.
"Ah, Fedia!" she said, "do sit down, there's a good fellow. We shall have done our game directly. Will you have some preserves? Shurochka, give him a pot of strawberries. You won't have any? Well, then, sit there as you are. But as to smoking, you mustn't. I cannot abide your strong tobacco; besides, it would make Matros sneeze."
Lavretsky hastened to assure her that he had not the slightest desire to smoke.
"Have you been down-stairs?" asked the old lady. "Whom did you find there? Is Panshine always hanging about there? But did you see Liza? No? She was to have come here. Why there she is--as soon as one mentions her."
Liza came into the room, caught sight of Lavretsky and blushed.
"I have only come for a moment, Marfa Timofeevna," she was beginning.
"Why for a moment?" asked the old lady. "Why are all you young people so restless? You see I have a visitor there. Chat a little with him, amuse him."
Liza sat down on the edge of a chair, raised her eyes to Lavretsky, and felt at once that she could not do otherwise than let him know how her interview with Panshine had ended. But how was that to be managed? She felt at the same time confused and ashamed. Was it so short a time since she had become acquainted with that man, one who scarcely ever went to church even, and who bore the death of his wife so equably? and yet here she was already communicating her secrets to him. It was true that he took an interest in her; and that, on her side she trusted him, and felt herself drawn towards him. But in spite of all this, she felt a certain kind of modest shame--as if a stranger had entered her pure maiden chamber.
Marfa Timofeevna came to her rescue.
"Well, if you will not amuse him," she said, "who is to amuse him, poor fellow? I am too old for him; he is too clever for me; and as to Nastasia Carpovna, he is too old for her. It's only boys she cares for."
"How can I amuse Fedor Ivanovich?" said Liza. "I would rather play him something on the piano, if he likes," she continued irresolutely.
"That's capital. You're a clever creature," replied Marfa Timofeevna. "Go down-stairs, my dears. Come back again when you've clone; but just now, here I'm left the _durachka_,[A] so I'm savage. I must have my revenge."
[Footnote A: In the game of _durachki_, the player who remains the last is called the _durachok_ or _durachka_, diminutive of _durak_, a fool. The game somewhat resembles our own "Old Bachelor" or "Old Maid."]
Liza rose from her chair, and so did Lavretsky. As she was going down-stairs, Liza stopped.
"What they say is true," she began. "The human heart is full of contradictions. Your example ought to have frightened me--ought to have made me distrust marrying for love, and yet I--".
"You've refused him?" said Lavretsky, interrupting her.
"No; but I have not accepted him either. I told him every thing--all my feelings on the subject--and I asked him to wait a little. Are you satisfied?" she asked with a sudden smile: and letting her hand skim lightly along the balustrade, she ran down-stairs.
"What shall I play you?" she asked, as she opened the piano.
"Whatever you like," answered Lavretsky, taking a seat where he could look at her.
Liza began to play, and went on for some time with-out lifting her eyes from her fingers. At last she looked at Lavretsky, and stopped playing. The expression of his face seemed so strange and unusual to her.
"What is the, matter?" she asked.
"Nothing," he replied. "All is well with me at present. I feel happy on your account; it makes me glad to look at you--do go on."
"I think," said Liza, a few minutes later, "if he had really loved me he would not have written that letter; he ought to have felt that I could not answer him just now."
"That doesn't matter," said Lavretsky; "what does matter is that you do not love him."
"Stop! What is that you are saying? The image of your dead wife is always haunting me, and I feel afraid of you."
"Doesn't my Liza play well, Woldemar?" Madame Kalitine was saying at this moment to Panshine.
"Yes," replied Panshine, "exceedingly well."
Madame Kalitine looked tenderly at her young partner; but he assumed a still more important and pre-occupied look, and called fourteen kings. _