Part 22

"Yes, he pleases me; he seems to be a nice man...."

"You said the same thing to me, in those very same words, three days ago. What I want to know is, whether you love him with that strong, passionate feeling which we are accustomed to call love?"

"As you understand it,--no."

"You are not in love with him?"

"No. But is that necessary?"

"Of course it is!"

"Mamma likes him,"--pursued Liza:--"he is amiable; I have nothing against him."

"Still, you are wavering?"

"Yes ... and perhaps,--your words may be the cause of it. Do you remember what you said day before yesterday? But that weakness...."

"Oh, my child!"--suddenly exclaimed Lavrétzky--and his voice trembled:--"do not argue artfully, do not designate as weakness the cry of your heart, which does not wish to surrender itself without love. Do not take upon yourself that terrible responsibility toward a man whom you do not love and to whom you do not wish to belong...."

"I am listening,--I am taking nothing upon myself ..." Liza was beginning.

"Listen to your heart; it alone will tell you the truth,"--Lavrétzky interrupted her.... "Experience, reasoning--all that is stuff and nonsense! Do not deprive yourself of the best, the only happiness on earth."

"Is it you, Feódor Ivánitch, who are speaking thus? You, yourself, married for love--and were you happy?"

Lavrétzky wrung his hands.

"Akh, do not talk to me of that! You cannot even understand all that a young, untried, absurdly educated lad can mistake for love!... Yes, and in short, why calumniate one's self? I just told you, that I had not known happiness ... no! I was happy!"

"It seems to me, Feódor Ivánitch,"--said Liza, lowering her voice (when she did not agree with her interlocutor, she always lowered her voice; and, at the same time, she became greatly agitated):--"happiness on earth does not depend upon us...."

"It does, it does depend upon us, believe me," (he seized both her hands; Liza turned pale, and gazed at him almost in terror, but with attention):--"if only we have not ruined our own lives. For some people, a love-marriage may prove unhappy; but not for you, with your calm temperament, with your clear soul! I entreat you, do not marry without love, from a sense of duty, of renunciation, or anything else.... That, also, is want of faith, that is calculation,--and even worse. Believe me,--I have a right to speak thus: I have paid dearly for that right. And if your God...."

At that moment, Lavrétzky noticed that Lyénotchka and Schúrotchka were standing beside Liza, and staring at him with dumb amazement. He released Liza's hands, said hastily: "Pray pardon me,"--and walked toward the house.

"I have only one request to make of you,"--he said, returning to Liza:--"do not decide instantly, wait, think over what I have said to you. Even if you have not believed me, if you have made up your mind to a marriage of reason,--even in that case, you ought not to marry Mr. Pánshin: he cannot be your husband.... Promise me, will you not, not to be in a hurry?"

Liza tried to answer Lavrétzky, but did not utter a word,--not because she had made up her mind "to be in a hurry"; but because her heart was beating too violently, and a sensation resembling fear had stopped her breath.

XXX

As he was leaving the Kalítins' house, Lavrétzky encountered Pánshin; they saluted each other coldly. Lavrétzky went home to his apartment, and locked himself in. He experienced a sensation such as he had, in all probability, never experienced before. Had he remained long in that state of "peaceful numbness"? had he long continued to feel, as he had expressed it, "at the bottom of the river"? What had altered his position? what had brought him out, to the surface? the most ordinary, inevitable though always unexpected of events;--death? Yes: but he did not think so much about the death of his wife, about his freedom, as,--what sort of answer would Liza give to Pánshin? He was conscious that, in the course of the last three days, he had come to look upon her with different eyes; he recalled how, on returning home, and thinking about her in the silence of the night, he had said to himself: "If...." That "if," wherein he had alluded to the past, to the impossible, had come to pass, although not in the way he had anticipated,--but this was little in itself. "She will obey her mother," he thought, "she will marry Pánshin; but even if she refuses him,--is it not all the same to me?" As he passed in front of the mirror, he cast a cursory glance at his face, and shrugged his shoulders.

The day sped swiftly by in these reflections; evening arrived. Lavrétzky wended his way to the Kalítins. He walked briskly, but approached their house with lingering steps. In front of the steps stood Pánshin's drozhky. "Come,"--thought Lavrétzky,--"I will not be an egoist," and entered the house. Inside he met no one, and all was still in the drawing-room; he opened the door, and beheld Márya Dmítrievna, playing picquet with Pánshin. Pánshin bowed to him in silence, and the mistress of the house uttered a little scream:--"How unexpected!"--and frowned slightly. Lavrétzky took a seat by her side, and began to look over her cards.

"Do you know how to play picquet?"--she asked him, with a certain dissembled vexation, and immediately announced that she discarded.

Pánshin reckoned up ninety, and politely and calmly began to gather up the tricks, with a severe and dignified expression on his countenance. That is the way in which diplomats should play; probably, that is the way in which he was wont to play in Petersburg, with some powerful dignitary, whom he desired to impress with a favourable opinion as to his solidity and maturity. "One hundred and one, one hundred and two, hearts; one hundred and three,"--rang out his measured tone, and Lavrétzky could not understand what note resounded in it: reproach or self-conceit.

"Is Márfa Timoféevna to be seen?"--he asked, observing that Pánshin, still with great dignity, was beginning to shuffle the cards. Not a trace of the artist was, as yet, to be observed in him.

"Yes, I think so. She is in her own apartments, up-stairs,"--replied Márya Dmítrievna:--"you had better inquire."

Lavrétzky went up-stairs, and found Márfa Timoféevna at cards also: she was playing duratchkí (fools) with Nastásya Kárpovna. Róska barked at him; but both the old ladies welcomed him cordially, and Márfa Timoféevna, in particular, seemed to be in high spirits.