Part 23

"Ah! Fédya! Pray come in,"--she said:--"sit down, my dear little father. We shall be through our game directly. Wouldst thou like some preserves? Schúrotchka, get him a jar of strawberries. Thou dost not want it? Well, then sit as thou art; but as for smoking--thou must not: I cannot bear thy tobacco, and, moreover, it makes Matrós sneeze."

Lavrétzky made haste to assert that he did not care to smoke.

"Hast thou been down-stairs?"--went on the old woman:--"whom didst thou see there? Is Pánshin still on hand, as usual? And didst thou see Liza? No? She intended to come hither.... Yes, there she is; speak of an angel...."

Liza entered the room and, on perceiving Lavrétzky, she blushed.

"I have run in to see you for a minute, Márfa Timoféevna," she began....

"Why for a minute?"--returned the old woman. "What makes all you young girls such restless creatures? Thou seest, that I have a visitor: chatter to him, entertain him."

Liza seated herself on the edge of a chair, raised her eyes to Lavrétzky,--and felt that it was impossible not to give him to understand how her interview with Pánshin had ended. But how was that to be done? She felt both ashamed and awkward. She had not been acquainted with him long, with that man who both went rarely to church and bore with so much indifference the death of his wife,--and here she was already imparting her secrets to him.... He took an interest in her, it is true; she, herself, trusted him, and felt attracted to him; but, nevertheless, she felt ashamed, as though a stranger had entered her pure, virgin chamber.

Márfa Timoféevna came to her assistance.

"If thou wilt not entertain him,"--she began, "who will entertain him, poor fellow? I am too old for him, he is too clever for me, and for Nastásya Kárpovna he is too old, you must give her nothing but very young men."

"How can I entertain Feódor Ivánitch?"--said Liza.--"If he likes, I will play something for him on the piano,"--she added, irresolutely.

"Very good indeed: that's my clever girl,"--replied Márfa Timoféevna,--"Go down-stairs, my dear people; when you are through, come back; for I have been left the 'fool,' and I feel insulted, and want to win back."

Liza rose: Lavrétzky followed her. As they were descending the staircase, Liza halted.

"They tell the truth,"--she began:--"when they say that the hearts of men are full of contradictions. Your example ought to frighten me, to render me distrustful of marriage for love, but I...."

"You have refused him?"--interrupted Lavrétzky.

"No; but I have not accepted him. I told him everything, everything that I felt, and asked him to wait. Are you satisfied?"--she added, with a swift smile,--and lightly touching the railing with her hand, she ran down the stairs.

"What shall I play for you?"--she asked, as she raised the lid of the piano.

"Whatever you like,"--replied Lavrétzky, and seated himself in such a position that he could watch her.

Liza began to play, and, for a long time, never took her eyes from her fingers. At last, she glanced at Lavrétzky, and stopped short: so wonderful and strange did his face appear to her.

"What is the matter with you?"--she asked.

"Nothing,"--he replied:--"all is very well with me; I am glad for you, I am glad to look at you,--go on."

"It seems to me,"--said Liza, a few moments later:--"that if he really loved me, he would not have written that letter; he ought to have felt that I could not answer him now."

"That is of no importance,"--said Lavrétzky:--"the important point is, that you do not love him."

"Stop,--what sort of a conversation is this! I keep having visions of your dead wife, and you are terrible to me!"

"My Lizéta plays charmingly, does she not, Valdemar?"--Márya Dmítrievna was saying to Pánshin at the same moment.

"Yes,"--replied Pánshin;--"very charmingly."

Márya Dmítrievna gazed tenderly at her young partner; but the latter assumed a still more important and careworn aspect, and announced fourteen kings.

XXXI

Lavrétzky was not a young man; he could not long deceive himself as to the sentiments with which Liza had inspired him; he became definitively convinced, on that day, that he had fallen in love with her. This conviction brought no great joy to him. "Is it possible," he thought, "that at the age of five and thirty I have nothing better to do than to put my soul again into the hands of a woman? But Liza is not like that one; she would not require from me shameful sacrifices; she would not draw me away from my occupations; she herself would encourage me to honourable, severe toil, and we would advance together toward a fine goal. Yes," he wound up his meditations:--"all that is good, but the bad thing is, that she will not in the least wish to marry me. It was not for nothing that she told me, that I am terrible to her. On the other hand, she does not love that Pánshin either.... A poor consolation!"