"An attractive person," thought the counsellor of state as he made his way to his lodgings, where his servant was awaiting him with a glass of opodeldoc: "It's well I'm a steady fellow—only, what was she laughing at?"
Marfa Timofyevna spent the whole night sitting beside Lisa's bed.
Chapter XLI
Lavretsky spent a day and a half at Vassilyevskoe, and employed almost all the time in wandering about the neighbourhood. He could not stop long in one place: he was devoured by anguish; he was torn unceasingly by impotent violent impulses. He remembered the feeling which had taken possession of him the day after his arrival in the country; he remembered his plans then and was intensely exasperated with himself. What had been able to tear him away from what he recognised as his duty—as the one task set before him in the future? The thirst for happiness—again the same thirst for happiness.
"It seems Mihalevitch was right," he thought; "you wanted a second time to taste happiness in life," he said to himself, "you forgot that it is a luxury, an undeserved bliss, if it even comes once to a man. It was not complete, it was not genuine, you say; but prove your right to full, genuine happiness Look round and see who is happy, who enjoys life about you? Look at that peasant going to the mowing; is he contented with his fate?... What! would you care to change places with him? Remember your mother; how infinitely little she asked of life, and what a life fell to her lot. You were only bragging it seems when you said to Panshin that you had come back to Russia to cultivate the soil; you have come back to dangle after young girls in your old age. Directly the news of your freedom came, you threw up everything, forgot everything; you ran like a boy after a butterfly."....
The image of Lisa continually presented itself in the midst of his broodings. He drove it away with an effort together with another importunate figure, other serenely wily, beautiful, hated features. Old Anton noticed that the master was not himself: after sighing several times outside the door and several times in the doorway, he made up his mind to go up to him, and advised him to take a hot drink of something. Lavretsky swore at him; ordered him out; afterwards he begged his pardon, but that only made Anton still more sorrowful. Lavretsky could not stay in the drawing-room; it seemed to him that his great-grandfather Andrey, was looking contemptuously from the canvas at his feeble descendant. "Bah: you swim in shallow water," the distorted lips seemed to be saying. "Is it possible," he thought, "that I cannot master myself, that I am going to give in to this... nonsense?" (Those who are badly wounded in war always call their wounds "nonsense." If man did not deceive himself, he could not live on earth.) "Am I really a boy? Ah, well; I saw quite close, I almost held in my hands the possibility of happiness for my whole life; yes, in the lottery too—turn the wheel a little and the beggar perhaps would be a rich man. If it does not happen, then it does not—and it's all over. I will set to work, with my teeth clenched, and make myself be quiet; it's as well, it's not the first time I have had to hold myself in. And why have I run away, why am I stopping here sticking my head in a bush, like an ostrich? A fearful thing to face trouble... nonsense! Anton," he called aloud, "order the coach to be brought round at once. Yes," he thought again, "I must grin and bear it, I must keep myself well in hand."
With such reasonings Lavretsky tried to ease his pain; but it was deep and intense; and even Apraxya who had outlived all emotion as well as intelligence shook her head and followed him mournfully with her eyes, as he took his seat in the coach to drive to the town. The horses galloped away; he sat upright and motionless, and looked fixedly at the road before him.
Chapter XLII
Lisa had written to Lavretsky the day before, to tell him to come in the evening; but he first went home to his lodgings. He found neither his wife nor his daughter at home; from the servants he learned that she had gone with the child to the Kalitins'. This information astounded and maddened him. "Varvara Pavlovna has made up her mind not to let me live at all, it seems," he thought with a passion of hatred in his heart. He began to walk up and down, and his hands and feet were constantly knocking up against child's toys, books and feminine belongings; he called Justine and told her to clear away all this "litter." "Oui, monsieur," she said with a grimace, and began to set the room in order, stooping gracefully, and letting Lavretsky feel in every movement that she regarded him as an unpolished bear.
He looked with aversion at her faded, but still "piquante," ironical, Parisian face, at her white elbow-sleeves, her silk apron, and little light cap. He sent her away at last, and after long hesitation (as Varvara Pavlovna still did not return) he decided to go to the Kalitins'—not to see Marya Dmitrievna (he would not for anything in the world have gone into that drawing-room, the room where his wife was), but to go up to Marfa Timofyevna's. He remembered that the back staircase from the servants' entrance led straight to her apartment. He acted on this plan; fortune favoured him; he met Shurotchka in the court-yard; she conducted him up to Marfa Timofyevna's. He found her, contrary to her usual habit, alone; she was sitting without a cap in a corner, bent, and her arms crossed over her breast. The old lady was much upset on seeing Lavretsky, she got up quickly and began to move to and fro in the room as if she were looking for her cap.
"Ah, it's you," she began, fidgeting about and avoiding meeting his eyes, "well, how do you do? Well, well, what's to be done! Where were you yesterday? Well, she has come, so there, there! Well, it must... one way or another."
Lavretsky dropped into a chair.
"Well, sit down, sit down," the old lady went on. "Did you come straight up-stairs? Well, there, of course. So... you came to see me? Thanks."
The old lady was silent for a little; Lavretsky did not know what to say to her; but she understood him.
"Lisa... yes, Lisa was here just now," pursued Marfa Timofyevna, tying and untying the tassels of her reticule. "She was not quite well. Shurotchka, where are you? Come here, my girl; why can't you sit still a little? My head aches too. It must be the effect of the singing and music."
"What singing, auntie?"
"Why, we have been having those—upon my word, what do you call them—duets here. And all in Italian: chi-chi—and cha-cha—like magpies for all the world with their long drawn-out notes as if they'd pull your very soul out. That's Panshin, and your wife too. And how quickly everything was settled; just as though it were all among relations, without ceremony. However, one may well say, even a dog will try to find a home; and won't be lost so long as folks don't drive it out."
"Still, I confess I did not expect this," rejoined Lavretsky; "there must be great effrontery to do this."
"No, my darling, it's not effrontery, it's calculation, God forgive her! They say you are sending her off to Lavriky; is it true?"
"Yes, I am giving up that property to Varvara Pavlovna."
"Has she asked you for money?"
"Not yet."
"Well, that won't be long in coming. But I have only now got a look at you. Are you quite well?"