And for a long time Lupoyarov still babbled on in the same way, and, as he went away, he promised to come again.
Worn out by the unexpected visit, Insarov lay down on the sofa. 'So this,' he said, mournfully looking at Elena, 'is your younger generation! There are plenty who show off, and give themselves airs, while at heart they are as empty chatterboxes as that worthy.'
Elena made no reply to her husband; at that instant she was far more concerned at Insarov's weakness than at the character of the whole younger generation in Russia. She sat down near him, and took up some work. He closed his eyes, and lay without moving, white and thin. Elena glanced at his sharp profile, at his emaciated hands, and felt a sudden pang of terror.
'Dmitri,' she began.
He started. 'Eh? Has Renditch come?'
'Not yet—but what do you think—you are in a fever, you are really not quite well, shouldn't we send for a doctor?'
'That wretched gossip has frightened you. There's no necessity. I will rest a little, and it will pass off. After dinner we will go out again—somewhere.'
Two hours passed. Insarov still lay on the sofa, but he could not sleep, though he did not open his eyes. Elena did not leave his side; she had dropped her work upon her knee, and did not stir.
'Why don't you go to sleep?' she asked at last.
'Wait a little.' He took her hand, and placed it under his head. 'There—that is nice. Wake me at once directly Renditch comes. If he says the ship is ready, we will start at once. We ought to pack everything.'
'Packing won't take long,' answered Elena.
'That fellow babbled something about a battle, about Servia,' said Insarov, after a short interval. 'I suppose he made it all up. But we must, we must start. We can't lose time. Be ready.'
He fell asleep, and everything was still in the room.
Elena let her head rest against the back of her chair, and gazed a long while out of the window. The weather had changed for the worse; the wind had risen. Great white clouds were scudding over the sky, a slender mast was swaying in the distance, a long streamer, with a red cross on it, kept fluttering, falling, and fluttering again. The pendulum of the old-fashioned clock ticked drearily, with a kind of melancholy whirr. Elena shut her eyes. She had slept badly all night; gradually she, too, fell asleep.
She had a strange dream. She thought sha was floating in a boat on the Tsaritsino lake with some unknown people. They did not speak, but sat motionless, no one was rowing; the boat was moving by itself. Elena was not afraid, but she felt dreary; she wanted to know who were these people, and why she was with them? She looked and the lake grew broader, the banks vanished—now it was not a lake but a stormy sea: immense blue silent waves rocked the boat majestically; something menacing, roaring was rising from the depths; her unknown companions jumped up, shrieking, wringing their hands... Elena recognised their faces; her father was among them. But a kind of white whirlwind came flying over the waves—everything was turning round, everything was confounded together.
Elena looked about her; as before, all around was white; but it was snow, snow, boundless plains of snow. And she was not now in a boat, but travelling, as she had come from Moscow, in a sledge; she was not alone; by her side was sitting a little creature muffled in an old cloak; Elena looked closely; it was Katya, her poor little friend. Elena was seized with terror. 'Why, isn't she dead?' she thought.
'Katya, where are we going together?' Katya did not answer, and nestled herself closer in her little cloak; she was freezing. Elena too was cold; she looked along the road into the distance; far away a town could be seen through the fine drifting snow. High white towers with silvery cupolas... 'Katya, Katya, is it Moscow? No,' thought Elena, 'it is Solovetsky Monastery; it's full of little narrow cells like a beehive; it's stifling, cramping there—and Dmitri's shut up there. I must rescue him.'... Suddenly a grey, yawning abyss opened before her. The sledge was falling, Katya was laughing. 'Elena, Elena!' came a voice from the abyss.
'Elena!' sounded distinctly in her ears. She raised her head quickly, turned round, and was stupefied: Insarov, white as snow, the snow of her dream, had half risen from the sofa, and was staring at her with large, bright, dreadful eyes. His hair hung in disorder on his forehead and his lips parted strangely. Horror, mingled with an anguish of tenderness, was expressed on his suddenly transfigured face.
'Elena!' he articulated, 'I am dying.'
She fell with a scream on her knees, and clung to his breast.
'It's all over,' repeated Insarov: 'I'm dying... Good-bye, my poor girl! good-bye, my country!' and he fell backwards on to the sofa.
Elena rushed out of the room, began calling for help; a waiter ran for a doctor. Elena clung to Insarov.
At that instant in the doorway appeared a broad-shouldered, sunburnt man, in a stout frieze coat and a low oil-skin hat. He stood still in bewilderment.
'Renditch!' cried Elena, 'it's you! Look, for God's sake, he's ill! What's wrong? Good God! He went out yesterday, he was talking to me just now.'
Renditch said nothing and only moved on one side. There slipped quickly past him a little figure in a wig and spectacles; it was a doctor living in the same hotel. He went up to Insarov.
'Signora,' he said, after the lapse of a few minutes, 'the foreign gentleman is dead—il Signore forestiere e morte—of aneurism in combination with disease of the lungs.'
XXXV
The next day, in the same room, Renditch was standing at the window; before him, wrapped in a shawl, sat Elena. In the next room, Insarov lay in his coffin. Elena's face was both scared and lifeless; two lines could be seen on her forehead between her eyebrows; they gave a strained expression to her fixed eyes. In the window lay an open letter from Anna Vassilyevna. She begged her daughter to come to Moscow if only for a month, complained of her loneliness, and of Nikolai Artemyevitch, sent greetings to Insarov, inquired after his health, and begged him to spare his wife.
Renditch was a Dalmatian, a sailor, with whom Insarov had become acquainted during his wanderings in his own country, and whom he had sought out in Venice. He was a dry, gruff man, full of daring and devoted to the Slavonic cause. He despised the Turks and hated the Austrians.
'How long must you remain at Venice?' Elena asked him in Italian. And her voice was as lifeless as her face.
'One day for freighting and not to rouse suspicions, and then straight to Zara. I shall have sad news for our countrymen. They have long been expecting him; they rested their hopes on him.'