Kitabı oku: «Uncle's Dream; and The Permanent Husband», sayfa 13
“You haven't told me where you live,” shouted Velchaninoff after him as he left the room.
“Oh, didn't I? Pokrofsky Hotel.”
Pavel Pavlovitch was out on the stairs now.
“Stop!” cried Velchaninoff, once more. “You are not ‘running away,’ are you?”
“How do you mean, ‘running away?’ ” asked Pavel Pavlovitch, turning round at the third step, and grinning back at him, with his eyes staring very wide open.
Instead of replying, Velchaninoff banged the door fiercely, locked and bolted it, and went fuming back into his room. Arrived there, he spat on the ground, as though to get rid of the taste of something loathsome.
He then stood motionless for at least five minutes, in the centre of the room; after which he threw himself upon his bed, and fell asleep in an instant.
The forgotten candle burned itself out in its socket.
CHAPTER IV
Velchaninoff slept soundly until half-past nine, at which hour he started up, sat down on the side of his bed, and began to think.
His thoughts quickly fixed themselves upon the death of “that woman.”
The agitating impression wrought upon his mind by yesterday's news as to her death had left a painful feeling of mental perturbation.
This morning the whole of the events of nine years back stood out before his mind's eye with extraordinary distinctness.
He had loved this woman, Natalia Vasilievna – Trusotsky's wife, – he had loved her, and had acted the part of her lover during the time which he had spent in their provincial town (while engaged in business connected with a legacy); he had lived there a whole year, though his business did not require by any means so long a visit; in fact, the tie above mentioned had detained him in the place.
He had been so completely under the influence of this passion, that Natalia Vasilievna had held him in a species of slavery. He would have obeyed the slightest whim or the wildest caprice of the woman, at that time. He had never, before or since, experienced anything approaching to the infatuation she had caused.
When the time came for departing, Velchaninoff had been in a state of such absolute despair, though the parting was to have been but a short one, that he had begged Natalia Vasilievna to leave all and fly across the frontier with him; and it was only by laughing him out of the idea (though she had at first encouraged it herself, probably for a joke), and by unmercifully chaffing him, that the lady eventually persuaded Velchaninoff to depart alone.
However, he had not been a couple of months in St. Petersburg before he found himself asking himself that question which he had never to this day been able to answer satisfactorily, namely, “Did he love this woman at all, or was it nothing but the infatuation of the moment?” He did not ask this question because he was conscious of any new passion taking root in his heart; on the contrary, during those first two months in town he had been in that condition of mind that he had not so much as looked at a woman, though he had met hundreds, and had returned to his old society ways at once. And yet he knew perfectly well that if he were to return to T – he would instantly fall into the meshes of his passion for Natalia Vasilievna once more, in spite of the question which he could not answer as to the reality of his love for her.
Five years later he was as convinced of this fact as ever, although the very thought of it was detestable to him, and although he did not remember the name of Natalia Vasilievna but with loathing.
He was ashamed of that episode at T – . He could not understand how he (Velchaninoff) could ever have allowed himself to become the victim of such a stupid passion. He blushed whenever he thought of the shameful business – blushed, and even wept for shame.
He managed to forget his remorse after a few more years – he felt sure that he had “lived it down;” and yet now, after nine years, here was the whole thing resuscitated by the news of Natalia's death.
At all events, however, now, as he sat on his bed with agitating thoughts swarming through his brain, he could not but feel that the fact of her being dead was a consolation, amidst all the painful reflections which the mention of her name had called up.
“Surely I am a little sorry for her?” he asked himself.
Well, he certainly did not feel that sensation of hatred for her now; he could think of her and judge her now without passion of any kind, and therefore more justly.
He had long since been of opinion that in all probability there had been nothing more in Natalia Vasilievna than is to be found in every lady of good provincial society, and that he himself had created the whole “fantasy” of his worship and her worshipfulness; but though he had formed this opinion, he always doubted its correctness, and he still felt that doubt now. Facts existed to contradict the theory. For instance, this Bagantoff had lived for several years at T – , and had been no less a victim to passion for this woman, and had been as helpless as Velchaninoff himself under her witchery. Bagantoff, though a young idiot (as Velchaninoff expressed it), was nevertheless a scion of the very highest society in St. Petersburg. His career was in St. Petersburg, and it was significant that such a man should have wasted five important years of his life at T – simply out of love for this woman. It was said that he had only returned to Petersburg even then because the lady had had enough of him; so that, all things considered, there must have been something which rendered Natalia Vasilievna preeminently attractive among women.
Yet the woman was not rich; she was not even pretty (if not absolutely plain!) Velchaninoff had known her when she was twenty-eight years old. Her face was capable of taking a pleasing expression, but her eyes were not good – they were too hard. She was a thin, bony woman to look at. Her mind was intelligent, but narrow and one-sided. She had tact and taste, especially as to dress. Her character was firm and overbearing. She was never wrong (in her own opinion) or unjust. The unfaithfulness towards her husband never caused her the slightest remorse; she hated corruption, and yet she was herself corrupt; and she believed in herself absolutely. Nothing could ever have persuaded her that she herself was actually depraved; Velchaninoff believed that she really did not know that her own corruption was corrupt. He considered her to be “one of those women who only exist to be unfaithful wives.” Such women never remain unmarried, – it is the law of their nature to marry, – their husband is their first lover, and he is always to blame for anything that may happen afterwards; the unfaithful wife herself being invariably absolutely in the right, and of course perfectly innocent.
So thought Velchaninoff; and he was convinced that such a type of woman actually existed; but he was no less convinced that there also existed a corresponding type of men, born to be the husbands of such women. In his opinion the mission of such men was to be, so to speak, “permanent husbands,” – that is, to be husbands all their lives, and nothing else.
Velchaninoff had not the smallest doubt as to the existence of these two types, and Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky was, in his opinion, an excellent representative of the male type. Of course, the Pavel Pavlovitch of last night was by no means the same Pavel Pavlovitch as he had known at T – . He had found an extraordinary change in the man; and yet, on reflection, he was bound to admit that the change was but natural, for that he could only have remained what he was so long as his wife lived; and that now he was but a part of a whole, allowed to wander at will – that is, an imperfect being, a surprising, an incomprehensible sort of a thing, without proper balance.
As for the Pavel Pavlovitch of T – , this is what Velchaninoff remembered of him:
Pavel Pavlovitch had been a husband, of course, – a formality, – and that was all. If, for instance, he was a clerk of department besides, he was so merely in his capacity of, and as a part of his responsibility as – a husband. He worked for his wife, and for her social position. He had been thirty-five years old at that time, and was possessed of some considerable property. He had not shown any special talent, nor, on the other hand, any marked incapacity in his professional employment; his position had been decidedly a good one.
Natalia Vasilievna had been respected and looked up to by all; not that she valued their respect in the least, – she considered it merely as her due. She was a good hostess, and had schooled Pavel Pavlovitch into polite manners, so that he was able to receive and entertain the very best society passably well.
He might be a clever man, for all Velchaninoff knew, but as Natalia Vasilievna did not like her husband to talk much, there was little opportunity of judging. He may have had many good qualities, as well as bad; but the good ones were, so to speak, kept put away in their cases, and the bad ones were stifled and not allowed to appear. Velchaninoff remembered, for instance, that Pavel Pavlovitch had once or twice shown a disposition to laugh at those about him, but this unworthy proclivity had been very promptly subdued. He had been fond of telling stories, but this was not allowed either; or, if permitted at all, the anecdote was to be of the shortest and most uninteresting description.
Pavel Pavlovitch had a circle of private friends outside the house, with whom he was fain, at times, to taste the flowing bowl; but this vicious tendency was radically stamped out as soon as possible.
And yet, with all this, Natalia Vasilievna appeared, to the uninitiated, to be the most obedient of wives, and doubtless considered herself so. Pavel Pavlovitch may have been desperately in love with her, – no one could say as to this.
Velchaninoff had frequently asked himself during his life at T – , whether Pavel Pavlovitch ever suspected his wife of having formed the tie with himself, of which mention has been made. Velchaninoff had several times questioned Natalia Vasilievna on this point, seriously enough; but had invariably been told, with some show of annoyance, that her husband neither did know, nor ever could know; and that “all there might be to know was not his business!”
Another trait in her character was that she never laughed at Pavel Pavlovitch, and never found him funny in any sense; and that she would have been down on any person who dared to be rude to him, at once!
Pavel Pavlovitch's reference to the pleasant little readings enjoyed by the trio nine years ago was accurate; they used to read Dickens' novels together. Velchaninoff or Trusotsky reading aloud, while Natalia Vasilievna worked. The life at T – had ended suddenly, and so far as Velchaninoff was concerned, in a way which drove him almost to the verge of madness. The fact is, he was simply turned out – although it was all managed in such a way that he never observed that he was being thrown over like an old worn-out shoe.
A young artillery officer had appeared in the town a month or so before Velchaninoff's departure and had made acquaintance with the Trusotsky's. The trio became a quartet. Before long Velchaninoff was informed that for many reasons a separation was absolutely necessary; Natalia Vasilievna adduced a hundred excellent reasons why this had become unavoidable – and especially one which quite settled the matter. After his stormy attempt to persuade Natalia Vasilievna to fly with him to Paris – or anywhere, – Velchaninoff had ended by going to St. Petersburg alone – for two or three months at the very most, as he said, – otherwise he would refuse to go at all, in spite of every reason and argument Natalia might adduce.
Exactly two months later Velchaninoff had received a letter from Natalia Vasilievna, begging him to come no more to T – , because that she already loved another. As to the principal reason which she had brought forward in favour of his immediate departure, she now informed him that she had made a mistake. Velchaninoff remembered the young artilleryman, and understood, – and so the matter had ended, once and for all. A year or two after this Bagantoff appeared at T – , and an intimacy between Natalia Vasilievna and the former had sprung up which lasted for five years. This long period of constancy, Velchaninoff attributed to advancing age on the part of Natalia. He sat on the side of his bed for nearly an hour and thought. At last he roused himself, rang for Mavra and his coffee, drank it off quickly – dressed – and punctually at eleven was on his way to the Pokrofsky Hotel: he felt rather ashamed of his behaviour to Pavel Pavlovitch last night. Velchaninoff put down all that phantasmagoria of the trying of the lock and so on to Pavel Pavlovitch's drunken condition and to other reasons, – but he did not know why he was now on his way to make fresh relations with the husband of that woman, since their acquaintanceship and intercourse had come to so natural and simple a termination; yet something seemed to draw him thither – some strong current of impulse, – and he went.
CHAPTER V
Pavel Pavlovitch was not thinking of “running away,” and goodness knows why Velchaninoff should have asked him such a question last night – he did not know himself why he had said it!
He was directed to the Petrofsky Hotel, and found the building at once. At the hotel he was told that Pavel Pavlovitch had now engaged a furnished lodging in the back part of the same house.
Mounting the dirty and narrow stairs indicated, as far as the third storey, he suddenly became aware of someone crying. It sounded like the weeping of a child of some seven or eight years of age; it was a bitter, but a more or less suppressed sort of crying, and with it came the sound of a grown man's voice, apparently trying to quiet the child – anxious that its sobbing and crying should not be heard, – and yet only succeeding in making it cry the louder.
The man's voice did not seem in any way sympathetic with the child's grief; and the latter appeared to be begging for forgiveness.
Making his way into a narrow dark passage with two doors on each side of it, Velchaninoff met a stout-looking, elderly woman, in very careless morning attire, and inquired for Pavel Pavlovitch.
She tapped the door with her fingers in response to his inquiry – the same door, apparently, whence issued the noises just mentioned. Her fat face seemed to flush with indignation as she did so.
“He appears to be amusing himself in there!” she said, and proceeded downstairs.
Velchaninoff was about to knock, but thought better of it and opened the door without ceremony.
In the very middle of a room furnished with plain, but abundant furniture, stood Pavel Pavlovitch in his shirt-sleeves, very red in the face, trying to persuade a little girl to do something or other, and using cries and gestures, and what looked to Velchaninoff very like kicks, in order to effect his purpose. The child appeared to be some seven or eight years of age, and was poorly dressed in a short black stuff frock. She seemed to be in a most hysterical condition, crying and stretching out her arms to Pavel Pavlovitch, as though begging and entreating him to allow her to do whatever it might be she desired.
On Velchaninoff's appearance the scene changed in an instant. No sooner did her eyes fall on the visitor than the child made for the door of the next room, with a cry of alarm; while Pavel Pavlovitch – thrown out for one little instant – immediately relaxed into smiles of great sweetness – exactly as he had done last night, when Velchaninoff suddenly opened his front door and caught him standing outside.
“Alexey Ivanovitch!” he cried in real surprise; “who ever would have thought it! Sit down – sit down – take the sofa – or this chair, – sit down, my dear sir! I'll just put on – ” and he rushed for his coat and threw it on, leaving his waistcoat behind.
“Don't stand on ceremony with me,” said Velchaninoff sitting down; “stay as you are!”
“No, sir, no! excuse me – I insist upon standing on ceremony. There, now! I'm a little more respectable! Dear me, now, who ever would have thought of seeing you here! – not I, for one!”
Pavel Pavlovitch sat down on the edge of a chair, which he turned so as to face Velchaninoff.
“And pray why shouldn't you have expected me? I told you last night that I was coming this morning!”
“I thought you wouldn't come, sir – I did indeed; in fact, when I thought over yesterday's visit, I despaired of ever seeing you again: I did indeed, sir!”
Velchaninoff glanced round the room meanwhile. The place was very untidy; the bed was unmade; the clothes thrown about the floor; on the table were two coffee tumblers with the dregs of coffee still in them, and a bottle of champagne half finished, and with a tumbler standing alongside it. He glanced at the next room, but all was quiet there; the little girl had hidden herself, and was as still as a mouse.
“You don't mean to say you drink that stuff at this time of day?” he asked, indicating the champagne bottle.
“It's only a remnant,” explained Pavel Pavlovitch, a little confused.
“My word! You are a changed man!”
“Bad habits, sir; and all of a sudden. All dating from that time, sir. Give you my word, I couldn't resist it. But I'm all right now – I'm not drunk – I shan't talk twaddle as I did last night; don't be afraid sir, it's all right! From that very day, sir; give you my word it is! And if anyone had told me half a year ago that I should become like this, – if they had shown me my face in a glass then as I should be now, I should have given them the lie, sir; I should indeed!”
“Hem! Then you were drunk last night?”
“Yes – I was!” admitted Pavel Pavlovitch, a little guiltily – “not exactly drunk, a little beyond drunk! – I tell you this by way of explanation, because I'm always worse after being drunk! If I'm only a little drunk, still the violence and unreasonableness of intoxication come out afterwards, and stay out too; and then I feel my grief the more keenly. I daresay my grief is responsible for my drinking. I am capable of making an awful fool of myself and offending people when I'm drunk. I daresay I seemed strange enough to you last night?”
“Don't you remember what you said and did?”
“Assuredly I do – I remember everything!”
“Listen to me, Pavel Pavlovitch: I have thought it over and have come to very much the same conclusion as you did yourself,” began Velchaninoff gently; “besides – I believe I was a little too irritable towards you last night – too impatient, – I admit it gladly; the fact is – I am not very well sometimes, and your sudden arrival, you know, in the middle of the night – ”
“In the middle of the night: you are quite right – it was!” said Pavel Pavlovitch, wagging his head assentingly; “how in the world could I have brought myself to do such a thing? I shouldn't have come in, though, if you hadn't opened the door. I should have gone as I came. I called on you about a week ago, and did not find you at home, and I daresay I should never have called again; for I am rather proud – Alexey Ivanovitch – in spite of my present state. Whenever I have met you in the streets I have always said to myself, ‘What if he doesn't know me and rejects me – nine years is no joke!’ and I did not dare try you for fear of being snubbed. Yesterday, thanks to that sort of thing, you know,” (he pointed to the bottle), “I didn't know what time it was, and – it's lucky you are the kind of man you are, Alexey Ivanovitch, or I should despair of preserving your acquaintance, after yesterday! You remember old times, Alexey Ivanovitch!”
Velchaninoff listened keenly to all this. The man seemed to be talking seriously enough, and even with some dignity; and yet he had not believed a single word that Pavel Pavlovitch had uttered from the very first moment that he entered the room.
“Tell me, Pavel Pavlovitch,” said Velchaninoff at last, “ – I see you are not quite alone here, – whose little girl is that I saw when I came in?”
Pavel Pavlovitch looked surprised and raised his eyebrow; but he gazed back at Velchaninoff with candour and apparent amiability:
“Whose little girl? Why that's our Liza!” he said, smiling affably.
“What Liza?” asked Velchaninoff, – and something seemed to cause him to shudder inwardly.
The sensation was dreadfully sudden. Just now, on entering the room and seeing Liza, he had felt surprised more or less, – but had not been conscious of the slightest feeling of presentiment, – indeed he had had no special thought about the matter, at the moment.
“Why —our Liza! – our daughter Liza!” repeated Pavel Pavlovitch, smiling.
“Your daughter? Do you mean to say that you and Natalia Vasilievna had children?” asked Velchaninoff timidly, and in a very low tone of voice indeed!
“Of course – but – what a fool I am – how in the world should you know! Providence sent us the gift after you had gone!”
Pavel Pavlovitch jumped off his chair in apparently pleasurable excitement.
“I heard nothing of it!” said Velchaninoff, looking very pale.
“How should you? how should you?” repeated Pavel Pavlovitch with ineffable sweetness. “We had quite lost hope of any children – as you may remember, – when suddenly Heaven sent us this little one. And, oh! my feelings – Heaven alone knows what I felt! Just a year after you went, I think – no, wait a bit – not a year by a long way! – Let's see, you left us in October, or November, didn't you?”
“I left T – on the twelfth of September, I remember well.”
“Hum! September was it? Dear me! Well, then, let's see – September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April – to the 8th of May – that was Liza's birthday – eight months all but a bit; and if you could only have seen the dear departed, how rejoiced – ”
“Show her to me – call her in!” the words seemed to tear themselves from Velchaninoff, whether he liked it or no.
“Certainly – this moment!” cried Pavel Pavlovitch, forgetting that he had not finished his previous sentence, or ignoring the fact; and he hastily left the room, and entered the small chamber adjoining.
Three or four minutes passed by, while Velchaninoff heard the rapid interchange of whispers going on, and an occasional rather louder sound of Liza's voice, apparently entreating her father to leave her alone – so Velchaninoff concluded.
At last the two came out.
“There you are – she's dreadfully shy and proud,” said Pavel Pavlovitch; “just like her mother.”
Liza entered the room without tears, but with eyes downcast, her father leading her by the hand. She was a tall, slight, and very pretty little girl. She raised her large blue eyes to the visitor's face with curiosity; but only glanced surlily at him, and dropped them again. There was that in her expression that one always sees in children when they look on some new guest for the first time – retiring to a corner, and looking out at him thence seriously and mistrustingly; only that there was a something in her manner beyond the usual childish mistrust – so, at least thought Velchaninoff.
Her father brought her straight up to the visitor.
“There – this gentleman knew mother very well. He was our friend; you mustn't be shy, – give him your hand!”
The child bowed slightly, and timidly stretched out her hand.
“Natalia Vasilievna never would teach her to curtsey; she liked her to bow, English fashion, and give her hand,” explained Pavel Pavlovitch, gazing intently at Velchaninoff.
Velchaninoff knew perfectly well that the other was keenly examining him at this moment, but he made no attempt to conceal his agitation: he sat motionless on his chair and held the child's hand in his, gazing into her face the while.
But Liza was apparently much preoccupied, and did not take her eyes off her father's face; she listened timidly to every word he said.
Velchaninoff recognised her large blue eyes at once; but what specially struck him was the refined pallor of her face, and the colour of her hair; these traits were altogether too significant, in his eyes! Her features, on the other hand, and the set of her lips, reminded him keenly of Natalia Vasilievna. Meanwhile Pavel Pavlovitch was in the middle of some apparently most interesting tale – one of great sentiment seemingly, – but Velchaninoff did not hear a word of it until the last few words struck upon his ear:
“… So that you can't imagine what our joy was when Providence sent us this gift, Alexey Ivanovitch! She was everything to me, for I felt that if it should be the will of Heaven to deprive me of my other joy, I should still have Liza left to me; that's what I felt, sir, I did indeed!”
“And Natalia Vasilievna?” asked Velchaninoff.
“Oh, Natalia Vasilievna – ” began Pavel Pavlovitch, smiling with one side of his mouth; “she never used to like to say much – as you know yourself; but she told me on her deathbed – deathbed! you know, sir – to the very day of her death she used to get so angry and say that they were trying to cure her with a lot of nasty medicines when she had nothing the matter but a simple little feverish attack; and that when Koch arrived (you remember our old doctor Koch?) he would make her all right in a fortnight. Why, five hours before she died she was talking of fixing that day three weeks for a visit to her Aunt, Liza's godmother, at her country place!” Velchaninoff here started from his seat, but still held the child's hand. He could not help thinking that there was something reproachful in the girl's persistent stare in her father's face.
“Is she ill?” he asked hurriedly, and his voice had a strange tone in it.
“No! I don't think so” said Pavel Pavlovitch; “but, you see our way of living here, and all that: she's a strange child and very nervous, besides! After her mother's death she was quite ill and hysterical for a fortnight. Just before you came in she was crying like anything; and do you know what about, sir? Do you hear me, Liza? – You listen! – Simply because I was going out, and wished to leave her behind, and because she said I didn't love her so well as I used to in her mother's time. That's what she pitches into me for! Fancy a child like this getting hold of such an idea! – a child who ought to be playing at dolls, instead of developing ideas of that sort! The thing is, she has no one to play with here.”
“Then – then – are you two quite alone here?”
“Quite! a servant comes in once a day, that's all!”
“And when you go out, do you leave her quite alone?”
“Of course! What else am I to do? Yesterday I locked her in that room, and that's what all the tears were about this morning. What could I do? the day before yesterday she went down into the yard all by herself, and a boy took a shot at her head with a stone! Not only that, but she must needs go and cling on to everybody she met, and ask where I had gone to! That's not so very pleasant, you see! But I oughtn't to complain when I say I am going out for an hour and then stay out till four in the morning, as I did last night! The landlady came and let her out: she had the door broken open! Nice for my feelings, eh! It's all the result of the eclipse that came over my life; nothing but that, sir!”
“Papa!” said the child, timidly and anxiously.
“Now, then! none of that again! What did I tell you yesterday?”
“I won't; I won't!” cried the child hurriedly, clasping her hands before her entreatingly.
“Come! things can't be allowed to go on in this way!” said Velchaninoff impatiently, and with authority. “In the first place, you are a man of property; how can you possibly live in a hole like this, and in such disorder?”
“This place! Oh, but we shall probably have left this place within a week; and I've spent a lot of money here, as it is, though I may be 'a man of property;' and – ”
“Very well, that'll do,” interrupted Velchaninoff with growing impatience, “now, I'll make you a proposition: you have just said that you intend to stay another week – perhaps two. I have a house here – or rather I know a family where I am as much at home as at my own fireside, and have been so for twenty years. The family I mean is the Pogoryeltseffs – Alexander Pavlovitch Pogoryeltseff is a state councillor (he may be of use to you in your business!) They are now living in the country – they have a beautiful country villa; Claudia Petrovna, the lady of the house, is like a sister – like a mother to me; they have eight children. Let me take Liza down to them without loss of time! they'll receive her with joy, and they'll treat her like their own little daughter – they will, indeed!”
Velchaninoff was in a great hurry, and much excited, and he did not conceal his feelings.
“I'm afraid it's impossible!” said Pavel Pavlovitch with a grimace, looking straight into his visitor's eyes, very cunningly, as it seemed to Velchaninoff.
“Why! why, impossible?”
“Oh, why! to let the child go – so suddenly, you know, of course with such a sincere well-wisher as yourself – it's not that! – but a strange house – and such swells, too! – I don't know whether they would receive her!”
“But I tell you I'm like a son of the house!” cried Velchaninoff, almost angrily. “Claudia Petrovna will be delighted to take her, at one word from me! She'd receive her as though she were my own daughter. Deuce take it, sir, you know you are only humbugging me, – what's the use of talking about it?”
He stamped his foot.
“No – no! I mean to say – don't it look a little strange? Oughtn't I to call once or twice first? – such a smart house as you say theirs is – don't you see – ”
“I tell you it's the simplest house in the world; it isn't ‘smart’ in the least bit,” cried Velchaninoff; “they have a lot of children: it will make another girl of her! – I'll introduce you there myself, to-morrow, if you like. Of course you'll have to go and thank them, and all that. You shall go down every day with me, if you please.”
“Oh, but – ”
“Nonsense! You know it's nonsense! Now look here: you come to me this evening – I'll put you up for the night – and we'll start off early to-morrow and be down there by twelve.”
