"I understand now!" I cried with heat. "And what right had you to couple their names like that?"
"But, mon cher, don"t crush me completely, don"t shout at me; as it is I"m utterly squashed like... a black-beetle. And, after all, I thought it was all so honourable. Suppose that something really happened... en Suisse...or was beginning. I was bound to question their hearts beforehand that I...enfin, that I might not constrain their hearts, and be a stumbling-block in their paths. I acted simply from honourable feeling."
"Oh, heavens! What a stupid thing you"ve done!" I cried involuntarily.
"Yes, yes," he a.s.sented with positive eagerness. "You have never said anything more just, c"etait bete, mais que faire? Tout est dit. I shall marry her just the same even if it be to cover "another"s sins." So there was no object in writing, was there?"
"You"re at that idea again!"
"Oh, you won"t frighten me with your shouts now. You see a different Stepan Verhovensky before you now. The man I was is buried. Enfin, tout est dit. And why do you cry out? Simply because you"re not getting married, and you won"t have to wear a certain decoration on your head. Does that shock you again? My poor friend, you don"t know woman, while I have done nothing but study her. "If you want to conquer the world, conquer yourself"-the one good thing that another romantic like you, my bride"s brother, Shatov, has succeeded in saying. I would gladly borrow from him his phrase. Well, here I am ready to conquer myself, and I"m getting married. And what am I conquering by way of the whole world? Oh, my friend, marriage is the moral death of every proud soul, of all independence. Married life will corrupt me, it will sap my energy, my courage in the service of the cause. Children will come, probably not my own either-certainly not my own: a wise man is not afraid to face the truth. Liputin proposed this morning putting up barricades to keep out Nicolas; Liputin"s a fool. A woman would deceive the all-seeing eye itself. Le bon Dieu knew what He was in for when He was creating woman, but I"m sure that she meddled in it herself and forced Him to create her such as she is... and with such attributes: for who would have incurred so much trouble for nothing? I know Nastasya may be angry with me for free-thinking, but...enfin, tout est dit."
He wouldn"t have been himself if he could have dispensed with the cheap gibing free-thought which was in vogue in his day. Now, at any rate, he comforted himself with a gibe, but not for long.
"Oh, if that day after to-morrow, that Sunday, might never come!" he exclaimed suddenly, this time in utter despair. "Why could not this one week be without a Sunday-si le miracle existe? What would it be to Providence to blot out one Sunday from the calendar? If only to prove His power to the atheists et que tout soit dit! Oh, how I loved her! Twenty years, these twenty years, and she has never understood me!"
"But of whom are you talking? Even I don"t understand you!" I asked, wondering.
"Vingt ans! And she has not once understood me; oh, it"s cruel! And can she really believe that I am marrying from fear, from poverty? Oh, the shame of it! Oh, Auntie, Auntie, I do it for you!... Oh, let her know, that Auntie, that she is the one woman I have adored for twenty years! She must learn this, it must be so, if not they will need force to drag me under ce qu"on appelle le wedding-crown."
It was the first time I had heard this confession, and so vigorously uttered. I won"t conceal the fact that I was terribly tempted to laugh. I was wrong.
"He is the only one left me now, the only one, my one hope!" he cried suddenly, clasping his hands as though struck by a new idea. "Only he, my poor boy, can save me now, and, oh, why doesn"t he come! Oh, my son, oh, my Petrusha.... And though I do not deserve the name of father, but rather that of tiger, yet...Laissez-moi, mon ami, I"ll lie down a little, to collect my ideas. I am so tired, so tired. And I think it"s time you were in bed. Voyez vous, it"s twelve o"clock...."
CHAPTER IV. THE CRIPPLE
SHATOV WAS NOT PERVERSE but acted on my note, and called at midday on Lizaveta Nikolaevna. We went in almost together; I was also going to make my first call. They were all, that is Liza, her mother, and Mavriky Nikolaevitch, sitting in the big drawing-room, arguing. The mother was asking Liza to play some waltz on the piano, and as soon as Liza began to play the piece asked for, declared it was not the right one. Mavriky Nikolaevitch in the simplicity of his heart took Liza"s part, maintaining that it was the right waltz. The elder lady was so angry that she began to cry. She was ill and walked with difficulty. Her legs were swollen, and for the last few days she had been continually fractious, quarrelling with every one, though she always stood rather in awe of Liza. They were pleased to see us. Liza flushed with pleasure, and saying "merci" to me, on Shatov"s account of course, went to meet him, looking at him with interest.
Shatov stopped awkwardly in the doorway. Thanking him for coming she led him up to her mother.
"This is Mr. Shatov, of whom I have told you, and this is Mr. G--v, a great friend of mine and of Stepan Trofimovitch"s. Mavriky Nikolaevitch made his acquaintance yesterday, too."
"And which is the professor?"
"There"s no professor at all, maman."
"But there is. You said yourself that there"d be a professor. It"s this one, probably." She disdainfully indicated Shatov.
"I didn"t tell you that there"d be a professor. Mr. G--v is in the service, and Mr. Shatov is a former student."
"A student or professor, they all come from the university just the same. You only want to argue. But the Swiss one had moustaches and a beard."
"It"s the son of Stepan Trofimovitch that maman always calls the professor," said Liza, and she took Shatov away to the sofa at the other end of the drawing-room.
"When her legs swell, she"s always like this, you understand she"s ill," she whispered to Shatov, still with the same marked curiosity, scrutinising him, especially his shock of hair.
"Are you an officer?" the old lady inquired of me. Liza had mercilessly abandoned me to her.
"N-no.-I"m in the service...."
"Mr. G--v is a great friend of Stepan Trofimovitch"s," Liza chimed in immediately.
"Are you in Stepan Trofimovitch"s service? Yes, and he"s a professor, too, isn"t he?"
"Ah, maman, you must dream at night of professors," cried Liza with annoyance.
"I see too many when I"m awake. But you always will contradict your mother. Were you here four years ago when Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was in the neighbourhood?"
I answered that I was.
"And there was some Englishman with you?"
"No, there was not."
Liza laughed.
"Well, you see there was no Englishman, so it must have been idle gossip. And Varvara Petrovna and Stepan Trofimovitch both tell lies. And they all tell lies."
"Auntie and Stepan Trofimovitch yesterday thought there was a resemblance between Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch and Prince Harry in Shakespeare"s Henry IV, and in answer to that maman says that there was no Englishman here," Liza explained to us.
"If Harry wasn"t here, there was no Englishman. It was no one else but Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch at his tricks."
"I a.s.sure you that maman"s doing it on purpose," Liza thought necessary to explain to Shatov. "She"s really heard of Shakespeare. I read her the first act of Oth.e.l.lo myself. But she"s in great pain now. Maman, listen, it"s striking twelve, it"s time you took your medicine."
"The doctor"s come," a maid-servant announced at the door.
The old lady got up and began calling her dog: "Zemirka, Zemirka, you come with me at least."
Zemirka, a horrid little old dog, instead of obeying, crept under the sofa where Liza was sitting.
"Don"t you want to? Then I don"t want you. Good-bye, my good sir, I don"t know your name or your father"s," she said, addressing me.
"Anton Lavrentyevitch..."
"Well, it doesn"t matter, with me it goes in at one ear and out of the other. Don"t you come with me, Mavriky Nikolaevitch, it was Zemirka I called. Thank G.o.d I can still walk without help and to-morrow I shall go for a drive."
She walked angrily out of the drawing-room.
"Anton Lavrentyevitch, will you talk meanwhile to Mavriky Nikolaevitch; I a.s.sure you you"ll both be gainers by getting to know one another better," said Liza, and she gave a friendly smile to Mavriky Nikolaevitch, who beamed all over as she looked at him. There was no help for it, I remained to talk to Mavriky Nikolaevitch.
II Lizaveta Nikolaevna"s business with Shatov turned out, to my surprise, to be really only concerned with literature. I had imagined, I don"t know why, that she had asked him to come with some other object. We, Mavriky Nikolaevitch and I that is, seeing that they were talking aloud and not trying to hide anything from us, began to listen, and at last they asked our advice. It turned out that Lizaveta Nikolaevna was thinking of bringing out a book which she thought would be of use, but being quite inexperienced she needed some one to help her. The earnestness with which she began to explain her plan to Shatov quite surprised me.
"She must be one of the new people," I thought. "She has not been to Switzerland for nothing."
Shatov listened with attention, his eyes fixed on the ground, showing not the slightest surprise that a giddy young lady in society should take up work that seemed so out of keeping with her.