CHAPTER XXXV
Raisky had written to Paulina Karpovna asking her if he might call thenext day about one o'clock. Her answer ran: "_Charmee, j'attends...._"and so on.
He found her in her boudoir in a stifling atmosphere of burning incense,with curtains drawn to produce a mysterious twilight. She wore a whitemuslin frock with wide lace sleeves, with a yellow dahlia at her breast.Near the divan was placed a sumptuously spread table with covers for two.
Raisky explained that he had come to make a farewell call.
"A farewell call! I won't hear of such a thing. You are joking, it is abad joke! No, no! Smile and take back the hated word," she protested,slipping her arm in his and leading him to the table. "Don't think ofgoing away. _Vive l'amour et la joie_."
She invited him with a coquettish gesture to be seated, and hung a tablenapkin over his coat, as she might to a child. He devoted an excellentmorning appetite to the food before him. She poured out champagne forhim and watched him with tender admiration.
After a longish pause when she had filled his glass for the third orfourth time she said: "Well, what have you to say about it?" Then asRaisky looked at her in amazement she continued: "I see, I see! Take offthe mask, and have done with concealment."
"Ah!" sighed Raisky, putting his lips to his glass. They drank to oneanother's health.
"Do you remember that night," she murmured, "the night of love as youcalled it."
"How should it fade from my memory," he whispered darkly. "That nightwas the decisive hour."
"I knew it. A mere girl could not hold you ... _une nullite, cettepauvre petite fille, qui n'a que sa figure_ ... shy, inexperienced,devoid of elegance."
"She could not. I have torn myself free."
"And have found what you have long been seeking, have you not? Whathappened in the park to excite you so?"
After a little fencing, Raisky proceeded with his story. "When I thoughtmy happiness was within my grasp, I heard...."
"Tushin was there?" whispered Paulina Karpovna, holding her breath.
He nodded silently, and raised his glass once more.
"_Dites tout_," she said with a malicious smile.
"She was walking alone, lost in thought," he said in a confidential tone,while Paulina Karpovna played with her watch chain, and listened withstrained attention. "I was at her heels, determined to have an answerfrom her. She took one or two steps down the face of the precipice, whensomeone suddenly came towards her."
"He?"
"He."
"What did he do?"
"'Good evening, Vera Vassilievna,' he said. 'How do you do?' Sheshuddered."
"Hypocrisy!"
"Not at all. I hid myself and listened. 'What are you doing here?' shesaid. 'I am spending two days in town,' he said, 'to be present at yoursister's fete, and I have chosen that day.... Decide, Vera Vassilievna,whether I am to love or not."
"_Ou le sentiment va-t-il se nicher?_" exclaimed Paulina Karpovna."Even in that clod."
"'Ivan Ivanovich!' pleaded Vera," continued Raisky. "He interrupted herwith 'Vera Vassilievna, decide whether to-morrow I should ask TatianaMarkovna for your hand, or throw myself into the Volga!'"
"Those were his words?"
"His very words."
"_Mais, il est ridicule_. What did she do? She moaned, cried yesand no?"
"She answered, 'No, Ivan Ivanovich, give me time to consider whether Ican respond with the same deep affection that you feel for me. Give mesix months, a year, and then I will answer "yes" or "no."' Your room isso hot, Paulina Karpovna, could we have a little air?"
Raisky thought he had invented enough, and glanced up at his hostess,who wore an expression of disappointment.
"_C'est tout?_" she asked.
"_Oui_," he said. "In any case Tushin did not abandon hope. On thenext day, Marfinka's birthday, he appeared again to hear her last word.From the precipice he went through the park, and she accompanied him. Itseems that next day his hopes revived. Mine are for ever gone."
"And that is all? People have been spreading God knows what tales aboutyour cousin--and you. They have not even spared that saint TatianaMarkovna with their poisonous tongues. That unendurable Tychkov!"
Raisky pricked up his ears. "They talk about Grandmother?" he askedwaveringly.
He remembered the hint Vera had given him of Tatiana Markovna's lovestory, and he had heard something from Vassilissa, but what woman hasnot her romance? They must have dug up some lie or some gossip out ofthe dust of forty years. He must know what it was in order to stopTychkov's mouth.
"What do they say about Grandmother?" he asked in a low, intimate voice."_Ah, c'est degoutant_. No one believes it, and everybody isjeering at Tychkov for having debased himself to interrogate adrink-maddened old beggar-woman. I will not repeat it."
"If you please," he whispered tenderly.
"You wish to know?" she whispered, bending towards him. "Then you shallhear everything. This woman, who stands regularly in the porch of theChurch of the Ascension, has been saying that Tiet Nikonich lovedTatiana Markovna, and she him."
"I know that," he interrupted impatiently. "That is no crime."
"And she was sought in marriage by the late Count Sergei Ivanovich--"
"I have heard that, too. She did not agree, and the Count marriedsomebody else, but she was forbidden to marry Tiet Nikonich. I have beentold all that by Vassilissa. What did the drunken woman say?"
"The Count is said to have surprised a rendezvous between TatianaMarkovna and Tiet Nikonich, and such a rendezvous.
"No, no!" she cried, shaking with laughter. "Tatiana Markovna! Who wouldbelieve such a thing?"
Raisky listened seriously, and surmises flitted across his mind.
"The Count gave Tiet Nikonich a box on the ears."
"That is a lie," cried Raisky, jumping up. "Tiet Nikonich would not haveendured it."
"A lie naturally--he did not endure it. He seized a garden knife that hefound among the flowers, struck the Count to the ground, seized him bythe throat, and would have killed him."
Raisky's face changed. "Well?" he urged.
"Tatiana Markovna restrained his hand. 'You are' she said, 'a nobleman,not a bandit, your weapon is a sword.' She succeeded in separating them,and a duel was not possible, for it would have compromised her. Theopponents gave their word; the Count to keep silence over what hadhappened, and Tiet Nikonich not to marry Tatiana Markovna. That is whyshe remains unmarried. Is it not a shame to spread such calumnies?"
Raisky could no longer contain his agitation, but he said, "You see itis a lie. Who could possibly have seen and heard what passed."
"The gardener, who was asleep in a corner, is said to have witnessed thewhole scene. He was a serf, and fear ensured his silence, but he toldhis wife, the drunken widow who is now chattering about it. Of course itis nonsense, incredible nonsense. I am the first to cry that it is a lie,a lie. Our respected and saintly Tatiana Markovna!" Paulina Karpovnaburst out laughing, but checked herself when she looked at Raisky.
"What is the matter? _Allons donc, oubliez tout. Vive la joie!_ Donot frown. We will send for more wine," she said, looking at him withher ridiculous, languishing air.
"No, no, I am afraid--" He broke off, fearing to betray himself, andconcluded lamely, "It would not agree with me--I am not accustomed towine."
He rose from his seat, and his hostess followed his example.
"Good-bye, for ever," he said.
"No, no," she cried.
"I must escape from these dangerous places, from your precipices andabysses. Farewell, farewell!"
He picked up his hat, and hurried away. Paulina Karpovna stood as ifturned to stone, then rang the bell, and called for her carriage and forher maid to dress her, saying she had calls to pay.
Raisky perceived that there was truth in the drunken woman's story, andthat he held in his hand the key to his aunt's past. He realised now howshe had grown to be the woman she was, and where she had won herstrength, her practical wisdom
, her knowledge of life and of men'shearts; he understood why she had won Vera's confidence, and had beenable to calm her niece in spite of her own distress. Perhaps Vera, too,knew the story. While he had been manoeuvring to give another turn tothe gossip about Vera's relations to himself and Tushin, he had lightedby chance on a forgotten but vivid page of his family history, onanother drama no less dangerous to those who took part in it, and foundthat his whole soul was moved by this record of what had happened fortyyears ago.
"Borushka!" cried Tatiana Markovna in horror, when he entered her room."What has come to you, my friend? You have been drinking!" She lookedkeenly at him for a long minute, then turned away when she read in histell-tale face that he, too, had heard the talk about her past self.