Litvinov

“ Litvinov went out into the street like a man dazed and stunned; in the very depths of his heart something dark and bitter lay hid, such a sensation must a man feel who has murdered another; and at the same time he felt easier as though he had at last flung off a hated load. Tatyana's magnanimity had crushed him, he felt vividly all that he had lost . . . and yet? with his regret was mingled irritation; he yearned towards Irina as to the sole refuge left him, and felt bitter against her. For some time Litvinov's feelings had been every day growing more violent and more complex ”

“ Tatyana responded cordially to his overture. "If you are disposed to pay us a visit," she finished up, "we hope you will come; you know the saying, 'even the sick are easier together than apart.'"
With a new lightness of heart, Litvinov set off on his journey. The horses would not go quick enough for him. At last the house was in view... and on the steps Kapitolina Markovna was standing, and, beside herself with joy, was clapping her hands, crying, "I heard him! I knew him first! It's he! it's he! I knew him."
Litvinov dashed into the house... before him, all shamefaced, stood Tatyana. ”

“ Potugin seemed a little put out.
‘I shall remain about a week in Baden. We can meet here though, at Weber’s or at Marx’s, or else I will come to you.’
‘Still I must know your address.’
‘Yes. But you see I am not alone.’
‘You are married?’ asked Litvinov suddenly.
‘No, good heavens! ... what an absurd idea! But I have a girl with me.’...
‘Oh!’ articulated Litvinov, with a face of studied politeness, as though he would ask pardon, and he dropped his eyes.
‘She is only six years old,’ pursued Potugin. ‘She’s an orphan ... the daughter of a lady ... a good friend of mine. ”

“ General Ratmirov made no reply. He only smiled to himself, as though lenient to the overhastiness of a woman's judgment. With just such a smile kindly-disposed grown-up people respond to the nonsensical whims of children.
'Yes,' Irina went on, 'the stupidity of your friend the Count is too striking, even when one has seen a good deal of the world.'
'You sent me to him yourself,' muttered the general, and turning to Litvinov he asked him in Russian, 'Was he getting any benefit from the Baden waters?'
'I am in perfect health, I 'm thankful to say,' answered Litvinov. ”

“ Litvinov led his ladies away from the Konversation Hall, and passing the 'Russian tree,' under which some of his countrymen were already sitting, he went towards Lichtenthaler Allee. He had hardly entered the avenue when he saw Irina in the distance.
She was walking towards him with her husband and Potugin. Litvinov turned white as a sheet; he did not slacken his pace, however, and when he was on a level with her, he made a bow without speaking. She too bowed to him, politely, but coldly, and taking in Tatyana in a rapid glance, she glided by. . . . ”

“ Ah! I could not give you back my youth, as I would, but I have laid no obligations on you, I have exacted no promise of any sort of you, my sweet! Do what you will, you are free as air, you are bound in no way, understand that, understand that!'
'But I can't live without you, Irina,' Litvinov interrupted, in a whisper now; 'I am yours for ever and always, since yesterday. . . . I can only breathe at your feet. . . .'
He stooped down all in a tremble to kiss her hands. Irina gazed at his bent head. ”

“ Cautious from habit, silent from motives of prudence. General Ratmirov moved constantly in the highest society, like the busy bee gathering honey even from the least attractive flowers—and without morals, without information of any kind, but with the reputation of being good at business; with an insight into men, and a ready comprehension of the exigencies of the moment, and above all, a never-swerving desire for his own advantage, he saw at last all paths lying open before him. . . .
Litvinov smiled constrainedly, while Irina merely shrugged her shoulders. ”

“ Litvinov sat down.
'I know it 's not easy, Irina, I tell you so indeed in my letter . . . I understand your position. But if you believe in the value of your love for me, if my words have convinced you, you ought, too, to understand what I feel now at the sight of your tears. I have come here, like a man on his trial, and I await what is to be my sentence? Death or life? Your answer decides everything. ”

“ He was breathless; rapture, but a rapture comfortless and hopeless, oppressed and tore his heart. For nothing in the world would he have consented that the words uttered by Irina should not have actually been uttered by her. . . . But then? those words could not for all that change the resolution he had taken. As before, it did not waver; it stood firm like an anchor. Litvinov had lost the thread of his own thoughts . . . yes; but his will still remained to him, and he disposed of himself as of another man dependent on him. ”

“ Potugin went on talking with Kapitolina Markovna. But Litvinov walked without uttering a word; yet twice, without any cause, he smiled, and faintly pressed Tatyana's arm against his. There was a falsehood in those demonstrations, to which she made no response, and Litvinov was conscious of the lie. They did not express a mutual confidence in the close union of two souls given up to one another ”

“ I am not worthy of you.— Irina. Be magnanimous: do not try to see me.'
Litvinov read these five lines, and slowly dropped on to the sofa, as though some one had dealt him a blow on the breast. He dropped the note, picked it up, read it again, whispered 'to Petersburg,' and dropped it again ; that was all. There even came upon him a sense of peace ; he even, with his hands thrown behind him, smoothed the pillow under his head. 'Men wounded to death don't fling themselves about,' he thought, 'as it has come, so it has gone. All this is natural enough: I always expected it. ”

“ XXII
‘Better not think now, really,’ Litvinov repeated, as he strode along the street, feeling that the inward riot was rising up again in him. ‘The thing’s decided. She will keep her promise, and it only remains for me to take all necessary steps.... Yet she hesitates, it seems.’... He shook his head. His own designs struck even his own imagination in a strange light; there was a smack of artificiality, of unreality about them. One cannot dwell long upon the same thoughts; they gradually shift like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope ... ”

“ I beg your excellency not to countenance a girl who has such wicked arts, and even to chide her would be no harm, or she may again work him a mischief.’
Litvinov fell to musing over this document; it brought him a whiff of the desert, of the steppes, of the blind darkness of the life mouldering there, and it seemed a marvellous thing that he should be reading such a letter in Baden, of all places. Meanwhile it had long struck midnight; Litvinov went to bed and put out his light. But he could not get to sleep ”

“ Litvinov fairly gasped. On the unlucky enthusiast a shabby braided coat, with holes in the elbows, dangled ruefully; his features had not exactly changed, but they looked pinched and drawn together; his over-anxious little eyes expressed a cringing timorousness and hungry servility; but his dyed whiskers stood out as of old above his swollen lips. The Gubaryov brothers with one accord promptly set to scolding him from the top of the steps ”

“ As a traveller on a dark night, seeing before him a light, and afraid of losing the path, never for an instant takes his eyes off it, so Litvinov continually bent all the force of his attention on a single point, a single aim. ”

“ Litvinov was still hesitating.
‘O good Lord!’ cried Potugin with a comic face, ‘what are young men coming to nowadays! A most charming lady invites them to see her, sends messengers after them on purpose, and they raise difficulties. You ought to be ashamed, my dear sir, you ought to be ashamed. Here’s your hat. Take it and “Vorwärts,” as our ardent friends the Germans say.’
Litvinov still stood irresolute for a moment, but he ended by taking his hat and going out of the room with Potugin.
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XII
They went to one of the best hotels in Baden and asked for Madame Ratmirov. ”

“ Ratmirov gave him a silver matchbox.
‘Avez vous des papiros?’ asked one of the ladies, with a lisp.
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‘De vrais papelitos, comtesse.’
‘Deux gendarmes un beau dimanche,’ the dull-eyed general hummed again, with intense exasperation.
‘You must be sure to come and see us,’ Irina was saying to Litvinov meantime; ‘we are staying at the Hôtel de l’Europe. From four to six I am always at home. We have not seen each other for such a long time.’
Litvinov looked at Irina; she did not drop her eyes. ”

“ Litvinov reminds one of a successful mining man from Alaska or a lumber king from the West. Krassin is more like those quiet, powerful, coldly intelligent men who manage railroads, Wall Street and the world’s finance. ”

“ But nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic; she has her own, which we do not recognise and do not acknowledge till we are crushed under its wheel.
On parting from Tatyana, Litvinov held one thought in his mind, to see Irina; he set off indeed to see her. But the general was at home, so at least the porter told him, and he did not care to go in, he did not feel himself capable of hypocrisy, and he moved slowly off towards the Konversation Hall. Litvinov’s incapacity for hypocrisy was evident that day to both Voroshilov and Pishtchalkin, who happened to meet him ”

“ In this new dream of happiness the days flew, the weeks passed; the future came ever nearer with the glorious hope of their happiness, and then, suddenly, an event occurred which scattered all their dreams and plans like light roadside dust. The Court came to Moscow, and the Osinins, despite their poverty, determined to attend the customary great ball in the Hall of Nobility. At first Irina resolutely refused to go, and Litvinov was called in by the prince to use his persuasion. ”

“ Yes, save me, drag me out of this mire, before I am quite ruined! Yes, let us run away, let us run away from these people, from this society to some far off, fair, free country! Perhaps your Irina will at last be worthier of the sacrifices you are making for her! Don’t be angry with me, forgive me, my sweet, and know that I will do everything you command, I will go anywhere you will take me!’
Litvinov’s heart was in a turmoil. Irina clung closer than before to him with all her youthful supple body. ”

“ Litvinov—doubtless enjoys the reputation of a very clever man.'
At the name of Litvinov, Irina turned quickly round.
'What do you mean to say?'
The general smiled.
'He keeps very quiet . . . one can see he 's afraid of compromising himself.'
Irina too smiled; it was a very different smile from her husband's.
'Better keep quiet than talk . . . as some people talk.'
'Attrapé!' answered Ratmirov with feigned submissiveness. 'Joking apart, he has a very interesting face. Such a . . . concentrated expression . . . and his whole bearing. . . . Yes. . . ”

“ In reality they talked more about Home than anything else; even the 'Queen of the Wasps' described how hands had once crept about her, and how she had seen them, and put her own ring on one of them. It was certainly a triumph for Irina: even if Litvinov had paid more attention to what was being said around him, he still could not have gleaned one single sincere saying, one single clever thought, one single new fact from all their disconnected and lifeless babble. ”

“ Litvinov staggered, as though some one had dealt him a blow in the chest. Irina turned her head dejectedly away from him, as though she in her turn wanted to hide her face from him, and laid it down on the table.
'Yes, I love you . . . I love you . . . and you know it.'
'I? I know it?' Litvinov said at last ; 'I?'
'Well, now you see,' Irina went on, 'that you certainly must go, that delay 's impossible . . . both for you, and for me delay's impossible. It 's dangerous, it 's terrible . . . ”

“ I only wanted to make clear my position to you; it’s hard enough as it is.... But at least there will be, as you say, no misunderstanding, while the openness of my confession will soften, I hope, the feeling of offence which you cannot but feel.’
Litvinov spoke without raising his eyes, but even if he had glanced at Irina, he could not have seen what was passing in her face, as she still as before kept her hands over her eyes. ”

“ Let us be free, I say. To-day is ours—a life-time’s ours.’
She got up from the arm-chair and looked at Litvinov with her head thrown back, faintly smiling and moving her eyebrows, while with one arm bare to the elbow she pushed back from her face a long tress on which a few tears glistened. A rich scarf slipped from the table and fell on the floor at Irina’s feet. She trampled contemptuously on it. ‘Or don’t you like me, to-day? Have I grown ugly since yesterday? Tell me, have you often seen a prettier hand? ”

“ Litvinov got up, and, it need hardly be said, did not kiss him, but exchanged a cursory bow with the phœnix, who, to judge from the severity of his demeanour, was not overpleased at this unexpected introduction.
‘I said a phœnix, and I will not go back from my word,’ continued Bambaev; ‘go to-15- Petersburg, to the military school, and look at the golden board; whose name stands first there? The name of Voroshilov, Semyon Yakovlevitch! But, Gubaryov, Gubaryov, my dear fellow! It’s to him we must fly! I absolutely worship that man! And I’m not alone, every one’s at his feet! ”