As if in deadly fear, she repels him. Her face expresses a kind of horror.

A last time his eyes rest on her longingly, desperately--then he goes.

When Sophie, a little later, returns, she finds Nita deathly pale, stretched on her bed, her hands folded over her breast, "like a corpse in the coffin," said Sophie, when she told of it later.

She wished to steal away on tip-toes, so as not to disturb her friend, but Nita held her back. She looked anxiously, piercingly, in her face.

Then Sophie bent over her. "I have just met Nikolai," says she. "I know what has taken place. Oh, Nita, Nita, you have given him up for my sake, and now you are breaking your heart over it!"

"I?"--Nita smiled sadly--"on his account? I am sorry that he suffers, but else--no, no, my poor Sonia, you are mistaken."

"Then I do not understand," says Sophie in astonishment. "What has so shocked you?"

"Me?" Nita holds her hand before her eyes. "A slight heart cramp; I have it at times. I was frightened. It was very foolish, but I cannot help it. It comes over me suddenly sometimes. Poor Sonia, poor, dear little Sonia! Are you not, then, angry with me?"

Sophie had seated herself by her friend's bed; she was pale, but bore up bravely. "What is there to be angry about?" said she, wearily. "I do not understand why I did not long ago notice it. It is natural that he loves you."

"Ah, Sophie, it is only a mistaken idea; he does not know his own heart. It will all pa.s.s. He must return to you, learn to love you,"

a.s.sures Nita.

"Never! If you had seen him go down the steps slowly, step for step, as if carrying something wounded, you would not say that. Poor Colia!"

And, suddenly raising her voice, quite reproachfully: "It is terrible that he must suffer so. Heavens! do you really not understand what the love of such a man is worth?"

A shudder ran over Nita's slender limbs. "Leave me alone, my dear, brave Sonia; only for a little while," murmured she. "Leave me alone."

XXII.

How he pa.s.sed this long, terrible Sunday afternoon, what he did during these endless hours, Nikolai could later not have told. He walked--walked without looking round, like a man who has no more aim in the world, who seeks nothing but weariness.

If she had given him a friendly word! But no! He does not understand, does not understand! Somewhere there is a secret.

It is dark when he returns to the Hotel Westminster. He finds his servant in the middle of his room, on his knees before an open trunk.

Clothes hang over all the chair backs. Nikolai remembers that he is to travel to-morrow evening. At first he wishes impatiently to send away the servant, who conscientiously questions him about the packing. Then he draws himself up. Life must still be borne, even if there were no more joy in it. He gives orders as to the arrangement of his things.

The windows of his room are open. A carriage stops before the hotel.

That voice! He leans out of the window, but sees nothing but an open cab; from without approaches a step, the door opens, Lensky enters.

"Colia!" The musician's rough voice expressed such hearty, violent joy that Nikolai quite forgets his despair. Never before has he had the feeling of close, intimate relationship with his father so warmly as now. With unspeakable joy his gaze rests on the old artist. It seems to him as if there were something new, n.o.ble about him. He has grown thin, the furrows in his forehead are deeper, his hair is gray. He has aged greatly. But how well it becomes him! The lovable, benevolent expression of the lips, the patient, one might almost say pardoning, sadness of his gaze.

"Father! You--what a surprise!" fairly rejoices Nikolai, and rushes in the arms which his father stretches out to him. And Lensky, however spoiled he is otherwise, each time rejoices anew when his children show their love for him.

"I came upon the message which you sent me of your transferment. I wished to be with you at least twenty-four hours before you leave.

Naturally you have already dined. I have ordered the waiter to bring my supper up here, that is, if I am welcome to my son. Send away your valet," with a glance over his shoulder at the servant; "we will wait on ourselves. We could go down-stairs, but then Braun would appear with my travelling accounts, and--and we would like to be alone, my boy, eh?"

The waiter has come and covered a little table and placed upon it tea and cold meat, whereupon he goes. Lensky pours tea. "You will take a cup, Colia? One can always drink tea."

And Nikolai, to whom until then the thought of taking any nourishment to-day had caused a true horror, sets his lips to the cup.

"I hope that you have much to tell me," says Lensky, good-naturedly.

"In your letter there was indeed much; I have sufficiently questioned you, have I not? But still not all that I would like to know. Mascha, little rascal, did not write at all. Apropos, what is the matter with the silly girl? I drove to her directly from the station. She is completely changed. I had so looked forward to seeing her. She was fresh and crisp as a moss-rosebud when I left in January, and now she is flabby and yellow as a withered flower left forgotten in a gla.s.s.

She is no longer even pretty, our little beauty! What is the matter?"

Lensky lays down knife and fork, and looks uneasily, questioningly, at Nikolai. "You wrote me nothing of it," he continues; "and still you must have noticed the change in her."

"What use to write you of it? I consulted a physician; he ordered something for her which had no effect. Her condition is not dangerous, only tediously unpleasant--anaemia in a high degree, nothing else. Why worry you?"

"Anaemia! It is incredible that I should have an anaemic daughter. Poor Mascha!" said Lensky. "Well, I drove to the Avenue Wagram, pleased at the thought of seeing my gay, vivacious darling, like the old child that I am. 'Mademoiselle Lensky at home?' asked I. 'Yes; she is in the garden.' There sits something wrapped in a shawl, shivering and bent over her folded hands; a pale thing, with black circles around her eyes. At first I did not recognize her; then, 'Maschenka,' said I, 'my little dove, my soul!' If you perhaps believe that she rushed in my arms with the little bird-cry which you know--of all the music in the world, that little cry was perhaps the dearest--far from it! She started, quite as if I had frightened her, came very slowly up to me, gave me her cheek. When I wished to inquire the cause of her change, she grew irritable and excited; she was not well, she said; she had a headache--would lie down. But when I prepared to go, she clung to my neck and sobbed, oh! so bitterly. I could not calm her at all. She was alone at home. The Jeliagins were dining out. They must have left her much alone."

He is silent awhile; then, throwing back his head, and in an obstinate tone, as if he wished to cut short some one's argument, he said: "Anaemia! She must have some unhappy love affair. It is too foolish, just like any other girl! And I thought it must need, at least, a Siegfried to unsettle my daughter. Now I have it!" He pushes the hair back from his temples with both hands, and sighs with humorous exaggeration. "Do you know who is in her mind? She certainly did not wish to confess to me."

"I really did not know," stammered Nikolai, uneasily, "if she had an interest--" He suddenly ceases.

"It is evidently one-sided," said Lensky. "But, even then, it needs a cause. Has no one, then, made love to her?"

"I have noticed nothing," says Nikolai, growing more embarra.s.sed. He knows what a burst of rage against aristocrats the mention of the only reason he could give for Mascha's unhappiness would call forth from his father.

"Poor thing!" grumbles Lensky. "And one must have a pair of such pretty eyes only to attain that!"

"You must not take it so seriously," consoles Nikolai. "A little distraction, one of the water-cures. Aunt Barbara spoke of St.

Maurice."

"Ah, yes; and she will probably sacrifice herself," says Lensky, with a grim laugh. "But none of that. I will not leave my poor little dove any longer to strange oversight. If the child must go to St. Maurice, I will go with her. If only these stupid, insolent women would not follow me everywhere! I am so weary of that, so heartily weary. You are astonished! Yes, it has suddenly dawned upon me that it is all over--all--I am old. Ah! how pleasant it is to be old, no longer perpetually to have a storm in one's veins, to be able to calmly rejoice in those whom one loves." He laughs, and takes Nikolai good-naturedly by the arm. "Well, now, about your great affair. When shall I learn to know my daughter-in-law? You are not the only one who raves about her. Lady Banbury swears by no one more than by her. I wrote you it. I knew it would please you. I was very foolish with my mistrust. Why do you say nothing? How do matters stand between you?"

"How do they stand?" murmurs Nikolai, dully, half confused, as one who has suddenly been awakened from a peaceful dream. "How do they stand?"

"Well?" says Lensky, becoming impatient, harshly.

Nikolai pa.s.ses his hand slowly here and there over the table-cloth, coughs, says nothing. Lensky takes the shade from the lamp, bends down, squints, looks in a pale face with a stiff, unexpressive smile on the lips.

He strikes his fist on the table so that everything rattles. "That is not to be borne!" cries he, springs up, and walks up and down the room.

He hums some musical motive to himself, does not finish it, then turns again to Nikolai. "You are not a whit better than Mascha," grumbles he.

"So, have I looked forward to that!" He sits down again opposite Nikolai, and vexedly pushes his plate away. "Nothing but unpleasantness! Scarcely had I reached Paris when an acquaintance met me at the station. 'Do you know that your _protege_, Bulatow, has hanged himself?' cries he, naturally to please me; and then a relation of particulars: the most absolute need; he had eaten nothing for three days; his wife half mad with grief; they were too proud to beg--yes, yes, proud--they were not too proud with me, if I had not shown him the door! I would like to cudgel Braun; as if I were happier for the few hundred rubles which he saved me! Then I hurry to Mascha to enliven me, find a hysteric, leaden-footed, melancholy being, and now--it is enough to make one beside himself! Out with it! Why do you make a face as if chickens had eaten your bread? What about your love affair?"

His tone is rough, quite harsh. He belongs to the men who at times ill-treat their kin from rage at not being able to make them happy.

"She has refused me, to-day, that is all," murmured Nikolai, turning away his head, as if in shame.

"Refused--you!" bursts out Lensky; then uneasy, confused, he draws his chair nearer to Nikolai's. "Refused you! I do not understand it!"

Suddenly he takes his son's head between his hands, and looking at him with quite childish pride in his beautiful eyes, he cries out: "But that is absurd, boundlessly absurd! What will she, then, the princess, if my splendid boy is not good enough for her? No; do not think anything of it, my boy. Hold up your head, it was a misunderstanding!"

"Really--certainly! It is only the first time," murmurs Nikolai, with the same stiff smile. Then suddenly, with a gasping sob, which shakes his whole frame, he buries his face in his crossed arms on the table.

"Colia! Nikolinka! Poor boy, poor fellow!" murmurs Lensky, stroking his head very gently. "So it cuts so deep. See, I do not understand it. At first I was only vexed, reviled her because she wounded my paternal pride. But if you really love her so, we will consider the affair more closely. You poor fellow, you are quite beside yourself, and all on account of a woman! I never suffered so. I really cannot feel for you.

Truly, if your mother had not wished me at that time in Rome! But she was the only one; except her, they were all alike to me. I always said one woman was only like the others. You shake your head, you are right; it is nonsense; but one always speaks so when one is vexed. Heavens!

if any one permitted himself to tell me that my Mascha is no better than--but that does not belong here; we wish to speak of your affairs.

I cannot believe that a girl could refuse you unless there was some one else whom she loved."