"What have you on your feet that clatter so? It is irritating!"

She stopped at the door:

"What have I on my feet? Well, your old overshoes! Am I to wear out shoes every day, and then buy new ones? 'Irritating!' Arabian adventure! G.o.d grant that you never have worse irritation than overshoes clattering on the floor!"

And she grumbled on in the kitchen while going with an empty gla.s.s to the samovar:

"You wouldn't have a pinch of tea in the house if I went around in new shoes all my time!"

Darkness came down. Kranitski smoked cigarettes one after another, and was so sunk in thought that he trembled throughout his body. When widow Clemens brought in a lamp, with a milk-colored globe, which filled the room with a white, mild light, Kranitski looked at the head of the old woman in the white lamp-light, and, for the first time in a number of hours, he spoke:

"Come, mother, come nearer!" said he.

When she came he seized her rude fist in both his hands and shook it vigorously.

"What could I do; what would happen to me now, if you were not with me? No living soul of my own here! Alone, alone, as in a desert."

The onrush of tenderness burst through all obstructions.

Confidences flowed on. He had loved for the last time in life, le dernier amour, and all had ended. She had forbidden him to see her. That decision of hers had been ripening for a long time.

Reproaches of conscience, shame, despair as to her children. One daughter knew everything; the other might know it any day. She had let out of her hands the rudder of those hearts and consciences, for when she was talking with them her own fault closed her lips, like a red-hot seal. She thought herself the most pitiful of creatures. She did not wish to make further use of her husband's wealth, or the position which it give her in society. She wished to go away, to settle down in some silent corner, vanish from the eyes of people.

Kranitski was so excited that he almost sobbed; here his speech was interrupted by a rough, sarcastic voice:

"It is well that she came to her senses at last--"

"What senses? What are you weaving, mother? You know nothing.

Love is never an offense. Ils ont peche, mais le ceil est un don."

"You are mad, Tulek! Am I some madam that you must speak French to me?" Still he finished:

"Ils ont souffert, c'est le sceau du pardon. I will translate this for thee: They have sinned, but heaven is a gift-----They have suffered; suffering is the seal of pardon."

"Tulek, let heaven alone! To mix up such things with heaven--Arabian adventure!"

"Are you a priest, mother? I tell you of my own suffering and the suffering of that n.o.ble, sweet being--" In the antechamber, the door of which widow Clemens, in returning from the city, had not locked, was heard stamping, and the youthful voice of a man called:

"Is your master at home?"

"Arabian adventure!" muttered widow Clemens.

"Maryan!" exclaimed Kranitski with delight, and he answered aloud:

"I am at home, at home!"

"An event worthy of record in universal history," answered the voice of a man speaking somewhat through his nose and teeth.

"And the baron!" cried Kranitski; then he whispered:

"Close the drawing-room door, mother; I must freshen up a little," and from behind the closed door he spoke to those who were in the drawing-room:

"In a moment, my dears, in a moment I shall be at your service."

In the light of the lamp, placed by widow Clemens in the drawing-room, he appeared, indeed, after a few minutes, dressed, his hair arranged, perfumed, elegant with springy movements and an unconstrained smile on his lips. Only his lids were reddened, and on his forehead were many wrinkles which would not be smoothed away.

"A comedian! There is a comedian!" grumbled widow Clemens, returning to the kitchen, with a terrible clatter of overshoes.

The two young men pressed his hand in friendship. It was clear that they liked him.

"Why did you avoid us all day?" inquired Baron Emil. "We waited for you at Borel's--he gave us an excellent dinner. But maybe you are fasting?"

"Let him alone, he has his suffering," put in Maryan. "I am so sorry, mon bon vieux (my good old man), that I have persuaded the baron to join me in taking you out. I cannot, of course, leave you a victim to melancholy."

Kranitski was moved; grat.i.tude and tenderness were gazing out of his eyes.

"Thanks, thanks! You touch me."

He pressed the hands of both in turn, holding Maryan's hand longer than the baron's, with the words:

"My dear-dear--dear."

The young man smiled.

"Do not grow so tender," said he, "for that injures the interior.

You are, however, a son of that generation which possesses an antidote for melancholy."

"What is it?"

"Well, faith, hope, charity, with resignation and--other painted pots. We haven't them, so we go to Tron-tron's, where Lili Kerth sings. We are to give her a supper tonight at Borel's. Borel has promised me everything which the five parts of the world can give."

"As to the problematic nature of that Lili," remarked the baron, "there are moments in which she takes on the superhuman ideal."

"What an idea, dear baron!" burst out Kranitski. "Lili and superhumanity, the ideal! Why, she is a little beast that sings abject things marvellously."

"That is it, that is it!" said the baron, defending his position, "a little beast in the guise of an angel--the singing of chansonettes with such a devil in the body--and at the same time a complexion, a look, a smile, which scatters a kind of mystic, lily perfume. This is precisely that dissonance, that snap, that mystery with which she has conquered Europe. This rouses curiosity; it excites; it is opposed to rules, to harmony--do you understand?"

"Stop, Emil!" cried Maryan, laughing. "You are speaking to the guardian of tombs. He worships harmony yet."

Kranitski seemed humiliated somewhat. He pa.s.sed his palm over his hair, and began timidly:

"But that is true, my dears; I see myself that I am becoming old-fashioned. Men of my time, and I, called a cat a cat, a rogue a rogue. If a Lili like yours put on the airs of an angel we said: 'Oh, she is a rogue!' And we knew what to think of the matter. But this confounding of profane with sacred, of the rudest carnalism with a mystic tendency--"

The baron and Maryan laughed.

"For you this is all Greek, and will remain Greek. You wore born in the age of harmony, you will remain on the side of harmony.

But a truce to talk. Let us go. Come, you will hear Lili Kerth; we shall sup together."

"Come, we have a place in the carriage for you," said the baron, supporting young Darvid's invitation.