Well, yes I have seen near at hand, I have almost
grasped, the possibility of gaining a life-long happiness—and
then it has suddenly disappeared. It is just the
same in a lottery. Turn the wheel a little more,
and the pauper would perhaps be rich. If it is
not to be, it is not to be—and all is over.
I will betake me to my work with set teeth, and I will
force myself to be silent; and I shall succeed, for
it is not for the first time that I take myself in
hand. And why have I run away? Why do I stop
here, vainly hiding my head, like an ostrich?
Misfortune a terrible thing to look in the face!
Nonsense!”
[Footnote A: See note to page 142.]
“Anton!” he called loudly, “let
the tarantass be got ready immediately.”
“Yes,” he said to himself again.
“I must compel myself to be silent; I must keep
myself tightly in hand.”
With such reflections as these Lavretsky sought to
assuage his sorrow; but it remained as great and as
bitter as before. Even Apraxia, who had outlived,
not only her intelligence, but almost all her faculties,
shook her head, and followed him with sad eyes as he
started in the tarantass for the town. The horses
galloped. He sat erect and motionless, and looked
straight along the road.
Liza had written to Lavretsky the night before telling
him to come and see her on this evening; but he went
to his own house first. He did not find either
his wife or his daughter there; and the servant told
him that they had both gone to the Kalitines’!
This piece of news both annoyed and enraged him.
“Varvara Pavlovna seems to be determined not
to let me live in peace,” he thought, an angry
feeling stirring in his heart. He began walking
up and down the room, pushing away every moment, with
hand or foot, one of the toys or books or feminine
belongings which fell in his way. Then he called
Justine, and told her to take away all that “rubbish.”
“Oui, monsieur,” she replied, with
a grimace, and began to set the room in order, bending
herself into graceful attitudes, and by each of her
gestures making Lavretsky feel that she considered
him an uncivilized bear. It was with a sensation
of downright hatred that he watched the mocking expression
of her faded, but still piquante, Parisian
face, and looked at her white sleeves, her silk apron,
and her little cap. At last he sent her away,
and, after long hesitation, as Varvara Pavlovna did
not return, he determined to go to the Kalitines’,
and pay a visit, not to Madame Kalitine (for nothing
would have induced him to enter her drawing-room—that
drawing-room in which his wife was), but to Marfa
Timofeevna. He remembered that a back staircase,
used by the maid-servants, led straight to her room.
Lavretsky carried out his plan. By a fortunate
chance he met Shurochka in the court-yard, and she
brought him to Marfa Timofeevna. He found the
old lady, contrary to her usual custom, alone.
She was without her cap, and was sitting in a corner
of the room in a slouching attitude, her arms folded
across her breast. When she saw Lavretsky, she
was much agitated, and jumping up hastily from her
chair, she began going here and there about the room,
as if she were looking for her cap.
