'To the long one, the long one,' Semyon Yakovlevich corrected.
Mavriky Nikolaevich took the glass, gave a military half-bow, and began to drink. I do not know why, but our people all rocked with laughter.
'Mavriky Nikolaevich,' Liza suddenly addressed him, 'that gentleman on his knees has left, go and kneel in his place.'
Mavriky Nikolaevich looked at her in perplexity.
'I beg you, it will give me the greatest pleasure. Listen, Mavriky Nikolaevich,' she suddenly began in an insistent, stubborn, ardent patter, 'you absolutely must kneel, I absolutely want to see you kneeling. If you won't kneel, don't even come to call on me. I absolutely insist, absolutely! ...'
I do not know what she meant by it; but she demanded insistently, implacably, as if she were having a fit. Mavriky Nikolaevich, as we shall see further on, attributed these capricious impulses in her, especially frequent of late, to outbursts of blind hatred for him, not really from malice—on the contrary, she honored, loved, and respected him, and he knew it himself—but from some special, unconscious hatred which, at moments, she was utterly unable to control.
He silently handed his cup to some little old lady standing behind him, opened the gate in the railing, stepped uninvited into Semyon Yakovlevich's private side, and knelt in the middle of the room, in view of everyone. I think he was deeply shaken in his delicate and simple soul by Liza's coarse, jeering escapade in view of the whole company. Perhaps he thought she would be ashamed of herself on seeing his humiliation, which she had so insisted on. Of course, no one but he would venture to reform a woman in such a naive and risky way. He knelt there with his look of imperturbable gravity, long, awkward, ridiculous. But our people were not laughing; the unexpectedness of the act produced a painful effect. Everyone looked at Liza.
'Unction, unction!' muttered Semyon Yakovlevich.
Liza suddenly went pale, cried out, gasped, and rushed behind the railing. There a quick, hysterical scene took place: with all her might she began lifting Mavriky Nikolaevich from his knees, pulling at his elbow with both hands.
'Get up, get up!' she kept crying out, as if beside herself. 'Get up now, now! How dared you kneel?'
Mavriky Nikolaevich rose from his knees. She gripped his arms above the elbows and stared fixedly in his face. There was fear in her eyes.
'Fairlooks! Fairlooks!' Semyon Yakovlevich repeated again.
She finally pulled Mavriky Nikolaevich back outside the railing; a great stir went through our whole crowd. The lady from our carriage, probably wishing to dispel the impression, inquired of Semyon Yakovlevich a third time, in a ringing and shrill voice, and, as before, with a coy smile:
'Now, Semyon Yakovlevich, won't you 'utter' something for me as well? I was counting on you so.'
'F—— you, f—— you!' Semyon Yakovlevich, turning to her, suddenly used an extremely unprintable little word. The phrase was spoken ferociously and with horrifying distinctness. Our ladies shrieked and rushed out headlong, the gentlemen burst into Homeric laughter. And that was the end of our visit to Semyon Yakovlevich.
And yet it was at this point, they say, that another extremely mysterious event took place, and, I confess, it was rather for the sake of it that I have referred to this visit in such detail.
They say that when everyone trooped out, Liza, supported by Mavriky Nikolaevich, suddenly, in the doorway, in the crowd, ran into Nikolai Vsevolodovich. It should be mentioned that since that Sunday morning and the swoon, though the two had met more than once, they had not approached each other or exchanged a single word. I saw them run into each other in the doorway: it seemed to me that they stopped for a moment and looked at each other somehow strangely. But it is possible that I did not see very well in the crowd. It was asserted, on the contrary, and quite seriously, that Liza, having looked at Nikolai Vsevolodovich, quickly raised her hand, right up to the level of his face, and would certainly have struck him if he had not managed to draw back. Perhaps she did not like the expression on his face or some smirk of his, especially then, after such an episode with Mavriky Nikolaevich. I confess I did not see anything, but on the other hand everyone asserted that they did see it, though certainly not everyone could have seen it in that turmoil, even if some did. Only I did not believe it at the time. I remember, however, that for the whole way back Nikolai Vsevolodovich looked somewhat pale.
III
Almost at the same time, and precisely on the very same day, there at last took place the meeting between Stepan Trofimovich and Varvara Petrovna, which she had long had in mind and had long since announced to her former friend, but for some reason kept putting off. It took place at Skvoreshniki. Varvara Petrovna arrived at her country house all abustle: it had finally been determined the day before that the forthcoming fete would be given at the house of the marshal's wife. But Varvara Petrovna, with her quick mind, saw at once that no one could prevent her, after the fete, from giving a separate fete of her own, this time at Skvoreshniki, and again inviting the whole town out. Then everyone could satisfy themselves as to whose house was better, and who knew better how to receive and how to give a ball with greater taste. Generally, it was hard to recognize her. She seemed transformed and changed from the former inaccessible 'high lady' (Stepan Trofimovich's expression) into a most ordinary featherbrained society woman. However, it may only have seemed so.
Having arrived at the empty house, she made the round of the rooms accompanied by the faithful and ancient Alexei Yegorovich and Fomushka, a man who had seen the world and was an expert in interior decoration. Counsels and considerations began: what furniture to transfer from the town house; what objects, paintings; where to put them; how best to manage with the conservatory and the flowers; where to hang new draperies, where to set up the buffet, one buffet or two, and so on and so forth. And then, in the heat of the bustle, she suddenly decided to send the carriage for Stepan Trofimovich.
The latter had long since been informed, and was prepared, and was every day expecting precisely such a sudden invitation. As he got into the carriage, he crossed himself; his fate was to be decided. He found his friend in the great hall, on a small settee in a niche, by a small marble table, with a pencil and paper in her hands: Fomushka was measuring the height of the galleries and windows, and Varvara Petrovna herself was writing down the numbers and making marginal notes. Without interrupting her work, she nodded her head in Stepan Trofimovich's direction and, when he muttered some greeting, hastily gave him her hand and pointed, without looking, to the place beside her.
'I sat and waited for about five minutes, 'repressing my heart,’” he told me later. 'The woman I saw was not the one I had known for twenty years. The fullest conviction that all was over gave me a strength that amazed even her. I swear she was surprised by my steadfastness in that final hour.'
Varvara Petrovna suddenly put her pencil down on the table and quickly turned to Stepan Trofimovich.
