silently began to fall towards the left. “Heart failure!” said Versilov. Liza cried out for the whole house to hear, and it was then that they came running—all that about a minute before my arrival.
“Arkady!” Versilov shouted to me. “Run instantly to Tatyana Pavlovna’s. She should certainly be at home. Ask her to come at once. Take a cab. Quickly, I beg you!”
His eyes were flashing—I remember that clearly. I didn’t notice in his face anything like pure pity, tears—only mama, Liza, and Lukerya were weeping. On the contrary, and this I recall very well, what was striking in his face was some extraordinary excitement, almost ecstasy. I ran for Tatyana Pavlovna.
The way, as is known from the foregoing, wasn’t long. I didn’t take a cab, but ran all the way without stopping. There was confusion in my mind, and also even almost something ecstatic. I realized that a radical event had happened. The drunkenness had disappeared completely in me, to the last drop, and along with it all ignoble thoughts, by the time I rang at Tatyana Pavlovna’s.
The Finnish woman unlocked the door: “Not at home!” and wanted to lock it at once.
“What do you mean, not at home?” I burst into the front hall by force. “It can’t be! Makar Ivanovich is dead!”
“Wha-a-at?” Tatyana Pavlovna’s cry suddenly rang out through the closed door of her drawing room.
“Dead! Makar Ivanovich is dead! Andrei Petrovich asks you to come this minute.”
“No, you’re lying! . . .”
The latch clicked, but the door opened only an inch: “What is it, tell me!”
“I don’t know myself, I just arrived and he was already dead. Andrei Petrovich says it’s heart failure!”
“At once, this minute. Run, tell them I’ll be there. Go on, go on, go on! Well, what are you standing there for?”
But I saw clearly through the half-opened door that someone had come out from behind the curtain that screened Tatyana Pavlovna’s bed and was standing there in the room behind Tatyana Pavlovna. Mechanically, instinctively, I seized the latch and would not let her close the door.
“Arkady Makarovich! Is it really true that he’s dead?” the familiar, soft, smooth, metallic voice rang out, at which everything began to tremble in my soul all at once: in the question something could be heard that had penetrated and stirred
“In that case,” Tatyana Pavlovna suddenly abandoned the door, “in that case—settle it between you as you like. You want it that way!”
She rushed impetuously out of the apartment, putting on her kerchief and coat as she ran, and started down the stairs. We were left alone. I threw off my coat, stepped in, and closed the door behind me. She stood before me as she had when we met the other time, with a bright face, a bright gaze, and, as then, reached both hands out to me. As if cut down, I literally fell at her feet.
III
I WAS BEGINNING to weep, I don’t know why; I don’t remember how she sat me down beside her, I only remember, in a memory that is priceless for me, how we sat next to each other, hand in hand, and talked impetuously: she was asking about the old man and his death, and I was telling her about him—so that one might have thought I was weeping over Makar Ivanovich, whereas that would have been the height of absurdity; and I know that she could never have supposed in me such a thoroughly childish banality. At last I suddenly recollected myself and felt ashamed. Now I suppose that I wept then solely out of ecstasy, and I think she understood it very well herself, so that with regard to this memory I’m at peace.
It suddenly seemed very strange to me that she should keep asking like that about Makar Ivanovich.
“Did you know him?” I asked in surprise.
“For a long time. I’ve never seen him, but he has played a role in my life, too. At one time the man I’m afraid of told me a great deal about him. You know who that man is.”
“I only know now that ‘the man’ was much nearer to your soul than you revealed to me before,” I said, not knowing myself what I meant to express by it, but as if in reproach and frowning deeply.
“You say he was kissing your mother just now? Embracing her? You saw it yourself ?” she went on asking without listening to me.
“Yes, I saw it; and, believe me, it was all sincere and magnanimous in the highest degree!” I hastened to confirm, seeing her joy.
“God grant it!” She crossed herself. “Now he’s unbound. That beautiful old man only bound his life. With his death, duty and . . . dignity will resurrect in him again, as they already resurrected once. Oh, he’s magnanimous before all else, he’ll give peace to the heart of your mother, whom he loves more than anything on earth, and he himself will finally be at peace, and thank God—it’s high time.”
“Is he very dear to you?”
“Yes, very dear, though not in the sense in which he himself would wish and in which you’re asking.”
“So are you afraid now for him or for yourself ?” I asked suddenly.
“Well, these are intricate questions, let’s drop them.”
“Let’s drop them, of course; only I was ignorant of that, all too much so, maybe; but let it be, you’re right, everything’s new now, and if anyone is resurrected, it’s me first of all. I’ve been mean in my thoughts before you, Katerina Nikolaevna, and maybe no more than an hour ago I committed a meanness against you in deed as well, but you know, here I am sitting next to you, and I feel no remorse. Because everything has vanished now, and everything is new, and that man who was plotting a meanness against you an hour ago, I don’t know and do not want to know!”
“Come to your senses,” she smiled, “it’s as if you’re slightly delirious.”
“And how can a man possibly judge himself sitting next to you,” I went on, “whether he’s honest or mean? You’re like the sun, unattainable . . . Tell me, how could you come out to me after all that’s happened? If you knew
