months later, in Petersburg, he received a letter from Natalia Vassilievna with a request that he not come back, because she already loved another; about her pregnancy she informed him that she had been mistaken. The information about the mistake was superfluous, everything was clear to him: he remembered the little officer. With that the matter ended forever. He heard something afterward, already several years later, about Bagautov turning up there and staying for a whole five years. Such an endless duration of the liaison he explained to himself, among other things, by the fact that Natalia Vassilievna must have aged a lot, and therefore would herself become more attached.
He stayed sitting on his bed for almost an hour; finally, he came to his senses, rang for Mavra with coffee, drank it hastily, got dressed, and at precisely eleven o’clock went to the Pokrov church to look for the Pokrovsky Hotel. Concerning the Pokrovsky Hotel proper he had now formed a special morning impression. Incidentally, he was even somewhat ashamed of his treatment of Pavel Pavlovich yesterday, and this now had to be resolved.
The whole phantasmagoria yesterday with the door latch he explained by an accident, by the drunken state of Pavel Pavlovich, and perhaps by something else as well, but essentially he had no precise idea why he was going now to start some new relationship with the former husband, when everything between them had ended so naturally and of itself. He was drawn by something; there was some special impression here, and as a result of this impression he was drawn …
V
LIZA
Pavel Pavlovich had no thought of “giving him the slip,” and God knows why Velchaninov had asked him that question yesterday; veritably, he himself had had a darkening. At his first inquiry in the grocery shop near the Pokrov church, he was directed to the Pokrovsky Hotel, two steps away in a lane. At the hotel it was explained to him that Mr. Trusotsky was now “putting up” there in the yard, in the wing, in Marya Sysoevna’s furnished rooms. Going up the narrow, slopped, and very filthy stone stairway of the wing to the second floor, where those rooms were, he suddenly heard weeping. It was as if a child of seven or eight were weeping; It was heavy weeping, stifled sobs could be heard bursting through, accompanied by a stamping of feet and also as if stifled but violent shouts in some hoarse falsetto, but now of a grown man. This grown man seemed to be quieting the child and wishing very much for the weeping not to be heard, but was making more noise himself. The shouts were merciless, and the child was as if begging forgiveness. Entering a small corridor with two doors on each side of it, Velchaninov met a very fat and tall woman, disheveled in a homey way, and asked her about Pavel Pavlovich. She jabbed her finger toward the door behind which the weeping could be heard. The fat and purple face of the forty-year-old woman expressed some indignation.
“See what fun he has!” she bassed in a half voice and went past him to the stairs. Velchaninov was about to knock, but changed his mind and simply opened Pavel Pavlovich’s door. In the middle of a small room, crudely but abundantly furnished with simple painted furniture, Pavel Pavlovich stood, dressed only by half, without frock coat or waistcoat, his face flushed with vexation, trying to quiet with shouts, gestures, and perhaps (as it seemed to Velchaninov) also kicks, a little girl of about eight, dressed poorly, though like a young lady, in a short black woolen dress. She, it seemed, was in genuine hysterics, hysterically sobbing and reaching out her arms to Pavel Pavlovich, as if wishing to put them around him, to embrace him, to plead and entreat something from him. In an instant everything changed: seeing the visitor, the girl gave a cry and shot into the tiny adjoining room, while Pavel Pavlovich, momentarily taken aback, melted all at once into a smile, exactly as yesterday, when Velchaninov had suddenly opened the door to the stairs.
“Alexei Ivanovich!” he exclaimed in decided surprise. “In no way could I have expected… but come, come! Here, on this sofa, or this armchair, while I…” And he rushed to get into his frock coat, forgetting to put his waistcoat on.
“Don’t be ceremonious, stay as you are.” Velchaninov sat down on a chair.
“No, allow me to be ceremonious, sir; there, now I’m a bit more decent. But why are you sitting in the corner? Here, in the armchair, by the table… Well, I never, never expected!”
He, too, sat down on the edge of a wicker chair, though not next to the “unexpected” visitor, but turning his chair at an angle so as to face Velchaninov more fully.
“And why didn’t you expect me? Didn’t I precisely arrange yesterday that I’d come to you at this time?”
“I thought you wouldn’t come, sir; and once I realized the whole thing yesterday, on waking up, I decidedly despaired of seeing you, even forever, sir.”
Velchaninov meanwhile was looking around. The room was in disorder, the bed was not made, clothes were strewn about, on the table were glasses with drunk coffee, bread crumbs, and a bottle of champagne, half-finished, uncorked, with a glass beside it. He looked out of the corner of his eye into the adjoining room, but all was quiet there; the girl kept silent and did not stir.
“You don’t mean you’re drinking this now?” Velchaninov pointed to the champagne.
“Leftovers, sir…” Pavel Pavlovich was embarrassed.
“Well, you really have changed!”
“Bad habits, and suddenly, sir. Really, since that time; I’m not lying, sir! I can’t restrain myself. Don’t worry now, Alexei Ivanovich, I’m not drunk now and won’t pour out drivel, like yesterday at your place, sir, but I’m telling you the truth, it’s all since that time, sir! And if someone had told me half a year ago that I’d get so loose as I am now, sir, had showed me myself in a mirror—I wouldn’t have believed it!”
“So you were drunk yesterday?”
“I was, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich admitted in a half whisper, lowering his eyes abashedly, “and you see, not so much drunk as somewhat past it, sir. I wish to explain this, because past it is worse for me, sir: there’s not much drunkenness, but some sort of cruelty and recklessness remain, and I feel grief more strongly. Maybe I drink for the sake of grief, sir. And then I may pull some pranks, even quite stupidly, sir, and get at people with insults. I must have presented myself to you very strangely yesterday?”
“You don’t remember?”
“How not remember, I remember everything, sir…”
“You see, Pavel Pavlovich, I thought it over and explained it to myself in exactly the same way,” Velchaninov said conciliatorily, “and besides, I was somewhat irritable myself yesterday and… overly impatient with you, which I freely admit. Sometimes I don’t feel myself quite well, and your unexpected arrival in the night…”
“Yes, in the night, in the night!” Pavel Pavlovich shook his head as if surprised and disapproving. “And what on earth prompted me! I wouldn’t have come in for anything if you yourself hadn’t opened the door, sir; I’d have gone away. I came to you about a week ago, Alexei Ivanovich, and didn’t find you at home, but afterward I might never have come another time, sir. All the same, I also have a touch of pride, Alexei Ivanovich, though I’m aware that I’m in… such a state. We met in the street, too, but I kept thinking: well, and what if he doesn’t recognize me, what if
