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“In any case, I can’t take him there the way he is!” he thought with continuing anxious amazement.
When he had related Marya Sysoevna’s story and the strange encounter at the funeral to Klavdia Petrovna, she fell to thinking hard: “I’m afraid for you,” she said to him, “you must break all relations with him, and the sooner the better.”
“He’s a drunken buffoon and nothing more!” Velchaninov cried out vehemently. “Why should I be afraid of him! And how can I break relations when Liza’s here? Remember about Liza!”
Meanwhile Liza was lying sick in bed; since last evening she had been in a fever, and they were awaiting a well-known doctor from the city, for whom a messenger had been sent at daybreak. All this definitively upset Velchaninov. Klavdia Petrovna took him to the sick girl.
“Yesterday I watched her very closely,” she observed, stopping outside Liza’s room. “She’s a proud and gloomy child; she’s ashamed that she’s with us and that her father abandoned her like that; that’s the whole of her illness, in my opinion.”
“How, abandoned her? Why do you think he’s abandoned her?”
“From the fact alone that he let her come here to a completely strange house, and with a man… also almost a stranger, or in such relations…”
“But I took her myself, by force, I don’t find…”
“Ah, my God, even a child like Liza could find it! In my opinion, he’ll simply never come.”
Seeing Velchaninov alone, Liza was not surprised, she only smiled sorrowfully and turned her feverish little head to the wall. She did not respond at all to Velchaninov’s timid consolations and ardent promises to bring her father to her the next day without fail. Coming out of her room, he suddenly wept.
The doctor came only toward evening. Having examined the sick girl, he frightened everyone from the first word by observing that he ought to have been sent for sooner. When told that the girl had become sick only the evening before, he did not believe it at first. “Everything depends on how this night goes,” he finally decided, and, giving his orders, he left, promising to come the next day as early as possible. Velchaninov wanted absolutely to stay overnight, but Klavdia Petrovna herself convinced him to try once more “to bring that monster here.”
“Once more?” Velchaninov repeated in frenzy. “Why, I’ll tie him up now and bring him here with my own hands!”
The thought of tying Pavel Pavlovich up and bringing him with his own hands suddenly took possession of him to the point of extreme impatience. “Now I don’t feel guilty before him for anything, not for anything!” he said to Klavdia Petrovna as he was taking leave of her. “I renounce all the base, tearful words I said here yesterday!” he added indignantly.
Liza was lying with her eyes closed, apparently asleep; she seemed to be better. When Velchaninov bent down carefully to her little head, to kiss at least the edge of her dress in farewell—she suddenly opened her eyes as if she had been waiting for him, and whispered: “Take me away.”
It was a quiet, sorrowful request, without any shadow of yesterday’s irritation, but at the same time one could hear something in it, as if she herself were completely certain that her request would not be granted for anything. As soon as Velchaninov, quite in despair, began assuring her that it was impossible, she silently closed her eyes and did not say a word more, as if she did not hear or see him.
On reaching the city, he gave orders to drive straight to the Pokrov. It was already ten o’clock; Pavel Pavlovich was not in his rooms. Velchaninov waited for him for a whole half hour, pacing the corridor in morbid impatience. Marya Sysoevna finally convinced him that Pavel Pavlovich would come back perhaps only toward morning, at daybreak. “Well, then I, too, will come at daybreak,” Velchaninov resolved, and, beside himself, went home.
But what was his amazement when, even before entering his place, he heard from Mavra that yesterday’s visitor had been waiting for him since before ten.
“And he had his tea here, and sent for wine again, and gave me a fiver for the purpose.”
IX
A PHANTOM
Pavel Pavlovich had made himself extremely comfortable. He was sitting in yesterday’s chair, smoking cigarettes, and had just poured himself the fourth and last glass from the bottle. A teapot and a glass of unfinished tea stood near him on the table. His flushed face radiated good humor. He had even taken his tailcoat off, summer-fashion, and was sitting in his waistcoat.
“Excuse me, my most faithful friend!” he cried out, seeing Velchaninov and leaping up from his place to put his tailcoat on. “I took it off for the greater enjoyment of the moment…”
Velchaninov approached him menacingly.
“You’re not completely drunk yet? Can I still talk with you?”
Pavel Pavlovich was somewhat taken aback.
“No, not completely… I commemorated the deceased, but—not completely, sir…”
“Can you understand me?”
“That’s what I came for, to understand you, sir.”
“Well, then I’ll begin directly with the fact that you are a blackguard!” Velchaninov shouted in a breaking voice.
“If you begin with that, sir, what will you end with?” Pavel Pavlovich, obviously much frightened, made a slight attempt to protest, but Velchaninov was shouting without listening:
“Your daughter is dying, she’s sick; have you abandoned her or not?”
“Dying is she, sir?”
“She’s sick, sick, extremely dangerously sick!”
“Maybe it’s some little fits, sir…”
“Don’t talk nonsense! She’s ex-treme-ly sick! You ought to have gone, if only so as to…”
“To express my thanks, sir, my thanks for their hospitality! I understand only too well, sir! Alexei Ivanovich, my dear, my perfect one,” he suddenly seized his hand in both of his own, and, with the drunken emotion, almost in tears, as if asking forgiveness, proceeded to shout: “Alexei Ivanovich, don’t shout, don’t shout! If I die, if I fall, drunk, into the Neva now—what of it, sir, considering the true meaning of things? And we can always go to Mr. Pogoreltsev’s, sir…”
Velchaninov caught himself and held back a little.
“You’re drunk, and therefore I don’t understand in what sense you’re speaking,” he remarked severely. “I am always ready to have a talk with you; the sooner the better, even… I came so as… But before all you must know that I’m taking measures: you must spend the night here! Tomorrow morning I take you and off we go. I won’t let you out!” he screamed again. “I’ll tie you up and bring you with my own hands!… Does this sofa suit you?” Breathless, he pointed to the wide and soft sofa that stood opposite the sofa on which he himself slept, against the other wall.
“Good heavens, sir, but for me, anywhere…”
“Not anywhere, but on this sofa! Here’s a sheet for you, a blanket, a pillow, take them” (Velchaninov took it all out of a wardrobe and hurriedly threw it to Pavel Pavlovich, who obediently held out his arms). “Make your bed immediately, im-med-iate-ly!”
The loaded-down Pavel Pavlovich stood in the middle of the room, as if undecided, with a long, drunken smile on his drunken face; but at Velchaninov’s repeated menacing cry, he suddenly started bustling about as fast as he could, moved the table aside, and, puffing, began to spread and smooth out the sheet. Velchaninov came over to help him; he was partly pleased with his guest’s obedience and fright.
“Finish your glass and lie down,” he commanded again; he felt he could not help but command. “Was it you who ordered wine sent for?”
“Myself, sir, for wine… I knew, Alexei Ivanovich, that you wouldn’t send for more, sir.”
“It’s good that you knew that, but you need to learn still more. I tell you once again that I’ve taken measures now: I’ll no longer suffer your clowning, nor yesterday’s drunken kisses!”