Part 22 (1/2)

'_Wer da?_' asked Litvinov.

'Ah! you're at home! open!' he heard Bindasov's hoa.r.s.e ba.s.s.

The door handle creaked.

Litvinov turned white with exasperation.

'I'm not at home,' he declared sharply.

'Not at home? That's a good joke!'

'I tell you--not at home, get along.'

'That's civil! And I came to ask you for a little loan,' grumbled Bindasov.

He walked off, however, tramping on his heels as usual.

Litvinov was all but das.h.i.+ng out after him, he felt such a longing to throttle the hateful ruffian. The events of the last few days had unstrung his nerves; a little more, and he would have burst into tears.

He drank off a gla.s.s of cold water, locked up all the drawers in the furniture, he could not have said why, and went to Tatyana's.

He found her alone. Kapitolina Markovna had gone out shopping. Tatyana was sitting on the sofa, holding a book in both hands. She was not reading it, and scarcely knew what book it was. She did not stir, but her heart was beating quickly in her bosom, and the little white collar round her neck quivered visibly and evenly.

Litvinov was confused.... However, he sat down by her, said good-morning, smiled at her; she too smiled at him without speaking. She had bowed to him when he came in, bowed courteously, not affectionately, and she did not glance at him. He held out his hand to her; she gave him her chill fingers, but at once freed them again, and took up the book.

Litvinov felt that to begin the conversation with unimportant subjects would be insulting Tatyana; she after her custom made no demands, but everything in her said plainly, 'I am waiting, I am waiting.'... He must fulfil his promise. But though almost the whole night he had thought of nothing else, he had not prepared even the first introductory words, and absolutely did not know in what way to break this cruel silence.

'Tanya,' he began at last, 'I told you yesterday that I have something important to say to you. I am ready, only I beg you beforehand not to be angry against me, and to rest a.s.sured that my feelings for you....'

He stopped. He caught his breath. Tatyana still did not stir, and did not look at him; she only clutched the book tighter than ever.

'There has always been,' Litvinov went on, without finis.h.i.+ng the sentence he had begun, 'there has always been perfect openness between us; I respect you too much to be a hypocrite with you; I want to prove to you that I know how to value the n.o.bleness and independence of your nature, even though ... though of course....'

'Grigory Mihalitch,' began Tatyana in a measured voice while a deathly pallor overspread her whole face, 'I will come to your a.s.sistance, you no longer love me, and you don't know how to tell me so.'

Litvinov involuntarily shuddered.

'Why?' ... he said, hardly intelligibly, 'why could you suppose?... I really don't understand....'

'What! isn't it the truth? Isn't it the truth?--tell me, tell me.'

Tatyana turned quite round to Litvinov; her face, with her hair brushed back from it, approached his face, and her eyes, which for so long had not looked at him, seemed to penetrate into his eyes.

'Isn't it the truth?' she repeated.

He said nothing, did not utter a single sound. He could not have lied at that instant, even if he had known she would believe him, and that his lie would save her; he was not even able to bear her eyes upon him.

Litvinov said nothing, but she needed no answer, she read the answer in his very silence, in those guilty downcast eyes--and she turned away again and dropped the book.... She had been still uncertain till that instant, and Litvinov understood that; he understood that she had been still uncertain--and how hideous, actually hideous was all that he was doing.

He flung himself on his knees before her.