Pavlovna, seating herself without delay at the piano, and running her fingers smartly over the keys. «Do you wish it?»
«If you will be so kind.»
Varvara Pavlovna played a brilliant and difficult etude by Hertz very correctly. She had great power and execution.
«Sylphide!» cried Gedeonovsky.
«Marvellous!» Marya Dmitrievna chimed in. «Well, Varvara Pavlovna, I confess,» she observed, for the first time calling her by her name, «you have astonished me; you might give concerts. We have a musician here, an old German, a queer fellow, but a very clever musician. He gives Lisa lessons. He will be simply crazy over you.»
«Lisaveta Mihalovna is also musical?» asked Varvara Pavlovna, turning her head slightly towards her.
«Yes, she plays fairly, and is fond of music; but what is that beside you? But there is one young man here too—with whom we must make you acquainted. He is an artist in soul, and composes very charmingly. He alone will be able to appreciate you fully.»
«A young man?» said Varvara Pavlovna: «Who is he? Some poor man?»
«Oh dear no, our chief beau, and not only among us—et a Petersbourg. A kammer-junker, and received in the best society. You must have heard of him: Panshin, Vladimir Nikolaitch. He is here on a government commission … future minister, I daresay!»
«And an artist?»
«An artist at heart, and so well-bred. You shall see him. He has been here very often of late: I invited him for this evening; I hope he will come,» added Marya Dmitrievna with a gentle sigh, and an oblique smile of bitterness.
Lisa knew the meaning of this smile, but it was nothing to her now.
«And young?» repeated Varvara Pavlovna, lightly modulating from tone to tone.
«Twenty-eight, and of the most prepossessing appearance. Un jeune homme acompli, indeed.»
«An exemplary young man, one may say,» observed Gedeonovsky.
Varvara Pavlovna began suddenly playing a noisy waltz of Strauss, opening with such a loud and rapid trill that Gedeonovsky was quite startled. In the very middle of the waltz she suddenly passed into a pathetic motive, and finished up with an air from «Lucia» Fra poco… She reflected that lively music was not in keeping with her position. The air from «Lucia,» with emphasis on the sentimental passages, moved Marya Dmitrievna greatly.
«What soul!» she observed in an undertone to Gedeonovsky.
«A sylphide!» repeated Gedeonovsky, raising his eyes towards heaven.
The dinner hour arrived. Marfa Timofyevna came down from up-stairs, when the soup was already on the table. She treated Varvara Pavlovna very drily, replied in half-sentences to her civilities, and did not look at her. Varvara Pavlovna soon realised that there was nothing to be got out of this old lady, and gave up trying to talk to her. To make up for this, Marya Dmitrievna became still more cordial to her guest; her aunt’s discourtesy irritated her. Marfa Timofyevna, however, did not only avoid looking at Varvara Pavlovna; she did not look at Lisa either, though her eyes seemed literally blazing. She sat as though she were of stone, yellow and pale, her lips compressed, and ate nothing. Lisa seemed calm; and in reality, her heart was more at rest, a strange apathy, the apathy of the condemned had come upon her. At dinner Varvara Pavlovna spoke little; she seemed to have grown timid again, and her countenance was overspread with an expression of modest melancholy. Gedeonovsky alone enlivened the conversation with his tales, though he constantly looked timorously towards Marfa Timofyevna and coughed—he was always overtaken by a fit of coughing when he was going to tell a lie in her presence—but she did not hinder him by any interruption. After dinner it seemed that Varvara Pavlovna was quite devoted to preference; at this Marya Dmitrievna was so delighted that she felt quite overcome, and thought to herself, «Really, what a fool Fedor Ivanitch must be; not able to appreciate a woman like this!»
She sat down to play cards together with her and Gedeonovsky, and Marfa Timofyevna led Lisa away up-stairs with her, saying that she looked shocking, and that she must certainly have a headache.
«Yes, she has an awful headache,» observed Marya Dmitrievna, turning to Varvara Pavlovna and rolling her eyes, «I myself have often just such sick headaches.»
«Really!» rejoined Varvara Pavlovna.
Lisa went into her aunt’s room, and sank powerless into a chair. Marfa Timofyevna gazed long at her in silence, slowly she knelt down before her—and began still in the same silence to kiss her hands alternately. Lisa bent forward, crimsoning—and began to weep, but she did not make Marfa Timofyevna get up, she did not take away her hands, she felt that she had not the right to take them away, that she had not the right to hinder the old lady from expressing her penitence, and her sympathy, from begging forgiveness for what had passed the day before. And Marfa Timofyevna could not kiss enough those poor, pale, powerless hands, and silent tears flowed from her eyes and from Lisa’s; while the cat Matross purred in the wide arm-chair among the knitting wool, and the long flame of the little lamp faintly stirred and flickered before the holy picture. In the next room, behind the door, stood Nastasya Karpovna, and she too was furtively wiping her eyes with her check pocket-handkerchief rolled up in a ball.
Chapter XL
Meanwhile, down-stairs, preference was going on merrily in the drawing-room; Marya Dmitrievna was winning, and was in high good-humour. A servant came in and announced that Panshin was below.
Marya Dmitrievna dropped her cards and moved restlessly in her arm-chair; Varvara Pavlovna looked at her with a half-smile, then turned her eyes towards the door. Panshin made his appearance in a black frock-coat buttoned up to the throat, and a high English collar. «It was hard for me to obey; but you see I have come,» this was what was expressed by his unsmiling, freshly shaven countenance.
«Well, Woldemar,» cried Marya Dmitrievna, «you used to come in unannounced!»
Panshin only replied to Marya Dmitrievna by a single glance. He bowed courteously to her, but did not kiss her hand. She presented him to Varvara Pavlovna; he stepped back a pace, bowed to her with the same courtesy, but with still greater elegance and respect, and took a seat near the card-table. The game of preference was soon over. Panshin inquired after Lisaveta Mihalovna, learnt that she was not quite well, and expressed his regret. Then he began to talk to Varvara Pavlovna, diplomatically weighing each word and giving it its full value, and politely hearing her answers to the end. But the dignity of his diplomatic tone did not impress Varvara Pavlovna, and she did not adopt it. On the contrary, she looked him in the face with light-hearted attention and talked easily, while her delicate nostrils were quivering as though with suppressed laughter. Marya Dmitrievna began to enlarge on her talent; Panshin courteously inclined his head, so far as his collar would permit him, declared that, «he felt sure of it beforehand,» and almost turned the conversation to the diplomatic topic of Metternich himself. Varvara Pavlovna, with an expressive look in her velvety eyes, said in a low voice, «Why, but you too are an artist, un confrere,» adding still lower, «venez!» with a nod towards the piano. The single word venez thrown at him, instantly, as though by magic, effected a complete transformation in Panshin’s whole appearance. His care-worn air disappeared; he smiled and grew lively, unbuttoned his coat, and repeating «a poor artist, alas! Now you, I have heard, are a real artist; he followed Varvara Pavlovna to the piano….
«Make him sing his song, ‘How the Moon Floats,'» cried Marya Dmitrievna.
«Do you sing?» said Varvara Pavlovna, enfolding him in a rapid radiant look. «Sit down.»
Panshin began to cry off.
«Sit down,» she repeated insistently, tapping on a chair behind him.
He sat down, coughed, tugged at his collar, and sang his song.
«Charmant,» pronounced Varvara Pavlovna, «you sing very well, vous avez du style, again.»
She walked round the piano and stood just opposite Panshin. He sang it again, increasing the melodramatic tremor in his voice. Varvara Pavlovna stared steadily at him, leaning her elbows on the piano and holding her white hands on a level with her lips. Panshin finished the song.
«Charmant, charmant idee,» she said with the calm self-confidence of a connoisseur. «Tell me, have you composed anything for a woman’s voice, for a mezzo-soprano?»
«I hardly compose at all,» replied Panshin. «That was only thrown off in the intervals of business… but do you sing?»
«Yes.»
«Oh! sing us something,» urged Marya Dmitrievna.
Varvara Pavlovna pushed her hair back off her glowing cheeks and gave her head a little shake.
«Our voices ought to go well together,» she observed, turning to Panshin; «let us sing a duet. Do you know Son geloso, or La ci darem or Mira la bianca luna?»
«I used to sing Mira la bianca luna, once,» replied Panshin, «but long ago; I have forgotten it.»
«Never mind, we will rehearse it in a low voice. Allow me.»
Varvara Pavlovna sat down at the piano, Panshin stood by her. They sang through the duet in an undertone, and Varvara Pavlovna corrected him several times as they did so, then they sang it aloud, and then twice repeated the performance of Mira la bianca lu-u-na. Varvara Pavlovna’s voice had lost its freshness, but she managed it with great skill. Panshin at first was hesitating, and a little out of tune, then he warmed up, and if his singing was not quite beyond criticism, at least he shrugged his shoulders, swayed his whole person, and lifted his hand from time to time in the most genuine style. Varvara Pavlovna played two
