The doctor did not arrive until evening. On seeing the patient he frightened everybody by his very first remark, observing that it was a pity he had not been sent for before.
When informed that the child had only been taken ill last night, he could not believe it at first.
“Well, it all depends upon how this night is passed,” he decided at last.
Having made all necessary arrangements, he took his departure, promising to come as early as possible next morning.
Velchaninoff was anxious to stay the night, but Claudia Petrovna begged him to try once more “to bring down that brute of a man.”
“Try once more!” cried Velchaninoff, passionately; “why, I’ll tie him hand and foot and bring him along myself!”
The idea that he would tie Pavel Pavlovitch up and carry him down in his arms overpowered Velchaninoff, and filled him with impatience to execute his frantic desire.
“I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty before him any more,” he said to Claudia Petrovna, at parting, “and I withdraw all my servile, abject words of yesterday—all I said to you,” he added, wrathfully.
Liza lay with closed eyes, apparently asleep; she seemed to be better. When Velchaninoff bent cautiously over her in order to kiss—if it were but the edge of her bed linen—she suddenly opened her eyes, just as though she had been waiting for him, and whispered, “Take me away!”
It was but a quiet, sad petition—without a trace of yesterday’s irritation; but at the same time there was that in her voice which betrayed that she made the request in the full knowledge that it could not be assented to.
No sooner did Velchaninoff, in despair, begin to assure her as tenderly as he could that what she desired was impossible, than she silently closed her eyes and said not another word, just as though she neither saw nor heard him.
Arrived in town Velchaninoff told his man to drive him to the Pokrofsky. It was ten o’clock at night.
Pavel Pavlovitch was not at his lodgings. Velchaninoff waited for him half an hour, walking up and down the passage in a state of feverish impatience. Maria Sisevna assured him at last that Pavel Pavlovitch would not come in until the small hours.
“Well, then, I’ll return here before daylight,” he said, beside himself with desperation, and he went home to his own rooms.
What was his amazement, when, on arriving at the gate of his house, he learned from Mavra that “yesterday’s visitor” had been waiting for him ever since before ten o’clock.
“He’s had some tea,” she added, “and sent me for wine again—the same wine as yesterday. He gave me the money to buy it with.”
CHAPTER IX: An Apparition
Pavel Pavlovitch had made himself very comfortable. He was sitting in the same chair as he had occupied yesterday, smoking a cigar, and had just poured the fourth and last tumbler of champagne out of the bottle.
The teapot and a half-emptied tumbler of tea stood on the table beside him; his red face beamed with benevolence. He had taken off his coat, and sat in his shirt sleeves.
“Forgive me, dearest of friends,” he cried, catching sight of Velchaninoff, and hastening to put on his coat, “I took it off to make myself thoroughly comfortable.”
Velchaninoff approached him menacingly.
“You are not quite tipsy yet, are you? Can you understand what is said to you?”
Paul Pavlovitch became a little confused.
“No, not quite. I’ve been thinking of the dear deceased a bit, but I’m not quite drunk yet.”
“Can you understand what I say?”
“My dear sir, I came here on purpose to understand you.”
“Very well, then I shall begin at once by telling you that you are an ass, sir!” cried Velchaninoff, at the top of his voice.
“Why, if you begin that way where will you end, I wonder!” said Pavel Pavlovitch, clearly alarmed more than a little.
Velchaninoff did not listen, but roared again,
“Your daughter is dying—she is very ill! Have you thrown her over altogether, or not?”
“Oh, surely she isn’t dying yet?”
“I tell you she’s ill; very, very ill—dangerously ill.”
“What, fits? or——”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I tell you she is very dangerously ill. You ought to go down, if only for that reason.”
“What, to thank your friends, eh? to return thanks for their hospitality? Of course, quite so; I well understand, Alexey Ivanovitch—dearest of friends!” He suddenly seized Velchaninoff by both hands, and added with intoxicated sentiment, almost melted to tears, “Alexey Ivanovitch, don’t shout at me—don’t shout at me, please! If you do, I may throw myself into the Neva—I don’t know!—and we have such important things to talk over. There’s lots of time to go to the Pogoryeltseffs another day.”
Velchaninoff did his best to restrain his wrath. “You are drunk, and therefore I don’t understand what you are driving at,” he said sternly. “I’m ready to come to an explanation with you at any moment you like—delighted!—the the sooner the better. But first let me tell you that I am going to take my own measures to secure you. You will sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I shall take you with me to see Liza. I shall not let you go again. I shall bind you, if necessary, and carry you down myself. How do you like this sofa to sleep on?” he added, panting, and indicating a wide, soft divan opposite his own sofa, against the other wall.
“Oh—anything will do for me!”
“Very well, you shall have this sofa. Here, take these things—here are sheets, blankets, pillow” (Velchaninoff pulled all these things out of a cupboard, and tossed them impatiently to Pavel Pavlovitch, who humbly stood and received them); “now then, make your bed,—come, bustle up!”
Pavel Pavlovitch laden with bed clothes had been standing in the middle of the room with a stupid drunken leer on his face, irresolute; but at Velchaninoff’s second bidding he hurriedly began the task of making his bed, moving the table away from in front of it, and smoothing a sheet over the seat of the divan. Velchaninoff approached to help him. He was more or less gratified with his guest’s alarm and submission.
“Now, drink up that wine and lie down!” was his next command. He felt that he must order this man about, he could not help himself. “I suppose you took upon yourself to order this wine, did you?”
“I did—I did, sir! I sent for the wine, Alexey Ivanovitch, because I knew you would not send out again!”
“Well, it’s a good thing that you knew that; but I desire that you should know still more. I give you notice that I have taken my own measures for the future, I’m not going to put up with any more of your antics.”
“Oh, I quite understand, Alexey Ivanovitch, that that sort of thing could only happen once!” said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling feebly.
At this reply Velchaninoff, who had been marching up and down the room stopped solemnly before Pavel Pavlovitch.
“Pavel Pavlovitch,” he said, “speak plainly! You are a clever fellow—I admit the fact freely,—but I assure you you are going on a false track now. Speak plainly, and act like an honest man, and I give you my word of honour that I will answer all you wish to know.”
Pavel Pavlovitch grinned his disagreeable grin (which always drove Velchaninoff wild) once more.
“Wait!” cried the latter. “No humbug now, please; I see through you. I repeat that I give you my word of honour to reply candidly to anything you may like to ask, and to give you every sort of satisfaction—reasonable or even unreasonable—that you please. Oh! how I wish I could make you understand me!”
“Since you are so very kind,” began Pavel Pavlovitch, cautiously bending towards him, “I may tell you that I am very much interested as to what you said yesterday about ‘bird of prey’?”
Velchaninoff spat on the ground in utter despair and disgust, and recommenced his walk up and down the room, quicker than ever.
“No, no, Alexey Ivanovitch, don’t spurn my question; you don’t know how interested I am in it. I assure you I came here on purpose to ask you about it. I know I’m speaking indistinctly, but you’ll forgive me that. I’ve read the expression before. Tell me now, was Bagantoff a ‘bird of prey,’ or—the other thing? How is one to distinguish one from the other?”
Velchaninoff went on walking up and down, and answered nothing for some minutes.
“The bird of prey, sir,” he began suddenly, stopping in front of Pavel Pavlovitch, and speaking vehemently, “is the man who would poison Bagantoff while drinking champagne with him under the cloak of goodfellowship, as you did with me yesterday, instead of escorting his wretched body to the burial ground as you did—the deuce only knows why, and with what dirty, mean, underhand, petty motives, which only recoil upon yourself and make you viler than you already are. Yes, sir, recoil upon yourself!”
“Quite so, quite so, I oughtn’t to have gone,” assented Pavel Pavlovitch, “but aren’t you a little——”
“The bird of prey is not a man who goes and learns his grievance off by heart, like a lesson, and whines it about the place, grimacing and posing, and hanging it round other people’s necks, and who spends all his time in such pettifogging. Is it true you wanted to hang yourself? Come, is it true, or not?”
“I—I don’t know—I may have when I was drunk—I don’t remember. You see, Alexey Ivanovitch, it wouldn’t be quite nice for me to go poisoning people. I’m too high up in the service, and I have money, too, you know—and I may wish
