Young Loboff had apparently had quite his share of the three bottles, his face was flushed and his utterance thick. Velchaninoff roared with laughter.
“So you ended up by weeping over each others shoulders, did you? Ha-ha-ha! Oh, you poetical, Schiller-ish, funny fellows, you!”
“Don’t scold us. You must know he went down there yesterday and to-day, and he has withdrawn. He ‘sneaked’ like anything about Nadia and me. They’ve shut her up. There was such a row, but we wouldn’t give way—and, my word, how the fellow drinks! He was always talking about you; but, of course, he is no companion for you. You are, more or less, a respectable sort of man, and must have belonged to society at some time of your life, though you seem to have retired into private life just now. Is it poverty, or what? I couldn’t make head or tail of Pavel Pavlovitch’s story.”
“Oh! Then it was he who gave you those interesting details about me?”
“Yes; don’t be cross about it. It’s better to be a citizen than ‘a swell’ any-day! The thing is one does not know whom to respect in Russia nowadays! Don’t you think it a diseased feature of the times, in Russia, that one doesn’t know whom to respect?”
“Quite so, quite so. Well, go on about Pavel Pavlovitch——”
“Well, he sat down in the railway carriage and began singing, then he cried a bit. It was really disgusting to see the fellow. I hate fools! Then he began to throw money to beggars ‘for the repose of Liza’s soul,’ he said. Is that his wife?”
“Daughter.”
“What’s the matter with your hand?”
“I cut it.”
“H’m! Never mind, cheer up! It’ll be all right soon! I am glad that fellow has gone, you know,—confound him! But I bet anything he’ll marry as soon as he arrives at his place.”
“Well, what of that? You are going to marry, too!”
“I! That’s quite a different affair! What a funny man you are! Why, if you are fifty, he must be sixty! Well, ta-ta! Glad I met you—can’t come in—don’t ask me—no time!”
He started off at a run, but turned a minute after and came back.
“What a fool I am!” he cried, “I forgot all about it—he sent you a letter. Here it is. How was it you didn’t see him off? Ta-ta!”
Velchaninoff returned home and opened the letter, which was sealed and addressed to himself.
There was not a syllable inside in Pavel Pavlovitch’s own hand writing; but he drew out another letter, and knew the writing at once. It was an old, faded, yellow-looking sheet of paper, and the ink was faint and discoloured; the letter was addressed to Velchaninoff, and written ten years before—a couple of months after his departure from T——. He had never received a copy of this one, but another letter, which he well remembered, had evidently been written and sent instead of it; he could tell that by the substance of the faded document in his hand. In this present letter Natalia Vasilievna bade farewell to him for ever (as she had done in the other communication), and informed him that she expected her confinement in a few months. She added, for his consolation, that she would find an opportunity of purveying his child to him in good time, and pointed out that their friendship was now cemented for ever. She begged him to love her no longer, because she could no longer return his love, but authorized him to pay a visit to T—— after a year’s absence, in order to see the child. Goodness only knows why she had not sent this letter, but had changed it for another!
Velchaninoff was deadly pale when he read this document; but he imagined Pavel Pavlovitch finding it in the family box of black wood with mother-of-pearl ornamentation and silver mounting, and reading it for the first time!
“I should think he, too, grew as pale as a corpse,” he reflected, catching sight of his own face in the looking-glass. “Perhaps he read it and then closed his eyes and hoped and prayed that when he opened them again the dreadful letter would be nothing but a sheet of white paper once more! Perhaps the poor fellow tried this desperate expedient two or three times before he accepted the truth!”
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PERMANENT HUSBAND.
Two years have elapsed since the events recorded in the foregoing chapters, and we find our friend Velchaninoff, one lovely summer day, seated in a railway carriage on his way to Odessa; he was making the journey for the purpose of seeing a great friend, and of being introduced to a lady whose acquaintance he had long wished to make.
Without entering into any details, we may remark that Velchaninoff was entirely changed during these last two years. He was no longer the miserable, fanciful hypochondriac of those dark days. He had returned to society and to his friends, who gladly forgave him his temporary relapse into seclusion. Even those whom he had ceased to bow to, when met, were now among the first to extend the hand of friendship once more, and asked no questions—just as though he had been abroad on private business, which was no affair of theirs.
His success in the legal matters of which we have heard, and the fact of having his sixty thousand roubles safe at his bankers—enough to keep him all his life—was the elixir which brought him back to health and spirits. His premature wrinkles departed, his eyes grew brighter, and his complexion better; he became more active and vigorous—in fact, as he sat thinking in a comfortable first-class carriage, he looked a very different man from the Velchaninoff of two years ago.
The next station to be reached was that at which passengers were expected to dine, forty minutes being allowed for this purpose.
It so happened that Velchaninoff, while seated at the dinner table, was able to do a service to a lady who was also dining there. This lady was young and nice looking, though rather too flashily dressed, and was accompanied by a young officer who unfortunately was scarcely in a befitting condition for ladies’ society, having refreshed himself at the bar to an unnecessary extent. This young man succeeded in quarrelling with another person equally unfit for ladies’ society, and a brawl ensued, which threatened to land both parties upon the table in close proximity to the lady. Velchaninoff interfered, and removed the brawlers to a safe distance, to the great and almost boundless gratitude of the alarmed lady, who hailed him as her “guardian angel.” Velchaninoff was interested in the young woman, who looked like a respectable provincial lady—of provincial manners and taste, as her dress and gestures showed.
A conversation was opened, and the lady immediately commenced to lament that her husband was “never by when he was wanted,” and that he had now gone and hidden himself somewhere just because he happened to be required.
“Poor fellow, he’ll catch it for this,” thought Velchaninoff. “If you will tell me your husband’s name,” he added aloud, “I will find him, with pleasure.”
“Pavel Pavlovitch,” hiccupped the young officer.
“Your husband’s name is Pavel Pavlovitch, is it?” inquired Velchaninoff with curiosity, and at the same moment a familiar bald head was interposed between the lady and himself.
“Here you are at last,” cried the wife, hysterically.
It was indeed Pavel Pavlovitch.
He gazed in amazement and dread at Velchaninoff, falling back before him just as though he saw a ghost. So great was his consternation, that for some time it was clear that he did not understand a single word of what his wife was telling him—which was that Velchaninoff had acted as her guardian angel, and that he (Pavel) ought to be ashamed of himself for never being at hand when he was wanted.
At last Pavel Pavlovitch shuddered, and woke up to consciousness.
Velchaninoff suddenly burst out laughing. “Why, we are old friends”—he cried, “friends from childhood!” He clapped his hand familiarly and encouragingly on Pavel’s shoulder. Pavel smiled wanly. “Hasn’t he ever spoken to you of Velchaninoff?”
“No, never,” said the wife, a little confused.
“Then introduce me to your wife, you faithless friend!”
“This—this is Mr. Velchaninoff!” muttered Pavel Pavlovitch, looking the picture of confusion.
All went swimmingly after this. Pavel Pavlovitch was despatched to cater for the party, while his lady informed Velchaninoff that they were on their way from O——, where Pavel Pavlovitch served, to their country place—a lovely house, she said, some twenty-five miles away. There they hoped to receive a party of friends, and if Mr. Velchaninoff would be so very kind as to take pity on their rustic home, and honour it with a visit, she should do her best to show her gratitude to the guardian angel who, etc., etc. Velchaninoff replied that he would be delighted; and that he was an idle man, and always free—adding a compliment or two which caused the fair lady to blush with delight, and to tell Pavel Pavlovitch, who now returned from his quest, that Alexey Ivanovitch had been so kind as to promise to pay them a visit next week, and stay a whole month.
Pavel Pavlovitch, to the amazed wrath
