Uncle's dream; And The Permanent Husband Part 36

Pavel Pavlovitch had come staggering out of the room muttering, "I shall smash her head in with a stick! I shall murder her like a dog!" and he had gone away, repeating this over and over again to himself.

Velchaninoff hired a carriage and set off towards the Pogoryeltseffs.

Before he had left the town behind him, the carriage was delayed by a block at a cross road, just by a small bridge, over which was pa.s.sing, at the moment, a long funeral procession. There were carriages waiting to move on on both sides of the bridge, and a considerable crowd of foot pa.s.sengers besides.

The funeral was evidently of some person of considerable importance, for the train of private and hired vehicles was a very long one; and at the window of one of these carriages in the procession Velchaninoff suddenly beheld the face of Pavel Pavlovitch.

Velchaninoff would not have believed his eyes, but that Pavel Pavlovitch nodded his head and smiled to him. He seemed to be delighted to have recognised Velchaninoff; he even began to kiss his hand out of the window.

Velchaninoff jumped out of his own vehicle, and in spite of policemen, crowd, and everything else, elbowed his way to Pavel Pavlovitch's carriage window. He found the latter sitting alone.

"What are you doing?" he cried. "Why didn't you come to my house? Why are you here?"

"I'm paying a debt; don't shout so! I'm repaying a debt," said Pavel Pavlovitch, giggling and winking. "I'm escorting the mortal remains of my dear friend Stepan Michailovitch Bagantoff!"

"What absurdity, you drunken, insane creature," cried Velchaninoff louder than ever, and beside himself with outraged feeling. "Get out and come with me. Quick! get out instantly!"

"I can't. It's a debt--"

"I'll pull you out, then!" shouted Velchaninoff.

"Then I'll scream, sir, I'll scream!" giggled Pavel Pavlovitch, as merrily as ever, just as though the whole thing was a joke. However, he retreated into the further corner of the carriage, all the same.

"Look out, sir, look out! You'll be knocked down!" cried a policeman.

Sure enough, an outside carriage was making its way on to the bridge from the side, stopping the procession, and causing a commotion. Velchaninoff was obliged to spring aside, and the press of carriages and people immediately separated him from Pavel Pavlovitch. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to his own vehicle.

"It's all the same. I couldn't take such a fellow with me, anyhow," he reflected, still all of a tremble with excitement and the rage of disgust.

When he repeated Maria Sisevna's story, and his meeting at the funeral, to Claudia Petrovna afterwards, the latter became buried in deep thought.

"I am anxious for you," she said at last. "You must break off all relations with that man, and as soon as possible."

"Oh, he's nothing but a drunken fool!" cried Velchaninoff pa.s.sionately; "as if I am to be afraid of _him_! And how can I break off relations with him? Remember Liza!"

Meanwhile Liza was lying ill; fever had set in last night, and an eminent doctor was momentarily expected from town! He had been sent for early this morning.

These news quite upset Velchaninoff. Claudia Petrovna took him in to see the patient.

"I observed her very carefully yesterday," she said, stopping at the door of Liza's room before entering it. "She is a proud and morose child. She is ashamed of being with us, and of having been thrown over by her father.

In my opinion that is the whole secret of her illness."

"How 'thrown over'? Why do you suppose that he has thrown her over?"

"The simple fact that he allowed her to come here to a strange house, and with a man who was also a stranger, or nearly so; or, at all events, with whom his relations were such that--"

"Oh, but I took her myself, almost by force."

Liza was not surprised to see Velchaninoff alone. She only smiled bitterly, and turned her hot face to the wall. She made no reply to his pa.s.sionate promises to bring her father down to-morrow without fail, or to his timid attempts at consolation.

As soon as Velchaninoff left the sick child's presence, he burst into tears.

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 pa.s.sed," 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, pa.s.sionately; "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 pet.i.tion-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 a.s.sented to.

No sooner did Velchaninoff, in despair, begin to a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sage in a state of feverish impatience. Maria Sisevna a.s.sured 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.

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 s.h.i.+rt 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.