With cold perspiration on his forehead and distraction in his weary eyes, he gazed on the couples dancing.
Past him—hardly lifting her feet and without looking at her partner—sailed the majestic Madame Taliman, with motionless shoulders and an ironical, menacing countenance, as if she meant to protect herself against the slightest liberty or insult. Epifanov skipped round her like a little frisky goat.
Then glided little Miss Lykatschev, flushed of face, with gleaming eyes, and bare, white, virginal bosom. Then came Olisar with his slender, elegant legs, straight and stiff as a sparrow’s.
Romashov felt a burning headache and a strong, almost uncontrollable desire to weep; but beside him still stood Raisa, pale with suppressed rage. With an exaggerated theatrical gesture she fired at him the following sarcasm—
“Did any one ever hear such a thing before?
A Russian Infantry lieutenant playing the part of the chaste Joseph? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Yes, quite so, my lady. Precisely that part,” replied Romashov, glaring with wrath.
“I know too well that it is humiliating and ridiculous. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed to express my sorrow that I should have so degraded myself.
With our eyes open we have both flung ourselves into a cesspool, and I know that I shall never again deserve a pure and noble woman’s love.
Who is to blame for this? Well, you. Bear this well in mind—you, you, you—for you were the older and more experienced of us two, especially in affairs of that sort.”
Raisa Alexandrovna got up hurriedly from her chair.
“That will do,” she replied in a dramatic tone.
“You have got what you wanted.
I hate you.
I hope henceforward you will cease to visit a home where you were received as a friend and relation, where you were entertained and fed, and where, too, you were found out to be the scoundrel you are.
Oh, that I had the courage to reveal everything to my husband—that incomparable creature, that saint whom I venerate. Were he only convinced of what has happened he would, I think, know how to avenge the wounded honour of a helpless, insulted woman. He would kill you.”
Romashov looked through his eyeglass at her big, faded mouth, her features distorted by hate and rage.
The infernal music from the open windows of the gallery continued with unimpaired strength; the intolerable bassoon howled worse than ever, and, thought Romashov, the bass drum had now come into immediate contact with his brain.
Raisa shut her fan with a snap that echoed through the ballroom.
“Oh, you—lowest of all blackguards on earth,” whispered she, with a theatrical gesture, and then disappeared into the ladies’ retiring-room.
All was now over and done with, but Romashov did not experience the relief he expected. This long-nourished hope to feel his soul freed from a heavy, unclean burthen was not fulfilled.
His strict, avenging conscience told him that he had acted in a cowardly, low, and boorish way when he cast all the blame on a weak, narrow, wretched woman who, most certainly at that moment, in the ladies’-room, was, through him, shedding bitter, hysterical tears of sorrow, shame, and impotent rage.
“I am sinking more and more deeply,” thought he, in disgust at himself.
What had his life been? what had it consisted of?
An odious and wanton liaison, gambling, drinking, soul-killing, monotonous regimental routine, with never a single inspiriting word, never a ray of light in this black, hopeless darkness.
Salutary, useful work, music, art, science, where were they?
He returned to the dining-room.
There he met Osadchi and his friend Viatkin, who with much trouble was making his way in the direction of the street door. Liech, now quite drunk, was helplessly wobbling in different directions, whilst in a fuddled voice he kept asserting that he was—an archbishop.
Osadchi intoned in reply with the most serious countenance and a low, rolling bass, whilst carefully following the ecclesiastical ritual—
“Your high, refulgent Excellency, the hour of burial has struck. Give us your blessing, etc.”
As the soiree approached its end, the gathering in the dining-room grew more noisy and lively.
The room was already so full of tobacco smoke that those sitting at opposite sides of the table could not recognize each other.
Cards were being played in one corner; by the window a small but select set had assembled to edify one another by racy stories—the spice most appreciated at officers’ dinners and suppers.
“No, no, no, gentlemen,” shrieked Artschakovski, “allow me to put in a word.
You see it was this way: a soldier was quartered at the house of a khokhol who had a pretty wife.
Ho, ho, thought the soldier, that is something for me.”
Then, however, he was interrupted by Vasili Vasilievich, who had been waiting long and impatiently—
“Shut up with your old stories, Artschakovski. You shall hear this.
Once upon a time in Odessa there——” But even he was not allowed to speak very long.
The generality of the stories were rather poor and devoid of wit, but, to make up for that, they were interspersed with coarse and repulsive cynicisms.
Viatkin, who had now returned from the street, where he had been paying his respects to Liech’s “interment” and holy “departure,” invited Romashov to sit down at the table.
“Sit you here, my dear Georginka. We will watch them.
To-day I am as rich as a Jew.
I won yesterday, and to-day I shall take the bank again.”
Romashov only longed to lighten his heart, for a friend to whom he might tell his sorrow and his disgust at life.
After draining his glass he looked at Viatkin with beseeching eyes, and began to talk in a voice quivering with deep, inward emotion.
“Pavel Pavlich, we all seem to have completely forgotten the existence of another life.
Where it is I cannot say; I only know that it exists. Even in that men must struggle, suffer, and love, but that life is rich—rich in great thoughts and noble deeds. For here, my friend, what do you suppose our life is, and how will such a miserable existence as ours end some day?”
“Well, yes, old fellow—but it’s life,” replied Viatkin in a sleepy way.
“Life after all is—only natural philosophy and energy.