l be my wife... I will walk away... if
you don't dislike the idea, you need only send to call me in; I shall
understand....'
Alexandra Pavlovna tried to keep Lezhnyov, but he went quickly away, and
going into the garden without his cap, he leaned on a little gate and
began looking about him.
'Mihailo Mihailitch!' sounded the voice of a maid-servant behind him,
'please come in to my lady. She sent me to call you.'
Mihailo Mihailitch turned round, took the girl's head in both his hands,
to her great astonishment, and kissed her on the forehead, then he went
in to Alexandra Pavlovna.
XI
On returning home, directly after his meeting with Lezhnyov, Rudin shut
himself up in his room, and wrote two letters; one to Volintsev (already
known to the reader) and the other to Natalya. He sat a very long time
over this second letter, crossed out and altered a great deal in it,
and, copying it carefully on a fine sheet of note-paper, folded it up as
small as possible, and put it in his pocket. With a look of pain on his
face he paced several times up and down his room, sat down in the chair
before the window, leaning on his arm; a tear slowly appeared upon his
eyelashes. He got up, buttoned himself up, called a servant and told him
to ask Darya Mihailovna if he could see her.
The man returned quickly, answering that Darya Mihailovna would be
delighted to see him. Rudin went to her.
She received him in her study, as she had that first time, two months
before. But now she was not alone; with her was sitting Pandalevsky,
unassuming, fresh, neat, and agreeable as ever.
Darya Mihailovna met Rudin affably, and Rudin bowed affably to her; but
at the first glance at the smiling faces of both, any one of even small
experience would have understood that something of an unpleasant nature
had passed between them, even if it had not been expressed. Rudin knew
that Darya Mihailovna was angry with him. Darya Mihailovna suspected
that he was now aware of all that had happened.
Pandalevsky's disclosure had greatly disturbed her. It touched on the
worldly pride in her. Rudin, a poor man without rank, and so far
without distinction, had presumed to make a secret appointment with her
daughter--the daughter of Darya Mihailovna Lasunsky.
'Granting he is clever, he is a genius!' she said, 'what does that
prove? Why, any one may hope to be my son-in-law after that?'
'For a long time I could not believe my eyes.' put in Pandale
|