the bed
herself.

"_Eh bien, madame?_"--inquired her maid, a Frenchwoman, whom she had
brought from Paris, as she removed her corsets.

"_Eh bien, Justine_,"--she replied;--"he has aged greatly, but it strikes
me that he is as good-natured as ever.--Give me my gloves for the night,
prepare my high-necked grey gown for to-morrow; and do not forget the
mutton chops for Ada.... Really, it will be difficult to obtain them
here; but we must make the effort."

"_A la guerre, comme a la guerre_,"--responded Justine, and put out the
light.

XXXVII

For more than two hours Lavretzky roamed about the streets of the town.
The night which he had spent in the suburbs of Paris recurred to his
mind. His heart swelled to bursting within him, and in his head, which
was empty, and, as it were, stunned, the same set of thoughts kept
swirling,--dark, wrathful, evil thoughts. "She is alive, she is here," he
whispered, with constantly augmenting amazement. He felt that he had lost
Liza. Bile choked him; this blow had struck him too suddenly. How could
he so lightly have believed the absurd gossip of a feuilleton, a scrap of
paper? "Well, and if I had not believed it, what difference would that
have made? I should not have known that Liza loves me; she herself would
not have known it." He could not banish from himself the form, the voice,
the glances of his wife ... and he cursed himself, cursed everything in
the world.

Worn out, he arrived toward morning at Lemm's. For a long time, he could
produce no effect with his knocking; at last, the old man's head, in a
nightcap, made its appearance in the window, sour, wrinkled, no longer
bearing the slightest resemblance to that inspiredly-morose head which,
four and twenty hours previously, had gazed on Lavretzky from the full
height of its artistic majesty.

"What do you want?"--inquired Lemm:--"I cannot play every night; I have
taken a decoction."--But, evidently, Lavretzky's face was very strange:
the old man made a shield for his eyes out of his hands, stared at his
nocturnal visitor, and admitted him.

Lavretzky entered the room, and sank down on a chair; the old man halted
in front of him, with the skirts of his motley-hued, old dressing-gown
tucked up, writhing and mumbling with his lips.

"My wife has arrived,"--said Lavretzky, raising his head, and suddenly
breaking into an involuntary laugh.

Lemm's face expressed surprise, but he di