“Alexei Ivanovich!” he exclaimed in decided surprise. “In no way could I have expected… but come, come! Here, on this sofa, or this armchair, while I…” And he rushed to get into his frock coat, forgetting to put his waistcoat on.
“Don’t be ceremonious, stay as you are.” Velchaninov sat down on a chair.
“No, allow me to be ceremonious, sir; there, now I’m a bit more decent. But why are you sitting in the corner? Here, in the armchair, by the table… Well, I never, never expected!”
He, too, sat down on the edge of a wicker chair, though not next to the “unexpected” visitor, but turning his chair at an angle so as to face Velchaninov more fully.
“And why didn’t you expect me? Didn’t I precisely arrange yesterday that I’d come to you at this time?”
“I thought you wouldn’t come, sir; and once I realized the whole thing yesterday, on waking up, I decidedly despaired of seeing you, even forever, sir.”
Velchaninov meanwhile was looking around. The room was in disorder, the bed was not made, clothes were strewn about, on the table were glasses with drunk coffee, bread crumbs, and a bottle of champagne, half-finished, uncorked, with a glass beside it. He looked out of the corner of his eye into the adjoining room, but all was quiet there; the girl kept silent and did not stir.
“You don’t mean you’re drinking this now?” Velchaninov pointed to the champagne.
“Leftovers, sir…” Pavel Pavlovich was embarrassed.
“Well, you really have changed!”
“Bad habits, and suddenly, sir. Really, since that time; I’m not lying, sir! I can’t restrain myself. Don’t worry now, Alexei Ivanovich, I’m not drunk now and won’t pour out drivel, like yesterday at your place, sir, but I’m telling you the truth, it’s all since that time, sir! And if someone had told me half a year ago that I’d get so loose as I am now, sir, had showed me myself in a mirror—I wouldn’t have believed it!”
“So you were drunk yesterday?”
“I was, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich admitted in a half whisper, lowering his eyes abashedly, “and you see, not so much drunk as somewhat past it, sir. I wish to explain this, because past it is worse for me, sir: there’s not much drunkenness, but some sort of cruelty and recklessness remain, and I feel grief more strongly. Maybe I drink for the sake of grief, sir. And then I may pull some pranks, even quite stupidly, sir, and get at people with insults. I must have presented myself to you very strangely yesterday?”
“You don’t remember?”
“How not remember, I remember everything, sir…”
“You see, Pavel Pavlovich, I thought it over and explained it to myself in exactly the same way,” Velchaninov said conciliatorily, “and besides, I was somewhat irritable myself yesterday and… overly impatient with you, which I freely admit. Sometimes I don’t feel myself quite well, and your unexpected arrival in the night…”
“Yes, in the night, in the night!” Pavel Pavlovich shook his head as if surprised and disapproving. “And what on earth prompted me! I wouldn’t have come in for anything if you yourself hadn’t opened the door, sir; I’d have gone away. I came to you about a week ago, Alexei Ivanovich, and didn’t find you at home, but afterward I might never have come another time, sir. All the same, I also have a touch of pride, Alexei Ivanovich, though I’m aware that I’m in… such a state. We met in the street, too, but I kept thinking: well, and what if he doesn’t recognize me, what if he turns away, nine years are no joke—so I didn’t dare approach. And yesterday I came trudging from the Petersburg side, and forgot the time, sir. All on account of this” (he pointed to the bottle) “and from emotion, sir. Stupid! very, sir! and if it was a man not like you—because you did come to me even after yesterday, remembering old times—I’d even have lost hope of renewing the acquaintance.”
Velchaninov listened attentively. The man seemed to be speaking sincerely and even with a certain dignity; and yet he had not believed a thing from the very moment he set foot in the place.
“Tell me, Pavel Pavlovich, you’re not alone here, then? Whose girl is it that I just found with you?”
Pavel Pavlovich was even surprised and raised his eyebrows, but the look he gave Velchaninov was bright and pleasant.
“Whose girl, you ask? But that’s Liza!” he said with an affable smile.
“What Liza?” Velchaninov murmured, and something as if shook in him. The impression was too unexpected. Earlier, when he came in and saw Liza, he was surprised, but felt decidedly no presentiment, no special thought in himself.
“Why, our Liza, our daughter Liza!” Pavel Pavlovich went on smiling.
“How, daughter? You mean you and Natalia… and the late Natalia Vassilievna had children?” Velchaninov asked mistrustfully and timidly, somehow in a very soft voice.
“But, how’s that, sir? Ah, my God, but who indeed could you have learned it from? What’s the matter with me! It was after you that God granted us!”
Pavel Pavlovich even jumped up from his chair in some excitement, also as if pleasant, however.
“I never heard a thing,” Velchaninov said and—paled.
“Indeed, indeed, who could you have learned it from, sir!” Pavel Pavlovich repeated in a tenderly slack voice. “We had lost all hope, my late wife and I, you remember it yourself, and suddenly God blessed us, and what came over me then—he alone knows that! exactly a year after you, it seems, or not, not a year after, much less, wait, sir: you left us then, unless memory deceives me, in October or even November?”
“I left T———at the beginning of September, on the twelfth of September; I remember it well…”
“In September was it? hm… what’s the matter with me?” Pavel Pavlovich was very surprised. “Well, if so, then permit me: you left on the twelfth of September, and Liza was born on the eighth of May, so that makes it September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April—after eight months and something, there, sir! and if only you knew how my late wife…”
“But show me… call her…” Velchaninov babbled in some sort of breaking voice.
“Certainly, sir!” Pavel Pavlovich bustled, interrupting at once what he had intended to say, as altogether unnecessary. “Right away, I’ll introduce her to you right away, sir!” and he hurriedly went to Liza’s room.
Perhaps a whole three or four minutes went by; there was quick and rapid whispering in the little room, and the sounds of Liza’s voice were faintly heard. “She’s begging not to be brought out,” Velchaninov thought. They finally came out.
“Here, sir, she’s all embarrassed,” Pavel Pavlovich said, “she’s so bashful, so proud, sir… just like her late mother!”
Liza came out without tears now, her eyes lowered, her father leading her by the hand. She was a tall, slim, and very pretty little girl. She quickly raised her large blue eyes to the guest, looked at him with curiosity, but sullenly, and at once lowered her eyes again. There was in her gaze that child’s seriousness, as when children, left alone with a stranger, go into a corner and from there keep glancing, seriously and mistrustfully, at the new, first-time visitor; but perhaps there was also another thought, as if no longer a child’s—so it seemed to Velchaninov. Her father brought her over to him.
“This nice man used to know Mama, he was our friend, don’t be shy, give him your hand.”
The girl bowed slightly and timidly offered her hand.
“Natalia Vassilievna wanted not to teach her to curtsy in greeting but simply to bow slightly in the English manner and offer her hand to a guest,” he added in explanation to Velchaninov, studying him intently.
Velchaninov knew he was studying him, but he no longer cared at all about concealing his excitement; he was sitting motionlessly on the chair, holding Liza’s hand in his, and gazing intently at the child. But Liza was very preoccupied with something and, forgetting her hand in the visitor’s hand, would not take her eyes off her father. She listened timorously to everything he said. Velchaninov recognized those large blue eyes at once, but most of all he was struck by the astonishing, remarkably tender whiteness of her face and the color of her hair; these signs were all too significant for him. The shape of the face and the curve of the lips, on the other hand, distinctly resembled Natalia Vassilievna. Pavel Pavlovich meanwhile had long since begun telling something, with extraordinary ardor and feeling, it seemed, but Velchaninov did not hear him at all. He caught only one last phrase: