FullReads

Behind the Ozhogins’ house was a rather large garden, which ended in a little grove of lime-trees, neglected and overgrown. In the middle of this thicket stood an old summer-house in the Chinese style: a wooden paling separated the garden from a blind alley. Liza would sometimes walk, for hours together, alone in this garden. Kirilla Matveitch was aware of this, and forbade her being disturbed or followed; let her grief wear itself out, he said. When she could not be found indoors, they had only to ring a bell on the steps at dinner-time and she made her appearance at once, with the same stubborn silence on her lips and in her eyes, and some little leaf crushed up in her hand. So, noticing one day that she was not in the house, I made a show of going away, took leave of Kirilla Matveitch, put on my hat, and went out from the hall into the courtyard, and from the courtyard into the street, but promptly darted in at the gate again with extraordinary rapidity and hurried past the kitchen into the garden. Luckily no one noticed me. Without losing time in deliberation, I went with rapid steps into the grove. In a little path before me was standing Liza. My heart beat violently. I stood still, drew a deep sigh, and was just on the point of going up to her, when suddenly she lifted her hand without turning round, and began listening…. From behind the trees, in the direction of the blind alley, came a distinct sound of two knocks, as though some one were tapping at the paling. Liza clapped her hands together, there was heard the faint creak of the gate, and out of the thicket stepped Bizmyonkov. I hastily hid behind a tree. Liza turned towards him without speaking…. Without speaking, he drew her arm in his, and the two walked slowly along the path together. I looked after them in amazement. They stopped, looked round, disappeared behind the bushes, reappeared again, and finally went into the summer-house. This summer-house was a diminutive round edifice, with a door and one little window. In the middle stood an old one-legged table, overgrown with fine green moss; two discoloured deal benches stood along the sides, some distance from the damp and darkened walls. Here, on exceptionally hot days, in bygone times, perhaps once a year or so, they had drunk tea. The door did not quite shut, the window-frame had long ago come out of the window, and hung disconsolately, only attached at one corner, like a bird’s broken wing. I stole up to the summer-house, and peeped cautiously through the chink in the window. Liza was sitting on one of the benches, with her head drooping. Her right hand lay on her knees, the left Bizmyonkov was holding in both his hands. He was looking sympathetically at her.

‘How do you feel to-day?’ he asked her in a low voice.

‘Just the same,’ she answered, ‘not better, nor worse.–The emptiness, the fearful emptiness!’ she added, raising her eyes dejectedly.

Bizmyonkov made her no answer.

‘What do you think,’ she went on: ‘will he write to me once more?’

‘I don’t think so, Lizaveta Kirillovna!’

She was silent.

‘And after all, why should he write? He told me everything in his first letter. I could not be his wife; but I have been happy … not for long … I have been happy …’

Bizmyonkov looked down.

‘Ah,’ she went on quickly, ‘if you knew how I loathe that Tchulkaturin … I always fancy I see on that man’s hands … his blood.’ (I shuddered behind my chink.) ‘Though indeed,’ she added, dreamily, ‘who knows, perhaps, if it had not been for that duel…. Ah, when I saw him wounded I felt at once that I was altogether his.’

‘Tchulkaturin loves you,’ observed Bizmyonkov.

‘What is that to me? I don’t want any one’s love.’… She stopped and added slowly, ‘Except yours. Yes, my friend, your love is necessary to me; except for you, I should be lost. You have helped me to bear terrible moments …’