The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

"Grigory Mihalovitch," he heard a woman's voice, "don't you recognise me?"

He stopped involuntarily. That voice... that voice had too often set his heart beating in the past... He turned round and saw Irina.

Litvinov knew her at once, though she had changed since he saw her that last time ten years ago, though she had been transformed from a girl into a woman.

"Irina Pavlovna," he uttered, irresolutely.

"You know me? How glad I am! how glad--" She stopped, blushing. "Let me introduce you to my husband."

One of the young generals, Ratmirov by name, almost the most elegant of all, got up from his seat at the introduction, and bowed with a dandified air. Litvinov would have escaped, but Irina insisted on his sitting down. For a time he had to listen to the empty, meaningless talk of the company, hardly able to say a word to Irina. At last his clean plebeian pride revolted. He rose to his feet, somehow took leave of Irina and her husband, and walked rapidly away, trying to brace and soothe his nerves by violent exercise.

"Oh, Tatyana, Tatyana!" he cried passionately to himself. "You are my guardian angel! you only my good genius! I love you only, and will love you for ever, and I will not go to see her. Forget her altogether! Let her amuse herself with her generals."

That very evening Irina sent him a message, asking him to come and see her, and, in spite of all his determinations, he went. She saw him alone in a room in one of the best hotels in Baden. "Grigory Mihalovitch," she cried, as soon as he had closed the door behind him, "here we are alone at last, and I can tell you how glad I am at our meeting, because it... gives me a chance... of asking your forgiveness."

Litvinov started involuntarily at this unexpected reference to old times.

"Forgiveness... for what?" he muttered.

"For what? I wronged you, though of course it was my fate, and I do not regret it. You must tell me you forgive me, or else I shall imagine you feel... de la rancune."

As he looked into her beautiful eyes, shining with tears, Litvinov's senses seemed to swim.

"I will remember nothing," he managed to say; "nothing but the happy moments for which I was once indebted to you."

Irina held out both hands to him; Litvinov clasped them warmly, and did not at once let them go. Something that long had not been secretly stirred in his heart at that soft contact.... They fell into conversation, he learning from her something of her life, she extracting from him in fragments the details of his career. General Ratmirov's arrival put an end to their converse, and Litvinov rose to depart. At the door Irina stopped him.

"You have told me everything," she said, "but the chief thing you have concealed. You are going to be married, I am told."

Litvinov blushed up to his ears. As a fact, he had intentionally not referred to Tatyana.

"Yes, I am going to be married," he said at last, and at once withdrew.

He came away, swearing to himself that he would never see her again. Next day he met her on his way to the mountains, but pretended not to see her. On his return he found her sitting alone on a bench in the fashionable walk. She stopped him, insisting, with an unsteady voice, on speaking to him. He tried to be frank with her, pointing out that their paths lay far apart, that she belonged to a society which he did not understand, that she was above him, beyond him. But her passionate appeal that they should at least be friends melted his determination, and he left her with a promise to call again that very night.

When he returned once more to his rooms, he made a desperate effort to recover his senses. Taking out a picture of Tatyana, he placed it in front of him, and stared at it long and eagerly. Suddenly he pushed it gently away, and clutched his head in both hands.

"All is at an end," he whispered at last. "Irina! Irina!"

He realised in an instant that he was irrevocably, senselessly, in love with her.

"But Tatyana, Tatyana, my guardian, Tatyana, Tatyana!" he repeated, while Irina's shape, as he had seen her last, rose before his eyes with a radiant calm of victory on her marble-white face.

Next day he told her of his love. For answer she threw her arms round his neck and whispered in his ear, "I love you, too.... I love you... and you know it."

"You must go," she went on suddenly, moving away from him and turning impulsively toward the door. "It's dangerous, it's terrible.... Good-bye."

Litvinov stood, like a block of wood, at a distance. Once more she said, "Good-bye, forget me," and, without looking round, rushed away.