Lizaveta Ivanovna, still in her ball gown, sat in her room deep in thought. On coming home she had hastily dismissed the sleepy maid, who had reluctantly offered her services, saying that she would undress herself, and, trembling, had gone into her room, hoping to find Hermann there and wishing not to find him. With the first glance she was convinced of his absence, and she thanked fate for the obstacle that had prevented their rendezvous. She sat down without undressing and began to think back over all the circumstances that had lured her so far in so short a time. Three weeks had not passed since she first saw the young man from the window—and she was already in correspondence with him, and he had managed to obtain a night rendezvous from her! She knew his name only because some of his letters were signed; she had never spoken with him, nor heard his voice, nor heard anything about him…until that evening. Strange thing! That same evening, at the ball, Tomsky, pouting at the young princess Polina, who, contrary to her usual habit, was flirting with someone else, had wished to revenge himself by a show of indifference: he had invited Lizaveta Ivanovna and danced an endless mazurka with her. He joked all the while about her partiality for engineer officers, assured her that he knew much more than she might suppose, and some of his jokes were so well aimed that Lizaveta Ivanovna thought several times that her secret was known to him.
“Who told you all that?” she asked, laughing.
“A friend of a person known to you,” Tomsky replied, “a very remarkable man!”
“Who is this remarkable man?”
“His name is Hermann.”
Lizaveta Ivanovna said nothing, but her hands and feet turned to ice…
“This Hermann,” Tomsky went on, “is a truly romantic character: he has the profile of Napoleon and the soul of Mephistopheles. I think there are at least three evil deeds on his conscience. How pale you’ve turned!…”
“I have a headache…What did Hermann—or whatever his name is—tell you?…”
“Hermann is very displeased with his friend: he says that in his place he would act quite differently…I even suspect that Hermann himself has designs on you; at least he’s far from indifferent when he listens to his friend’s amorous exclamations.”
“But where has he seen me?”
“In church, maybe—or on a promenade!…God knows with him! Maybe in your room while you were asleep: he’s quite capable of…”
Three ladies who came up to them with the question
The lady Tomsky chose was the princess Polina herself. She managed to have a talk with him, making an extra turn with him and twirling an extra time in front of her chair. Going back to his place, Tomsky no longer thought either of Hermann or of Lizaveta Ivanovna. She was intent on renewing their interrupted conversation; but the mazurka ended, and soon afterwards the old countess left.
Tomsky’s words were nothing but mazurka banter, but they lodged themselves deeply in the young dreamer’s soul. The portrait sketched by Tomsky resembled the picture she had put together herself, and, thanks to the latest novels, this already banal character frightened and captivated her imagination. She sat, her bare arms crossed, bowing her head, still adorned with flowers, over her uncovered bosom…Suddenly the door opened and Hermann came in. She trembled…
“Where were you?” she asked in a frightened whisper.
“In the old countess’s bedroom,” Hermann replied. “I’ve just come from her. The countess is dead.”
“My God!…What are you saying?…”
“And it seems,” Hermann went on, “that I’m the cause of her death.”
Lizaveta Ivanovna looked at him, and Tomsky’s words echoed in her heart:
Lizaveta Ivanovna listened to him with horror. So those passionate letters, those ardent demands, that bold, tenacious pursuit, all of it was not love! Money—that was what his soul hungered for! It was not she who could appease his desires and make him happy! The poor ward was nothing but the blind assistant of a robber, the murderer of her old benefactress!…She wept bitterly in her belated, painful repentance. Hermann looked at her in silence: his heart was torn as well, but neither the poor girl’s tears nor the astonishing charm of her grief troubled his hardened soul. He felt no remorse of conscience at the thought of the dead old woman. One thing horrified him: the irretrievable loss of the secret by means of which he had expected to make himself rich.
“You’re a monster!” Lizaveta Ivanovna said at last.
“I did not wish her death,” Hermann replied. “My pistol wasn’t loaded.”
They fell silent.
