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diff --git a/43058.txt b/43058.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79ae87b --- /dev/null +++ b/43058.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8030 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marie Tarnowska, by Annie Vivanti + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Marie Tarnowska + + +Author: Annie Vivanti + + + +Release Date: June 29, 2013 [eBook #43058] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA*** + + +E-text prepared by Carlo Traverso, Barbara Magni, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original visual illustrations + and two audio-illustrations. + See 43058-h.htm or 43058-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43058/43058-h/43058-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43058/43058-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + https://archive.org/details/marietarnowskawi00vivauoft + + + + + + [Illustration: MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA] + + +MARIE TARNOWSKA + +by + +A. VIVANTI CHARTRES + +With an Introductory Letter by Professor L. M. Bossi +of the University of Genoa + + + + + + + +Published by The Century Co. +New York MCMXV + +Copyright, 1915, by +The Century Co. + +Published, October, 1915 +All rights reserved + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +On the morning of September 3rd, 1907, Count Paul Kamarowsky, a wealthy +Russian nobleman, was fatally shot in his apartments on the Lido in +Venice by an intimate friend, Nicolas Naumoff, son of the governor of +Orel. The crime was at first believed to be political. The wounded man +refused to make any statement against his assailant, whom he himself had +assisted to escape from the balcony to a gondola in waiting below. + +Count Kamarowsky was taken to a hospital, and for three days his +recovery seemed assured; but the chief surgeon, in a sudden mental +collapse--he has since died in an insane asylum--ordered the stitches to +be removed from the fast-healing wounds, and Count Kamarowsky died in +great agony a few hours later. His last words were a message of love to +his betrothed at Kieff, a beautiful Russian woman, Countess Marie +Tarnowska. + +In her favor Count Kamarowsky had, shortly before his death, made a will +and also insured his life for the sum of L20,000. + +A number of telegrams from this lady were found addressed to a Russian +lawyer, Donat Prilukoff, who had been staying at the Hotel Danieli in +Venice until the day of the murder. Both this man and the Countess +Tarnowska were arrested. + +After a sensational trial they were found guilty of instigating the +young Nicolas Naumoff to commit the murder. Countess Tarnowska was +sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in the penitentiary of Trani; +Prilukoff was condemned to ten years' penal servitude; while Naumoff +himself was liberated in view of his having undergone two years' +incarceration while awaiting his trial. + + + + +TO THE AUTHOR + + +_Signora:_ + +_Not only as the medical expert for the defense at the trial of the +Countess Tarnowska, but as one who has made it his life-work to +investigate the relation in women between criminal impulse and morbid +physical condition, I cannot but feel the keenest interest in this book, +in which you set forth the problem of wide human interest presented by +the case of the prisoner of Trani._ + +_When first I suggested to you that you should write this book--which +(apart from its interest as dealing with a_ cause celebre _whose +protagonists are still living and well known in European society) might +bring into wider knowledge doctrines that modern physiologists and +psychologists are endeavoring to diffuse--you reminded me that the +medical elements of the problem could not in such a work be discussed or +even clearly stated. This, of course, is true, and the significance of +certain indications scattered through these pages will doubtless be lost +upon those who are not familiar with such matters. Nevertheless, it was +important that the book should be written, for if after her release +and appropriate medical treatment the Countess Tarnowska is restored, as +many of us confidently anticipate, to the complete sanity of moral +well-being, your book in the light of that essential fact will have +fulfilled a notable mission._ + +_It will have helped to bring home to the general consciousness the +knowledge, hitherto confined to the scientific few, that moral obliquity +in women is in most cases due to pathological causes comparatively easy +of diagnosis and of cure; that a woman-criminal may be morally redeemed +by being physically healed; and that just as alcoholism, typhus, pyemia +or other modes of toxic infection may result in delirium and +irresponsibility, so certain forms of disease in women, by setting up a +condition of persistent organic poisoning, may and very often do conduce +to mental and moral aberration and consequent crime._ + +_Your book, Signora, contains a truthful exposition of a group of +psychic values with which physicians and psychopathists are concerned, +and I believe that eventually it will promote the realization that even +in the darkest regions of moral degradation it is possible for science +to raise the torch of hope. Thus, though appealing for the moment to the +interest of the general reader, it will ultimately constitute a +significant document in the history of the evolution of pathological +science._ + + [Illustration: Signature--Prof. L. M. Bossi] + + Genoa, + January 12th, 1915. + + + + +TO THE READER + + +This book is not written to plead Marie Tarnowska's cause. The strange +Russian woman whose hand slew no man, but whose beauty drove those who +loved her to commit murder for her sake, will soon have ended her eight +years' captivity and will come forth into the world once more. + +I have not sought in any way to minimize her guilt, or attenuate her +responsibility for the sin and death that followed in her train. Though +she must be held blameless for the boy Peter Tarnowsky's tragic fate and +even for Dr. Stahl's suicide, yet Bozevsky's death, Naumoff's downfall +and the murder of Count Kamarowsky will forever be laid at her door. + +I have tried to convey to the cool, sober mind of the Anglo-Saxon +reader--to whom much of this amazing story of passion and crime may +appear almost incredible--that sequence of tragic events which brought +Marie Nicolaevna to her ruin. + +Weighted by a heritage of disease (her mother was a neurasthenic invalid +and two of her aunts are even now confined in an insane asylum in +Russia), she was married when still on the threshold of girlhood and +swept into the maelstrom of a wild life--a frenzied, almost hallucinated, +existence such as is led by a certain section of the Russian +aristocracy, whom self-indulgence drives to depths of degeneracy hardly +to be realized by the outside world. + +With the birth of her child, Tania, Marie Tarnowska's fragile health +broke down completely, and the few years preceding the tragedy which led +to her arrest were spent traveling through Europe in a feverish quest of +health or at least of oblivion of her sufferings. According to such +medical authorities as Redlich, Fenomenof, Rhein, Bossi, and many other +eminent gynecologists and alienists, she is, and has been for some years +past, suffering from a slow form of blood poisoning which affects the +nervous centers and the brain, and which--as I myself had a painful +opportunity of witnessing when I saw her in prison--causes periodic +cataleptic seizures that imperil her life. + +It was by one of her medical advisers, Professor Luigi Bossi, of the +University of Genoa, that the idea of this book was first given to me. + +"I was called as an expert for the defense at the Venice trial," said +the Professor, "and I was grieved and indignant at the heavy sentence +inflicted upon this unhappy woman. Marie Tarnowska is not delinquent, +but diseased; not a criminal, but an invalid; and her case, like that of +many other female transgressors, is one for the surgeon's skill and the +physician's compassionate care, not for the ruthless hand of the law. +Indeed," the illustrious Professor continued, "it is becoming more and +more a recognized fact that many cases of criminality in woman have a +physical, not a moral origin. By her very mission--maternity--woman is +consecrated to pain; and whereas by nature she is a creature of +gentleness and goodness, the effect of physical suffering, of ailments +often unconfessed--nay, often unrealized by herself--is to transform her +into a virago, a hypochondriac, or a criminal. Then our duty is to cure +her, not to punish her. + +"It may be merely a question," he explained, "of a slight surgical +intervention; sometimes even brief medical treatment is sufficient to +save a woman's life and reason. The wider knowledge of this simple +scientific fact in the social life of our time would redeem and +rehabilitate thousands of unfortunate women who people the prisons and +the madhouses of the world. + +"As for the unhappy Countess Tarnowska," added Professor Bossi, "the +Venetian tribunal refused to regard her as a suffering human being, but +flung her out of society like some venomous reptile. Read these notes +that she wrote in prison," he said, placing in my hand a book of almost +illegible memoranda. "If they touch your heart, then do a deed of +justice and generosity. Go to the penitentiary of Trani, see the +prisoner yourself, and give her story to the world. So will you perform +an act of humanity and beneficence by helping to diffuse a scientific +truth in favor, not of this one woman alone, but of all women." + +After glancing through the strange human document he had given me I +decided to do what he asked; for, indeed, from those poor, incoherent +pages there seemed to rise the eternal cry of suffering womanhood--the +anguished cry of those that perpetuate the gift of life--which no +sister-soul can hear unmoved. + +Thus it was that my mind was first directed to the theme of this book +and that I undertook the task--fraught with almost insuperable +difficulties--of breaking down official prohibitions and reaching the +Russian captive in her distant Italian prison. + +And now that I have been brought face to face with that strange and +mournful figure, now that I have heard her story from her own pale lips, +I am moved by the puissant impulse of art, which takes no heed of +learned theory or ethical code, to narrate in these pages the profound +impression made upon me by that tragic personality, by the story of that +broken life. + +I have endeavored to do so with faithfulness, exaggerating nothing, +coloring nothing, extenuating nothing. It will be for the pontiffs of +science and morals to achieve the more complex task of drawing +conclusions and establishing theories that may one day diminish +injustice and suffering in the world. + + A. VIVANTI CHARTRES. + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + _Facing page_ + + MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA _Frontispiece_ + A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK 6 + COUNT O'ROURKE 20 + COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY 180 + I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY 194 + UNDER ARREST 268 + IN THE PRISON CELL 292 + THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI 300 + + + + +MARIE TARNOWSKA + + + + +I + + _Ed or, che Dio mi tolga la memoria._ + + CONTESSA LARA. + + +The verdant landscape of Tuscany swung past the train that carried me +southward. The looped vineyards--like slim, green dancers holding +hands--fled backwards as we passed, and the rays of the March sun pursued +us, beating hotly through the open windows on the dusty red velvet +cushions of the carriage. + +Soon the train was throbbing and panting out of Pisa, and the barefooted +children of the Roman Campagna stood to gaze after us, with eyes soft +and wild under their sullen hair. + +Since leaving the station of Genoa I had seen nothing of the fleeting +springtide landscape; my gaze and thoughts were riveted on the pages of +a copy-book which lay open on my knee--a simple school copy-book with +innocent blue-lined sheets originally intended to contain the carefully +labored scrawls of some childish hand. A blue ornamental flourish decked +the front; and under the printed title, "Program of Lessons," the words +"History," "Geography," "Arithmetic," were followed by a series of blank +spaces for the hours to be filled in. Alas, for the tragic pupil to whom +this book belonged, in what school of horror had she learned the lesson +traced on these pages by her slim, white hand--the fair patrician hand +which had known the weight of many jewels, the thrill of many caresses, +and was now held fast in the merciless grip of captivity. + +I turned the page: before me lay a flow of pale penciled words in a +sloping handwriting. At every turn the flourish of some strange +seignorial name met my eye: long Russian names of prince, of lover or of +murderer. On every page was the convulsion of death or the paroxysm of +passion; wine and morphia, chloral and cocaine surged across the pallid +sheets, like the wash of a nightmare sea. + +From the midst of those turbid billows--like some ineffable modern +Aphrodite--rose the pale figure of Marie Nicolaevna Tarnowska. + + +The first words--traced by her trembling hand in the prison at Venice--are +almost childish in their simplicity. + +"When I was eight years old, I fell ill with measles and almost lost my +eyesight. I wore blue spectacles. I was very happy. My mother loved me +very much; so did my father. So did the servants. Everybody loved me +very much." + +I pause in my reading, loth to proceed. I wish I could stop here with +the little girl whom every one loved and who gazed out through her blue +spectacles at a rose-colored world. + +Ah! Marie Nicolaevna, had your luminous eyes remained for all time +hidden behind those dim blue glasses, no one to-day would raise his +voice in execration of you, nor call anathema upon your fair bowed head. + +But when the little Russian countess was twelve years old an oculist +from Kieff ordered that her eyes should be uncovered, and "Mura," as her +parents fondly called her, looked out upon the world with those clear +light eyes that were one day to penetrate the darkest depths of crime. + +I continue to read without stopping. The serried pages, scrawled +feverishly and hurriedly in the cells of La Giudecca in defiance of +prison rules, are in thin handwriting, with names and dates harshly +underlined; but here and there whole sentences are struck out, as if the +writer's memory wavered, or her feelings altered as she wrote. + +Immediately, on the very first page, the bold figure of young Vassili +Tarnowsky confronts us: the radiant, temerarious lover, who came to woo +her in her marveling adolescence. + +"His voice thrilled the heart like the tones of a violoncello; in his +eyes were the lights of heaven, in his smile all the promises of love. I +was already seventeen years old, and wise beyond my years. But, +sagacious as I thought myself, I could never believe anything that was +told me against Vassili. My eyes saw nothing but his beauty. On the +twelfth day of April I ran away from home with him; and we were married +in a little church far away on the desolate steppes. I never thought +that life could hold such joy." + + [Illustration: A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK] + +But on the very next page we come face to face with the astounding list +of Vassili's perfidies: a musical enumeration of feminine names which +rings the knell of his child-wife's happiness. "I never thought," writes +Marie Tarnowska simply, "that life could hold such sorrow." + +Further on there are gaps and incoherences; here and there a passing +efflorescence of literary phrase, or a sudden lapse into curt narrative, +as if a wave of apathy had suddenly submerged the tragic heroine and +left in her place only a passive narrator of fearful events. Now and +then even a note of strident humor is struck, more poignant, more +painful than pathos. + +Ever and anon there appears throughout the funereal story--as if smiling +out through the window of a charnel-house--the innocent face of a child: +Tioka. He is all bright curls and laughter. Unaware of the carnage that +surrounds him, he runs with light, quick feet through pools of blood to +nestle in the gentle maternal breast which for him is all purity and +tenderness. + + * * * * * + +As I read on and on the writing trembles and wavers, as if the hand and +the heart of the writer wearied of their task. With a sudden break the +sad story closes, unfinished, incomplete. + +"If I could tell of the tears I have shed, if I could describe the +anguish I have suffered, I am sure that pity would be shown to me. +Surely if the world knew of my torment and my sufferings--" + +Nothing more. Thus abruptly the tragic manuscript ends. + +The train slackens speed, falters, shivers--stops. I am at Trani; at the +furthermost end of Italy; almost beyond civilization; almost out of the +world. + +Soon I shall see before me the woman I have come so far to seek: the +woman who never gave the gift of love without the gift of death. + + +The high white walls of the penitentiary glared down in the blazing +southern sun. The languid Adriatic trailed its blue silken waters past +the barred windows. I raised the heavy knocker; it fell from my hand +with a reverberating clang, and the massive prison-door opened slowly +before me. + +The Mother Superior and two gentle-looking Sisters fluttered--black and +white and timid as swallows--across the sunlit courtyard. They were +expecting me. + +"She whom you seek is in the chapel," said the Mother Superior, in a low +voice. "I will call her!" She left us. The two Sisters accompanied me up +a broad stone staircase to a small waiting-room. Then they stood quietly +beside me; and when I looked at them, they smiled. + +In the silence that followed I could hear women's voices singing in the +prison chapel, simple, untutored voices, clear and shrill: + + "Kyrie eleison + Christe eleison..." + +and the low notes of the organ rolled beneath the treble voices, full +and deep; + + "Mater purissima + Mater inviolata..." + +"Number 315--that is the Countess Marie," said one of the two Sisters, +"plays the organ for the other prisoners. She plays every day at noon +and evensong." + +"And at four o'clock in the morning," added the other Sister. + +(How far, how far away, Marie Nicolaevna, are the passionate days of +Moscow, the glowing, unslept nights of Venice!) + + "Rosa mystica + Stella matutina..." + +Suddenly the music ceased and we stood waiting in the hot, white +silence. Then the door opened, and on the threshold stood Marie +Tarnowska--the murderess, the devastating spirit, the Erinnys. + + + + +II + + +Tall and motionless in her fearful striped dress she stood, gazing at me +with proud clear eyes; her brow was calm and imperious under the +humiliating prisoner's coif, and her long hands--those delicate hands +whose caresses have driven men to commit murder for her sake--hung +loosely at her side. Her mouth, curving and disdainful, trembled +slightly. + +"Signora," I began. Her lips wavered into a faint smile as with a quick +downward sweep of her eyelashes she indicated her dress of shame. + +"Signora," I repeated, "I have come here neither out of compassion nor +curiosity." + +She was silent, waiting for me to proceed. The three nuns had seated +themselves quietly near the wall, with eyes cast down and meek hands +folded in their laps. + +"I have come," I continued, "to vindicate my sisters in your eyes. I +know you think that all women are ruthless and unkind." + +Another smile, fleeting, vivid and intelligent, lit up her eyes. Then +the narrow face closed and darkened again. + +"For two years," I proceeded, "I have been haunted by the thought that +you, shut in this place, must be saying to yourself that all men are +base and all women pitiless. As to the men--I cannot say. But I wish you +to know that not all women are without pity." + +She was silent a few moments. Then in a weak voice she spoke: + +"In the name of how many women do you bring this message to me?" + +I smiled in my turn. "There are four of us," I said, cheerfully. "Two +Englishwomen, a Norwegian, who is deaf and dumb--and myself. The deaf and +dumb one," I added, "is really very intelligent." + +Marie Tarnowska laughed! It was a low, sudden trill of laughter, and she +herself seemed startled at the unaccustomed sound. The Sisters turned to +look at her with an air of gentle amazement. + +But in my eyes Marie Tarnowska had ceased to be the murderess, the +Erinnys. Through the criminal in her dress of shame I had caught a +glimpse of the little girl in the blue spectacles, the happy little girl +who felt that every one loved her. That lonely, tremulous trill of +laughter astray on the tragic lips stirred me to the depths; and sudden +tears filled my eyes. + +Marie Tarnowska saw this, and turned pale. Then she sat down, +unconsciously assuming the same chastened attitude as the Sisters, her +hands submissively folded, her dark lashes cast down over her long light +eyes. For some time there was silence. + +"I have read your notes," I said at last. + +"My notes? I do not remember writing them." Suddenly her voice sounded +harsh and her glance flashed at me keen as a blade of steel. + +"You wrote them in the prison at Venice, in pencil, in a child's +exercise book." + +"It may be so." Marie Tarnowska breathed a long sigh. "That was a time +of dreams," she said, raising her stricken eyes to mine. "I sometimes +dream that this is all a dream. I think I must have fallen asleep one +day when I was a little child, at home in Otrada--perhaps in our garden +on the swing. I used often to fall asleep on that creaky old swing, +reading a book, or looking at the sky. Perhaps I shall wake up soon, and +find that none of all these dreadful things are true." She fingered the +broad brown-and-white stripes of her prison-garb and gazed round the +dreary room. Then her eyes strayed from the whitewashed walls, bare +except for a large ebony crucifix, to the narrow iron-barred window, and +back to the Sisters sitting along the wall like a triptych of +Renunciation, with folded hands and lips moving silently in their +habitual prayer. "Yes, I shall wake up soon and find myself in our old +garden again. My mother will come down the path and across the lawn, +with her little white shawl on her head; she will call me: 'Mura! Mura! +Where are you? Come, child, it is time for tea; and Vassili is asking +for you.' Then I shall jump from the swing and run to her and hide my +face on her breast. 'Mother, if you knew what a dream I have had--a +terrible dream, all about deaths and murders! I thought I had married +Vassili, and he was unkind to me--as if Vassili could be unkind!--and I +was locked in a prison in Italy--imagine, mother, to be imprisoned in +Italy, where people only go for their honeymoon!' And mother will kiss +me and laugh at the crazy dream as we go across the lawn together, +happily, arm in arm." + +I found no word to say, though her eyes seemed to question me; and her +fragile voice spoke again: "Surely, this cannot all be true? It cannot +be true that they are all dead. My mother? And little Peter? And +Bozevsky? And Stahl? And Kamarowsky? Why, it is like--like 'Hamlet.'" She +broke into strident laughter. "Do you remember how they all die in +'Hamlet'? One here, one there, one in the stream, one behind the +curtain, drowned, stabbed, strangled--" Suddenly she was silent, looking +straight before her with startled eyes. + +"Poor Mura!" I murmured, and lightly touched her hand. + +At the sound of the tender Russian appellative she turned to me quickly. +Then she began speaking under her breath in hurried whispers. + +"Who told you my name? Who are you? Are you my sister Olga? Do you +remember the merry-go-round at the school-feast in Kieff? How we cried +when it swung us round and round and round and would not stop? I seem to +be still on the merry-go-round, rushing along, hastening, hurrying with +the loud music pealing in my head." + +The Mother Superior rose and approached her. "Hush," she spoke in +soothing tones. "You will soon be quiet and at rest." + +But Marie Tarnowska paid no heed. Her eyes were still fixed on mine with +a despairing gaze. "Wake me, wake me!" she cried. "And let me tell you +my dream." + +And during those long mild April days she told it to me as follows. + +Where shall I begin? Wait, let me think--ah, yes! Where I fell asleep +that day in the garden, on the swing. I remember it was a hot day even +in Otrada; almost as hot as it is here. And it was my birthday; I was +sixteen years old. My mother herself, with great solemnity, in the +presence of my father and sisters, had twisted up my long curling hair +and pinned it in great waves and coils on the top of my head. There were +to be no more long plaits hanging down my back! + +"Your childhood is over, Mura," said my mother. "At sixteen one has to +look and behave like a grown-up young lady." + +"That is exactly what I am, mother dear," I replied with great +self-assurance. + +My mother smiled and sighed and kissed me. "You are such a child--such a +child still, my little snowdrop," she said, and her eyes were tender and +anxious. + +But I ran gaily out into the garden, feeling very proud of my red-gold +helmet of curls. I sprang fearlessly on the swing, tossing my head from +side to side, delighted to feel the back of my neck cool and uncovered +to the breeze. What would Vassili say to see me like this! But soon the +hairpins felt heavy; they pulled a hair or two here, and a hair or two +there, and hurt me. I stopped the swing, and with my head bent forward I +quickly drew all the hairpins out and threw them on the ground. + +The heavy coils of hair loosened, untwisted like a glittering snake, and +fell all about me like a cloak of gold. I leaped upon the swing again +and, standing, swung myself in wide flights through the clear air. What +joy it was! As I flew forward my hair streamed out behind me like a +flag, and in the backward sweep it floated all about my head in a +whirling canopy of light. + +I laughed and sang out loud to myself. How delightful was the world! How +blissful to be alive and in the sunshine! + +Suddenly Vassili appeared at the end of the path with my cousin, Prince +Troubetzkoi. They were coming towards me arm in arm, smoking cigarettes +and gazing at me. I felt shy of my loosened hair; I should have liked to +jump down and run away, but the swing was flying too high and I could +not stop it. + +The two men looked at me with strange intent eyes, as no one had ever +looked at me before. I felt a hot blush rise to my cheeks like a flame. +Obeying a sudden, overmastering impulse I let go the ropes and covered +my face with my hands. I heard a cry--did it come from me?--then +everything whirled round me.... For an instant I saw the gravel path +rise straight in front of me as if to strike me on the forehead. I threw +myself back, something seemed to crash into the nape of my neck--and I +remember no more. + + + + +III + + +I see the ensuing days as through a vague blue mist. I see myself +reclining in an armchair, and my mother sitting beside me with her +crochet-work. She is crocheting something of yellow wool. It is strange +how the sight of that yellow wool hurts and repels me, but I cannot find +words in which to express it, I seem unable to speak; and mother +crochets on calmly, with quick white hands. I am conscious of a dull +pain in the nape of my neck. Then I see Vassili come in; he is carrying +an enormous cage in his hand; and Olga follows him, laughing and +radiant. "Here he is! here he is!" cries Vassili triumphantly, putting +the cage down beside me; and in it, to my horror, I see a parrot, a huge +gray and scarlet creature, twisting a hard black tongue round and round +as he clambers about the cage. I cry out in terror: "Why--why do they +bring me things that frighten me?" And I burst into tears. Every one +gazes at me in amazement; my mother bends tenderly over me: "But, my own +darling, yesterday you said you wanted to have a parrot. Vassili has +been all the way to Moscow to buy it for you." + +"No, no! it is not true! I never said I wanted a parrot! Take it away! +It frightens me. And so does the yellow wool." I hear myself weeping +loudly; then everything is blotted out and vanishes--parrot, Vassili, +yellow wool, Olga--nothing remains but my mother's sad and anxious face +bending above me, dim and constant as the light of a lamp in a shadowy +chapel. + + +When I was able to come down to breakfast for the first time, my father +stood waiting for me, straight and solemn at the foot of the great +staircase. He gave me his arm with much ceremony and led me to my place, +where flowers lay in fragrant heaps round my plate. Every one embraced +and complimented me and I was very happy. + +"I feel as if I were a princess!" I cried, clapping my hands; and they +all laughed except my father, who answered gravely: + +"If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince Ivan has asked for your +hand." + +"Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?" All the gladness went out of my heart. + +"Yes. And so has Katerinowitch," exclaimed Olga, with a bitter smile; +and I noticed that she looked pale and sad. + +"Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!" Then glancing at my +mother, whose eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly, "Is +that all? No one else?" + +My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and I saw my father +knitting his brows. But my mother lifted her eyes for an instant and +looked at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read my happiness! + +But Olga was speaking. "Yes," she said, "there is some one else. Vassili +Tarnowsky has asked to marry you." And she added, with a touch of +bitterness: "I wonder what has possessed all three of them!" + +Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang like a clarion in my ears. I +should be Vassili's wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska--the +happiest woman in all this happy world. Every other girl on earth--poor +luckless girls who could not marry Vassili--would envy me. On his arm I +should pass proudly and serenely through life, rejoicing in his beauty, +protected by his strength. Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass +over my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me. + + [Illustration: COUNT O'ROURKE] + +"I trust that your choice will fall on Troubetzkoi," said my father. + +"Or on Vassili," cried Olga quickly. + +I jumped up and embraced her. "It shall not be Katerinowitch, that I +promise," I whispered, kissing the little pink ear that nestled under +her fair curls. "He is to be for you!" + +Time was to fulfil this prophecy. + +As I went round the table, and passed my mother--poor little nervous +mother!--I laid my hand on her arm. I noticed that she was trembling all +over. Then I summoned up courage and approached my father. + +"Father, dear, if you want your little Mura to be happy, you must let +her marry Vassili." + +"Never," cried my father, striking the table with his fist. The soul of +the ancient O'Rourke--a demoniacal Irish ancestor of ours whose memory +always struck terror to our souls--had awakened in him. I saw Olga and my +mother turn pale. Nevertheless I laughed and kissed him again. "If I do +not marry Vassili, I shall die! And please, father, do not be the +Terrible O'Rourke, for you are frightening mother!" + +But papa, dominated by the atavistic influence of the O'Rourke, grew +even more terrible; and mother was greatly frightened. She sat white and +rigid, with scarcely fluttering breath; suddenly in her transparent eyes +the pupils floated upward like two misty pale-blue half-moons; she was +in the throes of one of her dreaded epileptic seizures. + +Then they were all around her, helping her, loosening her dress, fanning +her; while I stood aside trembling and woebegone, and the pains in the +nape of my neck racked me anew. + +I said to myself that my father was hard and wicked, that I should marry +Vassili and carry mother off with me, ever so far away! + +As for papa, he should only be allowed to see us once a year. At +Christmas. + +I have married Vassili. + + * * * * * + +I pretended to be seized with such convulsions that my poor dear mother, +being at her wits' end, at last allowed me to run away with him. + +Do I say "I pretended"? I am not sure that that is correct. At first the +convulsions were certainly a mere pretense. I would say to myself: "Now +I shall make myself have convulsions." But as soon as I had begun I +could not stop. After I had voluntarily gnashed my teeth they seemed to +become locked as in a vice; my fists that I had purposely clenched would +not reopen. My nails dug into the palms of my hands, and I could see the +blood flowing down my wrists without being able to unclasp or relax my +fingers. + +Doctor Orlof, summoned in haste from Kieff, shook his head gravely. + +"There are indications of epilepsy, due to the fall from the swing." + +"No, no, no!" I cried. "Not the swing! It is because of Vassili!" + +My mother trembled and wept. + +How cruel we are in our childhood! How we torture the mothers that adore +us, even though we love them with all our hearts. And oh! the tragedy of +not understanding this until it is too late, when we can never, never +ask for their forgiveness, nor console them or atone to them again. + + +I married Vassili. + +My father, more the Terrible O'Rourke than ever, at once refused to have +anything to do with me. He denied me his kiss and his forgiveness. I was +very unhappy. + +"Oh, don't bother your head about that tiresome old man," said Vassili, +much annoyed by my tears. + +As for my mother, she could only entreat Vassili to be kind and gentle +with me. + +"Take care of her, Vassili," she implored. "I have given her to you lest +she should die of a broken heart: but she is really too young to be any +one's wife--she is but a child! I do not know whether you understand me. +Remember she is not yet a woman. She is a child." + +"Yes, yes, yes," said Vassili, without paying much attention. "That's +all right. I shall tweak her nose if she is naughty." + +"And if I am good?" I asked, lifting ecstatic eyes to his handsome +nonchalant face. + +"If you are good you shall have sweets and kisses!" and he laughed, +showing all his white teeth. + +"Promise me, Vassili, that you will always sing my favorite song: 'Oh +distant steppes, oh savage plains,' to me, and to no one else." + +"To you and to no one else," said Vassili with mock solemnity. "Come +then, Marie Tarnowska!" and he drew my arm under his, patting my hand on +which the new nuptial ring shone in all its brightness. + +"_Marie Tarnowska!_" What a beautiful name! I could have wished the +whole world to know that name; I could have wished that every one seeing +me should say: "Behold, behold Marie Tarnowska, happiest and most +blessed among women." + + + + +IV + + +On my wedding night, in the hotel at Kharkoff, I summoned the +chambermaid. She knocked and entered. She was a pert, pretty creature, +and after surveying me from head to foot she threw a rapid glance at +Vassili. He was seated in an armchair, lighting a cigarette. + +"What is your name?" he asked the girl. + +"Rosalia, at your service, sir," she replied. + +"Very good, Rosalia," said my husband. "This evening we shall do without +you. Possibly in a day or two I may wish to see you again." + +The girl laughed, made a slight curtsey, and went out, closing the door +behind her. + +"But who is going to do my hair?" I asked, feeling very much out of +countenance and shy at remaining alone with him. + +"Never mind about your hair," said Vassili. "Don't be so tedious. You're +a little bore." And he kissed me. + +Then he sat down and smoked his cigarette, watching me out of narrowed +eyelids as I wandered about the room in great trepidation and +embarrassment. I was about to kneel down by the bedside to say my +prayers, when he suddenly grasped my wrist and held it tightly. + +"What are you doing now?" he inquired. + +"I am going to say my prayers," I replied. + +"Don't bother about your prayers," he said. "Try not to be such an awful +little bore. Really you are quite insufferable." + +But I would not have missed my prayers for the world. At home prayers +had always been a matter of great importance. Olga and I used to say +them aloud in unison morning and evening. And now that Olga was far away +I must say them alone. I buried my face in my hands and said them +devoutly, with all my heart. + +They were, I admit, numerous and long; and they were in many languages, +for every nurse or governess that came to us in Otrada had taught us new +ones; and Olga and I were afraid to leave any out, lest God should be +offended; we were also rather doubtful as to which language He +understood the best. + +I had just come to an English prayer-- + + Now I lay me down to sleep + I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. + If I should die before I wake... + +(Here Olga and I used always to interpolate a short prayer of our own +invention: "Please, dear God, do not on any account let us die to-night. +Amen.")--when Vassili interrupted me. + +"Haven't you finished?" he cried, putting his arm round my neck. "You +are very tiresome. You bore me to extinction." + +"You bore me!" That was the perpetual refrain of all his days. I always +bored him. Perhaps it was not surprising. At seventeen one is not always +clever and entertaining, especially outside the family circle. At home I +had always been considered rather witty and intelligent, but to Vassili +I was never anything but "a dreadful bore." + +When I caught sight of him pinching Rosalia's cheek and I burst into +tears: "You are a fearful bore," he said crossly. If I noticed the scent +of musk or patchouli on his coat and ventured to question him about +it--"You are an insufferable little bore," would be all the answer I got. +When he went out (taking the music of "My Savage Plains" with him) and +stayed away all night, on his return next morning I sobbed out my +anguish on his breast. "I must say you bore me to death," he yawned. + +And one day I heard that he had had a child by a German baroness. + +At the sight of my paroxysm of despair he grew angry. "What does it +matter to you, silly creature, since you have not got one yourself?" he +exclaimed. "Wearisome little bore that you are; you can't even have a +child." + +I was aghast. What--what did he mean? Why could I not--? + +"No! no!" he shouted, with his handsome mouth rounded and open like +those of the stone cherubs on the walls of his castle, "you will never +have any children. You are not a woman. Your mother herself said so." +And the look which he flashed across my frail body cut me like a sword. + +I fell fainting to the ground. + +Then he became alarmed. He called everybody. He summoned the whole staff +of the hotel. He sent for all the ladies he knew in Kharkoff (and they +were many) imploring them all to save me, to recall me to life. When I +came to myself the room was filled with women: there was Rosalia, and +two Hungarian girls from the adjoining apartment, and there was also the +German baroness, and little Julia Terlezkaja, the latest and fairest of +my husband's conquests. All these graceful creatures were bending over +my couch, while Vassili on his knees with his head buried in the +coverlet was sobbing: "Save her! She is dead! I have killed her!" + +I put out my hand and touched his hair. + +"I am alive," I said softly; and he threw himself upon me and kissed me. +The women stood round us in a semi-circle, gay and graceful as the +figures on a Gobelin tapestry. + +"I love you," Vassili was exclaiming; "I love you just as you are. I +should hate you to be like everybody else." And in French he added, +looking at Madame Terlezkaja: "C'est tres rigolo d'avoir une femme qui +n'est pas une femme." + +I hid my face in the pillow, and wept; while the fair Terlezkaja, who +seemed to be the kindest of them all, bent over and consoled me. + +"Pay no heed to him," she whispered. "I think he has been drinking a +little." + +The door opened. A doctor, who had been sent for by the manager of the +hotel, entered with a resolute authoritative air. At the sight of him +the women disappeared like a flight of startled sparrows. Of course they +took Vassili with them. + +To the good old doctor I confided the secret which Vassili had disclosed +to me and which was burning my heart. + +"I want to have a child, a little child of my own!" I cried. + +"Of course. Of course. So you shall," said the old doctor, with a +soothing smile. "There is no reason why you should not. You are a little +anemic, that is all." + +He scribbled some prescriptions on his tablets. + +"There. You will take all that. And you will go to Franzensbad. Within a +year you will be asking me to act as godpapa." + +I took all he prescribed. But I did not go to Franzensbad. Vassili +wanted to go to Petersburg, so, of course, it was to Petersburg we went. + +The very first evening we were there a number of his friends came to +call on him. + +I remember, among the rest, a certain German Grand Duke, who, after +showing me an infinite amount of attention, drew Vassili aside and spoke +to him in undertones. I heard him mention the name of a famous +restaurant and the words: "A jolly supper-party to-night--some +ravishingly pretty tziganes...." There followed names of men and women +whom I did not know, and my husband laughed loudly. + +Then the Grand Duke turned to me, and bowing deeply and ceremoniously +kissed my hand. + +For an instant a frenzied impulse came over me to clutch that +well-groomed head and cry: "Wicked man! Why are you trying to lure my +husband from me?" But social conventions prevailed over this elementary +instinct, and when the Grand Duke raised his patrician head he found me +all amiability and smiles. + +"She is indeed a bewitching creature!" I heard him mutter to Vassili. +"Looks just like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels. Well then, at +eleven o'clock to-night, at the 'Hermitage.'" + +Promptly at a quarter to eleven Vassili, sleek, trim and immaculate, +kissed my cheek gaily and went out. + +I was alone. Alone in the great drawing-room, gorgeous with lights and +mirrors and gilded decorations. What was the good of being a bewitching +creature? What was the good of looking like one of Botticelli's +diaphanous angels?... + + + + +V + + +I rang for my maid, Katja, a good creature, ugly beyond words--and gladly +chosen by me on that account--and I told her that she was to undress me +for I was going to bed. While she was unfastening my dress I could hear +her muttering: "If it were me, I should not go to bed. If it were me, I +should put on my diamonds and my scarlet chiffon gown; I should take a +good bottle of vitriol in my pocket, and go and see what they were up +to." + +"Katja, what are you mumbling? Do you mean to say that you--that you +think I ought to go--?" + +"Of course," she cried, and her small squinting eyes shot forth, to the +right and left, fierce, divergent flashes of indignation. "Why should my +lady not go?" + +Why should I not, indeed? Had I not the right--nay, the duty--to follow +Vassili? Had I not most solemnly promised so to do, in the little church +on the steppes a year ago? "_Follow him!_" With what tremulous joy had I +repeated after the priest those two words of tenacity and submission. +Had they no application to the Hermitage restaurant? + +"Perhaps I might venture to go," I murmured, "but, Katja, do not other +women always have rouge and powder to put on when they go out? I have +nothing." + +"Nothing but your eighteen years, madame," replied Katja. + +She dressed me in the low-necked scarlet chiffon gown. She drew on my +flame-colored stockings, and my crimson shoes. On my head she placed the +diamond and ruby tiara, and about my shoulders she wound a red and gold +scarf which looked like a snake of fire. + +"Alas, Katja!" I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror; "what would +my mother say if she were to see me like this? What do I look like?" + +"You look like a lighted torch," said Katja. + +I made her come with me in the troika, which sped swiftly and silently +through the dim snow-covered streets. I was shaking with fear at the +thought of Vassili. Katja was mumbling some prayers. + +We drew up at the brilliant entrance of the restaurant. + +"Oh, heavens, Katja! What will my husband say?" + +"He will say that you are beautiful." + +How did I ever venture across that threshold of dazzling light? How was +I able to ascend the red-carpeted stairs, preceded and followed by bows +and smiles and whispers? At the head of the wide staircase, in front of +a double-paneled door of white and gold, I paused with beating heart, +almost unable to breathe. I could hear the gipsy-music inside, and +women's voices and men's laughter and the tinkling of glasses. + +An impassive head-waiter stood before me, calmly awaiting my orders. + +"Tell"--I stammered--"tell--" as I thought of Vassili my courage failed +me--"tell his Highness the Grand Duke that I wish to see him." + +Then I clung to the balustrade and waited. As the door opened and was +quickly closed again, there came forth a puff of heat and sound which +enwrapped me like a flame. + +Almost immediately the door opened again and the Grand Duke appeared +upon the threshold, his countenance still elated by recent laughter. He +stared at me in astonishment, without recognition. "What--what can I do +for you?" he asked. Then his eyes widened in limitless astonishment. +"Upon my word! It is the Botticelli angel!" + +I said "Yes," and felt inclined to weep. + +"Come in, come in!" he cried eagerly, taking me by the arm and leading +me to the door. + +A waiter threw it wide open. I had a dazzling vision of a table +resplendent with crystal, silver, and flowers, and the bare jeweled +shoulders of women. + +"Tarnowsky!" called the Grand Duke from the threshold. "Fortunate among +men! Behold--the most glorious of your conquests!" + +Vassili had started to his feet and was looking at me with amazed and +incredulous eyes. There was a deep silence. I felt as if I should die. +Vassili came up to me. He took me brusquely by the hand, crushing my +fingers in his iron clasp. "You are mad!" he said. Then he looked at me +from head to foot--not with the gaze of a husband, nor yet with that of a +lover, but with the cold curious scrutiny of the perfect connoisseur. + +"Come," he said at last, drawing me towards the others who were in a +riot of laughter. "I have always told my friends that you were a +chilling, lily-white flake of snow. You are not!" And he laughed. "You +are a blazing little firebrand! Come in!" + + +Thenceforward my husband would always have me with him. My untutored +adolescence was trailed from revelry to revelry, from banquet to orgy; +my innocence swept into the maelstrom of a licentious life. I was forced +to look into the depths of every depravity; to my lips was proffered +every chalice of shame. + +Oh, if as I stood trembling on the confines of maidenhood, some strong +and tender hand had drawn me into safety, should not I have been like +other women, those happy women who walk with lofty brows in the +sunshine, august and ruthless in their purity? + +But, alas! when with tardy and reluctant step I issued forth from my +long childhood, a thousand cruel hands were thrust out to push me +towards the abyss. + +Oh, white pathway of innocence which knows no return! Oh, tenuous light +of purity which, once quenched, kindles no more! Did I not grieve and +mourn for you when I lost you before my twentieth year? Sadly, +enviously, like some poor exile, I saw other girls of my age passing in +blithe security by the side of their mothers, blushing at an eager word +or at a daring glance. Alas! I felt that I was unworthy to kiss the hem +of their skirts. + + +But bliss was to be vouchsafed to me. Redeeming and triumphant there +came to me at last the Angel of Maternity. With proud humility I bore +the little human flower fluttering in my breast. At every throb of life +I felt myself swooning with joy--with the ineffable joy of my reconquered +purity. + +My mother was with me, and in the tender haven of her arms I found +shelter for my meek and boundless ecstasy. + +How is it possible, I asked myself, that there are women who dread this +perfect happiness, who weep and suffer through these months fraught with +rapturous two-fold life? + +For me, I felt like a flowering plant in springtime, impelled by some +potent influence towards its perfect blossoming. The whole of that +blissful period seemed a sublime ascent to unalloyed felicity; +everything enchanted me, from the awed and tremulous waiting to the +final crowning consummation. + +When at last the fragile infant--my son!--lay in my arms, he seemed to me +sufficient to fill my entire life. I nursed him into ever-growing wonder +and beauty. Day by day he seemed fairer, more entrancing, like a +delicate flower in some fantastic lunar legend. + +Oh, the wee groping hands against my face! The wilful little caprices, +the cries like those of an angry dove! And the dimples on the elbows; +the droll battle with the little cap always awry, and the joyous +impatience of the tiny kicking feet! + +Each day my mother and I invented new names for him--names of little +flowers, names of little animals, nonsense-names made up of sweet +senseless sounds. + +I had no thought, I had no desire. Pale and pure I sat enthroned in the +milk-white paradise of maternity. + + + + +VI + + +Soon after that my thoughts are adrift, my recollections grow confused. +I see my mother with my baby in her arms, and myself in traveling +attire, with my arms twined about them, weeping, despairing, refusing to +leave them and set out on a journey of Vassili's planning. But Vassili +grows impatient. Vassili grows angry. He is tired of playing the papa, +tired of seeing me no longer a little "firebrand," but calm as a young +Madonna in the beatific purity of motherhood. + +Vassili has taken it into his head that he wants to study singing. He +has made up his mind to go to Italy, to Milan, to study scales and +exercises; and I must go with him. + +"But our baby, Vassili, our little Tioka! We must take our baby with +us!" + +No. Vassili does not want babies. He does not want to be bothered or +hindered. "We are carting about eight trunks as it is!" he says, +cynically. + +And so we start for Italy--Italy, the yearned-for goal of all my girlish +dreams. + +At Milan Vassili sings. I seem always to see him with his handsome mouth +open, singing scales and arpeggios. But a slow poison is creeping +through my blood and I fall ill, ill with typhoid fever. + +Again my thoughts go adrift and my recollections are confused. They +dance in grotesque and hideous visions through my brain. I see livid +hallucinated faces peering at me, towers and mountains tottering above +me, undefined horrors all about me, and in the midst of them all I see +Vassili--singing! He sings scales and arpeggios with his rounded open +mouth. Now I can see a white spider--no, two white spiders--running about +on a scarlet coverlet.... They are my hands. They frighten me. And +Vassili is singing. + +"Vassili, why are you singing? Don't sing! Don't sing!" + +"No, darling, I am not singing. You only imagine it. You are ill; you +are feverish. Calm yourself." + + * * * * * + +"Vassili, where is my baby?" + +"At home in Kieff, with grandmama. Dear grandmama is taking such good +care of him!" + +"And why are we not with him? Where are we?" + +"We are at Pegli, darling." + +"Why? Why? Where is Pegli? What are we doing at Pegli?" + +"Come now, dearest; you know--we came to Italy because I wanted to sing--" + +"Ah, you see! You wanted to sing! Why do you want to sing when the baby +is crying? The baby is so helpless. Why did you take me away from him? +You sing, you sing so loud that I cannot hear my baby crying. Don't +sing!" + +But even as I speak I see that Vassili has his round mouth open again +and he sings and sings, and the white spiders run over the scarlet +counterpane and come close to my face--and the white spiders are my +hands. I shriek and shriek to have them taken away. But the baby is +crying and Vassili is singing and no one hears me. + + * * * * * + +Then I drop down to the bottom of a deep well. I feel myself falling, +falling, until with a great shock I touch the bottom. And there I lie +motionless in the dark. + + * * * * * + +When I open my eyes there is a great deal of light; the windows are +open, the sun is pouring in; I know that outside there is the sea. +Beside my bed sits a doctor with a gray beard, feeling my pulse. Under +the light intermittent pressure of his fingers my pulse seems to grow +quieter; I can see the doctor's head giving little nods as he counts the +beats. + +"Sixty-five. Excellent, excellent!" The doctor pats my hand gently and +encouragingly. "That is first-rate. We are quite well again." + +Then I hear some one weeping softly, and I know it is my mother. I try +to turn and smile at her, but my head will not move. It is like a ball +of lead sunk in the pillow. Immediately afterwards--or have years +passed?--I hear some one say: "Here is the Professor!" And again the same +doctor with the gray beard comes in and smiles at me. + +Before sitting down beside the bed he turns to my mother: "Has she not +yet asked about her child?" My mother shakes her head and presses her +handkerchief to her eyes. Then the doctor sits down beside my bed and +strokes my forehead and speaks to me. + +He speaks about a baby. He repeats a name over and over again--perhaps it +is Tioka. Tioka? Who is Tioka? I watch his beard moving up and down, and +do not know what he is saying. The ball of lead on my pillow rolls from +side to side with a dull and heavy ache. + +My mother weeps bitterly: "Oh, doctor, do not let her die!" + +The white spiders are there again, running over the coverlet. And I fall +once more, down, down, down, to the bottom of the well. + + + + +VII + + +For how many months was I ill? I do not know. Vassili, restless and +idle, "carted" me and my medicines and my sufferings from Pegli to +Genoa, from Genoa to Florence. He seemed to have forgotten that we had a +home; he seemed to have forgotten that we had a child. + +Our rooms at the hotel in Florence were bright with sunshine and with +the frivolous gaiety of a graceful trio of Russian ladies--the Princess +Dubinskaja, her sister Vera Vojatschek, and the fair-haired Olga +Kralberg, who came to see us every day. But I felt lost and lonely, as +if astray in the world. My mother had returned to Russia, and my vacant +and aching heart invoked Vassili, who, alas! was never by my side. + +"You must win him back," said Olga Kralberg to me one day--she, whose +fate it was on a not distant day to commit suicide for his sake. "Every +man, especially if he is a husband, has--after some time--to be won back +again." + +"That is sooner said than done," I replied despondently. "To win a man +is easy enough. But to win him back--" + +"There are various ways of doing it," she said. "Have you tried being +very affectionate?" + +"Yes, indeed," said I. + +"How did it answer?" + +"He was bored to death." + +"Have you tried being cool and distant? Being, so to speak, a stranger +to him?" + +"Yes, I have." + +"And he?" + +"He never even noticed that I was being a stranger to him. He was as +happy and good-tempered as ever." + +Olga shook her head dejectedly. "Have you tried being hysterical?" she +asked after a while. + +I hesitated. "I think so," I said at last. "But I do not quite know what +you mean." + +"Well," explained Olga sententiously, "with some men, who cannot bear +healthy normal women, hysteria is a great success. Of course, it must be +esthetic hysteria--you must try to preserve the plastic line through it +all," and Olga sketched with her thumb a vague painter's gesture in the +air. "For example, you deluge yourself in strange perfumes. You trail +about the house in weird clinging gowns. You faint away at the sight of +certain shades of color--" + +"What an absurd idea!" I exclaimed. + +"Not at all. Not in the least," said Olga. "On the contrary, it is very +modern, very piquant to swoon away every time you see a certain shade +of--of mauve, for instance." + +"But what if I don't see it?" + +"Silly! You _must_ see it. Give orders to a shop to send you ten yards +of mauve silk. Open the parcel in your husband's presence. Then--then you +totter; you fall down--but mind," added Olga, "that you fall in a +graceful, impressionist attitude. Like this." And Olga illustrated her +meaning in what appeared to me a very foolish posture. + +"I think it ridiculous," I said to her. And she was deeply offended. + +"Good-by," she said, pinning her hat on briskly and spitefully. + +"No, no! Don't go away. Do not desert me," I implored. "Try to suggest +something else." + +Olga was mollified. After reflecting a few moments she remarked. + +"Have you tried being a ray of sunshine to him?" + +I lost patience with her. "What do you mean by a 'ray of sunshine'? You +seem to be swayed by stock phrases, such as one reads in novels." + +This time Olga was not offended. She explained that in order to be a ray +of sunshine in a man's life, one must appear before him gay, sparkling +and radiant at all hours of the day. + +"Always dress in the lightest of colors. Put a ribbon in your hair. When +you hear his footsteps, run to meet him and throw your arms round his +neck. When he goes out, toss a flower to him from the window. When he +seems dull or silent, take your guitar and sing to him." + +"You know I don't play the guitar," I said pettishly. + +"That does not matter. What really counts is the singing. The atmosphere +that surrounds him should be bright with unstudied gaiety. He ought to +live, so to speak, in a whirlwind of sunshine!" + +"Well, I will try," I sighed, without much conviction. + +I did try. + +I dressed in the lightest of colors and I pinned a ribbon in my hair. +When I heard his footstep, I ran to meet him and threw my arms round his +neck. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. "And what on earth have you got on your +head? You look like a barmaid." + +To the best of my powers I was a whirlwind of sunshine; and as soon as I +saw that he was dull and silent (and this occurred almost immediately) I +said to myself that the moment was come for me to sing to him. + +I sat down at the piano. I have not much ear, but a fine strong voice, +even if not always quite in tune. + +At the second bar Vassili got up, took his hat and left the house. I +threw a flower to him from the window. + +He did not come back for three days. + + + + +VIII + + +When I talked it over with Olga, she was very sympathetic. + +"I know," she mused, "that these things sometimes succeed and sometimes +do not. Men are not all alike." Then she added: "But there is one sure +way of winning them back. It is an old method, but infallible." + +"What is it?" I asked skeptically. + +"By making them jealous. It is vulgar, it is _rococo_, it causes no end +of trouble. But it is infallible." + +We reviewed the names of all the men who could possibly be employed to +arouse Vassili's jealousy. We could think of no one. I was surrounded by +nothing but women. + +"It is past belief," said Olga, surveying me from head to foot, "that +there should be no one willing to--" + +I shook my head moodily. "No one on earth." + +Olga grasped my wrist. "Stay! I have an idea. We will get some one who +is not on earth. Some one who is dead. It will be much simpler. I +remember there was an idea of that kind in an unsuccessful play I saw a +year or two ago. What we need is a dead man--recently dead, if possible, +and, if possible, young. If he has committed suicide, so much the +better." + +"What on earth do you want with a dead man?" I asked, shuddering. + +"Why! can't you see? We will say that he died for your sake!" cried +Olga, "that he killed himself on your account. We will have a telegram +sent to us by some one in Russia. We will get them to telegraph to you: +'I die for your sake. Am killing myself. Farewell!'" + +"But who is to sign it?" + +"Oh, somebody or other," said Olga vaguely. "Or we could have it signed +with an imaginary name, if you prefer it. That would enable us to +dispense with the corpse." + +"I most certainly prefer that," I remarked. "But, frankly, I can't see--" + +"What can't you see? Don't you see the effect upon Vassili of the news +that a man has killed himself for your sake? Don't you see the new +irresistible attraction which you will then exercise over him? Surely +you know what strange subtle charm emanates from the 'fatal woman'--the +woman whose lethal beauty--" + +"Very well, very well," I said, slightly encouraged. "Let us have the +telegram written and sent to me." + +We spent the rest of the afternoon composing it. + + +Three days later Vassili entered the drawing-room where Olga and I were +having tea; he held a telegram in his hand; his face was of a ghastly +pallor. + +"He's got it," whispered Olga hysterically, pinching my arm. + +"Mura," said Vassili; "a horrible thing has happened. Horrible!" His +white lips trembled as he uttered the incoherent words: + +"Dead--he is dead--he has killed himself--" + +He was unable to go on. His voice broke in a sob. + +I sprang to my feet. "Who, Vassili? Who?" + +Olga thought the moment had arrived for putting things in the proper +light. She turned to me with a significant glance, and grasped my hand. + +"Ah! It is the man who loved you!" she exclaimed. "And this--this is what +you dreaded!" + +"What! What!" shouted Vassili, clutching her arm and pushing her roughly +aside. Then he turned upon me and seized me by the shoulder. "You--you +knew of this? You dreaded this?" + +I stood trembling, struck dumb with terror. I could hear the futile and +bewildered explanations of Olga: + +"Why, surely," she was saying with an insensate smile, "it is a thing +that might happen to anybody. It is not her fault if people love her to +distraction." + +But Vassili was crushing my wrist. "My brother--he loved you?" he gasped. + +"_Your brother?_ Your brother--little Peter?" I stammered. + +"Yes, yes! Peter," shouted Vassili. "My brother! What have you to do +with his death?" + +"Nothing, nothing." I groaned. "I swear it--nothing!" + +And Olga, realizing at last that she stood in the presence of a genuine +tragedy and not of the jest we had plotted, darted forward and caught +his arm. + +"Vassili, you are mistaken. She knows nothing about it; nothing +whatever. We had planned a joke to play on you, and we thought--" She +pursued her agitated and incoherent explanations. + +Vassili looked from one to the other of us, scanning our faces, hardly +hearing what Olga was saying. Suddenly he seemed to understand, and +loosening his hold on my arm he fell upon the couch and buried his face +in his hands. + +The telegram had dropped on the carpet. Olga picked it up and read it; +then she handed it to me: + + _Peter hanged himself last night. Come at once._ + + TARNOWSKY. + +We left for Kieff the same evening. Throughout the entire journey +Vassili never spoke. I sat mournful and silent opposite him and thought +of my brother-in-law, Peter. Not of the pale youth, already corrupted by +absinthe and women, whom we had left at Kieff a few months before, but +of the child Peter, in his short velvet suit and lace collar, whom I had +loved so dearly in the days of my girlhood--little Peter who used to run +to meet me in the sun-splashed avenues of the Villa Tarnowsky, trotting +up with his little bare legs and serious face, stopping to be kissed and +then trotting hurriedly off again, the nape of his neck showing fair and +plump beneath the upturned brim of his sailor-hat. + +How well I remember that sailor-hat! The black ribbon round the crown +bore, between two anchors, the word, "_Implacable_"; and from under that +fierce device the round and gentle countenance of little Peter gazed +mildly out into the world. + +Little Peter's legs were always cold. He was brought up in English +fashion, with short socks even in the depths of winter. From afar you +could see little Peter's chilly bare legs, crimson against a background +of snow. Sometimes, rubbing his knees, he would say to me: "I wish God +had made me of fur, instead of--of leather, like this." And again he +would remark: "I don't like being alive. Not that I want to die; but I +wish I had never begun." + +And now little Peter had finished. Little Peter lay solemn and +magnificent in the _chambre ardente_ where his dead ancestors had lain +solemn and magnificent before him. "Implacable" indeed he lay, unmoved +by the tears of his mother and father; his lofty brow was marble; his +fair eyelashes lowered over his quenched and upturned eyes. + +When I thought of him thus I felt afraid. + +And it seemed strange to be afraid of little Peter. + + + + +IX + + +After we had crossed the Russian frontier another thought--a thought that +filled me with unspeakable happiness--put all others to flight: my child! +I should see my child again! All our relations would certainly be +assembled at the Tarnowskys' house, so I should find my parents and my +little Tioka there too. The image of the living child soon displaced the +tragic memory of the dead youth. As the train sped towards Kieff my +fever of gladness and impatience increased. Yes, to-morrow would be poor +Peter's funeral, but this very evening I should clasp little Tioka in my +arms! + +Raising my eyes, I saw that Vassili was looking at me with a scowl. "I +have been watching you for some time," he said. "Heartless creature that +you are, to laugh--to laugh in the face of death." + +"I was thinking of Tioka," I stammered. Vassili did not reply. But in +the depths of my heart joy sang and whispered like a hidden fountain. + +Thus, inwardly rejoicing, did I enter the house of death and hasten to +the dark-red room--the very scene of Peter's suicide--in which they had +placed my baby's cradle; thus, while others mourned with prayers and +tears in the gloomy death-chamber, I ran across the sun-filled garden +holding my infant to my breast. I hid myself with him in the orchard and +laughed and laughed aloud, as I kissed his starry eyes and his tiny, +flower-like mouth. + + +But Death, the Black Visitor, had entered my life. Little Peter had +shown him the way, had opened the door to him. + +From that day forward the dread Intruder never forsook my threshold. + +Death, lurking at my door in terrifying silence, stretched out his hand +at intervals and clutched some one belonging to me. Generally it was +with a swift gesture--a fell disease or a pistol-shot--that he struck down +and flung into the darkness those I loved. + +But towards me Death comes with a slower, more deliberate tread. For +years, ever since the birth of my little daughter Tania,--my white +rosebud born midst the snows of a dreary winter in Kieff--I have felt +Death creeping towards me, slow, insidious, inexorable, holding in his +hand a knot of serpents, each of which will fasten its poisoned fangs +upon me. Disease, the venomous snake, will hide in my bosom and thrust +its way through my veins. The heavy snake of Grief will coil round my +heart and crush me in its spirals. Insanity will glide into my brain and +nest there. Then--last but not least horrible--the little glass viper, the +syringe of Pravaz, whose fang is a hollow needle, will draw me into the +thraldom of its virulent grip. It will spurt its venom into my blood. +The bland balm of coca, the milky juice of the poppy, will flow into my +veins, soothing, assuaging, lulling me into sleep and forgetfulness--only +to waken me in renewed agony of suffering to a renewed bite of the +envenomed fang. For the only antidote to the poison of narcotics is the +narcotic itself, the only alleviation to the tearing agony of the poison +generated by morphia is morphia again. And so the fatal sequence swings +on forever, in ever-widening circles of torment.... + + + + +X + + + _From Alexis Bozevsky to Stepan Nebrasoff._ + + KIEFF, _Thursday_. + + DEAR STEPAN, MY GOOD FRIEND,-- + + I am here in the house of your cousin, Dr. Stahl, who seems to + have grown longer and leaner than ever. He is a mere shadow. + It is here that your letter reaches me. You tell me to write + to you about myself. To-day, the 15th of October, 1903, I am + twenty-four years old. What gift will Destiny give me for my + birthday? Love? Wealth? A hero's death? + + Your cousin Stahl, in his cavernous voice that seems to come + echoing up from underground, says that the gift of Destiny is + precisely these four-and-twenty years of mine! Perhaps he is + right. I feel them eddying in my blood like four-and-twenty + cyclones. + + The world is a whirlwind of youth. + + Kaufmann this morning lent me his sorrel stallion--the finest + horse in the Empire--and I had a gallop along the bastions. All + the women looked at me. In a phaeton I saw the brazen and + beautiful Princess Theodora, blonde and torrid as a Mexican + landscape. She was resplendent in amethyst and heliotrope, her + red locks flaming to the sun; no one but a princess would + permit herself to display such a riot of violent colors. + + Soon afterwards I saw Vera Voroklizkaja, reclining in her + carriage, aloof and severe as a vestal virgin; her glossy + black tresses parted over her brow enclosed the narrow oval of + her face like soft black wings. Beside her sat little Miriam + Grey, clothed in her youthfulness as in an armor of roses. The + beauty of all these women courses through my blood like sun + and wine. + + Upon my word life is an excellent institution. + + And you--what are you doing? + + Ever yours, + + BOZEVSKY. + + _The next day._ + + STEPAN, STEPAN, STEPAN!-- + + I am in love! Madly, sublimely, tragically in love! This + morning I went to the parade-ground as in a dream; I found + myself speaking to the colonel in a gentle winning voice that + was perfectly ludicrous. When I drilled my company I could + hear myself giving the words of command in an imploring tone + which I still blush to remember. I am obsessed, hallucinated; + there floats before my eyes a slender, ethereal creature, with + red lips that never smile, and hair that looks like a cataract + of champagne. + + Stahl introduced me to her yesterday, here at his house. + "Come," he said, taking me by the arm. "You are going to make + the acquaintance of a superior being, soft of voice and sad of + countenance, who bears the gentle name of Marie." + + "Let me off," I replied skeptically. "Sad and superior beings + are not to my liking." + + "You will like this one," said Stahl. + + "I know I shan't," I replied curtly. I saw Stahl's eye warn + me, and, turning, found myself face to face with the subject + of our conversation, a tall, flower-like vision, with + translucent eyes and a mystic inscrutable face. + + I knew she had overheard me, and as I bowed low before her, + she said: "That you should like me is of no importance. What + really matters is that I should be pleased with you." + + Her beauty and the scornful levity of her words struck me + strangely. "Madame," and I was surprised to feel that I spoke + with sincerity, "to please you will be henceforward the + highest aim of my desire." + + She looked at me a moment; then she spoke quietly: "You have + attained your aim." + + She turned and left me. I stood thunderstruck by the brief and + daring reply and by the flash of that clear gaze. She had + spoken the words without a smile. + + She did not address me during the rest of the evening. When + she left, she barely glanced at me and vouchsafed neither + smile nor greeting. + + Just for an instant she raised her black-fringed eyes and + gazed at me; then her lashes fell; and it was as if a light + had been blown out. + + I am in love with her! Madly, divinely, desperately in love. + Ah, Stepan, love--what an ecstasy and what a disaster! + + Your BOZEVSKY. + +It was Dr. Stahl, the "Satanic Stahl," who got these letters from his +cousin Stepan Nebrasoff, and showed them to me. They bewildered and +troubled me. What? Was I really so attractive and so perturbing in the +eyes of the gallant young Pole--the handsomest officer in the Imperial +Guard? I repeated to myself his disquieting epithets: "flower-like," +"ethereal," "inscrutable"; and in my room at night when I loosened my +hair, I wondered: "Does it really look like a cataract of champagne?" +When I went out I never smiled, even when I felt inclined to do so, +since my gravity had seemed so charming to him. + +Night and day he followed me like a shadow--or rather, should I say, like +a blaze of light. In whatever direction I turned I was sure to encounter +his radiant smile and his flashing glance. His passion encompassed me; I +felt like Brunnhilde surrounded by a sea of flame. I was elated yet +terrified. + +One evening at dinner I made up my mind to speak to Vassili about it. + +"Vassili," I said falteringly, "I think we ought to go away for a time." + +"Away? Where to?" asked my husband. + +"Anywhere--anywhere away from Kieff." + +"Why?" + +I felt myself turning pale! "I am afraid," I stammered, "I am +afraid--that Bozevsky--" + +"Well?" asked Vassili serenely, pouring some vodka into his champagne +and drinking it. + +"I am afraid that Bozevsky is falling in love with me." + +"And who would not fall in love with you, dushka?" laughed Vassili. "As +for Bozevsky, may the wolves eat him." + +And dinner being over, he lit his cigar and went out. + + * * * * * + +I go sadly upstairs to the nursery where Tioka and Tania, like blonde +seraphs, lie asleep. + +A dim lamp hangs between the two white cots and illumines their favorite +picture--an artless painting of the Virgin Mary, holding in her youthful +arms the infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head. + +I kneel down beside the two little beds and weep. + +Aunt Sonia, rectilinear and asexual in her gray flannel dressing-gown, +comes in softly and bends over me. + +"You must trust in Providence," she says, raising towards the ceiling +her long virginal face. "And take a little camomile tea. That always +does one good." + +I obey her meekly and gratefully. It comforts me to think that a day +will come when I also shall be like Aunt Sonia; when I also shall be +content to wear gray flannel dressing-gowns and turn in my sorrows to +Providence and to camomile tea. + +And I wish that that day of peace were near. + + + + +XI + + +So we stayed on in Kieff and Bozevsky came to see us every day. He +brought me flowers--wonderful orchids the color of amethyst, tenuous +contorted blossoms that looked as if they had bloomed in some garden of +dreams. He brought me books; books of nebulous German poetry; Spanish +plays by Echegaray all heroism and fire; and disquieting, neurotic +French novels. Then he brought me English books which filled me with +pleasant surprise. How far removed from our Slav souls were those limpid +Anglo-Saxon minds! How child-like and simple was their wit, how bland +and practical their outlook on life. That was the literature I liked +best of all; perhaps because it was so different from everything in +myself. I felt that I was a strange, ambiguous, complicated creature +compared with those candid elemental natures. + +Bozevsky liked to find me reading. He would arrive in the +evening--usually after Vassili had gone out, alone or with friends--and +enter the drawing-room with bright and cheerful greeting. He always +smiled when he found me with one of his books in my hand, sitting beside +Aunt Sonia placidly knitting in her armchair. + +"I like your thoughts to be far away from here," he would say, kissing +my hand. "I like to know that your soul is far from the frivolous +society you live in, far from the petty preoccupations, the compliments +and the flattery which surround you. Let me read with you; let me join +you in the purer realm of fancy, far away from the world." And he would +sit down beside me, with an air of protecting fraternal affection. + +One evening he found me nervous and agitated. + +"What has happened?" he asked. + +"I have been reading a ghastly book," I told him with a shudder. "The +story of a mysterious plant, a sort of huge octopus that feeds on human +flesh--" + +"Ugh!" laughed Bozevsky, "how gruesome!" and he bent his sunny head over +the page. + +"Just imagine," I continued, "its branches are long moving tentacles, +its thick leaves are quite black and hard; they glitter and move like +living scorpions...." + +"Horrid, horrid," said Bozevsky with his shining smile as he took the +book out of my hand. "Forget the scorpions. To-night I shall read you +some Italian poetry. I want you to make friends with Carducci." + +He opened a plainly bound volume at random, and read to me. + + "_Oh favolosi prati d'Eliseo_..." + +I forgot the tree of scorpions. I forgot Bozevsky. I forgot Aunt Sonia +and the world. The unknown poet had wrapped my spirit in his giant wings +and was bearing me far away. + +It was about this time that Vassili took me to Moscow. There, one +evening, our friends the Maximoffs brought a stranger to see us. They +introduced him as an estimable Moscow lawyer of high repute. I was +surrounded by other friends and I greeted him absently, without hearing +his name. I remember casually noticing that he was neither young nor +old, neither ugly nor handsome. His wife, a timid, fair-haired woman, +was with him. + +At Vassili's suggestion we all went to the "Strelna," a famous +night-restaurant. I remember that there was a great deal of laughter at +the grotesque jokes which Vassili and Maximoff and also the estimable +lawyer played on the pretty dark-faced tziganes. + +I noticed that the lawyer's wife did not laugh. She passed her hand +across her wistful Madonna-like brow, and listened only to the music. + +Like her I felt out of tune with the merriment around me. My thoughts +wandered back to the silent drawing-room at Kieff: I thought of Aunt +Sonia and her peaceful knitting, of Bozevsky and the books he had +brought me. I seemed to hear his voice saying, "Ugh! a tree of +scorpions"--and at that very instant something cold and claw-like +clutched my bare shoulder. I uttered a piercing shriek, which seemed to +turn every one--including myself--cold with terror. But it was only the +estimable lawyer, who, having drunk rather too much, had playfully +climbed upon the sofa behind me and, to save himself from falling off, +had laid his hand upon my shoulder. + +"What on earth has happened?" exclaimed Vassili. "What made you scream +like that?" + +"I don't know," I stammered, taken aback, "I thought--I thought it was a +scorpion!" + +Every one laughed and for the rest of the evening the lawyer was +nicknamed "the Scorpion." Perhaps this name added to the unreasoning +fear I felt of him, or perhaps I was merely nervous, but he seemed to be +always close behind me, and during the whole of that evening I kept on +turning round, with little shivers running down my spine, to see what he +was doing. + +Suddenly he had disappeared. Vassili laughed loudly. "Hullo! Where's the +Scorpion?" And amidst the laughter of the guests he set himself to count +the flippant tziganes one by one to see if any were missing. But they +were all there--and I was glad for the sake of the Scorpion's poor little +Madonna-wife. + +It was three in the morning when we went back to our sleighs. It was +very cold; the clear deep-blue sky was powdered with stars. Assisted by +Maximoff I was about to step into the sleigh, when, with another cry, I +drew back; my foot had touched something soft and shapeless that was +lying huddled up beneath the rug. + +"What is the matter now?" cried Vassili. "Another scorpion?" + +No, it was the same one. It was the estimable lawyer very drunk and fast +asleep at the bottom of the sleigh. + +On our way back to the hotel, driving through the keen night air, I +asked Vassili: + +"Who was that man?" + +"What man?" said Vassili, who sat opposite to us and was pressing the +small feet of Maximoff's wife. + +"You know--the man who frightened me." + +"Oh, the Scorpion?" laughed Vassili. "That was Donat Prilukoff." + +When we returned to Kieff I told Bozevsky the adventure of our evening +at the Strelna, and described the Scorpion to him with as much humor as +I could. But Bozevsky did not laugh. My absence had embittered and +exasperated him. He no longer sat beside me with an air of protective +fraternal affection. He would not speak of literature or poetry any +more. He spent entire evenings making mute scenes of jealousy and +despair, while dear Aunt Sonia, instinctively feeling the atmosphere +around her charged with electricity, dropped many stitches in her +knitting and became sour and irritable. + +"My child, this must not go on any longer. Either Alexis Bozevsky must +be forbidden the house or we ourselves must go away. I cannot understand +how Vassili--" Her honest cheeks kindled with indignation. "Enough. I +shall speak to him about it myself." + +She did so: and Vassili, with his usual brief comment that we all bored +him to death, expressed the hope that wild beasts might devour Bozevsky, +and ordered us to pack up and leave for the country at once. + + + + +XII + + +So we all left for the country--to the great delight of Aunt Sonia and +the children. + +Let my mind linger for an instant on those springtide days--the last for +me, though I did not know it, of unalloyed serenity. The children and I +used to rise at dawn and go into the vast garden all a-shimmer with dew. +On the glittering lawn, among the flower-beds, down the shady avenues of +the park the two little elfin figures flitted before me, calling to me, +eluding me, darting to and fro like twin will-o'-the-wisps; then turned +and ran towards me with wind-light steps and gilt locks afloat, to +shelter in my outstretched arms. Oh! my children, my little boy and +girl, when you remember your mother I pray that God may lead your +memories back to those clear morning hours, and may the rest be blotted +out and dark. + +Vassili was inexpressibly bored with rural solitude and sought new means +of diversion. His latest fad was target-shooting. He filled the house +with rifles and revolvers and invited every one in the neighboring +country houses to take part in shooting matches in our grounds. From +morning to night, in the garden, in the courtyard, even from the windows +of the house, there was a ceaseless crackling of firearms. + +One afternoon when the house was filled with guests, Dr. Stahl and +Bozevsky arrived in their troika from the neighboring castle of the +Grigorievskys, where they had been staying. To my astonishment, Vassili +received them jubilantly and embraced them both. He had quite forgotten +the reasons which had led to our departure from Kieff. + +Bozevsky came to greet me at once, and for the rest of the day never +left my side. He enveloped me in a whirlwind of ecstatic tenderness. His +infatuation, which he sought neither to conceal nor to control, +disquieted me deeply. + +I noticed that his friend Dr. Stahl watched us continually. I had not +seen the doctor for many months, and he struck me as strangely altered. +His very light eyes, in which the pupils were contracted until they +seemed mere pin-points, followed me continuously. + +"Doctor," I said to him, "what strange eyes you have! Just like the eyes +of a cat when it looks at the sun!" + +"I do not look at the sun," he answered slowly, speaking with great +stress. "I look into an abyss, the abyss of annihilation and oblivion. +Some day, if ever you are irremediably unhappy, come to me and I will +open to you, also, the doors of my unearthly paradise--of this chasm of +deadly joy which engulfs me." + +"Shame on you, Stahl! How dare you suggest such a thing!" exclaimed +Bozevsky, casting a look almost of hatred upon the morphinomaniac. "Why +must you and your kind always seek to drag others down into your own +gehenna?" + +Stahl sighed. "It is terrible, I know. But it is a characteristic of our +malady." + +I listened without comprehending. I did not then know of Stahl's +enslavement to the drug. "What are you speaking of? What malady? I do +not understand." + +"It is better not to understand," murmured Bozevsky with knitted brows. +"Stahl is distraught; he is ill. Pay no attention to him. And never +follow either his advice nor his example. But pray," he added, "do not +worry your head over anything we have said; the shooting match will soon +begin. I think your husband is looking for you." + +But Vassili was far from troubling himself about me. He was rushing to +and fro setting up rows of bottles that were to serve as targets, and +distributing guns and cartridges to all our guests. Then he hurried +towards us. "There," he said to Dr. Stahl and to Bozevsky, giving them +each a Flobert rifle, "these are for you." + +"And what about the Countess?" asked Stahl in his hollow voice. "Is she +not going to compete in the shooting?" + +"Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "I am much too frightened." + +"Nonsense!" cried Vassili, pushing a gun into my unwilling hands. "Of +course you must shoot with the rest. And I warn you that if you are not +brave I shall play William Tell with an apple on your head!" He passed +on laughing, with Madame Grigorievskaja armed with a Browning by his +side. + +I was not at all brave; I held the rifle at arm's length, trembling with +fear lest it should explode by itself. Stahl was amused by my terror, +while Bozevsky sought to encourage and comfort me. + +"Poor timid birdling," he murmured, "do not be frightened. See, I will +teach you. It is done like this"--and he lifted the gun to my shoulder, +placed my hands in position, and with his glowing face quite close to +mine, showed me how I was to take aim. What with my terror of the gun +and the fragrance of his fair hair near my cheek I felt quite dizzy. + +"There, that's it. Now press the trigger." + +"No! no! Don't say that! don't let me!" I screamed, incoherent with +terror while Stahl and Bozevsky laughed. + +Vassili from a distance caught sight of me: "Bravo, Mura!" he cried. +"That's right. Go on. Shoot!" + +"No! no!" I cried with my eyes shut and standing rigid in the position +in which Bozevsky had placed me, for I dared not move a muscle. + +Vassili called impatiently: "What on earth are you waiting for?" + +Still motionless, I gasped: + +"Perhaps--I might dare--if some one were to cover my ears." + +Amidst great amusement Bozevsky came behind me and placed his two hands +over my ears. + +"Come now!" cried Stahl. "Do not be frightened." + +"Mind you hit the third bottle," shouted Vassili from the distance. + +Bozevsky standing behind me was clasping my head as though in a vice and +whispering into my hair: "Darling, darling, darling! I love you." + +"Don't," I cried, almost in tears under the stress of different +emotions, "and don't hold my ears so tight." + +The warm clasp relaxed at once. + +"Oh, no, no!" I cried. "I can hear everything. I don't want to hear--," +but even as I spoke the gun went off. I felt a blow near my shoulder, +and thought I was wounded; but it was only the recoil of the weapon. + +Everybody was laughing and applauding. + +"What have I killed?" I asked, cautiously opening my eyes. + +"The third bottle!" cried Vassili, and he was so delighted with my +exploit that he ran up and embraced me. But the pistol he was holding in +his hand and Bozevsky's glance of jealous wrath filled me afresh with +twofold terror. + +The afternoon passed as if in a dream. Vassili became very much excited +and drank a great deal of vodka. Then Madame Grigorievskaja, who had +once visited the United States, concocted strange American drinks which +we had never tasted before--cocktails, mint-juleps, pousse-cafes and +gin-slings. They were much approved of by every one. + +I remember vaguely that half way through the afternoon some one let down +my hair and set me among the shattered bottles with an apple on my head. +I seem to see Vassili standing in front of me with a rifle and taking +aim at me while the others utter cries of protest. Suddenly Bozevsky +snatches the weapon from my husband's hands, and there is a brief +struggle between them. Soon they are laughing again, and shaking +hands--then Bozevsky joins me among the shattered bottles, and stands in +front of me; he is so tall that I can see nothing but his broad +shoulders and his fair hair. And Vassili is shooting--the bullets whirr +over my head and all around me, but I have no sense of fear; Bozevsky +stands before me, straight and motionless as a rampart. + +We go in to dinner; gipsy musicians arrive and play for us. Late at +night when the garden is quite dark we go out again to the targets; +instead of the bottles Vassili has ordered a row of lighted candles to +be set up, and we are to extinguish them with our shots without knocking +them down. There is much noise around me; Vassili is dancing a +tarantelle with Ivan Grigorievsky on the lawn. Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky +are always by my side. I keep on shooting at the candles, but they spin +round before my confused eyes like catharine-wheels; and Stahl laughs, +and Bozevsky sighs, and the gipsies play.... + +Suddenly Tioka's nurse comes hurriedly down the pathway towards me. + +"May I speak to your ladyship for a moment?" + +"Yes, Elise. What is it?" + +"Master Tioka cannot go to sleep. He says you have forgotten to bid him +good-night." + +I put down my rifle and follow the straight small figure of Elise +Perrier through the garden. I hasten after her into the house and +upstairs to the nursery. + +Little Tania is already fast asleep, with scarlet lips parted and silken +hair scattered on her pillow. But Tioka is sitting up in his cot +awaiting me. His bright soft eyes wander over my face, my hair, my +dress; his innocent gaze seems to pierce me like a fiery sword. He holds +out his arms to me and I hide my flushed face on his childish breast. + +"Good-night, mother dear," he whispers, kissing me and patting my face +with his small hand. Then he adds, with a funny little sniff at my +cheeks and hair: "You smell of many things--of perfume and powder and +cigarettes and wine...." + +This sequence of gay words on the childish lips strikes at my heart like +so many daggers. + +"Hush, darling," I whisper, taking refuge in those frail arms as in a +haven of safety. "Forgive--forgive your mother." + +But he does not know what there is to forgive; and he laughs and yawns +and then nestles down in his pillow, still holding tightly to my hand. + +"Must you go away?" he sighs, in a sleepy, endearing voice. + +"No, darling, no. I will stay with you." + +"Then tell me the poetry about the Virgin Mary coming down to see us in +the night." + +Holding my child's hand in my own, I begin softly: + + "When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary + Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon..." + +But already Tioka is in the land of dreams. + + + + +XIII + + +The whole party of guests stayed at our house that night. Even one of +the gipsy musicians was found next morning asleep on the sofa in the +library. + +No one came down to breakfast. Only Bozevsky got up early and went for a +gallop on the hills. + +I awoke at eight o'clock and rang the bell. Elise Perrier came in and +opened the windows. The fresh April breeze blew in and the chirrup of +the nests greeted me. + +"Elise, is the morning fine? Can the mountains be seen?" + +"Yes, my lady." + +"Elise, when you see the mountains do you not feel homesick for +Switzerland?" + +"Yes, my lady." And Elise stooped down to set out my slippers and to +hide the flush that rose to her face. + +"I am homesick, too, Elise. I am homesick I hardly know for +what--homesick for solitude and peace." + +She made no reply. + +"Should I find them in your Switzerland, do you think?" + +Elise Perrier shakes her head and answers in a low tone: "No, my lady. +Swiss homesickness and Russian homesickness are different." + +"In what way?" + +"We Swiss are homesick for--how shall I say?--for the outside things we +are far away from ... homesick for mountains and pine-trees and +villages. But Russians are homesick for what they miss in their own +hearts." + +"You are right, Elise." + +Tioka in his nightdress followed by Tania sucking the head of her +favorite rubber doll have run gaily in and embrace me. + +"Are we going to Switzerland?" cries Tioka, who has overheard what we +were saying. "How nice! When do we start?" + +"How nice! When do we start?" says Tania, who always echoes everything +her brother says. + +"I like to be always going away," adds Tioka. + +And Tania repeats, "I like to be always going away." + +I marvel at finding in these two children of mine, my own unrest already +stirring, like a butterfly poised with quivering wings on the dawning +flower of their souls. + +I went down alone into the garden and entered the grove, where the +sunshine only penetrates with mild rays of almost lunar whiteness. The +grass under my feet was studded with periwinkles, their prim, pert faces +lifted to the sky; tenuous ferns unfolded their embroidered scrolls, and +masses of gentle wild violets, conscious of their pallor and their +scentlessness, drooped shyly in the shade. + +In the branches overhead wild hidden birds tried their new springtide +voices in soft modulations and trills, or in long-drawn contralto notes +of liquescent sweetness. Thus April spoke to me in gentle voices. With a +sudden overwhelming longing to be nearer to the very soul of spring, I +knelt on the grass and buried my face in the cool leaves and blossoms, +bidding my heart be pure and cool as they. + +On my homeward way I passed the targets. The servants had put everything +in order--pistols, rifles and cartridges; and a fresh row of bottles +seemed to await with glassy eye the shots of the amateur marksmen. With +a deep sense of humiliation I remembered the feverish agitations of the +previous day, and once more I said to myself: "Henceforward may my life +be serene and pure." + +A gay voice rang out close behind me, and startled me from my reverie. + +"Lady Marie, good morrow!" It was Bozevsky, who, clicking his spurred +heels together, saluted me with a radiant smile. His morning canter +seemed to have given him an added touch of beauty and of daring; his +fair hair gleamed in the sunshine, his smile was reckless and +resplendent. + +I bowed without speaking and attempted to pursue my way to the house, +but he took my hand and detained me. + +"Why go in? Everybody is still asleep. Come now," he urged, with a frank +engaging smile, "stay here for awhile and practise at the targets." + +So saying he chose a rifle and loaded it. Then he held it out to me. I +took it from him and put it to my shoulder. I aimed carefully and was +about to press the trigger when suddenly Bozevsky, with a lightning +movement, put out his hand and pressed his palm against the muzzle of my +gun. + +"Wait!" he cried, with a wild, extravagant laugh. "Wait a moment! Before +you press the trigger I want you to say--'Alexis, I love you!'" + +"You are mad!" I exclaimed. "Take away your hand!" + +"No. First you must say--'Alexis, I love you.'" + +I felt a hot flush rise to my brow. "Take away your hand!" I repeated +and looked steadily at him. + +He did not move. + +"Take it away, I implore you!" + +Still he never moved, and I could see that hand stopping the muzzle of +my gun--a long, slender hand with fingers separate and outstretched, and +I felt almost as if I were under the influence of some hallucination. It +was not only _his_ hand that I saw--I seemed in a kind of frenzy to see +the hands of all men outstretched before me, ready to grasp me, to crush +me, to beat me down. Doubtless a wave of madness swept over me; a +convulsive spasm shook my wrist--and the gun went off. I saw the long, +lithe hand drop like some wounded creature. + +With a cry I let the rifle fall, and covered my face. But Bozevsky had +sprung upon me, and with his other hand seized both mine and pressed +them down. He was as white as death. "You little tigress," he gasped. +Then, as I was about to cry out again, he covered my mouth with his +shattered hand, and I felt the blood gush over my face. + +What distant heritage of madness broke upon us at that moment? What +primitive frenzy lashed us together in a fierce embrace? I cannot tell. +All I know is that from that hour I was his--tamed, vanquished, broken in +spirit, and yet glad. He was the first, the last, the only lover of my +devastated youth, and by his side the brief springtime of my happiness +flowered and died. When the fearful death that was so soon to lay him +low came upon him, when I saw him fall at my feet shot by Vassili--my +reason gave way. The rest of my life lies behind me like a somber +nightmare landscape, through which I wander, groping in the dark, +stumbling forward on my way to perdition.... + +Yet sometimes I dream that it is all not true, that he still lives, that +one day the door of my cell will open, and the lover of my youth appear +to me again. I shall see him standing on the threshold, a halo of +sunshine lighting his fair hair, like some young martyr-saint come to +deliver me from my bondage. The hand I wounded will be filled with +roses, and his clear voice will call me by my name. + +Then rising from this gloomy prison bench I shall move to meet him. +Shame and crime and captivity will fall away from me like a dark and +worn-out cloak. + +Free and fair as in those distant April days in which he loved me, with +white, winged footsteps I shall follow him. + + + + +XIV + + +Suddenly, almost from one day to another, Vassili grew jealous. When I +had adored him he had neglected and forsaken me. Now that he feared to +lose me he was inconsolable. + +"You and Tioka are very much alike," I said to him one day when we were +all at luncheon. + +"Do you think so?" said Vassili, patting his little son's fair head and +contemplating the small face, which at that moment was making a terrible +grimace over its food. "What makes you say so?" + +"You shall see." I leaned over to the child. "Tioka, my darling, won't +you eat your nice dinner?" + +"No!" said Tioka with great decision. + +"Come, now, darling, eat your nice soup," and I held a spoonful to his +lips. + +"No," said Tioka, turning his face away. + +"Why not, dear? Don't you like it?" + +"No. It's nasty." + +"Well, then," I said, putting down the spoon, "we will give it to the +farmer's little boy." + +"No! no!" cried Tioka, and he quickly devoured the soup in large +spoonfuls. + +Vassili laughed. "He is quite right. His soup is not for the farmer's +little boy. To each one his own soup, isn't that so, Tioka!" + +"No," said Tioka. + +"Why 'no'? You should say 'yes.'" + +"No," declared Tioka doggedly. "This is my 'no' day." + +"Your _what_?" exclaimed his father. + +"My day for saying 'no,'" announced Tioka with great decision. + +His father was much amused. "I also shall have my 'no' days," he +declared. "And I shall begin at once. To-day, Mura, we shall receive no +visitors." + +"But, Vassili," I protested, "we must see the Grigorievskys; we have +invited them to dinner." + +"No," said my husband. + +"And Semenzoff. And Bozevsky." + +"No," he repeated. + +"Do you really mean that we are not to receive them?" + +"No," he reiterated. "This is my 'no' day." And the reception for that +evening was actually put off. The jest seemed highly entertaining to +Vassili. I heard him laughing to himself as he went downstairs; and in +the days that followed he frequently repeated it. + +Shortly afterwards he took us all back to Kieff and there he had many +"no" days. In particular he would not let Bozevsky visit us; and more +than a month passed without my seeing him. + +At last it happened that the Stahls invited us to a ball, and Vassili, +who chanced to be in a good temper, accepted. I knew I should meet +Bozevsky there, and at the mere thought of seeing him again I trembled +with joy and fear. + +Elise Perrier dressed me in a filmy gossamer gown of soft opalescent +tints, and fastened round my neck the famous O'Rourke pearls--those +pearls which, according to family traditions, had once decorated the +slender neck of Mary Stuart. + +As Vassili put me into the troika he was all kindness and amiability; he +wrapped me closely in the furs, and then took his seat beside me, +muffling himself up to his nose in the bearskins. The horses started and +we were off like the wind. + +During the drive tender and kindly feelings towards Vassili filled my +heart. I said to myself that perhaps he was after all not wholly to +blame for his faults and follies. He, too, was so young; perhaps if I +had been less of a child at the time of my marriage I should have known +how to make him love me more. And, after all, were we not still in time +to reshape our lives? What if we were to go far away from Kieff, far +from St. Petersburg, and try to take up the thread of our broken idyll +again? My hand sought his. He grasped it and held it warmly clasped +under the rug without turning towards me; I could see his eyes shining +under his fur cap as he gazed straight before him, while we sped over +the silent snow. During that drive, from the bottom of my heart, I +forgave him all his transgressions and silently craved forgiveness for +mine. Already I seemed to see myself with him and the children and Aunt +Sonia happily secluded in some smiling rose-clad mansion in Italy. He +would take up the study of his music again, perhaps he would compose, as +he had often spoken of doing--while I, seated at his feet, would read the +Italian poets that I loved, raising my eyes now and then to contemplate +the motionless blue wave of the distant Apennines.... + +But the troika had stopped, and Vassili sprang out upon the snow. +Through the illuminated windows the tzigane music poured forth its waves +of sensuous melody--and alas! the rhythmic swing of it swept away, as in +a whirlwind, the peaceful dreams of Italy, of the rose-clad mansion and +the Italian poets. + +While the servants were taking our cloaks and snowshoes from us I +whispered hurriedly to Vassili: "Dearest, be good to-night. Do not drink +much." + +"Why not? What a strange idea!" he said; and we passed into the +overheated, overlighted rooms. + +At the far end of the ballroom some thirty tziganes, women and men, in +their picturesque costumes were making music. The men played and the +women sang. The dancing couples whirled round in the scent-laden air. + +Doctor Stahl's wife, a kindly German woman, received us with amiable +smiles; Stahl himself greeted us with excited effusiveness. He was quite +pale with two red spots on the summit of his cheeks. I was struck anew +by his strange air of intoxication, for I knew he never touched wine. +Immediately, from the end of the room Bozevsky came hastening to meet +us, superb in his full uniform--blue tunic and scarlet belt. + +"Hail _Fata Morgana_!" he cried. "Give me this dance," and he put his +arm round my waist. But I drew back. + +"Alas, Prince Charming, I dare not." + +He turned pale; then he bowed, twirled on his heels and moved away. He +did not come near me again until late in the evening. I saw him +surrounded by women, who danced with him, smiling into his face, +floating with languid grace in his arms. + +I shrank into a corner of the vast room where tall plants and flowers +screened me from the dancers. + +"Why, what are you doing hidden here?" cried Stahl, coming up to me. His +pupils were narrower than ever and his breath came and went in short +gasps. He bent over me and scanned my face. "What are your thoughts, +Countess Marie?" + +"I have no thoughts," I replied sadly. + +"Then I will give you one," said he laughing; "a blithe and comforting +thought--think that a hundred years hence we shall all be dead!" + +"True," I answered, and a wave of unspeakable melancholy invaded my +soul. "We may, perhaps, be dead even fifty years hence." + +"Or thirty," laughed Stahl. + +"Or twenty," I sighed, in even deeper despondency. + +"Oh, no," said Stahl. "Twenty years hence you will still be a charming +matron getting on towards middle-age." And, as some one was calling him, +he turned away and left me. + +His words sank into my heart, heavy and searing as molten lead. How +short, how short was life! How the years flew past! How brief were the +wings of youth and happiness! I raised my eyes--doubtless they were full +of sadness--and I saw that Bozevsky at the far end of the room was +looking at me. Several brilliantly attired women were laughing and +talking to him, but abruptly, without excuse or explanation, he left +them and crossed the room to where I sat. + +The tziganes were playing a wild, nerve-thrilling czarda. Without a word +Bozevsky put his arm round me and drew me into the dance. + +The music went faster and faster, wilder and ever more wild. + +Light as air I swung round in Bozevsky's arm. I could have wished to +dance thus forever--dance, dance to the very brink of life and, still +dancing, to plunge over into the abyss of death. + +As we whirled round I perceived that Vassili was watching us. He was +drinking champagne with vodka in it and was laughing loudly while he +spoke to Stahl; but his eyes never left me as I swept round the ballroom +with Bozevsky. His gaze alarmed me. I was dizzy and out of breath, but I +did not dare to stop dancing for fear of Vassili. I danced and danced, +breathless and distraught; I felt my heart beating furiously, pulsing +with the mad rapidity, the battering throb of a motor-cycle at full +speed--and still I danced and danced on, while the ballroom, the guests, +the tziganes spun round and round before my blurred eyes.... + +Vassili's gaze still followed me. + + + + +XV + + +Suddenly my strength failed me. The room seemed to be paved with water; +the floor yielded and undulated under my feet; the motor-cycle pulsing +in my breast stopped dead. Then I felt Bozevsky's arm sustain me as I +fell forward on his breast. Everything whirled, darkened--vanished. + +When I opened my eyes I was seated near the window; the dancers crowded +round me. Stahl was bending over me with a small shining instrument in +his hand. It was a hypodermic syringe. + +I shrank back in terror. "No, no!" I cried. + +Seeing that I had recovered my senses Vassili, who stood behind me, laid +an iron hand on my bare shoulder. + +"Come," he said in a hoarse and brutal voice. "Come at once." + +"Where to?" I rose trembling to my feet. I still felt dizzy and weak, +and scarcely knew where I was. + +"Home," said Vassili, bending over me with a terrible look. His face was +so close to mine that I could feel his breath upon me, hot and laden +with that subtle sweetish exhalation of ether that vodka leaves behind +it. "The dance is over," he muttered. "It is over, it is over." I +noticed his clenched fists; and I was afraid. A deep silence had fallen +on the entire room. "Come!" he repeated in a tone that made me quake. + +I shrank back in terror. Then Vassili put out his hand and seized my +pearl necklace; it broke in his grasp. The milky gems fell to the ground +and rolled away in all directions; the guests, both men and women, +stooped down to search for them and pick them up. + +But now Bozevsky had taken a step forward, and stood, haughty and +aggressive, in front of Vassili. He uttered a brief word in a low voice. + +Vassili turned upon him with livid countenance. "Insolent scoundrel!" he +cried, wildly searching his pockets for a weapon; then in a frenzy he +turned on the awe-stricken assembly: "Go away, everybody!" he shouted. +"Stahl, turn out the lights. We are going to have a game of blind man's +buff, the Uhlan and I. A game of blind man's buff in the dark! Quick, +Stahl, give us a couple of revolvers. Send all these people away and +turn out the lights." + +He was beside himself with vodka and with wrath. + +Bozevsky still faced him, calm and unmoved. "Why should it be in the +dark, Count Tarnowsky? Why not in the light of day--at ten paces?" + +"No!" roared Vassili. "I'll kill you in the dark, evil beast that you +are. I'll slaughter you like a wild beast in the dark!" + +I never knew how we succeeded in getting him out into the troika, but at +last the feat was accomplished, and he drove off with Madame +Grigorievska and Semenzoff, the only two people who had any influence +over him. I followed in another sleigh, alone with Dr. Stahl, who during +the entire drive panted and shivered beside me, as if in the throes of +some fierce physical agony. + +Through the starry calm of the night, while the sleighs glided silently +over the snow, we could hear Vassili's strident and drunken voice still +roaring: "Blind man's buff with the officer! Ha, ha, ha! In the +dark--bing bang. Blind man's buff!" + + +The scandal in Kieff was enormous. The whole town spoke of nothing else. +All the women sided with Vassili, and all the men with me. As for +Vassili, he cared nothing for the opinion of either. He came and went +with lowering brows, never speaking either to me or to the children. + +I was unspeakably frightened and unhappy. At last, one evening, unable +to endure the strain of his silence any longer, and praying God to give +me courage, I went tremblingly and knocked at his study door. + +He said "Come in," and I entered. + +He was standing by the window, smoking, and he turned upon me a cold +vindictive eye. + +"Vassili"--my voice trembled--"Vassili, don't be angry with me any more. +Forgive me. I did not mean to offend you. I did not mean--" I burst into +tears. + +He seemed somewhat moved and held out his hand to me without speaking. + +I grasped it eagerly. He continued to smoke and look out of the window, +while I stood awkwardly beside him, holding his hand and not knowing +what to say. + +Perhaps my silence pleased him, for soon I felt him press my trembling +fingers more closely. Looking timidly up into his face I saw that his +lips were quivering. + +"Vassili," I whispered. + +He turned to me abruptly. "Let us go away," he said, "Mura, let us go +away!" + +"Where?" I asked, overcome with sudden fear. + +"Far away from here, far away from Russia. I cannot live in this +accursed country any longer." And Vassili let go my hand in order to +clench his fists. + +"I had thought of it, too," I said unsteadily. And in a low voice I told +him my thoughts of the rose-clad house in Italy, my dreams of an azure +exile in that beauteous land, alone with him and the children. + +"Mura! Mura!" he said, taking my face between his hands and gazing +deeply into my eyes. "Tell me--is it not too late?" + +Was it too late? + +In my soul my unlawful passion for Bozevsky rose like a giant wave, +towered over me, enveloped and submerged me. Then--then to the eyes of my +spirit there came the vision of my children, of a flower-filled Italian +garden, of peace reconquered and deliverance from evil. "No, Vassili, +no. It is not too late!" + +With a sigh I lay my cheek against his shoulder and bowed my face upon +his breast. + +Before our departure from Russia, in order not to leave ill-feeling or +evil talk behind us, it was decided that Vassili and Bozevsky should +meet and be reconciled. + +The Stahls and Grigorievskys gladly undertook to organize an afternoon +reception at which we were to take leave of all our friends and +acquaintances. After that there would be a theater party at the opera, +and, finally, the more intimate of our friends were to be the guests of +Bozevsky himself at a supper at the Grand Hotel. There we were to say +farewell to one another for many years, perhaps forever. + +In spite of the burning desire which drew me towards Bozevsky, I had +honorably kept my part of the agreement and had refused to see him for +even an instant before the appointed day. + +Vassili took the necessary steps to get our passports and every +preparation was made for our final departure from Russia. + +And now the eve of our journey had come--the afternoon reception was +over; and this was the fatal evening which was to mark the supreme and +ultimate hour of my happiness. + +Satins and jewels decked my aching heart; flowers garlanded my ringleted +hair; I wanted Alexis to see me for the last time looking my fairest. I +longed to remain forever in his memory a loved and radiant vision. + +"You are dazzlingly beautiful," said my cousin Vera to me, as soon as I +entered the room, surveying me from top to toe. "I can quite understand +why every one is crazy about you." + +I was immediately surrounded by all our most intimate friends, who +lamented in every key our resolve to leave Russia. + +"Without you, Kieff will be empty. It will be like a ring which has lost +its brightest gem." + +I smiled and sighed, feeling both gratified and mournful. + +Who would have thought that after this evening all those who now +surrounded me with flattering words would pass me by without a greeting, +would turn from me as from some vile and tainted creature? + +Bozevsky, pallid and stern, came to me, and bowed low as he kissed my +hand. + +"_Ave! Ave ... Maria!_" he said. Then he raised his eyes and looked at +me long and fixedly. Despair was so clearly written on his countenance, +that I felt afraid lest Vassili should notice it; Alexis read the fear +in my eyes, and laughed. "Do you know what I believe?" he said. + +I looked at him without understanding. + +"I believe," he continued in scornful tones, "that I am in a trap." + +"A trap? What do you mean?" I gazed questioningly into his face. + +"Yes, yes, a trap," said he with a cynical laugh. Then in a tone that +seemed in keeping with the frivolous atmosphere that surrounded us: + +"Countess," he continued, "has it ever happened to you to go wrong in +some well-known quotation? To begin, for instance, with one author, and +to end with another?" + +"I do not understand," I stammered, perplexed by the strangeness of his +manner. "What--what do you mean?" + +Vassili was approaching, and Alexis with a scornful laugh raised his +voice slightly as he spoke. "Because to-night," he said, "a misquotation +of that kind keeps ringing through my brain. "_Ave, Maria!... Morituri +te salutant!_" + +Vassili stood beside us and heard the words with a puzzled smile. + +"_Morituri?_" he said, holding out his hand to Bozevsky with a frank and +friendly gesture. "_Morituri?_ Indeed I hope not." + +Bozevsky took his hand and looked him in the face. Vassili returned his +gaze; then, with an impulsive gesture, in true Russian fashion, my +husband bent forward and kissed him on both cheeks. + +No! no, it was not a trap! From the depths of my broken heart, from my +inmost consciousness, there springs up this protest on behalf of him who +on that fatal evening wrecked my life. I know that it was an impulse of +his fervent heart that impelled Vassili to open his arms to the man whom +an hour before he had hated--and whom an hour later he slew. + +No; it was not a trap. + + + + +XVI + + +Doubtless that evening I was beautiful. During the supper party at the +Grand Hotel I felt that I diffused around me an atmosphere of more +subtle intoxication than the music or the wines. Placed between Vassili +and Stahl I laughed and laughed in a fever of rapturous gaiety. I was +excited and overwrought. + +Bozevsky sat facing me. As I glanced at his proud, passionate face, I +said in my heart: "To-morrow you will see him no more. But this evening +he is here; you see him, pale for the love of you, thrilled by your +presence. Do not think of to-morrow. To-morrow is far away!" + +So I laughed and laughed while the rhythmic charm of waltzes played on +muted strings wrought upon my senses, swaying me towards an unreal +world, a world of transcendent passion and incomparable joys. + +Stahl, seated at my right hand, was flushed and elated, but still drew +the hurried sibilant breaths I had so often noticed in him. Vassili +seemed to have fallen in love with me anew. He murmured rapturous words +into my ear. "To-morrow you shall be mine, mine only, out of reach of +all others, beyond the sight and the desire of all these people--whose +necks I should like to wring." And he drank his Clicquot looking at me +with kindling eyes. + +"Vassili," I whispered imploringly, "do not drink any more." + +"Don't you wish me to?" he asked, turning to me with his glass of +champagne in his hand. "Don't you wish it? Well--there!" He flung the +glass full of blonde wine behind him over his shoulder. The thin crystal +chalice was shattered into a thousand pieces. + +"What are you doing, Vassili? What are you doing?" cried Grigorievsky. +"Are you playing the King of Thule?" + +"Precisely," laughed Vassili. "Was he not the paragon of all lovers, who +chose to die of thirst in order to follow his adored one to the grave?" + +And somewhat uncertainly he quoted: + + "Then did he fling his chalice + Into the surging main, + He watched it sink and vanish-- + And never drank again." + +"Here's to the King of Thule!" cried one of the guests. And they all +drank Vassili's health. + +Bozevsky had sprung to his feet; his eyes gleamed strangely. "You may be +the King of Thule, Tarnowsky," he cried in a mocking tone, "but I am the +knight Olaf. You know the legend?" His clear insolent eyes surveyed the +guests provocatively. "Olaf--you remember--was condemned to death for +daring to love the king's daughter. He was at his last banquet. 'Take +heed, Olaf,' said the king. 'The headsman stands at the door!' 'Let him +stay there, sire, while I bid farewell to life in a last toast!' And +standing up--just as I stand here--he raised his glass, as I raise mine: + + "I drink to the earth, I drink to the sky, + I drink to the sea and the shore; + I drink to the days that I have seen, + And the days I shall see no more; + I drink to the King who has sentenced me, + And the Headsman at the door. + + "I bless the joys that I have had + And the joys that I have missed; + I bless the eyes that have smiled on me + And the lips that I have kissed!" + +Here Bozevsky turned and looked straight at me: + + "To _thy_ red lips that I have kissed + I raise this cup of wine, + I bless thy radiant loveliness + That made my life divine, + And I bless the hour that brings me death + For the hour that thou wert mine!" + +He uttered these words in a loud voice, with his daring eyes fixed +steadily on mine; then he raised his glass and drained it. + +Vassili had sprung to his feet. But instantly Stahl was beside him, +speaking rapidly, while Grigorievsky exclaimed: + +"The sleighs are waiting. It is time to go home!" + +Amid nervous and hurried farewells the perilous moment passed and the +danger was averted. We all hastened to our sleighs; my cousin Vera and +Madame Grigorievska were beside me; Stahl and Grigorievsky had each with +an air of easy friendliness taken my husband by the arm. + +"Good-by! Good-by! _Bon voyage!_ Good-by!" The last farewells had been +exchanged. The impatient horses were shaking their bells in the icy +night air. Vera had already taken her place in the sleigh, and I was +about to step in beside her, when I saw Bozevsky striding rapidly +towards me. He passed in front of my husband, who was standing near the +second sleigh with Stahl and Grigorievsky, and came straight to me. He +stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair. + +"So it is all over--all over!" he said. "And this is good-by!" + +His voice broke, and he bent his fair head over my hand, crushing my +fingers in his feverish clasp. + +At that instant the report of a shot rang out, followed by a mad +outburst of laughter from Vassili. I saw the horses of the sleigh plunge +and rear. + +Bozevsky, still clasping my hand, wrenched himself upright; a convulsive +shiver passed through him, and his head jerked backwards with a strange, +wooden movement like that of a broken doll--then with a shrill burst of +laughter which showed all his teeth, he fell forward at my feet. + +With a cry I bent over him, and I felt a splash of blood on my face. It +spurted forth like the jet of a fountain from the side of his neck. Once +again my hands, my dress were covered with his blood--I thought I was in +a dream. Every one had come rushing up. Now they raised him. I saw Stahl +snatch a white scarf from some one's shoulders and wind it round and +round the wounded neck, and immediately a dark stain appeared on the +scarf and slowly widened. + +Supported by Stahl, Bozevsky stared about him with haggard eyes, until +his gaze met mine. + +A quiver passed over his face. "I bless the hour--" he gasped. Then a +gush of blood came from his mouth, and he was silent. + + + + +XVII + + +Bozevsky was carried to his room and the manager and servants of the +Grand Hotel thronged in murmuring consternation round his door. A +Swedish doctor, staying at the hotel, was summoned in haste. He appeared +in his dressing-gown, and with Stahl's assistance carefully dressed and +bound up the deep double wound caused by the bullet, which had passed +through the left side of Bozevsky's neck and come out beneath his chin. + +Trembling and weeping I followed the sinister procession, and with +Cousin Vera and Madame Stahl entered Bozevsky's room. Now I stood, +silently praying, at the foot of the bed. Bozevsky sunken in his pillow, +with his eyes closed and his head and neck in bandages, looked as if he +were already dead. + +He suddenly opened his eyes, and his gaze wandered slowly from side to +side until it rested on me. He moved his lips as if to speak, and I +hastened to his pillow and bent over him. + +He whispered, "Stay here." + +"Yes," I said, and sat down beside him, taking his moist, chill hand +between my own. + +He repeated weakly: "Stay here. Do not go away." + +The Swedish doctor was washing his hands and talking in a low voice to +Stahl. He turned to me and said: + +"You must try not to agitate him. Do not let him speak or move his +head." Then he went out into the corridor with Stahl. + +Mrs. Stahl and Vera sat mute and terror-stricken in a corner. I watched +Bozevsky, with a deep, dull ache racking my heart. He seemed to be +falling asleep. I felt his hand relax in mine and his short breathing +became calmer and more regular. + +But Stahl came in again, and Bozevsky opened his eyes. + +Stahl approached the bedside and stood for a long while looking down at +his friend. Then he turned to me. "A nurse is coming," he said. "I will +take you ladies home and then come back and pass the night with him." + +Take me home! How could I return home? How could I endure to meet +Vassili again? At the mere thought of seeing him, who with a treacherous +shot from behind had shattered this young existence, hatred and terror +flamed up within me. No! I would not return home. Never again would I +touch the hand of Vassili Tarnowsky. + +While these thoughts traversed my mind, some one knocked at the door. It +was the nurse. Vera and Madame Grigorievska, after questioning me with +their eyes, got up softly; then, with a glance of pity at Bozevsky, they +went on tiptoe out of the room. + +At the door Stahl beckoned to me to come. But I shook my head. As if he +knew what was passing Bozevsky opened his eyes again. + +"Stay here," he whispered. Then he put his hand to the bandage round his +neck. "If you leave me I will tear it all off." He made a gesture as if +he would do so. + +"I shall not leave you," I whispered bending over him. "I shall never +leave you again." + +I kept my word. + + +Later I learned that Vassili had given himself up to the authorities, +and that my grief-stricken mother had come to fetch our children and had +taken them with her to Otrada. To her and to my father they were the +source of much melancholy joy. + +Thus did the old garden of my youth open again its shadowy pathways and +flowery lawns to the unconscious but already sorrow-touched childhood of +little Tioka and Tania--those tragic children whose father was in prison +and whose mother, far away from them, watched and suffered by the +sinister death-bed of a stranger. To me the two innocent, angelic +figures often came in my dreams; and I cried out to them with bitterest +tears: "Oh, my own children, my two loved ones, forgive your mother that +she does not forsake one who is dying for her sake. This very night, +perhaps, or to-morrow--soon, soon, alas!--his life will end. And with a +broken heart your mother will return to you." + + +But Bozevsky did not die that night. Nor the following day. Nor the day +after. + +Fate had in store for him and for me a much more appalling doom. He +dragged his frightful death-agony through the interminable hours of a +hundred days and a hundred nights. He was doomed to trail his torment +from town to town, from surgeon to surgeon, from specialist to +charlatan. One after another, they would unbandage the white and +withered neck, probe the blue-edged wound, and then cover up again with +yellow gauze the horrifying cavity; leaving us to return, heart-stricken +and silent, to the luxurious hotels that housed our irremediable +despair. + +About that time I heard that Vassili had been released on bail. Later on +he was acquitted by a jury in the distant city of Homel, on the ground +of justifiable homicide. + +Perhaps it was a just verdict. But for him whom he had struck down--and +for me--what anguish, great Heavens! What lingering torture of +heart-breaking days and nights. + +Ah, those nights, those appalling nights! We dreaded them as one dreads +some monstrous wild beast, lurking in wait to devour us. All day long we +thought only of the night. As soon as twilight drew near Bozevsky, lying +in his bed with his face towards the window, clutched my hand and would +not let it go. + +"I am afraid," he would murmur. "I wish it were not night. If only it +were not night!" + +"Nonsense, dearest," I would say, cheerfully. "It is quite early. It is +still broad daylight. Everybody is moving about. The whole world is +awake and out of doors." + +But night, furtive and grim, crouched in the shadowy room, lurked in +dark corners, and then suddenly was upon us, black, silent, terrifying. +Round us the world lay asleep, and we two were awake and alone with our +terror. + +Then began the never-ending question, ceaselessly repeated, reiterated +throughout the entire night: + +"_What is the time?_" + +It was only nine o'clock. It was half-past nine.... Ten... Half-past +ten... A quarter to eleven... Eleven o'clock... Five minutes past... + +As soon as it was dawn, at about four o'clock, Bozevsky grew calm. +Silence fell, and he slept. + + +The last station of our calvary was at Yalta, in the Crimea. We had gone +there with a last up-flaming of hope. There were doctors there whom we +had not yet consulted. There was Ivanoff and the world-famed Bobros. + +"Continue the same treatment," said the one. + +"You must try never to move your head," said the other. + +That was all. + +And to our other tortures was added the martyrdom of complete +immobility. + +"I want to turn my head," Bozevsky would say in the night. + +"No, dearest, no. I implore you--" + +"I must. I must turn it from one side to the other. If I stay like this +any longer I shall go mad!" + +Then, with infinite precautions, with eyes staring and terror-filled, +like one who yields to an overwhelming temptation or performs some deed +of insane daring, Bozevsky would turn his sad face slowly round, and let +his cheek sink into the pillow. + +His fair curls encircled with flaxen gaiety his spent and desolate face. + + + + +XVIII + + +Alone with him during those long terrible hours, my anguish and my +terror constantly increased. At last I could endure it no longer and I +telegraphed to Stahl: + +"Come immediately." + +At dusk the following day Stahl arrived. + +I had hoped to derive courage and consolation from his presence. But as +soon as he stepped upon the threshold my heart turned faint within me. +Thinner and more spectral than ever, with hair dishevelled and eyes +sunken and dull, he looked dreamily at me, while a continual tremor +shook his hands. + +I greeted him timorously, and the touch of his chill, flaccid fingers +made me shudder. + +Bozevsky seemed glad to see him. Stretching out his wasted hand to him +he said at once: + +"Stahl, I want to move my head." + +Stahl seemed not to understand, and Bozevsky repeated: "I want to turn +my head from one side to another." + +"Why not?" said Stahl, sitting down beside the bed and lighting a +cigarette. "Turn it by all means." + +It was growing late; outside it was already dark. I drew the curtains +and turned on the lights. Bozevsky began very slowly to turn his head +from side to side; at first very timorously with frightened eyes, then +by degrees more daringly, from right to left and from left to right. + +"Keep still, keep still, dearest," I entreated, bending over him. + +"Stahl said it would not hurt," panted Bozevsky. "Did you not, Stahl?" +Stahl made no reply. He was smoking, with his heavy eyes half closed. At +the sight of him I was filled with loathing and fear. + +"Have you dined?" I inquired of him after a long silence. He nodded and +went on smoking. + +I tried to coax Bozevsky to take an egg beaten up in milk, but he +continued to turn his head from side to side and would touch nothing. +Little by little the sounds in the hotel died away. The gipsy music +which had been audible, faintly in the distance, ceased. Night crept +upon us sinister and silent. + +Presently Stahl roused himself and opened his eyes. He looked at me and +then at Bozevsky, who lay in the circular shadow cast by the lamp shade, +dozing with his mouth slightly open; he looked pitiful and grotesque in +his collar of yellow gauze. + +Stahl made a grimace; then his breath became short and hurried as on +that night of the ball when he sat beside me in the sleigh. He was +panting with a slight sibilant sound and with a quick nervous movement +of his head. + +"Stahl," I whispered, leaning towards him and indicating Bozevsky, "tell +me--how do you think he is?" + +Stahl did not answer. He seemed not to have heard me, but to be absorbed +in some mysterious physical suffering of his own. + +"What is the matter, Stahl? What is the matter? You are frightening me." + +With a nervous twist of his lips intended for a smile Stahl got up and +began to walk up and down the room. His breath was still short and +hurried. He drew the air through his teeth like one who is enduring +spasms of pain. + +Then he began to talk to himself in a low voice. "I can wait," he said +under his breath. "I can wait a little longer. Yes--yes--yes, I can wait a +little longer." + +Bozevsky had opened his eyes and was watching him. + +Horror held me motionless and shivers ran like icy water down my spine. + +"Stahl, Stahl, what is the matter?" I said, and began to cry. + +Stahl seemed not to hear me. He continued to walk up and down muttering +to himself: "I can wait, I can wait. Just a little longer--a little +longer--" + +Bozevsky groaned. "Tell him to keep still," he said, his gaze indicating +Stahl. + +I seized Stahl by the arm. "You must keep quiet," I said. "Keep quiet at +once." + +He turned to me a vacuous, bewildered face. I grasped his arm +convulsively, clutching it with all my strength: "Keep still!" + +Stahl sat down. "Right," he said. "All right." + +He searched his pocket and drew out a small leather case. + +Bozevsky moved and moaned. "I am thirsty," he said. "Give me something +to drink." + +I hurried to the bedside, and taking up a glass of sweetened water, I +raised him on his pillow and held the glass to his lips. He drank +eagerly. Then--horror!... horror! Even as he drank I perceived a spot of +pale red color, wetting the gauze round his neck, oozing through it and +spreading in an ever-widening stain. What--what could it be? It was the +water he was drinking; he was not swallowing it ... it was trickling out +through the wound in his neck. All the gauze was already wet--now the +pillow as well. + +"Stahl, Stahl!" I shrieked. "Look, look at this!" + +Stahl, who seemed to have suddenly regained his senses, came quickly to +the bedside. I had laid Bozevsky back on the pillow and he was looking +at us with wide-open eyes. + +"Yes," said Stahl, contemplating him thoughtfully. "Yes." Suddenly he +turned to me. "Come here, come here. Why should I let you suffer?" + +Then I saw that he had in his hand a small glass instrument--a morphia +syringe. He seized my wrist as in a vice and with the other hand pushed +back the loose sleeve of my gown. + +"What are you going to do?" I gasped. + +"Why, why should you suffer?" cried Stahl, holding me tightly by the +arm. + +"Are you killing me?" I cried. + +"No, no. I shall not kill you. You will see." + +I let him take my arm and he pricked it with the needle of the syringe, +afterwards pressing and rubbing the punctured spot with his finger. + +"Now you will see, now you will see," he repeated over and over again +with a vague stupefied smile. "Sit down there," and he impelled me +towards an armchair. + +Bozevsky in his wet bandages on his wet pillow was watching us. I wanted +to go to his assistance, to speak to him--but already a vague torpor was +stealing over me, a feeling of gentle langour weighed upon my limbs. My +tense and quivering nerves gradually relaxed. I felt as if I were +submerged in a vague fluid serenity. Every anxious thought dissolved in +a bland and blissful somnolence.... I could see Bozevsky move restlessly +and again begin to turn his head from side to side. Sunk in the divine +lassitude that held me, I watched his movements, glad that the sight of +them gave me no pain. + +I saw that Stahl had stretched himself on the couch and lay there with a +vacant ecstatic smile on his lips. + +All at once Bozevsky uttered a cry. I heard him, but I felt no +inclination to answer. He struggled into a sitting position and looked +at us both with wide, horrified eyes. He called us again and again. Then +he began to weep. I could hear his weeping, but the beatific lethargy +which engulfed me held me motionless. Perhaps I was even smiling, so +free and so remote did I feel from all distress and suffering. + +And now I saw Bozevsky with teeth clenched and hands curved like talons, +madly clutching and tearing away the bandages from his neck. + +He dragged and tore the gauze with quick frenzied movements, while from +his lips came a succession of whimpering cries as of a dog imprisoned +behind a door. + +I smiled, I know I smiled, as I gazed at him from my armchair. + +Stahl's eyes were shut; he was fast asleep. + +Even when the wasted neck was stripped bare, those quick, frenzied +movements still continued. What my eyes then saw I can never tell.... + + +Thus died Alexis Bozevsky, the handsomest officer in the Imperial Guard. + + + + +XIX + + +After that all is dark. A blood-red abyss seems to open in my memory +wherein everything is submerged--even my reason. + +My reason! I have felt it totter and fall, like something detached and +apart from myself; and I know that it has sunk into the grave that +covers Alexis Bozevsky. + +Vaguely, from my distant childhood, a memory rises up and confronts me. + +I am in a school. I know not where. It is sunset, and I am at play, +happy and alone, in the midst of a lawn; the daisies in the grass are +already closed and rose-tipped, blushing in their sleep. Some one calls +my name, and raising my eyes I see the small eager face of my playmate +Tatiana peering out of an oval window in an old turret, where none of us +are ever allowed to go. "Mura! Mura! Come quickly," she cries. "The +turret is full of swallows!" + +"Full of swallows!" I can still recall the ecstasy of joy with which +those three words filled me. I ran to the entrance of the old tower and +helter-skeltered up the dark and narrow staircase; then, pushing aside a +mildewed door, I found myself with Tatiana in a gloomy loft, and yes, +yes! it was full of swallows! + +They flew hither and thither, darting over our heads, brushing our +faces, making us shriek with delight. We managed to catch any number of +them. Many were even lying on the ground. Tatiana filled her apron with +the fluttering creatures, while I held some in my handkerchief and some +in my hands. Then we ran downstairs into the dining-hall: "Look, look! +we have caught a lot of swallows!" I can still see the girls crowding +round us, and the face of the mistress bending forward with an +incredulous smile; I see her shrink back, horrified and pale, with a cry +of disgust: "Mercy upon us! They are all bats!" + +Even now the recollection of the shrieks we uttered as we flung them +from us makes my flesh creep; even now I seem to feel the slippery +smoothness of those cold membranes gliding through my fingers and near +my cheeks.... + +To what end does this childish recollection enter into the dark tragedy +of my life? This--that when I mount into the closed turret of my mind in +quest of winged thoughts and soaring fancies, alas! there glide through +my brain only the monstrous spirits of madness, the black bats of +hypochandria.... + +I remember little or nothing of those somber days in Yalta. I can +vaguely recollect Stahl telling me over and over again in answer to my +delirious cries for Bozevsky: "He is dead! He is dead! He is dead!" And +as I could not and would not believe him, he took me in a closed +carriage through many streets; then into a low building and through +echoing stone passages into a large bare room--a dissecting room! + +The horror of it seals my lips. + +Still more vaguely do I recollect the death of Stahl himself. I know +that one evening he shot himself through the heart, and was carried to +the hospital. I know that he sent me the following words traced in +tremulous handwriting on a torn piece of paper: "Mura! I have only half +an hour to live. Come to me, I implore you. Come!" + +I did not go to him. The terrible lessons he had taught me were bearing +fruit; all I did when brought face to face with some new calamity was to +take injection after injection of morphia; and thus I sank down again +into the twilight world of unreality in which, during that entire +period, I moved like one in a dream. + +I seemed to be living under water, in a perpetual dimness--a fluid, +undulating dusk. + +No sooner did I find myself rising to the surface of consciousness, and +the noisy harshness of life confronted me again, than my trembling hands +sought the case that hid the little glass viper of oblivion--the +hypodermic syringe of Pravaz. + +Over the tremulous flame of a candle I heated the phial of whitish +powder and watched it gradually dissolve into a clear crystalline liquid +that the hollow needle thirstily drank up: then I bared my arm and +thrust the steel point aslant into my flesh. Soothing and benumbing the +morphia coursed through my veins; and I sank once more into the +well-known beatific lethargy, the undulating dusk of unreality and +sleep.... + +But one day a call thrilled through the enveloping cloud and reached my +heart: it was the call of motherhood. Tioka! Tania! Where were my +children? Why, why were my arms empty when these two helpless and +beloved creatures were mine? + +Horrified at myself and at the dream-like apathy in which I had strayed +so long, I tore myself from the degrading captivity of narcotics and +with trembling steps tottered towards the threshold of life once more. + +With dazed eyes I beheld the altered world around me. + +How everything had changed! I was no longer the Countess Tarnowska, +flattered, envied and beloved. The women who had formerly been my +friends turned their eyes away from me, while on the other hand men +stared at me boldly in a way they had never dared to look at me before. +Vassili--the frivolous, light-hearted Vassili--shut his door upon me, and +secluded himself in grim and formidable silence as in the walls of a +fortress. Vainly did I beat upon it with weak hands, vainly did I pray +for pity. Inexorable and inaccessible he remained, locked in his scorn +and his resentment. Nor ever have the gates of his home or of his heart +opened to me again. + +I took refuge with my children at Otrada. + +My parents received us in sorrow and humiliation. Themselves too broken +in spirit to offer me any consolation, they moved silently through the +stately mansion, blushing for me before the servants, hiding me from the +eyes of their friends. + +Even my children hung their heads and crept about on tiptoe, mute and +abashed without knowing why. + +One day Tania, my little Tania, was snatched from my arms. Vassili took +her from me, nor did I ever see her again. + +I had gone out, I remember, sad and alone, into the wintry park. By my +side trotted Bear, my father's faithful setter, who every now and then +thrust his moist and affectionate nose into my hand. In my thoughts I +was trying to face what the future might have in store for me. + +"When my little Tioka grows up," I said to myself, "I know, alas! that I +shall lose him. He will want to live with his father: he will look +forward to entering upon life under happy and propitious auspices. Yes, +Tioka will leave me, I know. But my little girl will stay with me. Tania +will be my very own. She will grow up, fair and gentle, by my side; I +shall forget my sorrows in her clinging love; I shall live my life over +again in hers. I shall be renewed, in strength and purity, in my +daughter's stainless youth." + +As I thus reflected I saw my mother running to meet me, her gray head +bare in the icy wind; she was weeping bitterly. Tania was gone! Vassili +had taken her away! + +Notwithstanding all my tears and prayers it was never vouchsafed to me +to see my little girl again. + +But when the day came in which they sought to tear my son from me as +well, I fought like a maddened creature, vowing that no human power +should take him from me while I lived. I fled with him from Otrada--I +fled I knew not and cared not whither, clasping in my arms my tender +fair-haired prey, watching over him in terror, guarding him with fervent +prayers. I fled, hunted onward by the restlessness that was in my own +blood, pursued by the bats of madness in my brain. + +Thus began my aimless wanderings that were to lead me so far astray. + +Alone with little Tioka and the humble Elise Perrier, I took to the +highways of the world. + +How helpless and terrified we were, all three of us! It was like living +in a melancholy fairy tale; it was like the story of the babes lost in +the wood. Sometimes, in the midst of a street in some great unknown +city, little Tioka would stop and say: "Mother, let us find some one who +knows us, and ask them where we are to go and what we are to do." + +"No, no! Nobody must know us, Tioka." + +Then Tioka would begin to cry. "I feel as if we were lost, as if we were +lost!..." And I knew not how to comfort him. + +One day--we were at Moscow, I remember--there appeared to me for the first +time that lean and threatening wolf which is called--_Poverty_. Poverty! +I had never seen it at close range before. I almost thought it did not +really exist. I knew, to be sure, that there were people in the world +who were in need of money; but those were the people whom we gave +charity to; that was all. + +Poverty? What had poverty to do with us? + +During all my life I had never given a thought to money. + + + + +XX + + +"Elise, I cannot bear to see myself in this ugly black dress any longer. +Write to Schanz and tell him to send me some new gowns. I want a dark +green tailor-made costume, and a pearl-gray voile." + +"Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, Schanz says that he +would like to be paid." + +"Well, let us pay him then." + +"Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, his bill is +twenty-five thousand rubles." + +"Well, let him have them." + +"I am sorry, my lady, but we have not got twenty-five thousand rubles." + +It was true. We had not got twenty-five thousand rubles. + +"Elise, Tioka wants to be amused. He would like a toy railway." + +"Yes, my lady." + +"Mind," cried Tioka, "it must be like the one we saw yesterday, with all +those stations and canals, and a Brooklyn bridge." + +"Yes, Master Tioka." + +"Well, Elise, what are you waiting for?" + +"Begging your ladyship's pardon, it costs eighty rubles." + +"Well?" + +"We have not got them." + +True enough; we had not got eighty rubles. + +"Elise, I have no more perfumes. Go and get me a bottle of Coty's +Origant." + +"Yes, my lady. But--" + +"But what?" + +"It costs twelve rubles." + +"Well?" + +"We have not got them." + +And indeed we had not got twelve rubles. + +I thought it very sad not to have twenty-five thousand rubles, nor even +twelve rubles, when I required them. + +I resolved to telegraph to my mother. + +Feeling sad and perplexed, I went to the telegraph office and sat down +at a table to write my message: + +"Mother, dear, we are unhappy and forlorn; Tioka and I want to come home +and stay with you always. Please send us at once--" + +I was meditating on what sum to mention, when I felt the touch of a hand +upon my shoulder. Startled, I turned, and raised my eyes. Before me +stood a man--dark, rather tall, with a brown mustache and pendulous +cheeks. Surely I knew him! Where had I seen that face before? Suddenly +there flashed into my mind the recollection of a crowded, brilliantly +lighted restaurant. I saw Vassili, amid much laughter, counting the +dark-eyed tziganes to see if one of them were missing--_Prilukoff!_ "The +Scorpion!" It was he who stood before me. + +"Countess Tarnowska! Who would have dreamt of finding you here!" he +exclaimed. "What are you doing in Moscow?" + +"I--I do not know," I stammered. I had in fact not infrequently asked +myself what I was doing in Moscow. + +"I have heard of all your misfortunes," he said, lowering his voice, and +gazing at me sympathetically. "I have read the papers and heard all the +fuss. Come now, come," he added, "you must not weep. Let us go and have +tea at the Metropole; there we can talk together." And he took me +familiarly by the arm. + +I drew back. "I wanted to telegraph--," I began. + +"Telegraph? To whom?" inquired Prilukoff with an authoritative air. + +"To my mother." + +"Why? What do you want to telegraph to her for?" + +I flushed. "I--I have no money--" I stammered. + +"Well, I have," said Prilukoff, and he drew me out of the office. + +At the top of the steps he stopped and looked me in the face. "What a +fortunate meeting!" he said. "Our lucky star must have brought it +about." With these words his brown eyes looked straight into mine. "Our +lucky star!" he repeated. + +Merciful heaven, why did not a whisper, not a breath of warning come to +me then? Why did no tremor in my soul admonish me, no heavenly +inspiration hold me back? Nothing, nothing checked the smile upon my +lips, nor the words in which I gaily answered him: + +"Our lucky star! So be it." And I took his arm. + +The die of my destiny was cast. I went out on my way to destruction and +ruin. + + +There were many people and much music in the Metropole when we entered. + +It is strange to think how all the memorable and significant hours of my +life are associated in my mind with the entrancing rhythm of +dance-music, with the lilting tunes of waltz, mazurka and polonaise. + +All the tragedies, all the extravagances that convulsed my existence +bloomed up like tragic modern flowers in the hothouse of some +fashionable restaurant, under the feverish breath of a tzigane +orchestra. + +So great became the power of this obsession over me, that no sooner did +I enter a restaurant where there were people, and lights, and the music +of stringed instruments, than I straightway felt as if I had lost my +senses. Under the influence of such an atmosphere all my thoughts +assumed disordered and extravagant forms. The tones of the violins +excited and electrified me; as the bows swept the quivering strings I +also quivered and vibrated, shaken with indescribable perturbation. The +waves of sound seemed to envelop me in a turbid vortex of sentiment and +sensibility. + +Ah, if there had been more silence in my life, more shade, more +seclusion! It is not within the safe walls of the home, not at one's own +peaceful and inviolate hearth that perversity stirs to life and +catastrophe is born. + +Oh! Tania, my only daughter, if the wishes of your sorrowful mother +could but reach you and her prayers for you be granted, they would +encompass with shade and silence your young and virginal heart. + +And I--ah, if I could but go back to the white vacant land of childhood, +I would kneel down and entreat from heaven naught else but shade and +silence in my life.... + +But in the Cafe Metropole the blazing lights were lit, the orchestra was +swinging its unhallowed censer of waltz-music through the perfumed air +and the Scorpion was sitting before me drinking his tea and laughing. + +"Do you remember how much afraid you were of me at the Strelna, when I +jumped from the divan and touched your shoulder? And afterwards--when you +found me asleep at the bottom of the sleigh?" + +Yes, I remembered. + +"And now you are no longer afraid of me?" + +No. Now I was no longer afraid of him. + +Fate, the Fury, standing behind me, must have laughed as with her +nebulous hand she covered my smiling eyes. + + + + +XXI + + +What charmed and delighted me most in the Scorpion was a pet phrase of +his that he was constantly using: "_Leave that to me!_" + +He said it every minute, a hundred times a day. Occasionally there might +be a slight variation; he might say, "Don't trouble your head about +that"; or "Never mind, I'll see to it." But as a rule it was the brief +enchanting sentence: "Leave that to me." + +I cannot possibly describe the sense of utter relief and comfort with +which those few words inspired me. I felt unburdened, as it were, +exonerated, set free from every responsibility, from every anxiety, +almost from every thought. It was as if Prilukoff had said of my very +soul, "Leave it to me," so complete was my sense of tranquil +relinquishment. + +In truth I had never given much thought to the practical side of life. +No sense of responsibility had ever weighed upon my narrow shoulders; +there had always been so many people around me to give me advice, to +direct me, to think and to act on my behalf! + +When I had suddenly found myself alone in the world with Tioka and Elise +I had felt more frightened and more helpless than they. But now, here +once more was some one ready to direct me, ready to think and act and +decide for me. Occasionally, realizing my position, I exclaimed +anxiously: "Dear me, what shall I do about money?" + +Prilukoff would answer briefly: "Leave that to me." + +"But how shall I pay my bills?" + +"Leave your bills to me." + +"And how shall I prevent Vassili from robbing me of Tioka!" + +"Don't bother about Tioka. Leave him to me." + +"And, oh dear! I wish I could be divorced from Vassili." + +"You shall be divorced; I shall see to it." + +"But what will my mother say?" + +"Leave your mother to me." + +There seemed to be nothing in the world that could not be left to the +omniscient and all-sufficing care of Donat Prilukoff. I was deeply moved +and grateful. + +"How shall I ever be able to thank you?" + +"Leave the thanking to me," said Prilukoff. + +For a long time, indeed, he seemed neither to desire nor expect any +gratitude. He looked after my interests, my divorce, my parents, my son, +my maid, my debts, and my health. But he asked for no thanks; all he +required was that I should be docile and content. + +It was a period of respite. Soon I forgot that I had ever thought of him +as a Scorpion or an octopus. Indeed, he was to my eyes a strange and +delightful mixture of knight errant, of guardian saint, of +commissionaire and hero. + +I did not feel then that every favor, every counsel I asked of him, was +but another link in the subtle chain that bound me to him. + +Soon I was unable to do anything without asking for his opinion and his +assistance. Tioka, Elise and I grew accustomed to see him arrive with +his masterful air and brisk greeting every afternoon; then every +morning; then every evening as well. We never went out without him; no +letter was received or written without its being given to him to read. + +If Tioka broke a toy, if Elise was overcharged in an account, if I +received an anonymous letter, it was immediately referred to Prilukoff. +He put everything into his pocket, saying: "Leave that to me." + +And, true to his word, he mended the toys, he adjusted the accounts, he +discovered and punished my anonymous slanderers. He was astute, +deliberate and intelligent. + +I felt convinced that he was also kind and generous and good. + +Who can say that in those days he was not so? The dreadful Prilukoff, +assassin and blackmailer, who turned against me, livid with wrath, in +the court-room at Venice, was he--could he be?--the same Prilukoff who, in +those far-off days, mended little Tioka's playthings? Who was so anxious +if he saw me looking pale? Of whom Elise, clasping her work-worn hands, +used to say: "When he appears he seems to me like Lohengrin!" + +Lohengrin! How bitterly I smile, remembering all that ensued. And yet--I +cannot believe it. I cannot understand it. Which of those two beings--the +maleficent demon or the chivalrous knight--was the real Prilukoff? + +Perhaps, when these sinister years of prison and sorrow are past that +cancel in their flight so many things, and shed light upon so many +others, some day he may cross my path again. Shall I then not discern in +his faded, grief-stricken face the strong and compassionate Lohengrin of +long ago?... + +Meanwhile I drifted on, submissive to my fate. + +Only two things perturbed me. One was the fear lest Tioka should be +taken from me--an anguish that was with me day and night. The other was a +torturing secret, which I confided to no one. It was--how shall I say +it?--my terror of closed doors! + +Every time I found myself alone in front of a closed door, I did not +dare to open it. I had the fixed, frightful idea that behind the door I +should see--Bozevsky! I had the irremovable conviction that he was +standing, motionless and expectant, behind every door that confronted +me. All the doors of our apartment had to be kept wide open. If it ever +happened that I found myself alone in a room of which the door was +closed, instead of opening it I rang the bell, I called, I cried for +help; and if it chanced that every one was out, or no one heard me, I +stood riveted to the spot, rigid with fear, staring at the terrifying +mystery of that closed door before me. Perchance, with a great effort of +will, holding my breath while the beads of cold perspiration started on +my brow, I ventured to put out my hand towards the handle--but in an +instant I found myself pushing the door to again, leaning desperately +with all my strength against the frail barrier which concealed--oh, I +knew it did!--Bozevsky, standing upright and terrible, with the yellow +gauze round his neck. + +This notion, horrible as it was in the daytime, became an unbearable +fear after nightfall. Tioka went upstairs to bed, accompanied by Elise, +at about eight o'clock. Twice it happened that, when they were both +asleep, a draught caught the open door of the drawing-room in which I +was sitting, and shut it. With chattering teeth, and shivers running +over me like chilly water, I remained there, motionless, through all the +hours of the night, knowing that Bozevsky was there, separated from me +only by that slender wooden partition. + +In the morning Elise found me lying on the floor in a faint. + +One day Elise was summoned to Neuchatel. Her father was at the point of +death, and wished to give his last embrace and blessing to his only +daughter. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the telegram for +Elise arrived; at eight o'clock, distracted and weeping, she was in the +train. + +Tioka and I, who had accompanied her to the station, returned homeward +feeling sad and lonely. We felt doubly lonely that day, as Donat +Prilukoff had been obliged to leave Moscow on account of a lawsuit, and +was not to return until the following evening. + +We had, it is true, another serving-woman, a cook; but she left us every +evening to go and sleep at her own home. + +We entered our dark and silent apartment nervously. I hastily turned on +all the lights and then carried Tioka, who was cross and already half +asleep, up the inner staircase leading to our bedrooms. + +I undressed him and put him to bed, tucking him up warmly and +comfortably. + +"Oh, dear," he sighed, rubbing his eyes; "do you think the wolves will +come and eat me if I don't say my prayers to-night?" + +"No, no, dearest. I will say them for you. Go to sleep." + +I kissed him and turned out the light; then I went downstairs to get a +book from the library, intending to return to my room at once. I felt +nervous and restless. I was afraid I should not be able to sleep. + +How did it happen? Perhaps it was an instant's forgetfulness that caused +me to draw the door of the library after me. It closed with a heavy +thud. The long, dark-red curtain turned on its rod and fell in front of +the doorway. + +I was imprisoned! + + + + +XXII + + +I should never dare to leave that room. + +Suddenly I thought that Tioka might call me. But between him and me, +standing outside on the threshold of that draped door, was there not the +man whom I had seen die in Yalta? Horrifying memory! For a long time I +did not venture to stir. I turned my head and looked behind me, then +fixed my eyes afresh on the red curtain. Suddenly I thought I heard a +cry. + +Yes; it was Tioka calling me, Tioka all alone upstairs, who was +frightened too, frightened even as I was. With shivers swathing me from +head to foot as with an icy sheet, I listened to those cries which every +moment grew shriller and wilder. Then, in answer to him, I screamed too. + +Oh, those shrieks ringing through the empty house--shrieks which only +that silent ghost behind the door could hear! + +Suddenly another thrill ran through me; the electric bell had sounded. +Some one was ringing at our door; some one was coming to save us. Tioka +still screamed, and the bell continued to ring. I could also hear blows +on the door and then a voice--Prilukoff's voice--calling: "It is I. Open +the door!" + +With a sob of mingled terror and joy I thrust back the curtain and flung +open the dreaded door. Stumbling blindly through the passage I reached +the hall door and drew back the latch. Prilukoff stood on the threshold; +he was pale as death. + +"What has happened?" he cried. "What is the matter?" And he gripped my +arm. + +I was sobbing with joy and relief. "Tioka, Tioka!" I called out. "Don't +cry any more. Donat has come! We are here, we are near you!" + +Tioka's cries ceased at once. + +But Prilukoff still held me fast. "What has happened!" he asked, +clenching his teeth. + +"I was afraid, I was afraid--" I gasped. + +"Of whom?" + +A fresh outburst of tears shook me. "Of the dead," I sobbed. + +"Leave the dead to me," said Prilukoff. + +He entered and shut the door. + + * * * * * + +Thus, unconscious and unwilling, I descended yet another step down the +ladder of infamy. + +Shrinking and reluctant I trailed my white garments into defilement, +sinking with every step deeper into the mire which was soon to engulf +me; the mire which was to reach my proud heart, my pearl-encircled +throat, my exalted brow on which nobility had set its seal in vain. + +It was about that time, I remember, that Delphinus, a renowned +fortune-teller, came to Moscow. One morning, having nothing else to do, +I went with the smiling, skeptical Elise to consult him in his luxurious +apartments. + +He took both my hands and gazed for a long time at a crystal ball which +was before him. Then he said: "Woman, your life is a tragedy." + +I smiled, incredulous yet disturbed. "Pray say rather a comedy, if you +can." + +He shook his head. "A tragedy," he repeated gloomily. Then he uttered +several commonplaces which might apply to any other woman as well as to +me. Finally, with knitted brows, he looked still more closely into the +crystal. "Two men," he said, speaking slowly, "have yet to enter into +your life. One will bring salvation, the other ruin. Choose the one, and +you will attain happiness; choose the other and you will perish." + +He paused. "You will choose the other," he said, and released my hand. + +I got up, smiling. "Oh, no, indeed! Now that I have been forewarned--" + +"You will choose the other," he repeated oracularly. "It is your +destiny." + +Although I am not really superstitious, this curt, obscure prediction +impressed me strangely. + +"I shall beware of whom I meet," I said to myself; and indeed, every +time a man spoke to me, even casually, I wondered: could this be the +One?--or the Other? + +But days and months passed, and I made no new acquaintances. + +Prilukoff kept me jealously secluded, and little Tioka absorbed my every +hour. Apart from these two I saw no one at all. + +It was by mere chance that one day I met a former acquaintance. + +I had taken Tioka for a walk in the park when we saw a gentleman and a +child sitting on a bench in the shade. They were both dressed in deep +mourning, and they looked sad and disconsolate. The little boy was +leaning his fair head on his father's arm, watching him as, with an air +of melancholy abstraction, he traced hieroglyphics in the gravel with +his stick. On hearing us approach the man in mourning raised his head +and looked at us. + +I recognized him at once. It was Count Paul Kamarowsky, the husband of +one of my dearest friends, who lived at Dresden, and whom I had not seen +for nearly two years. + +He recognized me, too, and started to his feet with eager face, while +the little boy looked at us diffidently, still holding to his father's +sleeve. + +"Countess Tarnowska!" he exclaimed, holding out both his hands. + +I laid my hand in his; as he clasped it between his black-gloved fingers +a slight shiver ran through me. I turned to the pale little child beside +him who was still glancing up at me timidly. "Is this Grania?" + +"Yes. It is Grania," said Count Kamarowsky. Then he perceived my +questioning glance at his mourning. "Poor Emilia--" he began, but his +voice broke. + +"Poor Emilia?" Was it possible that my little school friend of long ago, +the fair-haired, laughter-loving Lily should now be "poor Emilia," to be +spoken of in solemn, mournful tones? I could hardly believe it. I seemed +to see her still, bending over her 'cello with her fair curls tumbling +over her face as she played her favorite Popper tarantelle.... I could +see her laughing with mischievous eyes agleam behind her flaxen locks, +like dark stars seen through a golden cloud. And here, clad in mourning +for her, her husband and child stood before me. + +Great tenderness and pity filled my heart. + +Tioka had gone close to Grania, and the two children were looking at +each other with that expression of simple gravity which is so far +removed from the conventional smile with which grown-up people greet +each other for the first time. Their gaze was serious, thoughtful and +interrogative. + +"Do you like pelicans?" Tioka inquired suddenly. + +"No," said Grania. + +"Neither do I," said Tioka; and there was a long silence. + +"Do you like ducks?" asked Tioka. + +"Yes," replied Grania. + +"So do I," said Tioka; and their friendship was sealed. + +Count Kamarowsky and I were less prompt in discovering a community of +tastes such as that which so quickly linked our two children together. +This grave silent man in his widower's garb was almost a stranger to me. +As we parted he asked permission to call. But on the following day a +telegram from my father summoned me to Otrada. My mother was ill and +desired my presence. + + + + +XXIII + + +It was a hurried departure and an anxious journey. We arrived late in +the evening at my father's house. He came to meet us at the gate, tall +and solemn, his white hair stirred by the wind. He kissed me without +speaking and laid his hand on Tioka's head. + +"Mother--?" I scarcely dared to inquire. + +"Better. She is better. She has improved greatly since she knew you were +coming." + +Tioka had hurriedly kissed his grandfather's hand, and now was hastening +up the great staircase to see his grandmother, to whom he was +passionately attached. Soon his rippling laughter and his nimble +footsteps could be heard all over the house, and my mother said that the +happiness of it had well-nigh cured her. + +It was scarcely daybreak next morning when Tioka came to call me to go +down with him into the garden. + +The great garden at Otrada--the garden of my girlhood--glowed in all its +summer splendor, and Tioka ran before me with cries of joy at everything +he saw. + +"Look at the water! Look at the little bridge! Did you play here when +you were little? Were you ever really little?" He looked at me +doubtfully. "I mean really quite little--like Tania." + +The mention of his sister's name was like a blow to my heart. But Tioka +was already flying across the lawn. + +"Oh," he cried. "There's the swing! I had forgotten there was a swing! +Hurrah!" + +"Hush, hush, dearest," I warned; "don't disturb grandmama who is ill." + +He swung backwards and forwards, careless and handsome, shaking his +blond hair in the wind. + +"Grandmama cannot hear me; she is fast asleep still. And besides she is +not ill any more now that we are here; otherwise grandpapa would not +have gone to Kieff to-day." Tioka jumped down from the swing and raised +his face to me with adorable seriousness. "Tell me, mother, when one is +ill with nervousness doesn't that mean that you want something you +haven't got? Then if you get it you are well again, aren't you? +Grandmama wanted us. We came. And now she is cured." After a pause he +went on: "I think I am ill with nervousness too. I am nervous for a bowl +of goldfish; and for a hunting dog like that one," he added, indicating +a large setter lying stretched in the sun with his muzzle on his paws. + +"Why, that is Bear!" I cried, "our old Bear." I bent down to caress him. +"Dear Bear, good Bear! Don't you recognize me?" + +Bear raised his languid, blood-shot eyes, but did not stir. + +"How sad he looks," I said, touching his muzzle to see whether his nose +was hot. "Perhaps he is ill." + +"Perhaps he is nervous, too," said Tioka. "Very likely he is nervous +because he wants a bone." And the child broke into a peal of shrill, +merry laughter. + +In an instant the great dog had turned and leaped upon him. Snarling and +growling he tore at his clothes, covering his shoulders and breast with +blood-stained foam. + +Tioka fell shrieking to the ground. I flung myself upon the frenzied +animal, seizing him by the collar, by the ears, and striving to drag him +back; but with hoarse growls and snappish barks the dog kept biting and +tearing the child's garments as he lay prostrate and inert on the +gravel. With one hand I clutched the neck of the dog, while with the +other I picked up a stone and beat him on the head with it until the +blood ran. + +With a roar like that of a tiger, the animal turned and sprang upon me. + +I felt the sting of his fang as it bit into my arm, and I struck his +nose with the stone which was already covered with blood. With a cry of +pain that had almost a human sound, the dog released his hold, turned +and went off. + +I saw him trotting away along the path, surly and dreadful, with his +tail hanging down and his wounded head showing red in the sunshine. + +I picked up the moaning, sobbing Tioka and ran with him to the house. + +"Don't cry! don't cry, my darling," I implored him, myself in tears. +"Don't let poor grandmama hear you! It will kill her." And Tioka tried +his best to cry more softly. We crossed the courtyard to the servants' +entrance, and I ran into the kitchen where the servants came thronging +round us in alarm. + +"The dog--," I panted, "the dog has bitten us--do you think it will give +us hydrophobia?" With a groan I dropped little Tioka into a chair; he +was a pitiable sight in his torn and bloodstained garments. + +The women and the two moujiks wrung their hands. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! +What shall we do? With the master at Kieff and the Countess ill in bed!" + +The cook had filled a basin with boiling water and was laving Tioka's +wounds, while he screamed with the redoubled pain. + +I knew it was necessary to do something instantly. But what? I +remembered having read in the life of the three Bronte sisters that one +of those heroic girls had been bitten by a mad dog, and that she +herself, without disturbing her sister, who was ill with consumption, +had heated an iron red-hot and had cauterized her own wounds. + +"Put an iron in the fire!" I said, pointing with trembling hand to the +poker. + +The dismayed women did so, and I bared my arm and little Tioka's +lacerated shoulder. + +But when I had the terrible instrument with its glowing point in my +hand, my courage failed. Tioka was shrieking with terror like a poor +little maddened creature, and the women were on their knees, weeping and +praying. + +Alas, I am not a heroine; I threw away the red-hot iron; we bound up the +wounds--which, after they had been washed, looked insignificant and +harmless enough--and determined to go to Kieff at once and consult a +doctor. We went upstairs on tip-toe to my mother's room. She was still +sleeping quietly, with her small, pinched face sunk in the pillow. + +We did not venture to wake her and tell her our terrifying story. We +left orders with the servants that they were to say my father had +summoned us to meet him in Kieff; and we started. + +All the way I watched Tioka with the deepest anxiety. I also probed my +own feelings intently, wondering whether I felt any desire to bark. I +cannot say that I did. Also, during the entire journey, I kept on +showing Tioka glasses of water, but he did not seem to feel any the +worse for them; nor did I. This comforted us a little. + +As soon as we reached Kieff I telegraphed to Prilukoff: + +"_Both of us bitten by mad dog. What shall we do?_" + +He replied: "_All right. Leave it to me._" + +And, indeed, he arrived immediately and took us to Doctor Fritkof, who +gave us injections of antirabic serum for three weeks. It made us feel +very ill. Every minute I asked Tioka: "Do you feel inclined to bite any +one?" + +He invariably replied in the affirmative, which made me very miserable. + + + + +XXIV + + +Although Tioka and I both recovered, this alarming incident had its +consequences on my life. It caused me to leave my old home, and from the +moment of that departure I never saw my dear mother again. + +With the passing of her mild and tender presence all that still was pure +and holy vanished out of my life. + +I was already on the brink of perdition. Freed from the restraint of +that gentle hand, whose light touch even from afar had still controlled +my heart, I plunged forward to destruction. + + +The inheritance was divided, and my share was dissipated I know not how. +I returned to Moscow, and found myself ever more and more in need of +money. + +I lived luxuriously, I dressed gorgeously, and traveled from one place +to another--yet I had nothing of my own except an income of four thousand +rubles a year, which were scarcely paid to me before they were swallowed +up in the gulf of my debts. I asked Prilukoff for money, and he gave it +to me. + +But there came a day when, on my asking him for five thousand rubles, he +turned upon me abruptly. + +"I have not got them," he said. "At least," he added, "not unless I +steal them." + +"How dreadful," I exclaimed in terror. "How can you say such a thing?" +Then I laughed, feeling sure that he had spoken in jest. + +"Get them from Kamarowsky," said Prilukoff, curtly. + +I started with indignation. From Kamarowsky! Never, never, as long as I +lived. I had seen him frequently during the last few days; he and his +charming little son, Grania, still in their deep mourning and with pale, +sad faces, used to come and see me, and talk to me with many tears about +their dear one who was gone. It would have been horrible, it would have +been indecorous, to ask Kamarowsky for money. + +"I did not say you were to ask him for it," retorted Prilukoff. + +"What then?" + +"Telephone and invite him to dine with you to-morrow." + +"Well? And then?" + +"Then we shall see." + +As he insisted I complied reluctantly. + +Kamarowsky accepted the invitation with touching gratitude, and a large +basket of roses preceded his arrival. + +Prilukoff, who was still hanging about in my boudoir, but declared that +he would not stay to dinner, sniffed the roses with a cynical smile: + +"Flowers! Flowers! Nothing but flowers! _Nous allons changer tout +cela._" + +The door bell rang, announcing the arrival of my visitor. + +"What am I to do with him now he is here?" I asked Prilukoff uneasily. +"What shall I say?" + +"Do nothing and say nothing. And mind you don't open any letter in his +presence." + +"Any letter?" I asked, in bewilderment. "What letter?" + +"I tell you not to open any. That is enough." With this obscure +injunction Prilukoff urged me towards the drawing-room, and I went in to +receive my guest. + +Count Kamarowsky, while inspiring me with the deepest pity, frequently +irritated and annoyed me. His grief for his lost Emilia was doubtless +deep and sincere; but sometimes when I tried to console him I seemed to +read in his tear-filled eyes an emotion that was not all sorrow, and in +the clasp of his hand I perceived a fervor that spoke of something more +than gratitude. I felt hurt for the sake of my poor friend, Lily, so +lately laid to her rest; and I shrank from him with feelings akin to +anger and aversion. + +Yet, when I saw him moving away, pale in his deep mourning, leading his +sad little child by the hand, my heart was touched and I would call them +back to me and try to comfort them both. The child clung to me with +passionate affection, while his father seemed loth ever to leave my +side. + +Conversation between us always soared in the highest regions of ethereal +and spiritual things; our talk was all on abstract subjects, dwelling +especially on the immortality of the soul, the abode of the departed, +the probabilities of reunion in the world beyond. The commonplace +everyday prose of life was so far removed from our intercourse that I +felt shy of having asked him to dinner. To eat in the presence of so +much sorrow seemed indecorous and out of keeping. Nevertheless, as I had +invited him to dine I could not but seat myself opposite him at the +flower-decked, fruit-laden table. + +A man-servant, lent to me for the occasion by Prilukoff, handed the +zakusta and the vodka; and soon in the mellow atmosphere of the little +dining-room, under the gentle luster of the pink-shaded lamps, a rare +smile blossomed timidly now and then out of the gloom of our melancholy +conversation. + +We had scarcely finished taking our coffee when, to my astonishment, +Prilukoff was announced. He entered with rapid step, holding a large +sealed envelope in his hand. For a moment he seemed disconcerted at +finding that I was not alone, and looked as if he would hide the letter +behind his back. Then, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, as if +acquiescing in the unavoidable presence of a stranger, he handed me the +envelope with a deep bow. + +"What is it?" I asked in surprise. + +Prilukoff glanced somewhat uneasily at my guest, then he bent forward +and said in a low voice--yet not so low that the other could not hear +what he said: + +"This morning, Countess, you did me the honor of confiding to me the +fact that you needed ten thousand rubles. I shall be most grateful and +honored if you will accept that sum from me." So saying, he placed the +envelope in my hand. Then with a brief salutation to Count Kamarowsky +and another profound bow to me, he pleaded haste and withdrew. + +A flush had mounted to the Count's temples. + +"Who was that?" he asked in a harsh voice. + +I mentioned Prilukoff's name, and Kamarowsky with knitted eyebrows +exclaimed: "You must have very confidential relations with him, if he +permits himself to give you ten thousand rubles." + +"Oh, no--no," I stammered. "He is--he is only lending them to me. I shall +pay them back, of course--" + +Kamarowsky had risen from his chair. He took both my hands and pressed +them to his breast. + +"How wrong of you! How wrong! Why did you not ask me? Have you no +confidence in me? How can you accept assistance from a stranger when I +am here--I, who am so devoted to you?" + +I know not why I burst into tears. A sense of shame and degradation +overcame me. In a moment his arms were round me. + +"Dearest, sweetest, do not cry. I know you must feel humiliated at +accepting money from that man, who may afterwards make all kinds of +claims upon you. Return the money to him, I implore you, and accept it +from me." + +I could not answer for my tears. + +"Promise me that you will give it back," Kamarowsky went on, clasping me +closer to him. "If you refuse me this favor I shall go away and you +shall never see me again. For the sake of our Emilia--for the sake of +little Grania--accept it from me. And let me be your friend from now on +and forever." + +It took a long time to reconcile me to the sense of my own debasement. + +He wrote out a check to me for ten thousand rubles and put it into my +hands. He closed my fingers forcibly over it, pressing them closely and +thanking me in a moved voice. + +Then he went away, and I was left alone with the check and Prilukoff's +sealed envelope. + +I had wanted five thousand rubles and here I was with twenty thousand +before me! + +Poor, good Kamarowsky! And poor, dear, kind Prilukoff! + +"I do not see why I should really return this to Prilukoff!" I said to +myself. + +I broke the seals and opened the envelope that he had presented to me +with so much solemnity. Petrified with astonishment I gazed at its +contents. Then I laughed softly. + +"On the whole, I think I _will_ return it," I said, and laid the +envelope aside. + +It was full of old newspaper cuttings! + + + + +XXV + + +_Facilis descensus Averni._ + +My downfall was rapid and irretrievable. + +I soon became familiar with expedients and intrigues, I trod the +tortuous paths that lead down into the valley of dishonor. For the +outside world I might still appear a person of distinction, I might +still call myself the Countess Tarnowska, but I had ceased to be that +simple, ordinary, peerless being--an honest woman. I seemed to be +surrounded by that peculiar atmosphere which envelops the adventuress as +in an invisible mist--that imperceptible emanation by which persons of +repute are instinctively repelled, and which draws within its ambit the +idler and adventurer, the depredator and outcast of society. + +I had accepted money to which I had no claim. From this want of dignity +to the want of rectitude how brief is the step! Between indiscretion and +transgression how uncertain is the boundary! And suddenly there comes a +day when one awakes to find oneself--a criminal! + +Ah, then we stop short in horror. We look back and see the abyss, the +impassable gulf that henceforward separates us from the distant, candid +summits of innocence. How has it been possible for us to travel along +that vertiginous road which knows no return? What evil spirits have +bandaged our eyes, have placed for our feet bridges and stepping stones +so that almost without noticing it we have crossed ravines and +precipices which never in this life we may traverse again? We can but go +forward and downward: we can turn back no more. + +Not at this period did I realize the irrevocable character of the fate I +had chosen. Rather did I seem to perceive a new life opening out before +me, leading me back once more to rectitude and honor, a return to that +peaceful, conventional existence so often scorned by those who lead it, +so bitterly regretted and desired by those who have forfeited and +forsaken it. + +Prilukoff still held me bound to him by the triple bonds of gratitude, +of affection and of complicity. But Count Kamarowsky was swaying me +towards a brighter and securer future. My marriage with Vassili, so long +merely an empty and nominal tie, was about to be dissolved by a decree +from the Holy Synod, and Kamarowsky implored me to marry him. His +sadness and the loneliness of his little son moved me deeply; the +thought of bringing light and joy into their lives was unspeakably sweet +to me, while for my part I rejoiced to think that by the side of a +worthy and honorable man I might take my place in the world once more, +rehabilitated and redeemed. With Prilukoff, as I could see, downfall and +ruin were imminent. He had left Moscow for a few days; but he would +return, and alas! he would resume his dominion over me. I knew that with +him the ultimate plunge into dishonor was inevitable. + +And so with bitter tears of repentance, clasping the two fair heads of +Tioka and Grania to my breast, I vowed to Heaven that I would be to them +both a tender and a faithful mother, worthy of the lofty duty that by +Divine grace was to be once more assigned to me. + +Count Kamarowsky's gratitude and joy were boundless. + +"You are giving back life to me," he said, his kind eyes shining with +emotion. "I do not feel worthy of so much happiness." + +"Don't, don't!" I said, turning away my face and flushing deeply at the +thought of my recent unprincipled life. "It is I, I who am unworthy--" + +But Kamarowsky interrupted me. + +"Hush, Marie, hush. I know that you have suffered much and that you have +been led astray. But let the dead past bury the past. All I ask of you +is the pure white page of the future." + +"You are generous, you are kind," I said, and tears burned in my eyes. +"But let me tell you, let me tell you all--" + +"Mura," he said, calling me by the tender pet-name of my childhood, "do +not raise impassable barriers between us. What I have no knowledge of +does not exist so far as I am concerned. The unknown is but a shadow; +and I am not afraid of shadows. But if to that shadow you give a living +shape and a name, it will rise between you and me, and I shall not be +able to clasp you in my arms until I have destroyed it. Speak if you +must. But, for our happiness, it were far better for you to keep +silence--and to forget." + +"Ah, you are right! Let there be no more sorrow, no more tragedies +around me. Take me away from Moscow, away from all who know me. I will +keep silence, and forget." + +Our departure from Moscow was like a flight. I left a letter for +Prilukoff, entreating him to forgive and forget me, begging him not to +debar me from taking my way again towards safety and rehabilitation. I +expressed to him my sympathy, my gratitude and regret; and I implored +him in the name of all that he still held dear or sacred to return to +his family and to his career, to the lofty and straightforward course of +honor from which I, unhappy creature that I was, had unwittingly, +unwillingly turned him aside. + +Kamarowsky took us to the Riviera--from the snows of the north to the +fragrant orange-groves of Nice and Hyeres. The tinkling of sleighs +gliding through the blue-cold streets of Moscow still seemed to ring in +my ears when, lo! the lazy, sun-warm silence of the south enwrapped my +senses in its languorous sweetness. The two children, dazed with the +heat and the blueness around them, stood in amazement, with hands +clasped and mouths open, at the sight of the golden oranges and the huge +foliage of cacti and aloes, thinking that by some wonder-working charm +they had been carried into fairyland. + +The distant sails, aslant on the radiant indigo of the sea, looked like +white butterflies poised on a stupendous flower of lapis lazuli.... + +For three brief days I thought that fate had not overtaken me, and that +my sins would not find me out. + +My sins! As in the old German fable the children are led into the depths +of a forest, and left there to be lost and forgotten--even so did I think +that my sins would be lost and forgotten, even so did I think that they +would never issue again from the shade in which I had hidden them. + +Smiling, I moved forward to meet the future, exalted by the affection of +an honorable man, purified by the love of two innocent children. + +And I said in my heart: "Fate is pitiful and God has shown mercy. He has +suspended His judgment and has allowed me one last chance. I shall not +be found wanting; I shall be worthy of His clemency." + +Then lo! at a turning in my pathway, the forgotten avengers stand before +me; my sins, like spectral furies, have found me out! + +We were finishing dinner on the terrace of the Bellevue at Hyeres, my +betrothed and I. The children had said good night, had kissed and +embraced us and run off, chattering and twittering with Elise, to their +rooms. Kamarowsky had just lit a cigarette, and was leaning over to me +with a word of tenderness, when I perceived immediately behind him at a +neighboring table--a face, a grinning, fiendish face. + +My heart bounded. It was the Scorpion! + +Why was it that name that first rushed to my mind? Why was my primitive +sense of fear and repulsion renewed at the sight of him? + +Ah, that man staring and grimacing at me over Kamarowsky's shoulder was +not the friend, the lover, the knight of the heroic Saga whom I had +known and trusted in my days of desolation; no, he was the terrifying +and truculent monster of the octopus story; he was the Scorpion who +years ago had filled my soul with dread. + +When had he come? How long had he been sitting at that table, watching +my garrulous gladness, my timorous, reawakened happiness? + + + + +XXVI + + +I glanced at him apprehensively; I tried to greet him, but he made no +return to my timid salute. He was smiling with a crooked mouth, his arms +crossed before him on the table. He was mocking at Kamarowsky and at me, +and my terror seemed greatly to amuse him. + +I rose nervously, wishing to retire, but Kamarowsky detained me. + +"What is troubling you, dearest?" he asked, noticing my frightened eyes. +And he turned to see what was behind him. + +I trembled in prevision of a stormy scene. But the Count did not +recognize Prilukoff; he had only seen him once for a few moments that +evening in my drawing-room when he had brought me the mysterious sealed +envelope. Now Donat had his hat on his head; and besides, with that +sinister smirk distorting his face I scarcely recognized him myself. + +As soon as we rose from the table, Prilukoff did the same, and passing +in front of us entered the hotel before we did. I trembled, while +Kamarowsky with his arm in mine led me, talking placidly and +affectionately, towards the entrance of the hotel. Doubtless he intended +to accompany me to my sitting-room. But what if we found Prilukoff +there? + +It was Elise Perrier who saved me. As we stepped out of the lift I saw +her coming quickly down the corridor to meet us. + +"If you please, madame," she stammered, "there is a lady--a visitor"--her +lips were white as she uttered the falsehood--"who wishes to see madame. +She is waiting here, in the sitting-room, and she would like to--to see +your ladyship alone." + +"Who is it?" asked the Count. + +"I think it is the--that relation of madame's"--Elise was going red and +white by turns--"that relation from--from Otrada." + +"Ah, I know," I stammered breathlessly. "Aunt Sonia, perhaps." Then +turning to Kamarowsky: "Will you wait for me downstairs in the +reading-room?" + +"Very well. Don't be long." And Count Kamarowsky turned on his heel and +left us. + +I went rapidly on in front of Elise, who, humiliated by the falsehood +she had told, hung her head in shame both for herself and for me; and I +entered my sitting-room. + +On the couch, smoking a cigarette, sat Prilukoff. He did not rise when I +entered. He sat there smoking and looking at me with that curious +crooked smile. A great fear clutched my heart. + +"Donat," I stammered, "why did you not let me know you had arrived?" + +He made no answer; but he laughed loudly and coarsely, and my fear of +him increased. + +"Did you receive my letter? Are you cross with me?" + +"Cross?" he shouted, leaping to his feet, his eyes glaring like those of +a madman. "Cross? No, I am not cross." I recoiled from him in terror, +but he followed me, pushing his distorted face close to mine. "You ruin +a man, you drive him to perdition, and then you inquire whether he is +cross. You take an honorable man in your little talons, you turn and +twist him round your fingers, you mold him and transform him and turn +him into a coward, a rogue, and a thief; then you throw him aside like a +dirty rag--and you ask him if he is cross! Ha, ha!" And he laughed in my +face; he was ghastly to look at, livid in hue, with a swollen vein drawn +like a cord across his forehead. + +I burst into tears. "Why--why do you say that?" I sobbed. + +"Why do I say that?" stormed Prilukoff. "Why? Because I had a wife and I +betrayed her for you; I had two children and I forsook them for you; I +had a career and I lost it for you; I was a man of honor and I have +turned thief for you." + +"Oh, no, no!" I stammered, terrified. + +"What? No? No?" he exclaimed, and with trembling hands he searched his +breast-pocket and drew from it a bulky roll of banknotes. "No? This I +stole--and this--and this--and this--because you, vampire that you are, +needed money." + +"But I never told you to steal--" + +"No, indeed; you never told me to steal. And where was I to get the +money from? Where? Where?" So saying, he flung the banknotes in my face +and they fell all over and around me. "You did not tell me to steal, no. +But you wanted money, money, money. And now you have got it. Take it, +take it, take it!" + +I sobbed despairingly. "Oh, no, no, Donat! Have pity!" + +"I have had pity," he shouted. "I have always had pity--nothing but pity. +You were ill and miserable and alone, and I left my home in order to +stay with you. You wept, and I comforted you. You had no money, and I +stole it for you. How could I have more pity?" He was himself in tears. +"And now, because I am degraded and a criminal on your account, you +leave me, you fling me aside and you marry an honest man. And I may go +to perdition or to penal servitude." + +"Do not speak like that, I implore you." + +"Ah, but Countess Tarnowska, if I go to penal servitude, so shall you. I +swear it. I am a thief and may become a murderer; but if I go to prison, +you go too." He collapsed upon the sofa and hid his face in his hands. + +As I stood looking down upon him I saw as in a vision the somber road to +ruin that this man had traversed for my sake, and I fell on my knees at +his feet. + +"Donat! Donat! Do not despair. Forgive me, forgive me! Go back, and +return the money you have taken; go back and become an honest man +again!" + +He raised a haggard face in which his wild, bloodshot eyes seemed almost +phosphorescent. + +"There is no going back. By this time all Moscow knows that I have +absconded, and carried off with me the money that was confided to my +care." + +"But if you go back at once and return it?" + +"I am ruined all the same. I am utterly lost and undone. Who would ever +place their trust in me again? Who would ever rely upon my honor? No, I +am a criminal, and every one knows it. The brand of infamy is not to be +cancelled by a flash of tardy remorse. I am done for. I am a thief, and +that is all there is about it." + +A thief! I had never seen a thief. In my imagination thieves were all +slouching, unkempt roughs, with caps on their heads, and colored +handkerchiefs tied round their throats. And here was this gentleman in +evening dress--this gentleman who had been introduced to me as a +celebrated and impeccable lawyer, who had been my lover, and Tioka's +friend, and Elise's Lohengrin--and he was a thief! + +I could not believe it. + +At that moment a voice was heard outside. It was one of the bell-boys of +the hotel; he was passing through the corridor calling: "Forty-seven! +Number forty-seven." + +Prilukoff started. "Forty-seven? That is the number of my room. Who can +be asking for me? Who can know that I am here?" + +In his eyes there was already the look of the fugitive, the startled +flash of fear and defiance of the hunted quarry. + +I looked round me at all the banknotes scattered on the carpet, and I +felt myself turn cold. "Hide them, hide them," I whispered, wringing my +hands. + +"Hide them yourself!" he answered scornfully. + +I heard footsteps in the corridor. They drew near. They stopped. Some +one knocked at the door. Terror choked my throat and made my knees +totter. + +I stooped in haste to pick up all the money while Prilukoff still looked +at me without moving. I held it out to him in a great heap of crumpled +paper. But still he did not stir. + +Again the knocking was repeated. Who could it be? Kamarowsky? The +police? I opened a desk and flung the bundle of banknotes into it. + +Then I said, "Come in." + + + + +XXVII + + +It was only a saucy little page-boy in red uniform. + +"If you please, Count Kamarowsky sends word that he is waiting for you." + +"Say that I shall be down directly." + +"No," contradicted Prilukoff; "send word that you are not going down." + +"But then he will come here." + +"You will say that you cannot receive him." + +And that was what took place. And not on that evening only. Prilukoff +installed himself, during long days and evenings, in my apartments, and +refused to go away. Very often he did not even allow me to go out of the +room. + +Then came Count Kamarowsky knocking at the door. + +"No! no! You cannot come in!" cried Elise Perrier, pale and trembling, +leaning against the locked door. + +"But why? Why? What has happened?" + +"Nothing has happened. Madame is not feeling well," Elise would reply, +in quavering tones. + +"But that is all the more reason why I should see her," protested the +Count. "I must see her!" + +"It is impossible!" And Elise, whom fear rendered well-nigh voiceless, +would roll towards me her round, despairing eyes. + +Then the Count would speak to me through the closed door, entreating and +arguing; and every time he used a tender expression Prilukoff, who held +me fast, pinched my arm. + +"Mura, Mura, let me in. Let me see you for a moment. You know how I love +you (pinch); it is cruel to lock me out as if I were a stranger. If you +are ill let me take care of you, with all my tenderness (pinch), with +all my love (pinch)--" + +In feeble accents I would reply: "Forgive me--I shall soon be better--do +not trouble about me." + +"But what is the matter? Why do you not want to see me? Do you not love +me any more?" + +"Oh, yes, I love--(pinch). Please, please go away. I shall come down as +soon as I can." + +Then I could hear his slowly retreating footsteps, while Prilukoff +glared at me and, on general principles, pinched my arm again. + +It was with the greatest difficulty that I could conceal Prilukoff's +presence from little Tioka. + +One day the child caught sight of him seated on the terrace, and, with a +wild cry of delight, started to run towards him. I caught him in my +arms. "No, darling, no! That is not Prilukoff. It is some one very much +like him; but it is not our friend." + +And as the man, with scowling countenance, was gazing out at the sea, +and paid no heed to us, Tioka believed me, and, with a little sigh of +regret, ran in search of his playmate Grania. + +The life Prilukoff led me in this grotesque and unbearable situation is +impossible to describe. My days were passed in an agony of terror. When +I dined with Kamarowsky, Prilukoff invariably took a seat at the next +table, and I might almost say that it was he who regulated our +conversation. If any subject were raised that was distasteful to him--my +approaching marriage to Kamarowsky, for instance, or some tender +reminiscence which my betrothed loved to recall--Prilukoff, at the +adjoining table, made savage gestures which terrified me and attracted +the attention of all the other guests. He would shake his fists at me, +glare at me with terrible eyes, and, if I pretended not to notice him, +he upset the cruet-stand or dropped his knife and fork noisily to +attract my attention. He would stare at the unconscious, slightly bald +head of Kamarowsky, and imitate his gestures with a demoniacal grin. + +The guests of the hotel thought him insane, and he certainly behaved as +if he were. I myself have often thought: "Surely he is a madman!" when I +came upon him suddenly, hidden behind the curtains in my sitting-room, +or crouching in a dark corner, or lying on my bed smoking cigarettes. I +felt that my nerves and my reason were giving way. + +"What do you want of me, you cruel man?" I sobbed. "What am I to do? Do +you wish me to tell everything to Kamarowsky? To break off the marriage +and return to Moscow with you?" + +"We cannot return to Moscow, and you know it," growled Prilukoff. + +"Somewhere else, then. Anywhere! I will go wherever you like, I will do +whatever you like. Anything, anything, rather than endure this torture +any longer." + +"For the present we stay here," declared Prilukoff, who seemed to enjoy +my anguish. "And as for the future," he added, rolling his terrible +eyes, "you can leave that to me." + +Sometimes he forbade me to go out with Kamarowsky. At other times he +followed us in the streets, torturing me behind the unconscious back of +my betrothed, who marveled and grieved at my extraordinary and +frequently absurd behavior. + +Early one morning, as I looked out of my window, I saw Kamarowsky +standing on the terrace, gazing thoughtfully out at the sea. I ran down +to him. We were alone. "Paul," I whispered hurriedly, "let us go away +from here; let us leave quietly, to-day, without saying a word to any +one." + +He laughed. "What a romantic idea! Do you not like this place? Are you +not happy here?" + +"No, Paul, no! There is some one spying upon me." + +"Spying upon you?" he repeated, greatly astonished. "Is that the reason +of your strange behavior?" + +"Yes, yes, but do not ask me any more questions." + +"Who is it? I must know who it is." + +"No, Paul. I will tell you later on. Hush!" + +"You are a fanciful creature," he said, laughing and patting my cheek. + + [Illustration: COUNT PAUL KAMAROWSKY] + +I felt hurt at his calm acceptance of what I had told him, and wondered +that he did not insist upon knowing more. I reflected in my folly that +if he really loved me he ought to have been less satisfied and secure. I +did not understand--alas! I never understood--his guileless and noble +trust in me. The insensate and exacting passion of others who until now +had dominated my life had spoiled me for all normal affection. +Hypersensitive and overwrought, I myself suffered unless I caused +suffering to those I loved; nor did I ever feel sure of their love +unless they doubted mine. + + The love that varies not from day to day, + A tranquil love, unruffled and serene-- + +was not the love I knew. My storm-tossed heart did not recognize it. +Neither on that day nor ever could I bring myself to believe that Paul +Kamarowsky really loved me. + +During those few moments that we were alone together on the terrace, we +arranged that I should start with Tioka and Elise that very evening, +during the dinner hour, leaving all our trunks behind us for my +betrothed to see to after we had left. He could join us three days later +in Vienna, and then we should all proceed to Orel, where important +affairs claimed his presence. + +Half-way through dinner, as had been arranged (and as usual Prilukoff +sat at a table next to ours), Elise entered the dining-room timidly and +came to our table. + +"I beg your ladyship's pardon. Master Tioka is outside and wishes to say +good-night." + +"Bring Master Tioka in," I said, trying to speak naturally and raising +my voice a little so that Prilukoff should hear. + +"I am sorry, my lady, but he refuses to come," and Elise hung her head +as she spoke these words; the treason we were perpetrating on Lohengrin +grieved her even more than the tortures that Lohengrin had inflicted +upon me. + +"Pray excuse me a moment," I said to Count Kamarowsky, and rose from the +table. "I shall be back at once." + +No sooner was I outside the dining-room than Elise threw my traveling +cloak round me. A motor-car was throbbing at the door, and in it with +beaming face sat Tioka surrounded by our hand-bags and dressing-cases, +shawls and hats. + +"What are we doing?" he cried gleefully. "Are we running away?" + +"Yes, darling," and I clasped him to my heart, as I sank into the seat +beside him. The motor was already gliding through the twilight roads +towards Cannes. + +"But why? Why are we running away? Have we stolen something?" + +At those words my heart stopped beating. I suddenly remembered +Prilukoff's ill-gotten banknotes. + +"Elise!" I gasped; "in the desk in my sitting-room--there was some +money." + +"Yes, madame." + +"What did you do with it?" + +"It is quite safe, madame. I have taken it." + +"_You have taken it!_" + +"Yes, madame. Here it is." And with satisfied hand Elise patted a black +leather satchel that lay in her lap. + +With a sob I hid my face in my hands. + +Indeed, we had stolen something! + + + + +XXVIII + + +As soon as we reached the frontier I telegraphed to Prilukoff. I wanted +to send Elise back to Hyeres with the money, but she refused to leave +me. + +"What if Mr. Prilukoff were to kill me," she cried. "Then what would +your ladyship and poor little Master Tioka do, all alone in the world?" + +"But my good Elise, why on earth should Mr. Prilukoff kill you?" + +"I don't know," sighed Elise. "But he has become so strange of late--" +and after a pause, she added, under her breath: "We have all become very +strange." + +It was true. I could not but admit it. We were "very strange." We were +not at all like other people. The people that we met on our journeys and +in hotels, for instance, all took an interest in external things--in the +surrounding landscape, or in works of art and monuments and cathedrals. +As for us, we never spoke about monuments. We never entered a cathedral. +We took no interest whatever in anything beyond our own dolorous souls. +We were even as those who travel with an invalid, watching him only, +caring for and thinking of nothing else. The invalid I traveled with was +my own sick soul. + +The least peculiar among us was Count Kamarowsky. Yet even he, I fancy, +was not quite like other people. His was not a strong nature, like that +of some men I had known. Perhaps the Slav blood is responsible for much +that is abnormal and unconventional. Surely we are from the inmost +depths of our nature strangely removed from the Teutonic, the +Anglo-Saxon and even the Latin races, and our thoughts and actions must +frequently appear to them singular and incomprehensible. + +As for Paul Kamarowsky, his dread of suffering was so great that he +preferred to know nothing that might cause him distress. In fear lest he +should see aught that might displease him, he chose to shut his eyes to +facts and truths, preferring voluntarily to tread the easy paths of a +fool's paradise. I longed to open my heart to him, to unburden my +travailed soul and clear my sullied conscience by a full confession; I +was ready to abide by the result, even if it meant the loss of my last +chance of rehabilitation, even should I forfeit thereby all hope of +marriage with a man of honor, rank and repute. But he closed my lips; he +sealed my heart; he firmly avoided all confidences and disclosures. + +"Mura," he said, "my life and yours have been too full of errors and of +sorrow. Do not embitter this, our hour of joy. The past is buried; let +it rest. Do not drag what is dead to the light of day again." + +I bowed my head in silence. But in the depths of my conscience I knew +that my past had been buried alive. + + +Not in my spirit alone did I suffer agonies at this period; my frail +body was racked with disease and my sufferings were continuous and +intense. Day by day I felt my strength decline, I saw myself wax thinner +and paler; rarely indeed did an hour pass that I could count free from +pain. The deep-seated ill that since the birth of my little daughter +Tania had struck its fiery roots into my inmost being now bore its toxic +fruits, slowly diffusing its poison through my veins. Sometimes the +pangs I suffered were so acute that I cried out in anguish, while beads +of cold perspiration started to my brow. But as a rule I was tortured by +a deep, dull, perpetual ache, a sense of utter weakness and weariness +that stifled all hope in me and all desire to live. + +Oh, daughters of Eve, my purer and stronger sisters, women who have not +transgressed--you whose hatred and scorn have overwhelmed me, you whose +white hands have been so quick to throw the wounding stone--you alone can +comprehend the agony that racked my frame, the flaming sword that +pierced me, the sacred ill of womanhood that girt my body as with a sash +of fire. You who in such dark hours can shelter your sufferings in the +protecting shadow of your home, you who can seek refuge in a husband's +tenderness and hide your stricken brow upon a faithful breast, can you +not summon one throb of sorrow to your womanly hearts, one gleam of pity +to your gentle eyes, when you think of the tortures I dragged from hotel +to hotel, seeking to conceal my martyrdom from the inquisitive or +indifferent gaze of strangers, not daring to confide in the man who +loved me but who yet was almost a stranger?... + +Who can describe the minor and yet genuine torment of the tight garments +cramping the aching body; the weight of the ornate head-dress on the +throbbing brow; the irony of rouge and cosmetics on the ashen cheeks; +and the nauseating distaste for the rich viands that one pretends to +enjoy while the noise of voices and music pierces your brain, and the +glaring electric lights stab your aching eyes like a hundred +knife-thrusts? + +How often, on returning from some brilliant banquet to the silence and +solitude of a desolate hotel bedroom, have I wept aloud with vain +longing for one great joy denied to me, one supreme privilege of a happy +woman: that of being weary, ill, and miserable--and yet loved all the +same! How keenly have I envied some women I have known--women who were +not beautiful, not brilliant and not young, but by whose sick-bed in +their hour of pain a husband watched in tenderness and pity, faithful +throughout the years, throughout the changes that time brings, faithful +to the sad and pallid woman who had the right to lay her faded cheek +upon his breast. + +None, none of those who vowed they loved me, would have loved me thus! +Not Vassili, not Bozevsky, not Stahl, not Kamarowsky. Prilukoff perhaps? +Who knows? + +But Prilukoff was a thief, a fugitive, a criminal; and day and night I +prayed that he might not cross my path again. + +He had not replied to my agitated telegram informing him that Elise had +unwittingly taken the money away. Nor did he, as I thought he would, +join us in Vienna where we stayed several days, expecting yet dreading +his arrival. + +We were at a loss to know what to do with his stolen money. We did not +dare to send it to him at Hyeres, where I knew he had been staying under +an assumed name and in constant terror of discovery. We did not dare to +leave it in our rooms at the hotel. Elise carried it about with her day +and night in the hated black leather satchel, which had become to us a +nightmare, an incubus, an obsession. With a bitter smile I recalled the +story of the English hunters in India who succeeded in capturing that +most precious and sacred among all animals: a white elephant. And having +captured it they knew not what to do with it. They trailed it after them +across land and sea--ponderous, slow, magnificent; and nobody wanted it, +and nobody knew what to do with it nor how to get rid of it. Prilukoff's +stolen money was indeed a white elephant for us. + +Kamarowsky with his little son had joined us in Vienna, bringing all our +luggage with him. He was as boisterous as a schoolboy out for a holiday. + +"There are no spies here, are there, Mura?" he laughed, kissing my cheek +loudly. "No spies to drive us away!" + +Again I was hurt that he should thus make light of the mysteries of my +existence. Should he not have demanded an explanation of my flight from +Hyeres? Should he not have insisted upon knowing who had followed me +there? What love was this that could voluntarily blindfold itself and +evade all explanations? + +Not this, not this was the love I had dreamed of and hoped for, the +steadfast refuge for my wavering spirit, the longed-for haven for my +storm-tossed soul. + + +We proceeded almost immediately to Orel. At this period I possessed no +money at all of my own; what little I had had when I left Moscow had +been spent; but not for a moment did I entertain the thought of touching +Prilukoff's ill-gotten wealth. Paul Kamarowsky insisted upon providing +all our traveling and hotel expenses; but it was embarrassing to be +unable to tip a servant or to pay for even the smallest trifle that +Tioka or I might want. + +I made up my mind to lay frankly before my betrothed my deplorable +financial situation. And I did so on the journey to Orel. He seemed much +amused at my confession; and the fact of our utter dependence upon him +seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure. + +He filled my purse with gold, and made me promise that I would always +ask him for anything I might need or desire. + +How well I remember our arrival at Orel! It was a radiant afternoon in +October. Count Kamarowsky accompanied us to our hotel, where +flower-filled apartments awaited us; then he left us at once to go in +search of a young friend of his, the son of the Governor of Orel, who +had promised to see to our passports as soon as we arrived. + +I was alone in our drawing-room when Elise knocked at the door. + +"The children would like to go out; they say they feel cramped from the +journey," she said. "If madame allows, I will take them into the park; +it is just opposite the hotel," she added. + +"Certainly, Elise." + +A moment later Tioka and Grania, ready to go out, came running to +embrace me, and behind them Elise reappeared. + +"If madame permits," she said in a low voice, "I might perhaps leave +'_it_' here?" + +"It" was the black leather satchel--our white elephant. + +"Yes, yes; leave it," I said. + +And she carried it into my bedroom and placed it on the dressing-table. + + + + +XXIX + + +I stepped out upon the balcony and watched the children cross the sunlit +square; they turned and waved their hands to me; then I saw them enter +the park and scamper down the shady avenue, the faithful Elise trotting +quickly in their wake. + +I remained on the balcony wrapped in peaceful thoughts, glad to feel the +warmth of the autumn sun on my shoulders and the coolness of the autumn +breeze on my cheeks. A wave of thankfulness came over me; repentance for +all my past doubts and transgressions flooded my heart. + +How could I ever have doubted Paul Kamarowsky's love? Was not the +absolute faith he reposed in me--the blind unquestioning faith that in my +folly I had often resented--was it not after all the highest homage that +a noble heart could bestow? Henceforth the aim of my life should be to +render myself worthy of his trust and love. In utter gratitude and +devotion my heart went out to him who was about to place in my keeping +the honor of his unsullied name, and the care of his motherless child. I +clasped my hands and breathed a fervent prayer to Heaven, a prayer that +I might deserve the happiness that was in store for me. + +A slight sound startled me from my reverie. It was Kamarowsky who, +having returned and not finding me in the drawing-room, had knocked at +my bedroom door. Receiving no reply he entered. I left the balcony, and +closing the window after me, stepped into the room. + +Kamarowsky was standing in front of the dressing-table holding the black +leather satchel in his hand. + +"What is this?" he asked casually. "Is it yours?" + +The pitiless light from the window struck me full in the face, and I +felt that I was turning pale. "No--no--" I stammered. "It is not mine." + +"I thought not," he said, turning it round and round. "I did not +remember seeing it. We had better send it down to the bureau of the +hotel." And he stepped forward to touch the bell. + +"No, no!" I cried, "it belongs to Elise." + +"Why does Elise leave her things in your room?" Then noticing my pallor +and agitation he exclaimed: "Why, dearest? What is wrong with you? You +look quite white." + + [Illustration: I STEPPED OUT UPON THE BALCONY.] + +"It is nothing, nothing," I said, attempting to smile; and I sat down +with my back to the light. I was trembling from head to foot. + +He bent over me with tender solicitude. "Are you feeling ill?" + +"Slightly--it will pass--it is nothing. The fatigue of the journey +perhaps," and I caressed the kind face that bent over me full of +affectionate concern. + +He turned and rang the bell. + +A waiter appeared. "Bring some brandy," ordered Kamarowsky. "Make haste. +The lady is not well." + +The waiter returned promptly and placed the tray on the table; as he was +about to leave the room Count Kamarowsky, who was pouring out the +brandy, said to him: "Wait a moment, you can take that satchel upstairs +to the maid's apartment." + +I sprang to my feet. "No--leave it," I cried, taking it from the waiter's +hand. The man bowed and left the room. + +Kamarowsky seemed astonished at my behavior. "What is the matter?" he +asked. "Why are you so agitated?" + +"I am not--I am not agitated at all," I stammered, trying to control my +features, and holding the odious white elephant in my trembling hands. + +"What on earth is in that bag?" asked the Count. + +"Nothing--nothing," I said, with a vacuous, senseless smile. + +"Come, now! It is full of papers," laughed Kamarowsky, putting out his +hand and pressing the satchel between his fingers. "Confess, what are +they? Love-letters?" + +I contrived to answer his jest with a smile: "You have guessed right," I +said. + +"They are Elise's, I hope--not yours!" he added, half smiling and half +distrustful. + +I laughed. "Elise's, of course;" and with a deep sigh of relief I sank +upon a chair, feeling that the danger was past. But my heart had not yet +resumed its normal pulsation when the door opened and the unwitting +Elise appeared on the threshold. + +"We have returned, my lady, and the children have gone upstairs." + +Kamarowsky jestingly took the satchel from my hand and dangled it in the +air. + +"Ah, Elise! What have we got in here?" + +Elise rolled her eyes wildly, and a scarlet blush mounted to her face; +Elise's blushes were always painful to see; now her face was of a deep +damask hue. + +The Count laughed. "So this is where you keep your love-letters, is it?" + +"Oh, no, sir," exclaimed Elise, blushing till her eyes were filled with +tears. + +"What? Is this satchel not yours?" + +"Oh, no, sir!--I mean--yes, sir," stuttered Elise. + +Kamarowsky looked at her, and then at me. Seeing the expression of our +faces the laughter faded from his lips. + +"Come, Elise; tell me whose it is, and what it contains." + +I attempted to make a sign to her, but the tall, broad figure of Count +Kamarowsky stood between us. + +I rose with a sigh of despair, acquiescing in my fate. Now--let happen +what may. + +"What letters are they?" insisted Kamarowsky. + +I heard the hapless Elise floundering in the quicksands of falsehood; +finally she let herself drift--a helpless wreck on the rock of truth. + +"It is not letters, it is money," she said at last. + +"Money? Money of yours?" + +"No." + +There was a brief silence. Then Kamarowsky said: "I do not believe you. +I wish to see what it contains." + +No one answered him. + +"Where is the key?" + +Again there was silence. + +I heard a slight jingling sound; Kamarowsky was searching in his pockets +for a penknife. Then he said to Elise: "You can go." + +Elise went slowly and reluctantly from the room. Then I heard a faint +tearing and crackling: Kamarowsky had cut through the leather of the +satchel. Now the rustling of banknotes told me that he was smoothing +them out on the table, and counting them. + +A few moments passed. + +"Thirty-five thousand rubles," said Paul Kamarowsky slowly. "I cannot +understand why you should have told me you were penniless." There was an +icy coldness in his voice such as I had never heard before. + +"The money is not mine," I said, in trembling tones. + +"Whose is it?" + +How was I to answer him? Could I betray Prilukoff? And, with him, +myself? I decided to tell what was, intrinsically, the truth. + +"I do not know whom it belongs to." + +Once more there was silence. I wondered what he would do? Would he +insult me? Would he raise his voice in bitter accusation and reproof? + +No. The silence remained unbroken. Kamarowsky left the room without a +word. + +Ah! I was still in the grip of the octopus; its tentacles bound and +crushed me still. Even from afar Prilukoff guided my destinies, drove my +frail barque into storm and disaster. + +With trembling hands I gathered up the scattered banknotes and thrust +them back into the execrated leather bag. Ah, if only I could have freed +myself from this nightmare burden, if only I could have returned the +money to Prilukoff! But how? Where to? At the Bellevue, in Hyeres, he +had called himself Zeiler. But now where was he? Under what name was he +hiding? How could I, without warning, send him such a sum of money? +Where could I write to him? + +No; fate had doomed me to wander through the world carrying with me the +hated money in Elise's abominable satchel! At the bitterness of this +thought I dropped my face in my hands and wept. + +I did not hear any one knock at the door; nor did I hear the door open. +When, still shaken with sobs, I raised my tear-stained face, I beheld +standing on the threshold a stranger--a slender, fair-haired youth. He +was gazing at me with compassionate eyes, full of confusion at having +found me in tears. + +"Pardon me," he said, and his voice was soft and musical. + +"Whom do you want?" + +"I was looking for Count Kamarowsky," he replied. "He has invited me to +dine with him." There was a pause. "My name is Nicolas Naumoff." + +"My name is Marie Tarnowska." And I gave him my hand. + + + + +XXX + + +Count Kamarowsky came in shortly afterwards. He was gloomy and morose; +but on seeing his friend, whom he had that morning invited to dine with +us, he made a heroic effort to keep up an appearance of good temper and +hospitality. + +But his grief and anger were only too apparent. He sat beside me at +table without speaking to me, nor did he ever turn his eyes in my +direction. + +Our guest seemed distressed and amazed at his behavior, and--doubtless +remembering my recent tears--he gazed at me with his light-brown eyes +eloquent of sympathy and compassion. + +Once or twice I addressed a remark to Kamarowsky, but he scarcely +answered me and I felt myself flushing and paling with humiliation. + +Silence fell upon us at last. Painful and embarrassing as I felt it to +be, I yet could find no word to say. A violent headache racked my +temples, and I had to bite my lips to keep myself from bursting into +tears. + +Suddenly I got up and went into my room. With trembling hand I sought in +my dressing-case for a bottle of cocaine, which for nearly a year I had +not touched. I lifted it to my lips and sipped the exhilarating poison. +Then I returned to the table. + +Kamarowsky was sitting grim and silent with bent head and lowering brow, +but the young stranger raised his golden eyes under their long fair +lashes, and fixed them upon me as if to give me comfort. After a few +moments, in order to break the well-nigh unbearable silence, he spoke to +me in his low and gentle voice. + +"I hear that Delphinus, the famous crystal gazer, has arrived in Orel. +You ought to get him to tell you your fortune." + +"Is that so?" I said, smiling; and even as I spoke the prediction of +that strange soothsayer flashed into my memory. I seemed to hear again +the brief, prophetic words: "_Two men are yet to enter into your life. +One will be your salvation--the other your ruin._" + +Two men! I glanced around me, startled and amazed. Two men were here; +one on each side of me. Was the prophecy coming true? Were these the two +men he had spoken of? Were the One and the Other sitting beside me now? + +In my mind I could still hear the fortune-teller's nasal, dreamy accent: + +"You will chose--the Other. It is your destiny." + +Overcome by a feeling of timorous superstition, I looked at my two table +companions, of whom One, perhaps, might represent my destruction, the +Other my last hope of happiness. + +At my right hand sat Kamarowsky, sullen and sinister in his grief and +anger against me; on my left the young unknown, with radiant face and +gold-bright eyes that smiled at me. A flash of intuition seemed to +illuminate my spirit; here was salvation! Nicolas Naumoff! This unknown +youth, in whose eyes I had read such complete and instant devotion--it +was he whom fate had sent to lead me back to joy. + +Looking back to that hour I realize that it was the rhapsodical delirium +of cocaine that whipped my brain into senseless aberration; but at the +time I implicitly believed that by a miracle of divination I had rent +the veil of the future, and could discern with inspired gaze the distant +sweep of the years to come. + +I saw Kamarowsky--somber, dark, with bent head--as the very incarnation of +sorrow and misfortune; and, to make assurance twice sure, was it not he +whom I had chosen? And had not the diviner foretold me that he whom I +chose would be the one to lead me to destruction? + +But I might still draw back, I might still trick the Fates and escape +from my predestined doom. With the blind impulse of the hunted quarry +seeking a refuge, I turned an imploring gaze on the young unknown; he +read despair in my eyes, and his own responded with a flash of +comprehension; he leaned toward me, and, as if in the throe of some +instant emotion, I saw him thrill from head to foot like a tense string. +At this immediate response of his nerves to mine, I also felt a tremor +stir me, as the water of a lake is stirred by a gust of wind. What evil +spirit possessed me? Was I ill? Was I demented? I cannot tell. I know +that my soul pledged itself to him at that moment; and I know that he +understood me. + +Thus, in my attempt to escape it, the tragic prophecy was to be +fulfilled. + +When Nicolas Naumoff got up to take his leave I knew that he would +return, that I should see him again, and this thought intoxicated me +with such delight that even Kamarowsky, in spite of his anger and his +suspicions, was swept away by the radiance and rapture of my joyfulness. +I was then--well may I say it now!--at the zenith of my youthful beauty, +notwithstanding, or perhaps by reason of the disease that burned within +me like a consuming lamp; a constant fever lit my transparent flesh into +delicate rose flushes, and blazed like lighted sapphires in my +translucent eyes. + +I was no sooner alone with him than, seeing me thus aflame with radiant +happiness, Kamarowsky rose and came towards me with outstretched hands. + +"Marie, I love you, I love you! I will trust you utterly. I want to know +nothing that you do not wish to tell me." And he bowed his head over my +hands and kissed them. + +But my wild thoughts went out to the unknown youth with the golden eyes +who had left us, he through whom salvation was to come to me; and every +fiber yearned for his presence. A sudden wave of almost physical +repulsion for Paul Kamarowsky overcame me and I started away from his +touch. "Leave me," I cried, "leave me. Let me go away." And I tried to +go past him to my room. + +But he stopped me, amazed and unbelieving. "Why, dearest, why? What is +the matter?" + +"It is over," I murmured incoherently, "leave me. I do not wish to speak +to you any more. I do not wish to marry you. I want to go away and never +see you again." + +"Mura! you are dreaming, you are out of your mind! What have I done that +you should speak to me like this?" + +His bewilderment and despair only irritated me the more. "You will drag +me to ruin and misfortune. I was told so; and I know, I feel that it is +true." + +"You were told so?" gasped Paul. "What are you saying? Mura, come to +your senses. Who has put such preposterous notions into your head?" + +Notwithstanding my dazed and drugged state of mind, I felt that to tell +him about the fortune-teller would neither convince nor impress him; he +would probably laugh, and try to coax or scold me back to my senses. So +I wrapped myself in an obstinate and mysterious silence. + +The unhappy man was perplexed and distressed. + +"Who has poisoned your mind against me, Mura? Think, think a moment; who +in all the world could love you more than I do? Who could protect you +and care for you better than I can, poor helpless creature that you +are?" + +But I was possessed by the blind obstinacy of madness. _Quem Deus vult +perdere, prius dementat._ My destiny was coming upon me at the very time +I thought to evade it. + +"Let me be!" My hands twisted themselves from his grasp. "I will not see +you again! I will not!" + +"But I will," cried Kamarowsky, clasping my wrist in an iron grip, and +his long, languorous eyes opened wide and flamed into mine. "Do you +think that because I am kind and patient you can play fast and loose +with me? No indeed, no indeed; you have promised to be mine, and I shall +make you keep your word." + +Never had I seen him like this nor dreamed that he could be so fierce +and resolute. I felt dizzy and bewildered. I felt the bats of madness +flying in my brain. I raised my eyes with a scornful smile to his: how +could he keep me against my will? + +As if he had divined my thought he bent forward with his passionate face +close to mine. "Do not think you can escape me," he said. "Do not +imagine it for a moment. Mura, I know you well. You need to be mastered, +and I shall master you. As long as I live, remember--as long as I live +you shall not escape me." + +These words seemed to pierce my dizzy brain like red-hot needles. "As +long as he lives I shall not escape him. _As long as he lives--!_" + +I raised my eyes and looked at him; then I drooped my lashes--and smiled. + +The subtle cunning of madness stirred within me. + + + + +XXXI + + +Paul Kamarowsky appeared not to notice it. He continued to speak +agitatedly, holding my unwilling hand in his. + +"I know, Mura, that you have done many unworthy things in the course of +your life; I know that you are not what I would have you be; but my pity +for your misfortunes is far greater than my resentment at your faults. I +know that you are ill; I know that you have had none but rakes and +reprobates around you; it shall be my duty to strengthen you and uphold +you with my love. I will help you, Mura, whether you wish it or not; I +will save you in spite of yourself." + +Ah, miserable creature that I was, why did I not throw myself upon his +mercy and confide my doubts and my despair to his generous heart? Why +did I not surrender my poor sick soul to his keeping? This was indeed +the last time that salvation opened its haven to my shipwrecked soul; +but I knew it not, and like a boat adrift in the darkness I swept on +towards the storm. + +He continued to speak. "If I have not wanted to know about your past, it +has not been from cowardice nor from the fear of any man; but from +distrust of my own heart, Mura, for fear lest my love for you should +wane. Whereas it is my duty and my mission to love you, Marie +Nicolaevna, to love and save you from your own weakness and the iniquity +of the world. You are still so young--hardly less of a child than little +Tioka--notwithstanding the storms of passion and sin that have passed +over your head. All you need is to live among right-minded people who +will love you. I shall love you, Mura; and my mother, gentle soul that +she is, will take you to her heart; and so will my sisters. Then when +you find yourself surrounded by such pure, kind and simple affections, +you, too, will become simple, kind and pure again." + +His voice broke. "We shall be so happy; and Tioka and Grania will be +happy; and so will your good old father. He shall come and live with us. +How is it you never think of your father, Mura? The generous, +broken-hearted old man in that desolate house of Otrada?" + +Hot tears rushed to my eyes. My father! My stately father, with his +venerable white hair, and his proud blue eyes--the "terrible O'Rourke," +living in that deserted house, widowed, desolate and alone. There was no +one to coax him out of his grief or his anger; no arms went round his +neck, no laughing voices cried to him: "Father, don't be the terrible +O'Rourke!" I covered my face with my hands. + +Kamarowsky bent over me. "Is it not wickedness, Mura, to throw away +one's life as you do? To rush from place to place, from emotion to +emotion, from misery to despair? Is it not more than wickedness--is it +not madness?" + +"Madness!" As if the word had rent a veil before my eyes, I looked my +calamity full in the face. Yes, it was madness; it was the hereditary +curse of my mother's people. I was like my mother's two wild-faced, +frenzied sisters, whom we used to run away from and laugh at when we +were children, Olga and I.... Madness! In my delicate blue veins it had +taken root again, and now its monstrous flower opened its crashing +petals in my brain. I was mad, there was no doubt of it and no help for +it. _I was mad._ + +I spoke the words softly to myself, and the very sound of them made me +laugh. It amused me to think that no one knew my thoughts. I felt like a +naughty little girl hiding in a dark cupboard while everybody is looking +for her. The dark cupboard was my mind, and I had discovered madness +there. + +Undoubtedly I was bereft of reason; and my mother's sisters, now for so +many years entombed in an asylum at Warsaw, were assuredly not more mad +than I. The thought of this, also, made me laugh. I whispered to myself: +"I am cleverer than they. I am as mad as they are, but no one shall ever +know it!" + +I have no other explanation to give, no other justification. I was +demented, and I knew it. Sometimes in the night I started up wide awake, +and the horror of the thought that I was alone with myself--with myself +who was mad!--froze me into a statue of ice. As soon as I could stir a +limb I would creep from my bed, steal out into the silent corridors of +the hotel, and run with chattering teeth along the red-carpeted passages +between the long double rows of boots, which to my eyes appeared like +little monsters crouching at the thresholds; then up the great +staircase, turning round every moment to look behind me, until I reached +the fourth floor and the room of Elise and the children. + +Softly I would tap at the door, and call:--"Elise!" + +"Yes, madame." Elise Perrier always answered immediately, as if she +never slept. + +"Elise, I want you." + +"Yes, madame, I shall come at once," and I could hear her rising from +her bed. + +Then I ran back through the silent corridors, and when I passed Count +Kamarowsky's door I trembled and shuddered and felt constrained to stop. +I looked at his yellow boots--square and placid, with their mouths open +and their tongues hanging out--and I experienced a wild sensation of fear +and loathing for him and for them. + +I made a grimace at those hateful boots and hurried away to shut myself +in my room and await Elise. + +She would come in, pale and tidy in her red woolen dressing-gown, with a +little cap on her head. She sat down quietly by my bedside and held my +hand. Sometimes she read aloud to me; sometimes she repeated Swiss poems +and ballads that she remembered from her schooldays; and I soon grew +calm again as I listened to her quiet voice and felt the clasp of her +small roughened hand on mine. + + +Gradually a sort of frenzied fear of Kamarowsky took possession of me. I +was obsessed continuously with the idea that I must escape from him at +all costs, or die. My every fiber shrank at the slightest touch of his +hand. I longed never to see him again. I longed to know that the world +held him no more. It was a blind instinctive frenzy that I endured +without reasoning about it. My constant and only preoccupation was to +fly from him who spelt ruin, and to cling to Naumoff, my deliverer. + +"Nicolas Naumoff! Nicolas Naumoff!" I repeated his name all day long +like a kind of exorcism against Kamarowsky; sometimes I felt as if I +were stifled, as if I must hold my breath until he was near. + +On his side, Naumoff, who frequently came to see us, was reserved and +shy, and did not venture to believe in what nevertheless he could not +but read in my eyes. Knowing nothing of my insensate notion about the +diviner's prophecy, and having no conception that to my fancy he was a +rescuer sent to me by Providence, he thought I was making fun of him; or +at other times he believed my predilection for him was merely the +caprice of a frivolous creature accustomed to gratify every passing +whim. So he held back, aggrieved and mistrustful. + +And the more he held back the more was I impelled to pursue him, to hold +and to vanquish him. The passionate gravity of his youthful face +delighted me; I was thirsty for the unknown recesses of his soul as for +a spring filled with mysterious sweetness. His voice perturbed me; his +silence lashed my nerves; I lived in a perpetual quiver of rhapsodic +sensibility. + +I was in this frame of mind when Kamarowsky resolved to invite all his +friends in Orel to a banquet in order to announce to them our imminent +marriage. + +At this banquet Naumoff also was present. Doubtless he already knew the +announcement that his friend was going to make, yet when the Count rose +to speak and laid his hand with a placid air of ownership upon mine, I +saw Nicolas Naumoff turn pale. I watched with deep emotion the color +slowly receding from his face; in its pallor his youthful countenance +appeared to me still more beautiful; he looked indeed like the supreme +deliverer--the angel of death. + +I did not comprehend a word of Paul Kamarowsky's speech; I know that +when it was ended he turned to me and placed a magnificent diamond ring +upon my finger, and every one applauded and cheered. + +Then the guests rose in turn to congratulate Kamarowsky, and to kiss my +hand and wish me joy; and I know that I smiled and thanked them. + +Naumoff alone had not left his place, but in the gay chatter and stir +that surrounded us no one noticed it. He soon went away; he disappeared +without taking leave of any one. + +Toasts and speeches followed. The waiters came and went, carrying fruits +and wines and sometimes leaving the large double doors of our +dining-room open behind them. + +Suddenly as I raised my eyes I saw a man standing on the threshold and +gazing in at us. + +It was Prilukoff. + + + + +XXXII + + +In truth I do not know whether I felt dismayed or glad. It was as if I +were in a dream. + +Since I had begun to take cocaine again, that twilight sensation of +unreality had descended anew like a misty veil upon all my perceptions. + +I could not distinguish facts from illusions. Prilukoff had immediately +disappeared--or had I only fancied that I saw him? + +Trembling a little, I rose from my place, and while many of the guests +were still talking and laughing with their host I excused myself on the +plea of fatigue. They toasted me a last time, and Kamarowsky kissed me +ceremoniously before them all. + +With cheeks and heart aflame I hurried to my apartments, glad to think +that I should find them dark and silent. My temples were throbbing, the +coronet of diamonds--a gift of Kamarowsky's--weighed heavy on my brow, and +my eyes seemed to be pierced with red-hot needles. + +I opened the door of my sitting-room, where a lamp, turned low, +glimmered like a star veiled in red vapor. Behind it I could see yawning +blackly the open door leading to my bedroom, which was in complete +darkness. + +I had a strange feeling that I was not alone. Some one was in the +room--some one whom I could not discern was near to me. + +Yes, a footstep approached; a strong arm encircled me. Nicolas Naumoff's +voice spoke in thrilling accents: "Marie! Marie! My heart is breaking." + +With a sigh of infinite weariness merging into a sense of infinite +repose I laid my head against his breast. I longed to die. I felt as if +I had nothing more to ask for, nothing more to desire. + +But the anguish that was passing from my soul seemed to have entered +into his. + +"You must not marry that man! You must not, you shall not!" He gripped +my shoulders as if he would crush them. "Tell me, tell me that you do +not love him." + +At that instant on the black background of my bedroom there appeared a +form--Prilukoff! Erect in the doorway he stood watching us. Naumoff had +his back to him, but across his shoulder I looked Prilukoff in the face, +only a few steps from me. + +My heart stood still. What would he do? + +Knowing as I did his ungovernable frenzies of jealousy, his madness, his +recklessness, I wondered whether he would leap forward and spring at +Naumoff's throat? Would there be blows and groans and a death-struggle +in my tranquil, shadowy room? Would there be a turmoil and a scandal, +during which the bond of infamy that tied me to Prilukoff would be +revealed to Naumoff? Revealed to Kamarowsky and to the world? + +The fear of tragedy and disgrace kept me stark and terror-stricken, +rooted to the spot. Then I saw Prilukoff move. Slowly he raised his +right arm. His right hand clutched something which I could not see. +Suddenly--incredible sight!--I saw him open his mouth wide; and never, +never have I seen anything more grotesque and terrifying than that +figure in the darkness with mouth gaping wide.... + +But still his right arm moved, rising slowly and relentlessly until it +was on a level with that terrible open mouth. What did the hand hold? +Did I not see a gleam of polished metal? + +I tried to scream, but no sound issued from my parched throat. I could +see the whites of his staring upturned eyes, and the hand now motionless +just in front of the open mouth-- + +From my throat came a hoarse whisper: "Don't, for heaven's sake! Wait--" + +Naumoff, in amazement at these words which he believed to be addressed +to himself, relaxed his hold. "What is it?" he whispered. "Is any one +there?" + +Step by step I drew back from him, with my fascinated eyes still fixed +upon Prilukoff, who stood motionless as a statue in the same dreadful +attitude. + +"Is any one there?" repeated Naumoff. + +"Yes. Don't move." The words formed themselves soundlessly on my lips, +but Naumoff understood them and obeyed. He neither turned nor moved. + +"Stand as you are," I breathed; "do not stir." And I glided snake-like +from him. + +Then with the quickness of lightning I darted upon Prilukoff, thrusting +him back into the dark bedroom, clutching him by the wrist, and covering +his rapid breathing with my hand. The carpet deadened our footsteps. +With my elbow I pushed the door and, as it closed behind me, I turned +and shot the bolt. I was locked in my room with Prilukoff. + +"Hush, hush!" I whispered, my lips almost touching his face. "I implore +you, I implore you! Do not betray me. Do not let them hear you." + +Through his closed and stifled lips there issued hideous, incoherent +words of vituperation. + +"Hush! hush! hush!" I pressed my hand still tighter to his lips. +"Forgive me! Spare me! I am yours, yours only! Donat, forgive me and +keep silence!" + +"Mine, mine only," breathed Prilukoff, hoarsely; "you swear it!" + +"Yes! oh, yes!" + +I could hear Naumoff trying the handle on the other side of the door. + +"Marie! Marie! What are you doing? Why have you run away?" + +Prilukoff's right hand was still uplifted, and now he held it close to +his temple. As I clutched that hand I could also feel the cold contact +with the steel of a revolver. + +"Do you swear that you will be mine forever?" + +I murmured something inarticulate. Naumoff was calling under his breath: +"Marie! Marie! Open the door." + +Prilukoff raised his voice slightly. "Swear to me that you loathe that +man and the other; swear that if I murdered them both you would still be +mine." + +"Yes, yes. Speak softly!" + +"Swear it! Swear that they shall both die, that you will help me to rid +the world of them. Swear it." I could feel his hand tenser against his +temple, I could feel the first finger crooking itself over the trigger. +"Unless you swear," hissed Prilukoff, "I shall shoot myself here, this +instant." + +I did so. He repeated the words softly with me: "_I swear--that--they +shall die._" And something within me kept saying: "I am dreaming all +this." + +"That is not enough!" breathed Prilukoff. "Swear it on the life of +Tioka." + +My parched lips opened, but the iniquitous words would not pass my +throat. + +Then Prilukoff pushed me from him and the fingers of his right hand +moved. I heard a slight clicking sound. I threw myself forward. + +"I swear it--" + +And I swore it on the life of Tioka. + +Prilukoff's hand dropped to his side; he seemed to reel slightly, and +staggering backwards leaned against the foot of my bed. + +Naumoff on the other side of the door was growing impatient. He shook +the handle. + +I bent over to Prilukoff. "Are you going to betray me? If I open this +door, will you show yourself?" + +He laughed derisively. "Go along, go along," he muttered. And I opened +the door. + +"Why did you run away?" asked Naumoff, taking my hand. + +I closed the door behind me. I felt no more fear of Prilukoff. I felt no +more fear of any one or anything. My heart seemed turned to stone. And +as I stood thus, some one else knocked at the outside door. It was +Kamarowsky. + +And the door was not locked! I turned quickly and blew out the lamp. + +But Naumoff had taken a rapid step forward, and turned the key in the +lock. Then he stood still, leaning against the door. + +Kamarowsky outside heard him; and thinking it was I, murmured softly: +"Good-night! Good-night, my darling!" + +Then I was seized with a convulsive fit of laughter. I laughed and +laughed, shaken from head to foot by a wild paroxysm of mirth. I could +not leave off laughing. I laughed until the laughter became a spasm +which racked and agonized me; my teeth chattered, I trembled and quaked; +and still the hysterical laughter continued, shaking my entire frame as +an aspen is shaken by a brutal hand. I laughed and laughed, trying to +laugh softly in order that those three men standing in the dark should +not hear me. + +The thought of the three men motionless behind the doors made me laugh +more than ever. Tears ran down my face, my head felt as if it would +burst asunder. And still I rocked in the throes of frantic laughter +until body and soul seemed to be shattered and rent.... + +I staggered and sank to the floor. + +Naumoff bent over me. I felt his icy hands passing over my face. Then we +remained quite silent in the dark. + +Slowly, reluctantly Kamarowsky's footsteps had passed away down the +corridor.... + +I mustered strength enough to whisper to Naumoff: "Go--send Elise to +me--quickly!" + +Naumoff obeyed. + + +Yes, Nicolas Naumoff--submissive soul!--has always obeyed. + + + + +XXXIII + + +I was ill in bed for a long time. I lay supine and motionless, +feeling--as once, long before--as if I were lying at the bottom of a well. +In the distance, far above me, life and the world went whirling on; but +nothing in me or of me stirred, except that at every pulse-beat my +life-blood seemed to be gently, inexorably ebbing away. The doctors bent +over me with anxious faces; on my body I felt the burning weight of ice; +my arteries contracted under the grip of ergot and chloride of iron. +Still slowly and inexorably I glided, as on a smooth and shallow river, +towards death. + +Tioka and Grania had been sent to stay with friends in Kharkov. + +Naumoff came every day to ask for news, and sent me flowers; but he was +never allowed to see me. Kamarowsky had permission to come into my room +for ten minutes every morning, but he was not allowed to speak to me. + +Prilukoff, locked in my rooms, watched over me night and day. + +Nobody knew of his existence, for no one was allowed to enter my +apartment. How and when he slept and took his meals I do not know. +Perhaps Elise looked after that. He undoubtedly grew thinner, more +haggard and spectral every day with sleeplessness, fasting and anxiety. + +Night and day he sat at my bedside watching me. Sometimes, as I lay +prostrate with closed eyes, I said to myself that I must open them and +look at him; but so great seemed the effort of raising my heavy eyelids, +that frequently hours passed and I could not do so. When at last I +lifted my leaden lashes, I saw him, always sitting motionless beside me +with his gaze fixed on my face. With renewed effort I faintly contracted +the muscles of my face and attempted to smile at him. Then, worn out +with fatigue, I dropped my heavy lids and my soul floated away again +towards unconsciousness.... + +When I began to get better I noticed to my amazement that Prilukoff +talked to himself all the time. Perhaps he had done so from the first, +but then I was too weak to understand or even to hear him. Now that a +little strength was coming back to me each day, I could hear and +comprehend the words he uttered; it was a succession of imprecations, of +incoherent and disconnected maledictions hurled against Naumoff and +Kamarowsky, who as he thought had snatched my heart from him, and would +be the ruin and the death of me. I could hear him murmuring: + +"They must be got rid of; we have sworn it. They must die." + +Towards evening his meager face grew red as if with fever, and his +mutterings increased, became more rapid and excited. He would bend over +me with his nightmare face as I lay weak and helpless on my pillows. + +"They are outside there, in the corridor, both of them. I can hear them +walking up and down, whispering together--talking about you. But they are +doomed, are they not? Irrevocably doomed. You have sworn it. Tell me +that it is so." + +I faltered "Yes," hoping to silence him, but he never ceased his uncanny +mutterings; and the idea of murder completely possessed his disordered +brain. Elise, moving like a little frightened ghost through the locked +and darkened rooms, frequently attempted to come to my aid. + +"Go away; leave her alone," she would say to Prilukoff. "Do you want her +to fall ill again? Why don't you go to sleep? Why don't you eat? Why +don't you go out?" + +But Prilukoff stared at her with vacant eyes, then went into the +dining-room and drank some vodka, and soon he was bending over me again. + +"Mind, I am not going to do it alone," he whispered, "so that afterwards +you would be afraid and horrified of me. No, no. You shall help me. You +shall attend to one, and I to the other." + +By degrees, as strength returned to me and dispelled the torpor that had +numbed my brain, I understood Prilukoff's ravings, and was aghast at +them. Absorbed in his monstrous dream, he delighted in planning all the +details of the double crime. + +"What I want is to be alone with the man I saw holding you in his arms +the other evening." He ground his teeth. "As for your betrothed, you +shall give him a dose of curare or atropine. An exquisite wedding cup +for the bridegroom!" + +Then I burst into tears of terror and weakness, while the indignant +Elise, hastening to my aid, would grasp Prilukoff's arm and compel him +to leave me. He would sit gloomily in a corner, or go into the adjoining +room, but a little while afterwards he was there again, raving as +before. + +"Elise," I whispered to her one evening, "I am afraid, I am terribly +afraid of him." + +"Shall I tell some one about it? Shall I tell Monsieur the Count?" +exclaimed Elise. + +"No, no," I cried. + +"Might I--might I tell Monsieur Naumoff?" + +I hesitated; but when I recalled those golden eyes that turned to me +filled with such trust and adoration I shook my head. "No, tell no one, +Elise, tell no one." And I hid my face in the pillows. + +At last a day came when I was able to be up for an hour, and it was no +longer possible to prevent Kamarowsky from coming to see me. Prilukoff +refused to go away; I could not get him to stir from my room. At last, +having compelled me to repeat the abominable vow, having forced me to +invoke once more the seraphic image of little Tioka as tutelar genius of +a monstrous crime, he went away, passing through my dressing-room to an +outer passage at the back of the hotel. + +Elise dressed me and placed me in an armchair near the window, where I +reclined, trembling and weak. Then I sent word to Count Kamarowsky that +I would see him. + +He came in full of emotion and joy. "At last, at last you are better," +he cried, his kind eyes alight with pleasure. "But how pale you are, how +dreadfully pale." And bending over me, he kissed my hair with infinite +tenderness. + +As I saw him standing before me, smiling and well, the murderous ravings +of Prilukoff and my own iniquitous vow seemed but a figment of my morbid +fancy, a half-forgotten illusion of my delirium, dissolving and fading +away like a dark dream at daylight. + +Kamarowsky held my hand tightly clasped in his, as if he were half +afraid I might vanish from him. "What a poor little blue-white hand!" he +said. "You have become quite transparent, Mura; I think I can look right +through you and see your soul, trembling and flickering like a little +flame!" + +I smiled at him. All my morbid fear and dislike of him, even as all my +sudden insensate infatuation for Naumoff, was spent. Nothing remained of +the storm my soul and senses had passed through but a limitless weakness +and languor. I yearned to rest, to sleep, to sink out of life and be no +more.... + +A few moments later they announced Naumoff, who had brought me some +roses. I was neither glad nor sorry to see him. Punctually when an hour +had elapsed Elise Perrier sent my visitors away and put me to bed again. + +I fell asleep almost immediately. + +When I reopened my eyes, twilight filled my room with shadows and there +was Prilukoff, sitting beside my bed, talking to himself about murder, +revenge and poison. + + + + +XXXIV + + +Every day my fear of Prilukoff increased. I had only one thought--to +escape from him, to go far away where he could never find me; better +still, to hide with Tioka and Elise in some distant spot, where neither +this terrible maniac nor yet Naumoff, nor even Kamarowsky, could ever +reach me. + +I thought of Otrada, my home. But how could my unhappy father protect me +against the loving persistence of Kamarowsky, against Naumoff's +passionate daring, or Prilukoff's diabolic designs? + +In the rare moments when I was alone with Elise, we talked it over. In +trembling whispers, glancing constantly round lest the Scorpion should +be on the watch, we concerted the manner of our flight. + +We made a thousand different plans, all equally extravagant and +impracticable. In our luxurious hotel rooms we were imprisoned like mice +in a trap. We never opened a door without finding a maid awaiting our +orders, or a zealous and obsequious waiter bowing to us, or Kamarowsky +asking for news, or Naumoff waiting with a bunch of flowers in his hand. + +We closed the door, and found ourselves shut up with Prilukoff, +ferocious and maniacal, who glowered at us with the eye of a tiger. + +A thousand times in my weakness and despair I was on the point of +throwing the door wide open and calling for help--calling Kamarowsky and +Naumoff, and crying to them: "Look! a man is shut up in here. For days +and days he has been torturing and threatening me. The man is a criminal +and a thief, and he has been my lover. Save me from him!" + +But then I pictured to myself the scene of violence that would follow, +the room echoing with revolver shots; and at the mere thought of it, in +my weak and exhausted state, I fell into long fainting fits from which +Elise had the greatest difficulty in reviving me. + +One morning Elise had an idea: "Let us confide in the doctor." + +I agreed. But the thought agitated me so that when the doctor came he +found me trembling, with a rapid, irregular pulse and panting breath. + +"Doctor--" I began. + +"Ah, but this is bad, very bad. What is the meaning of all this +agitation? Did you sit up too long? If you are not a better patient, I +shall have to complain of you to my friend Paul." + +His friend Paul! True. He was a friend, an intimate friend, of +Kamarowsky's. How could I ever have had the idea that he would keep our +secret, that he would not betray my intended flight? It was a crazy +notion of Elise's. I cast a significant glance at her, and was silent. + +He prescribed bromides and recommended absolute rest of body and mind. +Scarcely was he gone when to my astonishment the long curtain that hung +in front of an alcove where Elise kept my dresses moved slightly. Then +they parted, and Prilukoff appeared. + +Ah! he had not gone out as he had pretended when the doctor had been +announced! He had hidden himself. What if I had spoken? + +My fear of him turned to frenzy: I thought him endowed with supernatural +powers. My room seemed to be filled with innumerable Prilukoffs peering +out at me from every corner. I clung to Elise. "We must go away, we must +go away to-morrow," I whispered. "Do you understand?" + +"Yes, madame," was Elise's firm and humble reply. + +"Send to fetch little Tioka; send for him at once." + +"Yes, madame." + +Later, while she was dressing me, she stooped to draw on my +stocking--Prilukoff was reading in the adjoining room--and she murmured: + +"We have no money to travel with." + +"You must ask Count Kamarowsky for some; he will give you all we want," +I whispered. + +"Not without asking what it is for. We shall need a great deal." + +"Oh, Elise, think, think of something," I sighed, and felt myself +turning faint. + +"What are you two mumbling and plotting?" growled Prilukoff's voice from +the adjoining room. + +We were silent. + +Tenderly and anxiously assisted by Kamarowsky and Elise I went down to +the terrace that day, and spent the afternoon reclining on a couch in +the mild spring sunshine, with eyes closed and every limb relaxed. I +thought of our impending flight. Kamarowsky, seated beside me, kept +silence, thinking I was asleep. + +Shortly afterwards I heard Tioka's quick little footsteps running across +the terrace towards us. Kamarowsky doubtless warned him to keep very +quiet, for I heard him stepping nearer on tip-toe, and without a word he +clambered on to Kamarowsky's knee and laid his fair head confidingly +against his shoulder. + +Beneath my drooping lashes, I gazed at them, and thought of the hideous +plot that was weaving itself round this kind and generous man, who all +unknowing pressed forward towards treachery and death; and I thought of +the iniquitous oath which had placed a circlet of blood round that fair +childish head. + +With a sob I raised myself and stretched out my arms to them both. + + * * * * * + +It was eleven o'clock on the following night. Elise put out the lights +and prepared the bromide and water on my little table. Prilukoff was +rambling backwards and forwards between bedroom and drawing-room, +smoking a cigarette. + +"Elise," I whispered. "Are we ready?" + +Elise nodded. + +"Elise, when? When is it to be?" + +"Hush, madame. Later on, towards morning; as soon"--with her head she +indicated Prilukoff--"as soon as he is asleep." + +"But he never sleeps, Elise!" + +Elise looked at me. "He will sleep to-night," she said; and there was an +icy hardness in her tone that I had never heard before. + +"Why will he sleep? How can you know?" + +Before she could answer, Prilukoff reappeared in the doorway. He had a +glass of vodka in his hand. + +"This accursed throat!" he said, throwing his cigarette away and putting +his hand to his neck. "Everything I swallow burns and scratches me." He +coughed and cleared his throat. "You can go, Elise. I shall see to +anything your mistress needs." + +Elise did not reply. With a hard, pinched face she poured the water into +my glass and dropped two little bromide tablets into it. Then with her +back turned to Prilukoff she fixed her eyes upon me and moved her lips: +"_Do not drink._" She formulated the words clearly but without sound. I +stared at her in bewilderment, and she made the movement with her lips +again: "_Do not drink anything._" Then seeing that, notwithstanding my +astonishment, I had understood her, she said respectfully: "Good night, +madame," and left the room. + +She went out by the bath-room door, of which she always kept the key. + +Prilukoff dropped into an armchair and yawned. "This accursed throat," +he repeated. + +He poured out a glass of water from the crystal carafe on my table and +swallowed it at a gulp. Then he coughed violently. + +"The devil!" he exclaimed. "This too! It tastes like some beastly +concoction of--of chloral." He coughed and yawned again. Then he leaned +his head against my bed. A few moments later he started up. + +"The devil!" he repeated, rising to his feet. I saw him go to the little +table on which Elise every evening left some coffee ready on a spirit +lamp; he lit it, and I dreamily watched the thin blue waverings of the +flame. While the coffee was heating Prilukoff constantly cleared his +throat, with the same murmured oath. Now he poured the smoking coffee +into a cup and sipped it. "By all the infernal powers--" he cried, and +turned suddenly to look at me. + +I did not dare to shut my eyes, much as I should have liked to do so. He +came up to my bed and bending over me looked me in the face. Then he +touched my shoulder. + +"See here!" + +I drooped my eyelids drowsily. "Yes, dear! What is it?" + +"Just taste this coffee," and he pushed the cup against my lips. + +I sat up and with a smile took the cup from his hands. + +"It burns," I said, barely touching it with my lips and making a little +grimace. + +"Drink it!" he roared in a terrible voice, though his eyes were half +shut as if he could not keep awake. + +I took a sip of the coffee: it scraped my throat like a rake. I thought +of Elise and understood. For a moment the idea flashed through my brain +to say that I found nothing the matter with it. Then I changed my mind. + +"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What have they put in this coffee? It +tastes like poison!" + +Prilukoff bent still closer over me. + +"If you had said it was all right, I should have strangled you." + +My teeth chattered, partly through the taste of the chloral, partly +through my fear of Prilukoff. + +"Have you drunk much of it?" I gasped. "You ought to call for help." + +But Prilukoff had sunk into an armchair, and already, with his head +rolled back and his mouth open, he slept. + + + + +XXXV + + +How did we three hapless, terrified creatures manage to escape from the +hotel that night? + +Tioka, wakened out of his sleep at three o'clock, kept on whimpering. + +"Where are we going? I am afraid. I want Papa Paul! Call Papa Paul." + +As we descended the dark staircase a night porter, dozing in the hall, +started up and came towards us, blinking and yawning. When he caught +sight of Elise, laden with shawls and medicine bottles--which constituted +all our luggage--he seemed greatly astonished. + +For a moment no one spoke. Then: "I am feeling ill," I said. "We are +going to the doctor. Please call a carriage for me." + +"But excuse me, madame," stammered the man. "Had I not better telephone +to the doctor to come to the hotel?" His eyes wandered suspiciously from +me to the lachrymose Tioka, and from Tioka to Elise and her burdens. + +"Open the door," said Elise authoritatively, "and call a carriage, at +once." + +The man shook his head. + +Then I saw Elise gather all the shawls into a heap on her left arm, as +with her right hand she searched for something under her cloak. She drew +out a crumpled piece of paper, and with a gesture of solemn deliberation +she proffered it to the man. It was a banknote of a hundred rubles. + +The man took the note, stared at it, and turned it round and round in +his fingers. Then he raised his eyes and gazed in stupefaction at Elise. + +"Open that door and call a carriage," commanded Elise, in a thin voice. + +The man obeyed. As the large door swung back we could see that it was +nearly dawn; the sound of distant church bells came to us across the +clear, keen air. Elise raised her hand to her forehead and made the sign +of the cross.... She had plundered the white elephant! + +Oh, Elise Perrier, not least among my great pangs of remorse is the +thought that I have dragged you down into my own dishonor. For me and +through me, your honest hard-working hand and your innocent soul were +stained with guilt. + +While we stood waiting for the man to return, I thought I heard a door +open and close overhead. + +I started. "Could it be Prilukoff?" I gasped to Elise. + +She shook her head. + +"Elise, what have you done to him?" + +"I put chloral into everything--into everything," and Elise shuddered. + +"Oh, Elise! What if he were to die?" + +She made no answer. + +"And if we were to be sent to prison?" + +The bells were ringing joyfully in the limpid Easter dawn. + +Elise closed her eyes, and her lips moved: "Dear God of Eastertide, give +us Thy blessing." + +Tioka stopped crying to look at her. Then with an enchanting smile he +did as she had done. He closed his blue eyes, which were still full of +tears, and said: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing." + + +The days swung forward. + +Prilukoff was the first to discover us. We had been hidden in Vienna, in +the little Hotel Victoria, less than a week, when one morning he stood +before our terror-stricken eyes. + +He was derisive and sarcastic; but finding us alone--without Kamarowsky, +without Naumoff--the maleficent frenzy that possessed him at Orel seemed +to have vanished. He was soon quite genial and good-humored; he was once +more the Prilukoff we had known at Moscow, the trusty knight--Elise's +Lohengrin! + +He did not speak of the past; he made no allusion to the chloral. +Neither did he ever recall his murderous purposes; and sometimes I +thought that I had dreamt it all. Cheerful and light-hearted, he took us +out for drives in carriages and motors, to the Prater, to the Bruehl, to +the Semmering; he insisted upon our going with him to theaters, concerts +and cabarets. + +And to pay for it all we had recourse to the black leather satchel. When +any money was required, we found it there. No accounts were kept. +Simply, and as a matter of course, we dipped into the lacerated body of +the white elephant and took what we needed. + +I let myself drift with the tide; I gave no thought either to the future +or the past, but yielded myself passively to my fate like a straw afloat +on the water.... + +One day I saw in the newspapers that Kamarowsky was putting in motion +the police of every city in Europe in his efforts to find me. Then, on +Prilukoff's advice, I sent Elise to Neuchatel to telegraph to him from +there in my name, in order to tranquilize him and mislead his inquiries. + +No sooner was the name of Kamarowsky mentioned between us than Prilukoff +became sullen and gloomy again. He sulked and glowered at me, and passed +the whole day without speaking a word. + +On this particular day we had taken a box at the _Theater An der Wien_, +having promised Tioka that he should hear "The Merry Widow." Long before +it was time to go, the little fellow was dressed and ready, jumping up +and down in front of the window. + +"Let us make haste," he cried. "The carriage will be tired of waiting. +Let us make haste!" + +Suddenly he uttered a shriek of joy. "Mother, mother, look! There is +Papa Paul! I can see him--he has just passed. Papa Paul!" he shouted with +all his might. + +Prilukoff caught him by his little jacket and drew him roughly from the +window. Then he himself looked out. + +"Sure enough," he said, shutting the window and looking at me with that +terrible crooked smile I had learned to dread. "It is Kamarowsky." + +There was a moment's silence. Then he said: "And now I have had enough +of this. We will end it." Murder gleamed in his eyes. + +I clasped Tioka in my arms--the child was quite sad and hurt by +Prilukoff's sudden rudeness--and as I kissed his soft curls I breathed +Elise's prayer: "Dear God of Eastertide, give us Thy blessing." + +But alas! it was Easter no longer. + +In spite of what had happened, we went to the theater that night. And +there, while the music swayed us in the undulating rhythm of the waltz, +and little Tioka gazed enraptured at the stage, Prilukoff, sitting +behind me in the shadow, formulated his plans for the crime. + +"You have sworn it on your child, remember. If you break your oath, he +will be the sufferer." + +Tioka turned to us with shrill laughter. "Oh, look, mama, how beautiful +it all is! Look at that fat policeman dancing." + +"When Kamarowsky finds you here--" Prilukoff went on; but I interrupted +him. + +"No, no. Let us leave Vienna at once." + +"It is useless. He will find us all the same. You are too striking," he +added, "to pass unobserved." And with a cynical laugh he surveyed me +from head to foot. "He had better not find me with you. I shall remain +at the Hotel Victoria; but you and Tioka must go to the Bristol, and +when that man joins you, this is what you must do--" + +His iniquitous suggestions floated on the buoyant waltz music like +carrion on the surface of a sparkling stream. + +I shuddered in horror. "No, no," I murmured. "Have pity! No ... no!" + +Oh! that music of Lehar's, that every one knows and every one whistles, +and that is played by every organ at every street-corner--what monstrous +secrets does it murmur to my heart! + + _Ich gehe zu Maxim,_ + _Da bin ich sehr intim..._ + +The joyous verses ring in my ears like the shrieks of maleficent Furies, +scourging me with nefarious counsels and diabolic commands.... + +And while little Tioka laughs and claps his hands, I, his mother, sink +ever deeper and deeper into the gulf of despair; and crime, like a sea +of mire, closes its corrupt waves over my head. + + + + +XXXVI + + +Everything came about as Prilukoff had foreseen. Kamarowsky found me the +following evening alone with Tioka at the Bristol Hotel. He overwhelmed +me with reproaches and with endearments. + +I maintained a mysterious silence, which he interpreted merely as the +caprice of a spoiled child; nor did he take umbrage at it. He was too +happy at having found me to care to quarrel either with the Fates or +with me. All he said was: "Marie, I shall not leave you again." And the +promise sounded almost like a threat. + +For some time Prilukoff gave no sign. I might have thought he had +forgotten me. He had fixed a definitive space of time: ten days. + +On the eighth day he sent me a note, telling me to come to the Hotel +Victoria that evening at nine o'clock. He would then provide we with +what was needful. I was not to fail--or he would come himself. + +I dined with Paul Kamarowsky as usual; then, pleading a headache, I +retired to my room at eight o'clock. + +Half an hour later a closed carriage was conveying me to the Hotel +Victoria. + +From Prilukoff's hands I received a syringe, two tiny bottles, and a box +filled with globules of curare, nitrate of amyl and chloroform. From his +set gray lips I received instructions how to use these things. His teeth +were chattering as well as my own; his hands were ice-cold and his eyes +distraught. + +Then I fell on my knees at his feet. I implored him with all the +strength of desperation to forego his abominable purpose. I reminded him +of his past, of his unsullied youth, of the kind and generous love that +had at first bound him to me; with tears streaming down my face I clung +to his knees and swore to him eternal gratitude, eternal devotion, if +only he would not stain my soul with crime, if only he would not ruin +himself forever with so dark and vile a deed. + +I beat my forehead against his feet, entreating of him death for myself, +but pity, pity for a generous, chivalrous man whose only wish was to +protect and save me. + +What heaven-inspired words were granted me that I was able to move him? +I cannot tell; but suddenly a great shudder went through him and +agonized sobs shook his frame. He bent down and raised me. Then he sank +into an armchair and wept aloud with uplifted face, a terrible spectacle +of anguish and desolation. + +I also wept, kneeling beside him, kissing his hands, thanking him, +blessing him. + +"Donat, dearest, do not weep! It has been all a dream--a fearful dream. +We were ill--we were poor demented creatures. God will not remember it--He +will cancel and forgive everything. Let us thank Him, Donat, for not +permitting us to do harm to any one. Let us begin life all over again--a +new, honorable life." + +"Ah, no," groaned Prilukoff. "I am a criminal. I have stolen!" + +"Never mind, never mind. You will give it all back. I will help you to +give it all back. We must be prepared to face suffering and humiliation, +but we shall atone; we shall take up our lives again, and retrieve and +redeem the past." + +Even while I spoke I resolved that I would confess everything to +Kamarowsky, and this thought filled me with joy. I would reveal to him +the darkest recesses of my soul; I would confess the iniquitous +treachery plotted against him, my every act of baseness and of shame. He +would drive me from him in loathing, he would tread me under foot like +some poisonous thing, but I would bow my head beneath his wrath and his +disdain. I would go far away and live the rest of my life in humility +and penitence. I would perhaps link my fate with that of Prilukoff, the +degraded outcast ... yes, my penance should be to stay forever with him +who inspired me now with so much horror and fear.... + +Carried away by an ecstasy of feeling, we knelt down in that paltry +hotel-room and thanked God for having opened our eyes, for having +touched our hearts, for having saved us. Then praying aloud: "_Lord, let +not our sins be counted against us_..." we broke the syringe and the +phials of poison into a thousand fragments. Prilukoff tore the flesh of +his hands as he snapped the hollow steel needle, which thrust itself +into his palm like some fierce, living thing. "_Blot out our +transgressions and remember not our iniquities_..." We trampled on the +globules of amyl and chloroform, setting free the lethal vapors, which +turned us giddy. Intoxicated with them and with our own emotions we fell +once more on our knees, praying with uplifted hands: "_Deliver us from +our sins_ ... _of Thy mercy save us_ ... _save us_..." + + + + +XXXVII + + +I remember that once in our childhood we were by the sea--I cannot tell +in what country we were, nor what sea it was--and our English governess +took us out one morning on the beach to see a tidal wave. + +"What is a tidal wave, Miss Williams?" we inquired. + +"Two or three immense waves which only come once a year," replied the +sibylline Miss Williams. "Now keep quiet and look." + +We kept quiet and looked. And presently we thought we could see a huge +wave, larger than all the others, coming towards us from the horizon. + +"Look! Look there! It is the tidal wave!" + +"No," said Miss Williams. "That is not it." + +And, indeed, presently there appeared a wave which was greater still--it +reared its crest, towered aloft, and fell. + +"That was it! That was it!" + +But still farther away, on the line of the horizon, a mighty wave--a +veritable wall of water--was approaching, formidable, gigantic, +fabulous.... + +That was the "tidal wave." + +In the course of my life, when events tragic and inexorable have raised +their threatening billows above me and caught me in their crashing +downfall, sweeping me like a piece of frail wreckage towards +destruction, I have said to myself: "This is the tidal wave. Nothing +worse can follow. Nothing more terrible than this can come upon me." + +But lo! behind that great wave of calamity another and still greater has +followed, and still another and another--fabulous waves of tragedy and +disaster. + +Thus it was that when I left Prilukoff that evening I thought that the +tidal wave of my destiny had at last passed over me. Nothing more could +crush and overwhelm me; before me stretched only the limitless levels of +grief and remorse. + +But it was not so. Another--the last--wave of disaster was rearing itself +like the fabulous wall of water of my childhood's recollections, +carrying me on its crest, crashing down with me to irremediable ruin, to +the fathomless abyss of crime. + + +That very night Tioka fell ill. Elise came hurriedly into my room to +call me. "Come at once, my lady. The young master is very ill. He is +delirious and keeps talking to himself." + +I ran into the child's room. He was sitting up in bed, his wide eyes +glowing in his fevered face. Where and when had I once before seen him +like this?... + +His mind was wandering, and he talked incessantly--about Tania whom he +had not seen or mentioned for the past two years, about his grandmother, +and the old dog Bear. Then suddenly he asked for a picture and for some +poetry. "Mama," he said, clinging to my neck, "say the poetry to me, the +poetry--" + +"What poetry, oh, my darling, my darling?" + +"The poetry about the picture. Say it. Say it." He began to cry and +tremble with his hot cheek close to mine. + +I racked my brain for a poem: + + "This is the miller who lives in the mill, + The mill beside the river, oh!..." + +"No, no, no!" cried the child. "Not that!" + +I tried again: + + "Brown-eyed Peter is going for a soldier; + Going for a soldier with his little turn-up nose..." + +"No, no, no!" shrieked Tioka despairingly. "Tania, Tania--the moon--the +picture. Say it quickly!" + +A lightning flash seemed to tear the clouds of oblivion from my brain +and illuminate the past. I was once more in Vassili's country house ... +once more I entered the dim white nursery where my children, like two +blonde seraphs, lay asleep.... A lamp hanging between the two little +cots lit up an artless picture hanging on the wall--a rippling-haired +Madonna standing in a star-lit sky, holding in her youthful arms the +infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head. + +Crying softly as I cradled my son's fair head upon my breast, I began: + + "When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary + Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...." + + * * * * * + +Tioka grew worse. With glittering eyes and thin red cheeks he cried all +day long that he wanted Grania--that he wanted Tania. But Grania had been +sent away hurriedly for fear of infection--Count Kamarowsky's sister had +come and taken him away--and Tania, alas! the gentle little Tania, far +away in the castle of the Tarnowskys, had doubtless long since forgotten +her brother Tioka and her heart-broken mother as well. + +The doctors shook their heads gravely as they stood by the tumbled cot +in which the little boy tossed and moaned ceaselessly: "A train--a train +is running over my head. Take it away! It hurts me, it hurts me..." And +as they looked into his throat, which was dark red, almost purple in +hue, they murmured: "Diphtheria? Scarlet fever?" Then they went away, +conversing in low tones, leaving me beside myself with grief and terror. + +Kamarowsky watched with me night and day. Sometimes he fell asleep; and +when I saw him sleeping, the old, unreasoning hatred for him stirred in +my heart again. + +Prilukoff had left the Hotel Victoria, and had taken a room at the +Bristol to be near us. Occasionally I saw him for a moment standing +mournful and depressed outside my door. We looked at each other with +anguish-stricken eyes, but we scarcely ever spoke. I had no thought for +anything but Tioka. + +One night--the fourth since he had been taken ill--the child, who had been +dozing for a few moments, awoke coughing and choking. + +"Mother, mother!" he gasped, fixing his large frightened eyes upon me. +"Why do you let me die?" Then he closed his eyes again. + +I stood as if turned to stone. It was true. It was I, I who was letting +him die. That idea had already flitted through my brain, but I had never +dared to formulate the awful thought. As soon as he had fallen ill I had +said to myself: "This is retribution. Did I not vow on Tioka's life?..." + +I saw myself again at the theater on the evening of "The Merry Widow," +and Prilukoff pointing to the child's angel head and whispering: "If you +break your word, it is he who will pay for it." + +Yes; Tioka was paying for it. He was paying for the iniquitous vow that +had been wrung from me that night at Orel when the three men pursued me +in the darkness. With his revolver pressed against his temple Prilukoff +had bidden me: "Swear!" Ah, why had I not let his fate overtake him? Why +had he not pulled the trigger and fallen dead at my feet? Naumoff would +have rushed in, and Kamarowsky would have broken in the door, and the +whole of the triple treachery and fraud and dishonor would have been +revealed; but, at least, I should have been free--free to take my child +and wander with him through the wide spaces of the world. Whereas, +coward that I had been, the fear of disgrace had vanquished me, and the +threat of ignominy and death had dragged the inhuman vow from my +lips.... And now Tioka was paying for it. + +The fierce primitive instinct of maternity awoke within me. Weakened by +illness and wakefulness, my spirit lost itself again in the dark +labyrinth of superstition. My frantic gaze passed from Tioka--lying wan +and wasted on his pillows, gasping like a little dying bird--to +Kamarowsky stretched out in an armchair, with his flaccid hands hanging +at his sides and the corners of his mouth relaxed in sleep. I looked at +him; I seemed to see him for the first time--this man to save whose life +I was sacrificing my own child's. Yes, Tioka was dying in order that +this stranger, this outsider, this enemy might live. + +When I turned towards Tioka again I saw that his eyes were open and +fixed upon me. I fell on my knees beside him and whispered wildly: +"Darling, darling, I will not let you die. No, my soul, my own, I will +save you. You shall get well again and run out and play in the +sunshine.... The other one shall die--but not you, not you! Now you will +get well immediately. Are you not better already, my love, my own? Are +you not better already?" + +And my boy, cradled in my arms, smiled faintly as my soft wild whispers +lulled him to sleep. + +This idea now took possession of my brain, to the exclusion of all +others. I thought and dreamed of nothing else. Tioka had scarlet fever +and the fluctuations in his illness seemed to depend solely upon me. +When I told myself that I was firmly, irrevocably resolved to compass +the death of Kamarowsky, the child's fever seemed to abate, his throat +was less inflamed, the pains in his head diminished. But if, as I grew +calmer and clung to hope again, I hesitated in my ruthless purpose, lo! +the fever seized him anew, the rushing trains went thundering over his +temples, and his tender throat swelled until he could hardly draw his +breath. + +Prilukoff followed the oscillations of my distracted spirit with weary +resignation; he was benumbed and apathetic, without mind and without +will. When in the fixity of my mania I insisted upon the necessity of +the crime, he would answer languidly: "Oh, no. Leave it alone. Let +things be." + +Then I grew more and more frenzied, weeping and tearing my hair. + +"Can you not understand that Tioka is dying? Tioka, my little Tioka is +dying! And it is we who are killing him." + +"No, no," sighed Prilukoff. "Let things alone." + +Tioka grew worse. + +A day came when he could not see me or hear me--when he lay quite still +with scarcely flickering breath. Then I rose as one in a dream. I went +to Prilukoff's room. + +He sat listlessly by the window, smoking. I seized him by the arm. + +"Donat Prilukoff, I renew my oath. Paul Kamarowsky shall die within this +year!" + +"All right, all right!" grumbled Prilukoff, wearied to exhaustion by my +constant changes of mood. "Let us finish him once for all, and have done +with it." + +I gasped. "Where? When? Is it _you_ who will--" + +Prilukoff raised his long, languid eyes. "Whatever you like," he said. +Then he added in a spent voice: "I am very tired." + +And it was I who urged him, who pushed him on, who hurried him to think +out and shape our plans. He was languid and inert. Sometimes he would +look dully at me and say: "What a terrible woman you are." But I thought +only of Tioka, and my eager and murderous frenzy increased. + +And behold! Tioka got better. This chance coincidence assumed in my +diseased brain the character of a direct answer from heaven. The +sacrifice had been accepted! + +A year later, when I stood before the judges who were to sentence me, no +word of this delusion passed my lips. Demented though I was, I knew +myself to be demented; I knew that this idea of a barter with heaven was +an insensate idea; and yet, by some fallacy of my hallucinated brain, I +believed--do I not even now believe it?--that my vow had been heard, that +my word must be kept, that one life must be bought with the other. + +Even so, better, far better would it have been to let my child's white +soul flutter heavenwards, than to retain it with my blood-stained hand. + +But at that time my one thought was to save him, even though for his +life, not one, but a thousand others had been immolated. + +The day came when I was able to carry him in my arms from his cot to an +easy chair beside the window. What a joy was that brief transit! His +frail arms were round my neck and his head lay on my shoulder. With +slow, lingering steps I went, loth to leave him out of my embrace. + +A sweet Italian verse came light and fragrant into my memory: + + I thought I bore a flower within my arms... + +It was Prilukoff who reminded me with a cynical smile that the vow +included also Nicolas Naumoff. + +Nicolas Naumoff! I had almost forgotten him. Nicolas Naumoff! Must he, +this distant and forgotten stranger, also die? + +I cannot tell which of us it was who conceived the idea of making use of +him as our instrument--of destroying him by making him a weapon of +destruction, of murdering him by making him a murderer. + +The idea may have been mine. I feared that I could not rely upon the +languid, listless Prilukoff. Yes; it must have been I who devised this +method of propitiating the avenging Fates, and averting from us the +imminent Nemesis. + +"A good idea," said Prilukoff wearily. "Let Naumoff do it." And he +lighted a cigarette. + +I gazed at him, aquiver with superstitious dread. "Do you think that +then Naumoff need not die? Do you think that"--I hesitated--"_that_ will +be enough?..." + +Prilukoff turned and looked at me as if aghast. Then he nodded his head +and the fearful, crooked smile distorted his countenance. + +"Yes," he said. "I think that will be enough." + + + + +XXXVIII + + +To what end should I narrate anew the terrible story which is known to +all? Must I dip again into the soilure and abomination of that awful +time? How dare I tell of the luring telegrams sent to the distant +Naumoff, my guileless and impassioned lover, and of the joy and +gratitude with which he hastened to me? How describe the slow, insidious +poisoning of his mind against Kamarowsky, the hatred subtly instilled in +him against that unconscious, kindly man? And the lies, the slanders, +the ambiguous disclosures of pretended outrages inflicted upon me, of +insults and injuries I feigned to have suffered at Kamarowsky's +hands?... + +Naumoff believed it all. His astonishment and indignation knew no +bounds. What? Kamarowsky, whom he had always thought the most chivalrous +and considerate of men, was a despicable, worthless coward? Well, +Naumoff would challenge him; he would fight a duel to the death with him +who had been his best friend. + +But not that, not that was what I wanted. + +Tioka recovered. Taller, thinner and paler, he came out once more into +the sunshine, leaning on my arm, enraptured at everything, greeting +every ray of light and every winged or flowering thing as if it were a +new acquaintance. + +Not for an instant did I suffer my mind to waver. God, the terrible God +of my disordered fancy, had accepted the compact, and it was now for me +to carry it out. + +As soon as Tioka was well enough to travel, I sent him to Russia to some +of our relations. While I was discharging my debt for his life, he must +be far away. + +Then began the ghastly game, the sinister comedy with the three puppets, +whose strings I held in my fragile hands. I had to tranquilize and +disarm Kamarowsky; to kindle and fan the murderous fury of Prilukoff; +and above all to enchain and infatuate Naumoff, so as to impel him to +the crime. + +Ah, every art that Lilith, daughter of Eve and of the Serpent, has +bequeathed to woman, every insidious perversity and subtle wile did I +bring into play to charm and enamor this youthful dreamer. With every +incitement did I lure and tempt him; with every witchery did I entangle +him in the meshes of my perversity and in the whirlwind of my golden +hair. + +I was indeed the modern Circe, weaving her evil spell. I was fervent and +temerarious, full of exotic anomalies, eccentric, unexpected.... I +delighted in causing him both pleasure and suffering in a thousand +unnatural and outrageous ways; I cut my initials in his arm with the +triangular blade of a dagger; I pressed my lighted cigarette upon his +hand; I assumed all the absurdities, perversities and puerilities with +which since time immemorial woman has decoyed and beguiled man, who, +after all, is essentially a simple-minded and ingenuous being. + +Nicolas Naumoff was dazed and fascinated by all this strange hysteria +and subtlety. He believed himself to be the hero of a fabulous +passion--the incomparable conqueror of a wondrous and portentous love. + +There were times when I myself was carried away by this play of my own +invention. Now and then I lost sight of the grim purpose of this process +of seduction; I rejoiced in my own coquetries, and myself burned in the +flame I had deliberately kindled. + +One evening as he knelt before me, pressing my cool hands against his +fevered forehead, I bent over him with a smile. + +"Why do you love me so much?" I asked. "Tell me. Tell me the truth." + +He answered me gravely in a deep voice, enumerating the reasons on my +fingers as he held them in his own. + +"I love you because you are beautiful and terrible. Because you have +that white, subtle face, and that mouth that is like a greedy rose, and +those long, cruel eyes ... I love you because you are different from all +others, better or worse than all, more intelligent and more passionate +than all." He was silent for a moment. "And also because you have forced +me to love you." + +Yes. I had forced him to love me. And now he was what I wanted him to +be--an instrument ready to my hand: a fierce and docile instrument of +death, a submissive and murderous weapon. + + +June crept warmly up from the south, and murmured of blue waters and +dancing sunlight. + +"Mura, let us go to Venice," said Paul Kamarowsky one afternoon as he +sat beside me on the balcony; "let us pass these last three months of +waiting at the Lido. If needs be, I can take you back to Russia later +on, to complete the few formalities that must precede our marriage." + +"To Venice?" I said faintly. + +Paul Kamarowsky smiled. + + "_Ti guardo e palpito, Venezia mia,_" + +he quoted under his breath. And bending forward, he kissed my trembling +lips. + + + + +XXXIX + + +We prepared to leave. Naumoff's despair was puerile and clamorous. I +entreated him to go back to Orel and wait for me there, and I promised +him that I would soon return to Russia and see him again. As for +Prilukoff, he awakened from his lethargy with the roar of a wounded wild +beast. "To Venice! You are going to Venice with that man? Is that how +you keep your vow?" + +"I will keep it, I will keep it," I cried. "But I said--it--it should be +done within the year--this is only June--we can wait six months longer." + +"By that time you will be his wife," snarled Prilukoff between clenched +teeth. "Unless it is done within the next three months you know it will +never be done at all. Go your way," he jeered, "do as you like! Play +fast and loose with fate as you have played fast and loose with me!" He +turned and gripped my wrist. "But you will escape neither of us. Fate +and I will overtake you, Marie Tarnowska, be it in Venice--or in hell!" + +We left for the Lido. + +And while, on the arm of my bethrothed, I wandered by the dancing +waters, and the golden hours showered their light upon us, in my dark +heart I prayed: + +"God, give me strength and ruthlessness! God, who didst guide the hand +of Judith, fill my soul with violence and teach my hand to slay!" + + * * * * * + +Prilukoff followed us to Verona. Then he came after us to Venice, where +he took rooms in the same hotel, lurking in the corridors, shadowing us +in the streets, pursuing me day and night with his misery and jealousy. +Occasionally I saw him for a few moments alone, and then we would +whisper together about the deed that was to be done, speaking feverishly +in low quick tones like demented creatures. If I wavered, it was he who +reminded me ruthlessly of my child and of my vow; if he hesitated, it +was I who with the insensate perversity of madness urged him on towards +the crime. + +One evening--ah, how well do I remember that radiant summer sunset +beneath which the lagoon lay like a fluid sheet of copper!--he met me on +the Lido. He was morose and gloomy. He took from his pocket a black +crumpled package. It was Elise's old satchel--the "white elephant," +tattered, empty, dead. + +With a vehement movement he flung it into the water. Where it fell the +sheet of copper shivered into a thousand splinters of red gold. + +"Empty?" I asked in a low tone. + +"Empty," he replied. + +"And now, what will you do?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. It was then that the idea came to him--the +execrable, the nefarious idea. + +"Listen. As he"--with a movement of his head he indicated the absent +Kamarowsky--"is doomed--I suppose he is doomed, isn't he?" he interposed. + +I assented in a barely audible whisper: "Yes." + +"Well, his--his disappearance may as well be of some use. Do you not +think so?" + +Seeing the look of horror which I turned upon him, he continued: "For +goodness' sake don't let us behave like romantic fools. We are not a +pair of poetic assassins in a play, are we?" + + [Illustration: UNDER ARREST] + +Gradually, by subtle pleading and plausible argument, he led my weak +brain to view the idea with less horror. He assured me that we had not +only the right but almost the duty to commit this enormity. According to +him, it was not a shameful and disgraceful deed. No; it was a just, +reasonable, logical thing to do. + +"Of course, it is not as if we were getting rid of a man simply in order +to plunder him of his money. No, indeed. That would be vile, that would +be abominable. But, given the necessity--the irrevocableness--of his fate, +why should we not see to it that his death may at least be of some use +to some one? Not to ourselves, remember. The money you get from him +shall be used to serve a just purpose--to redress a wrong. We shall make +restitution to those I have despoiled. I will pay back what I took from +my clients to the very last farthing. And anything that is left over +shall be given in charity to the poor. What do you say to that? We shall +keep nothing for ourselves--nothing. Do you agree?" + +He went on to recall that among the clients he had defrauded was a widow +with four little children; the thought of her, he said, had always +worried him. It was good to think that she would recover every penny. + +The advocate in him awoke, eloquent and convincing, until he ended by +assuring me that we should be performing a meritorious deed. + +Indignant at first, then uncertain, then reluctant, I was finally +persuaded. Soon I heard myself repeating after him: "It will be a +meritorious deed." + +Ah, if such beings as evil spirits exist, with what laughter must they +have listened to our talk in that exquisite evening hour. + +It was Prilukoff who thought out the details and settled the plan. + +"You must get him to insure his life." + +"How can I?" I cried feebly and tearfully. "How can one possibly suggest +such a thing?" + +"Leave that to me," said Prilukoff, reverting to his Moscow manner. + +Next day he showed me a letter written by himself in a disguised hand. + +"Open this letter when he is present, and when he insists on seeing it, +show it to him ... reluctantly!" + +"But what if he does not insist?" + +"You must make him insist," said Prilukoff. + + +The letter was brought to me in Kamarowsky's presence, and when he saw +me turning scarlet and then pale as I opened it, he insisted on seeing +what it contained. + +I showed it to him ... reluctantly. + +The letter was in Prilukoff's handwriting, but was signed "Ivan +Troubetzkoi." The prince (whom I scarcely remembered, and whom I had not +seen for more than six years) begged me to marry him, and as proof of +his devotion offered to make a will in my favor and, in addition, to +insure his life for half a million francs. + +Paul Kamarowsky was aghast. + +"Is everybody trying to steal you away from me, Mura?" he exclaimed +brokenly; then he sat down on the sofa with his head in his hands. I +gazed at him, feeling as if I should die with sorrow and remorse. + +For a long time he did not speak. Then he drew me to him. + +"Dear one, do not heed the offers of other people. No one, whether he be +prince or moujik, can love you more than I do. No one will do more for +you than I am willing to do. I, also, am ready to make a will in your +favor; I, also, will insure my life for half a million francs." + +"No, no," I cried, crushed with misery and shame. + +"Oh, yes, I will. It shall be done immediately. To-day." + + +And it was done. + + +"You see?" cried Prilukoff triumphantly, "I am not quite a fool yet, am +I? Hush now, don't cry. Remember that it is not for ourselves, but to +make an honorable act of restitution." + +"But a hundred thousand francs would have been enough for that," I +sobbed. + +"The other four hundred thousand we shall give to the poor," said +Prilukoff. "It will be a meritorious deed." + + + + +XL + + +I remember that when I was a child I was taken to a fair and given a +ride on a switchback railway. I was scarcely seated in the car, with the +straps round my waist and the giddy track before me, than I cried to get +out again. But the car was already moving forward, slowly gliding down +the first incline. + +I screamed, writhing against the straps, "Stop! stop! I want to get out. +I want to go back!" But now the car was rushing giddily, in leaps and +bounds, down one slope and up another, whirling over bridges and gulfs, +dashing down the precipitous declivity with ever-increasing speed. + + +Even thus had I embarked, almost without realizing it, upon the rapid +slope of crime. Impelled by my own madness, I had started on the +vertiginous course to perdition, and now I plunged downwards, rolling, +leaping, rushing into the darkness, without possibility of pause or +return. + + +It was Kamarowsky himself who begged me to leave Venice for Kieff, where +some formalities still remained to be accomplished before our impending +marriage. He offered to accompany me, but I declined. He resigned +himself, therefore, though with reluctance, to allowing me to start +alone with Elise. + +"Now," said Prilukoff, on the eve of my departure--and the transversal +vein stood out like whipcord on his forehead--"let there be no more +backing out and putting off. You will see Naumoff in Russia; send him +straight back here. I'm sick of this business; let us get it over." + +I bowed my head and wept. + +Kamarowsky took me to the railway station, where I found the compartment +he had reserved for me already filled with flowers. I thanked him with +trembling lips. + +"In three weeks, my love," he said, "you will be back again, and then I +shall not part from you any more." He kissed me and stepped down upon +the platform, where he stood gazing up at me with smiling eyes. Many +people stood near, watching us. I leaned out of the carriage window, and +as I looked at him I kept repeating to myself: "This is the last time I +shall see him! The last time!" + +It seemed strange and incongruous to see him there, with his usual +aspect, making ordinary gestures and uttering commonplace remarks. +Knowing as I did that he stood on the threshold of death, I wondered +that he had not a more staid and solemn demeanor, slower, graver +gestures and memorable words. + +Whereas he was saying, with a smile: "Mind you don't lose your purse; +and remember to look after your luggage at the Customs. You will have +the dining-car at Bozen." And then, looking about him: "Would you like +some newspapers?" He hurried away after the newsvendor, and then counted +his change and argued about a coin which he thought was counterfeit. He +came back to my carriage door, handed me the newspapers, and with his +handkerchief dried his forehead and the inside of his hat. + +"Fearfully hot," he said, looking up at me with a friendly laugh. + +All this seemed terribly out of keeping with the tragic situation of +which, all unconsciously, he was the hero. I tried to say something +tender and affectionate to him, but my agitation stifled me. + +"Mind you are good," he said, still smiling, and he threw a glance at +some officers in the compartment next to mine. + +I heard the doors being shut and the guard calling out "_Partenza!_" My +heart began to beat wildly. I felt as if once again I were strapped in +the car on the switchback railway. I wanted to get out, to stop, to turn +back. A whistle sounded and a gong was struck. + +"Well, Mura, _au revoir_," cried Kamarowsky, stretching up his hand to +me. "A happy journey and all blessings." + +I leaned out as far as I could--the bar across the window hindered me, +but I managed to touch his outstretched hand with the tips of my +fingers. + +A spasm caught my throat. "Paul, Paul!" I gasped. "Oh, God, forgive me!" +A shrill whistle drowned my voice as the train moved slowly forward. + +He must have seen the anguish in my face, for he cried anxiously: + +"What? What did you say?" Now he was running beside the train, which was +beginning to go faster. + +I repeated my cry: "Forgive me! Forgive me!" and stretched out my arms +to him from the window. + +He shook his head to show that he had not understood. The train was +throbbing and hastening. + +He ran faster beside it. "What--what is it? What did you say?" But the +train was gaining speed, and he was obliged to stop. He stood there, +erect and solitary, at the extreme end of the platform, following with +perplexed and questioning gaze the train that was carrying me away. + +It is thus always that I see him in my memory--a solitary figure, gazing +at me with perplexed and wondering eyes. + +Surely it is thus, thus wondering and perplexed, that he must have +looked in the face of death and treachery, on that summer morning when +he was struck down by the hand of his friend. + +The switchback plunges downward in its mad race to the abyss--the end is +near. + +At Kieff, as arranged, I meet Naumoff. + +I sob out my despair to him. Paul Kamarowsky must die. I give no reason, +I explain nothing; I repeat unceasingly the three words: "He must die," +until there seem to be no other words in the world--until the universe +seems to ring with those three words: "He must die!" + +Naumoff recoils from me, pale-faced and horrified. Then I drive him from +me, crying: "Go, you are a coward. Let me never see you again!" + +"But why should he die?" cries Naumoff. "What has the poor man done to +you?" + +Ah, what, indeed, has the poor man done? + +Ramblingly, incoherently, I try to explain to Naumoff; I tell him of +Tioka and his illness, of my vow.... He listens amazed, without +comprehending. + +"But Mura, Mura! This is delirium, this is madness. You are ill, you are +out of your mind. How can such an insensate idea possess you? How can +you imagine that God would demand such an iniquity?" + +Then I rack my brain for arguments that will convince him. I invent all +manner of falsehoods; I repeat the tale of insults and outrages that I +have endured at the hands of Kamarowsky; I accuse him of violence and +brutality ... and even as I tell these mad stories they seem to myself +to be true. I am thrilled by my own words; I tremble, I weep +convulsively; and Naumoff, ever more pale, ever more bewildered, does +not know what to believe. + +Continually, a dozen times a day, blind to all caution, reckless of all +consequences, I send telegrams to Prilukoff--the telegrams that +afterwards were found, and led to our arrest--"Berta refuses." +(Prilukoff, I know not for what reason, had nicknamed Naumoff "Berta.") +Then again: "Berta will do it." And again: "Berta irresolute. What am I +to do?" + +Then seized by sudden panic: "Wait! Do no harm to any one. Advise me. +Help me. I am going mad." + +Prilukoff telegraphs back his usual set phrase: "Leave it to me." And he +forthwith proceeds to send me a number of telegrams, all of which +contain a series of insults and taunts addressed both to Naumoff and to +myself. He signs them "Paul Kamarowsky." Naumoff reads them in +amazement, then in anger; finally he, too, becomes possessed of the idea +of crime, obsessed by the frenzy of murder. + +How can I tell the terrible story further?... The gust of madness caught +us in its whirlwind, dashing us round like leaves blown in a storm. + +One evening--it was a pale, clear twilight at the close of August--I +sprang suddenly to my feet, and winding a black veil round my hair, I +ran from my rooms and down the wide shallow flights of the hotel +staircase. There were large mirrors on every landing. As I descended I +saw at every turn a woman coming to meet me, a tall, spectral creature +with a black veil tied round a white, desolate face ... her light, wild +eyes filled me with fear, and I hurried forward to reach the hall, where +I heard voices and music. + +Standing beside the piano in the vast lounge, two young girls were +singing; they were English girls, and they sang, with shy, cool voices, +a duet of Mendelssohn: + + [Illustration: Fair Springtime bids the bluebells ring + Sweet chimes o'er vale and lea] + +Some distance away, listening to them with tranquil contentment on their +peaceful faces, sat their parents--the father, a stern, stately old man +with kindly eyes; the mother, gentle and serene, wearing the white lace +cap of renunciation on her smooth gray hair. As I passed them with +faltering step the mother turned and looked at me. What did she read in +my face that wakened such a look of tenderness and pity in hers?... She +smiled at me, and that smile seemed to stop my heart, so guileless was +it, so maternal and so kind. + +For an instant a wild thought possessed me: to stop, to fall upon my +knees before this gentle, unknown woman and implore her help. + +What if I cried out to her: "Help me, have pity upon me! I am an +unhappy creature whom the Fates pursue.... I am distraught, I am +demented--to-morrow I shall have murder on my soul. Keep me near you ... +save me! Unless you help me I am lost...." + +But the Furies that pursued me laughed aloud and lashed me forward. + +And now Nicolas Naumoff, who had noticed my flight, came running down +the staircase to follow me.... + +I crossed the hall rapidly and went out into the dusk. + + [Illustration: All in this merry morn of Spring, + Come out and dance with me.] + + + + +XLI + + +Through the twilight streets I hastened, and Naumoff followed, calling +me by my name; but I did not answer him. Through the long Road of the +Cross I hurried silently, and out through the Golden Gate, and on, down +dusty solitary streets, past the Church of All Saints, until at last I +stood before the cemetery where my mother is laid to rest. + +"Where are we going?" asked Naumoff. "Why have you come here?" + +But without answering him I threw a ruble to the gatekeeper and entered +the silent pathways of the churchyard. + +The sky was still light in the west, but the paths were gloomy in the +shadow of willow and cypress trees. Hastening on between the double rows +of flower-decked graves, and the monuments that gleamed whitely in the +twilight, I reached my mother's tomb. I knelt and kissed the great +marble cross that stands so heavily above her frail brow. And the +thought of her lying there, so desolate and alone, abandoned to the +rains and the winds and the darkness of long dreadful nights, struck +terror to my heart. + +"Speak to me, mother," I whispered to her. "Tell me what I am to do. You +who know all--all about the vow and little Tioka, and the terrible things +that are in my life--tell me, mother, must Paul Kamarowsky die?" + +My mother did not answer. + +"Tell me, tell me, mother! Is he to die?" My mother was silent. But the +evening breeze passed over the delicate flowers, the lilies and +campanulas which cover her grave; and they all nodded their heads, +saying: "Yes, yes, yes." + +"Did you see?" I whispered to Naumoff. + +But he only looked at me with bewildered eyes. And I drew him away. "We +must go quickly," I said. + +Now it was growing dark. I hastened along the winding narrow pathways +until in a deserted corner I found what I was seeking: a neglected grave +marked by a gray stone bearing a name and a date. + +As I gazed at that mound of earth, on which a long-since withered wreath +spoke of forgetfulness, a wave of desolation swept over my heart. How +sad and empty and useless was everything! Life and hope and love and +desire--all empty, all unavailing.... + +"Who is buried here?" asked Naumoff under his breath. He bent forward +and read the name aloud: "_Vladimir Stahl._" + +Something stirred. Perhaps it was only the dry leaves of the withered +wreath, but I was afraid--afraid that I should see Stahl suddenly move +and rise up, covered with mold, to answer to his name. + +"Vladimir Stahl..." whispered Naumoff again, raising his haggard boyish +face and gazing at me, "Mura, Mura, I see you encompassed by the dead." + +Doubtless he meant the tombs which spread around me in a livid +semicircle; but to me it seemed that he could discern standing behind me +all my dead--my mother and Stahl, and Bozevsky and little Peter.... I +uttered a scream as I looked fearfully behind me. + +"Why do you scream?" gasped Naumoff; and he also turned and looked +round. Then he pointed to the grave in front of us. "Who was this?" he +asked in a low voice. "Did he love you?" His eyes flickered strangely. +There was horror and lust and frenzy in the gaze he fixed upon me. + +I was silent. + +"Did he love you? Did he love you?" He pressed closer to me, with parted +lips and quickening breath. + +Then I bent towards him, and a thrill such as I have never felt passed +through me. "Swear--on the dead--that you will kill that man." + +"I swear it," he gasped. "Terrible woman that you are, I swear it." + +"Go," I whispered. "Go ... at once." But he sprang towards me and +fastened his lips upon mine. + +Amid all the horrors that haunt my memory, all the spectral visions +which drift darkly through the labyrinth of my life, that frenzied +embrace among the tombs in the crepuscular cemetery, still rises before +me--a ghost of darkness and of shame. + +He turned and left me. I heard his footsteps running along the gravel +path, I saw his tall shadowy figure vanish in the gloom.... He was gone. + +I was alone in the nocturnal churchyard, alone by Stahl's desolate +grave. + +"Nicolas Naumoff!" I cried. But no one answered me, and fear ran into my +heart with thudding steps. + +I hurried forward, down the narrow path bordered with tombs and turned +to the right, down another wider avenue among other endless rows of the +dead.... Where was I? In which direction lay the gate?... I turned and +ran back. I must find Stahl's grave again, and then go to the left +through the unconsecrated burial-ground of those who had died by their +own hand.... With shuddering breath I stumbled forward, but nowhere +could I find the dreary field of the unshriven dead. Tall sepulchers and +mausoleums loomed dimly on either side of me, limitless rows of +tombstones and statues ... but Stahl's low, dreary mound was nowhere to +be seen. Stay--behind the willows on the right, was that not the white +cross standing on my mother's grave?... To reach it quickly I left the +pathway and ran diagonally across the burial ground trampling the graves +in my haste to reach that large cross shimmering in the gloom.... No, it +was not my mother's grave. But further on, and further, other crosses +glimmered and beckoned--and I ran on, crazed and terror-stricken, +stumbling over mounds and hillocks, tripping in iron railings, trampling +over flowers and wreaths ... until I fell in the darkness and lay +unconscious and silent amid the silent and unconscious dead. + + * * * * * + +A breath of soft morning air awoke me. I opened my eyes. Elise was +bending over me with pale and anxious face. The room--my bedroom--whirled +and swam before my dizzy sight. + +"Elise!"... + +Elise Perrier clasped her hands. "Thank God!" she murmured. "I feared +you would never wake again." Her face worked strangely, and she burst +into tears. + +"Elise--what has happened? What is to-day?" Before she could answer, +another question sprang to my lips: "Where is Naumoff?" + +"He has left, my lady," whispered Elise in awestruck tones. + +"Left?" A long silence held us. "Left? Where has he gone?" + +Elise looked down at me with blanched and quivering countenance. + +"To Venice," she said in low tones. + +I started up. "To Venice?" To Venice! My memory darted to and fro like a +child playing hide and seek. "Elise! Elise! Elise!" I stretched out my +hands like one sinking and drowning in the darkness. Elise wept. I +watched the strange faces that Elise always made when she wept: funny, +pitiful grimaces with puckered brow and chin. + +"To Venice." My memory flickers like a feeble light, then blazes into +sudden flames that sear my soul with fire. "Elise! He must be stopped. +He must not reach Venice! Elise, stop him, stop him--!" + +"It is impossible, my lady." + +Yes, it is impossible. + + +(_By this time the train which is carrying Naumoff on his mission of +death has passed Warsaw and is hastening towards Bruenn; hastening, ever +hastening through the dawning hours and the noonday sunshine, hastening +on into the twilight--and at dusk it rumbles and pants into the station +at Vienna_.) + + +I fall fainting back upon my pillows, and all through the day and the +night I dream that I am speeding after the rushing train, catching up +with it and losing it again, sweeping through the air, tearing along the +unending rails, reaching it at last, and being struck down and crushed +under its rolling wheels. + +Day dawns once more. + +"Elise, Elise, bring Naumoff back. Telegraph to him. Elise, for heaven's +sake, bring him back!" + +"It is hopeless, my lady." + +Yes, it is hopeless. + + +(_At this hour the train is hurrying from Bozen to Verona, from Verona +to Vicenza, from Vicenza to Padua._) + + +Night falls on my despair. + + +"Elise, Elise! Where are you? What is the time?" + +"It is nearly dawn, my lady." + +"Elise, what day is this?" + +"It is the third day of September." + +The third day of September! + +"Elise," I scream suddenly, "Elise! Telegraph to Kamarowsky. Warn +him.... Quickly, oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?" + +"Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious; you could only rave and weep." + +"Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky...." + +"It is too late, my lady." + +Yes, it is too late. + + +(_At this very hour of dawn the train has reached Venice. Nicolas +Naumoff is hastening from the Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty +piazza and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola. "Campo Santa Maria +del Giglio!"_ + +_And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides slowly towards the +doomed sleeper._ + +_What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to him for the last time? +Perhaps the tender vision of little Grania has gladdened him, while +silent and inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the golden +eyes steals towards him through the mazes of the clear canals._ + +"_Santa Maria del Giglio._" + +_Nicolas Naumoff springs from the gondola, crosses the empty Campo and +reaches the house. He ascends the steps quickly, knocks, enters--and +closes the door behind him._) + + +Yes, it is too late. + +I hear myself shrieking with laughter as I fall back on my pillows. Soon +I am surrounded by strangers who hold me down, who thrust opiates +between my lips, who lay soothing hands and cooling compresses on my +brow. Then I know nothing more. + + * * * * * + +Elise Perrier's terrified face surges out of the darkness: she is +speaking quickly, she is bending over me, imploring and urging.... What +does she say? She weeps despairingly, and ever through her tears she +speaks, urging and imploring. + +Finally, in her thin arms, she drags me from my bed; she dresses me; she +wraps a cloak about me, and hurries backwards and forwards with +traveling-bags and satchels. Now we are in a carriage--no, we are in a +train. Elise Perrier sits opposite me, with ashen face and her hands in +gray cotton gloves tightly folded. Her lips move. She is praying. + +Suddenly I struggle to my feet: "_Paul!_..." + +As I scream the name Elise springs upon me, covering my mouth with her +cotton glove, pressing my head to her breast. "Silence! hush, hush, for +the love of heaven! They will hear you. Hush!" + +"Is he dead, Elise, is he dead?" + +"No, no, he is not dead," gasps Elise in a toneless whisper, "he is not +dead. We are going to him. He is wounded ... he has been telegraphing to +you for three days, begging you to come. And you would not move, you +would not understand...." Elise is crying again. + +But perfect peace has descended into my soul. Paul is not dead. He +lives! he lives! Nothing else matters but this--he lives. + +The train still rushes along, beating rhythmic time to many tunes that +are in my head; I gaze out of the window, at the whirling landscape that +swings past like a giant chess-board, at the telegraph wires that dip, +and then ascend slowly and dip again. Hours pass or days pass.... And +the train stops. + +Elise is hurriedly collecting cloaks and satchels. + +"Where are we, Elise? Are we in Venice?" + +"Not yet; not yet. We are in Vienna." + +As I step from the train, two men whom I do not know approach me. One of +them asks me if I am the Countess Tarnowska. He has not taken his hat +off, and I do not deign to reply. + +As I am about to pass him he lays his hand on my arm. The other man also +comes forward, and, one on each side, they conduct me along the +platform. I notice many people stopping to look at me. + +Nothing seems to matter. I do not remember why we are in Vienna, nor +whither we are bound. I notice that it is a bright, hot day, and I feel +that I am walking in a dream.... I find myself thinking of Vassili; I +wish he would come, and send these men away and take me home. I shall be +glad when I am at home with Vassili and the children and Aunt Sonia.... +Safely at home! + + [Illustration: IN THE PRISON CELL] + +Then I remember--I have no home. I am a forsaken, demented creature whom +Vassili cares for no longer. But where am I going? I am going to Paul +Kamarowsky, who lives and loves me!... Again I weep with joy and +thankfulness at the thought that Kamarowsky lives. + +Now I am in a carriage driving through the streets of Vienna; and the +two strange men are still with me. They are taking me to a hotel. We +arrive. I pass through a large doorway and along some passages. Then I +notice that it is not a hotel. It is a vast, bare room with wooden +benches round the wall. Some men in uniform stand at the door, and I +notice that they do not salute me when I enter. + +Neither does an elderly man who is sitting at the desk rise or come to +meet me. He looks at me steadily and asks me many questions; but I pay +no heed to him. The windows are open; I can hear the sound of a piano +very far away; somebody is practising a romance by Chaminade that I used +to play at Otrada.... How sad a piano sounds when played by an unseen +hand in the silence of a sunlit street! + +The man at the desk speaks in German to the uniformed men; they take my +golden wristbag from me, and conduct me out of the bare room down a long +passage. As I go slowly forward between the two men I notice that from +the far end of the passage a group of people are coming towards us. In +the center of the group walks a man, handcuffed and wearing his hat +crookedly at the back of his head, as if placed there by some other hand +than his own. _It is Prilukoff!_ + +He sees me. A wave of livid pallor overspreads his face. Then he bends +forward towards me and makes a movement with his lips, pressing them +tightly together and shaking his head; he is trying to make me +understand something. As they notice this the men at my side grasp my +arm and make me turn quickly down another corridor. But I hear +Prilukoff's voice shouting after me. He utters a Russian word: "Molci!" +(Be silent). + +The men thrust me rudely into an empty cell. I sit down on a bench fixed +in a corner under the small, barred window and lean my head against the +wall. I feel neither unhappy nor afraid; only weary, unspeakably weary; +and almost at once I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Never since I +was a child at Otrada have I known such perfect rest--such utter oblivion +poured upon such limitless weariness. + +Suddenly my door is opened abruptly and one of the men enters; he takes +me by the arm, and conducts me back to the large, bare room, where the +elderly official still sits at his desk. And there, standing before him, +I see Elise. She is weeping bitterly. I see her making those comical +grimaces which always accompany her tears, as in Italy cheerful music +accompanies a child's funeral. My mind--like a frightened bat that has +flown into a room and darts hither and thither--flutters and plunges +wildly through all my past life. I think of my mother, of little Peter, +and of Bozevsky; I remember a pink dress I once wore here in Vienna, at +a reception of the Russian Embassy.... I think of little Tioka and his +days for saying "No." ... How far, how far away it all is! What a gulf +of guilt and sorrow have my tottering footsteps traversed since then.... +But now--now I will climb tremblingly, devoutly, the steep road that +leads back to safety; humbled to my knees I will pour out my thanks. For +Paul Kamarowsky is saved; he lives and will recover! + +The man at my side is dragging me roughly forward. The elderly official +at the desk has beckoned to me, and as I stand before him in a line with +Elise he reads aloud from a sheet of foolscap. Suddenly I hear the +words: "Complicity in the murder of Count Paul Kamarowsky...." + +The murder? _The murder!_ + +Two of the uniformed men hold my arms. + +"But," I try to say, with chattering teeth, "Count Kamarowsky lives ... +he will recover." + +The man replies, "Count Kamarowsky is dead." + +I laugh out loud. The car on the switchback rushes, whirls, +plunges--falls with me to destruction. + + + + +XLII + + Like a dream within a dream.--POE. + + +It was in the prison infirmary that I first heard the details of what +had passed in the Villa Santa Maria del Giglio, on that fatal morning of +August the 3rd. As the nursing sister sat beside me, renewing from time +to time the cold bandages placed on my throbbing forehead, she told me +in low tones the mournful and tragic story. I listened as if I were +listening in a dream to the story of a dream. + +"When (she said) at early morning the Venetian servant-girl heard a +knock at the door she went to open it, and a pale youth stepped quickly +across the threshold. He asked for Count Kamarowsky, and bade the girl +tell him that Nicolas Naumoff, of Orel, had arrived and desired to see +him. The girl went to her master's door and knocked. He was awake and +had risen. On hearing her message, he hurried out to meet his friend, +for he loved him like a brother--" + +("Ah, sister, I know, I know! He loved him like a brother!") + +"When he saw Naumoff come in he went forward to meet him with open arms. +The young man raised his hand and fired five shots point blank into his +body. The Count fell to the ground; but even then he stretched out his +arms to the young man and said: 'My friend, why have you done this to +me? In what way have I ever harmed you?' The young man, with a cry as if +he had awakened from a dream, flung himself on the ground at his feet. +Then the wounded man showed him the balcony from which he might escape, +and with fast-ebbing breath forgave him and bade him farewell." + +("Oh, sister, sister, with fast-ebbing breath he forgave him and bade +him farewell!") + +"He was carried to the hospital, and the doctors wanted to give him +chloroform while they probed the gaping, deep-seated wounds; but he +would not take it. 'Do what you have to do without sending me to sleep,' +he said. 'I shall have plenty of time to sleep--afterwards.' The doctors +groped for the bullets in the lacerated flesh, and stitched up the five, +deep-seated wounds.... When it was over he asked for you." + +("Sister, sister, he asked for me!") + +"He begged that you might be summoned quickly, and many telegrams were +sent, but you neither came nor replied." + +("I neither came nor replied!") + +"On the third day he was better. He spoke to those around him, and again +he asked for you, and hoped that you would come. In the hospital he was +in the hands of an old and very famous surgeon; but alas! as Fate would +have it--" + +("What? what? As Fate would have it--?") + +"As Fate would have it, the mind of this old and celebrated surgeon +suddenly gave way. None knew that anything was amiss, as he stood that +day at the bedside of the sufferer whom his skill had saved. He spoke to +his assistants in the same calm, authoritative voice as usual, but he +ordered that _the stitches should be taken out of the five wounds that +were just beginning to heal_. Those around him recoiled in amazement. +They were thunderstruck. But he repeated the disastrous order in the +voice of one who is accustomed to command and to save lives that are in +peril. Then--" + +("What then? What then?") + +"Then the assistants, doubting their own wisdom, but not that of the man +who had been their master, obeyed, and reopened the five deep-seated +wounds which were just beginning to heal. And again, as Fate would have +it--" + +(Ah, Fate! The ghoul, the vampire Fate! She who has pursued me since my +birth! She who has caught us and crushed us all in her torturing grip, +splintering us like frail glass bubbles in her hand! Now she had entered +the sick room of Paul Kamarowsky, had brooded over his bedside, and in +fiendish pleasantry had scourged the old surgeon's brain with madness, +whipping it to frenzy as a child whips a top, guiding his hand to tear +the injured body and reopen the fast-healing wounds.) + +"As Fate would have it, the old surgeon gave other and still more +dreadful orders. Ah, holy Virgin! how shall the horror be told?... When +the bewildered assistants, aghast at what they had done, laid the +sufferer back on his pillows, the slaying had been accomplished." + +("The slaying had been accomplished!") + +"With his last breath he called upon your name." + +("With his last breath he called upon my name!") + + [Illustration: THE PENITENTIARY AT TRANI] + + + + +XLIII + + E son quasi a l'estremo. + Luce degli anni miei, dove se' gita? + + CARDUCCI. + + +If I were to be asked to name the darkest hour of my dark life, well do +I know which of all my gloomy memories would raise its spectral face. + +Not the terror-haunted hours of madness and crime, not the +anguish-stricken nights passed at the bedside of those I loved, not my +own life-struggles with the monsters of disease and dementia, tearing at +the very roots of my life--no, the darkest hour of my life was that +glorious summer morning in Venice, when I was brought from the prison of +La Giudecca to attend my trial at the Criminal Court. The sun flung a +sparkling net of diamonds athwart the blue waters of the lagoon, and the +gondola bore me with peaceful splash of oar over the dancing waters. The +gondolier steadied the swaying skiff at the wave-kissed steps, and I +rose, drawing my veil about me, to disembark. + +As I placed my foot on the steps--how often before, in happier days, had +I thus stepped from my gondola, greeted and smiled upon by the kindly +Venetian idlers!--I lifted my eyes. A crowd had assembled at the top of +the steps and thronged the piazza. They stood in serried ranks, menacing +and silent, leaving a narrow pathway for me to pass. I faltered and +would have stepped back, but the carabinieri at my side held my arms and +impelled me forward. At that moment some one in the crowd--a +woman--laughed. As if that sound had shattered the spell that held them +mute, the mob broke into a tumult of noise, a storm of hisses and cries, +shrieks and jeers, hootings and maledictions, while, rising above it and +more cruel than all, was the laughter, the strident, mocking laughter +that accompanied my every step and gesture. + +And there, tall and motionless in the midst of the laughing, hissing, +shrieking mob, stood my father, his white hair stirring in the breeze, +his eyes--the proud blue O'Rourke eyes--fixed upon me. + + +Oh, father, father whose heart I have broken, in that hour I paid the +wages of my sin. Not these dark years of imprisonment, not the mantle of +ignominy that clothes me with eternal defilement, not the gloomy +solitude in which I see the gradual fading of my youth, not the horror +of the past, nor the hopelessness of the future--not these are the +deadliest of my punishments; but the memory of your white hair in the +crowd that hissed its hatred, and laughed its contempt of your daughter, +and the jeers that greeted you, and the rude hands that jostled you when +you stepped forward and laid your hand in blessing on my degraded head. + + * * * * * + +Marie Tarnowska is silent. Her story is told. + + + + +EPILOGUE + + +The verdant landscape of Central Italy swings past the train that +carries me homeward. The looped vines--like slim green dancers holding +hands--speed backwards as we pass. Far behind me lies the white prison of +Trani; and the memory of Marie Tarnowska and of her sins and woes drifts +away from me, like some shipwrecked barque, storm-tossed and sinking, +that I have gazed upon, powerless to help. + +The long summer day is drawing to its close; above the Apennines where +the sky is lightest the new moon floats like a little boat of amber on +an opal sea. Like a fragment of a dream the song returns to my memory, +the childish song of which I have never heard and shall never hear more +than the first two lines: + + When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary + Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon... + +As the train carries me homeward, back to the joys of life and love and +freedom, back to the welcome of friends and the safety of a sheltered +hearth, I think once more of her whom I have left in the gloom of her +prison cell. + +Soon, very soon, the hour of her release will strike, and the iron doors +that have guarded her will open wide to let her pass. + +What then, what then, Marie Tarnowska? + +Who will await you at the prison gate? Surely Grief, Scorn, and Hatred +will be there. But by your side I seem to see a guardian spirit, +shielding your drooping head with outstretched wings. It is the sister +of lost Innocence--Repentance; and in her wake comes the blind singer, +Hope. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note + +Original spelling, even where inconsistent, and punctuation have been +preserved. + +Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE TARNOWSKA*** + + +******* This file should be named 43058.txt or 43058.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/0/5/43058 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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