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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44266 ***
+
+                                 KATIA
+
+                                   BY
+
+                           COUNT LÉON TOLSTOÏ
+
+           Author of "War and Peace," "What I Believe," etc.
+
+                      _TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH_
+
+                         --AUTHORIZED EDITION--
+
+                                NEW YORK
+
+                   WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER
+
+                            11 MURRAY STREET
+
+                                  1887
+
+         Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887
+
+                       BY WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER
+
+       in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington
+
+
+
+
+                                 KATIA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+We were in mourning for our mother, who had died the preceding autumn,
+and we had spent all the winter alone in the country--Macha, Sonia and
+I.
+
+Macha was an old family friend, who had been our governess and had
+brought us all up, and my memories of her, like my love for her, went as
+far back as my memories of myself.
+
+Sonia was my younger sister.
+
+The winter had dragged by, sad and sombre, in our old country-house of
+Pokrovski. The weather had been cold, and so windy that the snow was
+often piled high above our windows; the panes were almost always cloudy
+with a coating of ice; and throughout the whole season we were shut in,
+rarely finding it possible to go out of the house.
+
+It was very seldom that any one came to see us, and our few visitors
+brought neither joy nor cheerfulness to our house. They all had mournful
+faces, spoke low, as if they were afraid of waking some one, were
+careful not to laugh, sighed and often shed tears when they looked at
+me, and above all at the sight of my poor Sonia in her little black
+frock. Everything in the house still savored of death; the affliction,
+the horror of the last agony yet reigned in the air. Mamma's chamber was
+shut up, and I felt a painful dread and yet an irresistible longing to
+peep furtively into the chill, desolate place as I passed it every night
+on my way to bed.
+
+I was at this time seventeen years old, and the very year of her death
+Mamma had intended to remove to the city, in order to introduce me into
+society. The loss of my mother had been a great sorrow to me; but I must
+confess that to this grief had been added another, that of seeing
+myself--young, beautiful as I heard from every one that I
+was,--condemned to vegetate during a second winter in the country, in a
+barren solitude. Even before the end of this winter, the feeling of
+regret, of isolation, and, to speak plainly, of ennui, had so gained
+upon me that I scarcely ever left my own room, never opened my piano,
+and never even took a book in my hand. If Macha urged me to occupy
+myself with something I would reply: "I do not wish to, I cannot," and
+far down in my soul a voice kept asking: "What is the use? Why 'do
+something'--no matter what--when the best of my life is wearing away so
+in pure loss? Why?" And to this "Why?" I had no answer except tears.
+
+I was told that I was growing thin and losing my beauty, but this gave
+me not the slightest concern. Why, and for whom, should I take interest
+in it? It seemed to me that my entire life was to drift slowly away in
+this desert, borne down by this hopeless suffering, from which, given up
+to my own resources alone, I had no longer the strength, nor even the
+wish, to set myself free.
+
+Towards the end of the winter Macha became seriously uneasy about me,
+and determined come what might to take me abroad. But for this, money
+was essential, and as yet we knew little of our resources beyond the
+fact that we were to succeed to our mother's inheritance; however, we
+were in daily expectation of a visit from our guardian, who was to
+examine the condition of our affairs.
+
+He came at last, late in March.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" said Macha to me one day, when I was wandering like a
+shadow from one corner to another, perfectly idle, without a thought in
+my head or a wish in my heart: "Sergius Mikaïlovitch has sent word that
+he will be here before dinner.--You must rouse yourself, my little
+Katia," she added; "what will he think of you? He loves you both so
+much!"
+
+Sergius Mikaïlovitch was our nearest neighbor, and though much his
+junior had been the friend of our dead father. Besides the pleasant
+change which his arrival might cause in our life, by making it possible
+for us to leave the country, I had been too much accustomed, from my
+childhood, to love and respect him, for Macha not to divine while
+urging me to rouse myself, that still another change might be worked and
+that, of all my acquaintances, he was the one before whom I would be
+most unwilling to appear in an unfavorable light. Not only did I feel
+the old attachment for Sergius Mikaïlovitch which was shared by every
+one in the house, from Sonia, who was his god-daughter, down to the
+under-coachman, but this attachment had derived a peculiar character
+from a few words Mamma had once let fall before me. She had said that he
+was just the husband that she would have wished for me. At the moment
+such an idea had appeared to me very extraordinary and even somewhat
+disagreeable; the hero of my imagination was totally different. My own
+hero was to be slender, delicate, pale, and melancholy. Sergius
+Mikaïlovitch, on the contrary, was no longer young, he was tall and
+large, full of vigor, and, so far as I could judge, had an extremely
+pleasant temper; nevertheless my mother's remark had made a strong
+impression on my imagination. This had happened six years before, when
+I was only eleven, when he still said "_thou_" to me, played with me,
+and gave me the name of _La petite violette_, yet ever since that day I
+had always felt some secret misgivings whenever I had asked myself the
+question what I should do if he should suddenly take a fancy to marry
+me?
+
+A little before dinner, to which Macha had added a dish of spinach and a
+sweet _entre mets_ Sergius Mikaïlovitch arrived. I was looking out of
+the window when his light sledge approached, and as he turned the corner
+of the house I hastily drew back into the drawing-room, not wishing to
+let him see that I had been watching for him the least in the world. But
+upon hearing sounds in the ante-chamber, his strong voice, and Macha's
+footsteps, I lost patience and went myself to meet him. He was holding
+Macha's hand, and talking to her in a raised voice, smiling. When he
+perceived me, he stopped and looked at me for some moments without
+saluting me; it embarrassed me a good deal, and I felt myself blush.
+
+"Ah! is it possible that this is you, Katia?" he said in his frank,
+decided tone, disengaging his hand and approaching me.
+
+"Can people change so! How you have grown! Yesterday a violet! To-day
+the full rose!"
+
+His large hand clasped mine, pressing it so cordially, so strongly, that
+he almost hurt me. I had thought he might kiss me, and bent a little
+towards him; but he only caught it a second time, and looked me straight
+in the eyes with his bright, steady glance.
+
+I had not seen him for six years. He was much changed, older, browner,
+and his whiskers, which he had allowed to grow, were not particularly
+becoming to him; but he had the same simple manners, the same open,
+honest face, with its marked features, eyes sparkling with intelligence,
+and smile as sweet as a child's.
+
+At the end of five minutes he was no longer on the footing of a mere
+visitor, but on that of an intimate guest with us all, and even the
+servants manifested their joy at his arrival, by the eager zeal with
+which they served him.
+
+He did not act at all like a neighbor who, coming to a house for the
+first time after the mother's death, thinks it necessary to bring with
+him a solemn countenance; on the contrary, he was gay, talkative, and
+did not say a single word about Mamma, so that I began to think this
+indifference on the part of a man standing in such near relation to us
+very strange, and rather unseemly. But I soon saw that it was far from
+being indifference, and read in his intention a considerateness for
+which I could not help being grateful.
+
+In the evening Macha gave us tea in the drawing-room where it had been
+usually served during Mamma's lifetime. Sonia and I sat near her;
+Gregory found one of Papa's old pipes, and brought it to our guardian,
+who began to pace up and down the room according to his old fashion.
+
+"What terrible changes in this house, when one thinks of it!" said he,
+stopping suddenly.
+
+"Yes," replied Macha with a sigh; and replacing the top of the samovar,
+she looked up at Sergius Mikaïlovitch, almost ready to burst into
+tears.
+
+"No doubt you remember your father?" he asked me.
+
+"A little."
+
+"How fortunate it would be for you, now, to have him still!" he observed
+slowly, with a thoughtful air, casting a vague glance into vacancy over
+my head. And he added more slowly still:
+
+"I loved your father very much...."
+
+I thought I detected a new brightness in his eyes at this moment.
+
+"And now God has taken away our mother also!" exclaimed Macha. Dropping
+her napkin on the tea-tray, she pulled out her handkerchief and began to
+cry.
+
+"Yes, there have been terrible changes in this house!"
+
+He turned away as he spoke.
+
+Then, a moment after: "Katia Alexandrovna," he said, in a louder voice,
+"play me something!"
+
+I liked the tone of frank, friendly authority with which he made this
+request; I rose and went to him.
+
+"Here, play me this," said he, opening my Beethoven at the adagio of the
+sonata, _Quasi una fantasia_. "Let us see how you play," he continued,
+taking his cup of tea to drink in a corner of the room.
+
+I know not why, but I felt it would be impossible either to refuse or to
+put forward a plea of playing badly; on the contrary, I submissively sat
+down at the piano and began to play as well as I could, although I was
+afraid of his criticism, knowing his excellent taste in music.
+
+In the tone of this _adagio_ there was a prevalent sentiment which by
+association carried me away to the conversation before tea, and, guided
+by this impression, I played tolerably well, it seemed. But he would not
+let me play the _scherzo_.
+
+"No, you will not play it well," said he, coming to me, "stop with that
+first movement,--which has not been bad! I see that you comprehend
+music."
+
+This praise, certainly moderate enough, delighted me so that I felt my
+color rise. It was something so new and agreeable to me to have the
+friend, the _equal_ of my father, speak to me alone, seriously, and no
+longer as though he were talking to a child as he used to do.
+
+He talked to me about my father, telling me how they suited each other,
+and what a pleasant life they had led together while I was occupied
+solely with my playthings and school-books; and what he said revealed my
+father to me in a light quite new to me, for the first time I seemed to
+know fully his simple goodness. My guardian questioned me as to what I
+liked, what I read, what I intended doing, and gave me advice. I had no
+longer beside me the gay talker, delighting in badinage, but a man
+serious, frank, friendly, for whom I felt involuntary respect, while at
+the same time I was conscious of being in perfect sympathy with him.
+This consciousness was pleasing to me, nevertheless there was a certain
+tension in conversing with him. Every word I uttered left me timid; I
+wished so much to deserve in my own person the affection which at
+present I only received because I was my father's daughter!
+
+After putting Sonia to bed, Macha rejoined us, and began to pour out to
+Sergius Mikaïlovitch her lamentations on the score of my apathy, which
+resulted she complained in my rarely having a single word to say.
+
+"Then she has not told me the most important thing of all," he answered,
+smiling, and shaking his head at me with an air of reproach.
+
+"What had I to tell?" I replied: "that I was bored?--but that will pass
+away." (And indeed it now seemed to me, not only that my ennui would
+pass away, but that it was something already gone by, which could not
+return.)
+
+"It is not well not to know how to bear solitude:--is it possible that
+you are truly a 'grown young lady'?"
+
+"I believe so!" I answered smiling.
+
+"No, no, or at least a naughty young lady, who only lives to be admired,
+and who, when she finds herself isolated, gives way, and no longer
+enjoys anything; all for show, nothing for herself."
+
+"You have a lovely idea of me, it seems!" I answered, to say something.
+
+"No," he returned, after a moment's silence; "it is not in vain that you
+have that resemblance to your father; _there is something in you_!"
+
+Again those kind, steadfast eyes exerted their charm over me, filling me
+with strange emotion.
+
+I noticed for the first time at this moment that the face which to a
+casual glance seemed so gay, the expression, so peculiarly his own,
+where at first one seemed to read only serenity, afterwards revealed
+more and more clearly, a reserve of deep thought and a shade of sadness.
+
+"You should not feel ennui," he said, "you have music, which you are
+able to understand, books, study; you have before you a whole life, for
+which the present is the only moment to prepare yourself, so that
+hereafter you may not have to repine. In a year it will be too late."
+
+He spoke to me like a father or an uncle, and I understood that he was
+making an effort to come to my level. I was a little offended that he
+should think me so much below him, and on the other hand, it was
+gratifying to feel that he cared to make the effort for my sake.
+
+The rest of the evening was devoted to a business conversation between
+him and Macha.
+
+"And now, good-night, my dear Katia," said he, rising, approaching me,
+and taking my hand.
+
+"When shall we see each other again?" asked Macha.
+
+"In the spring," he replied, still holding my hand; "I am now going to
+Danilovka" (our other estate); "I must look into matters there and make
+some necessary arrangements, then I have to go to Moscow upon business
+of my own, and later--or in the summer--we shall see each other again."
+
+"Why do you go for so long a time?" I asked, dejectedly; for I was
+already hoping to see him every day, and it was with a sudden sinking of
+my heart that I thought of again battling with my ennui. Probably my
+eyes and voice let this be guessed.
+
+"Come, occupy yourself more; drive away the blues!" he said in a voice
+that seemed to me too placid and cold. "In the spring I will hold an
+examination," he added, dropping my hand without looking at me.
+
+We accompanied him to the ante-chamber, where he hurriedly put on his
+pelisse, and again his eyes seemed to avoid mine.
+
+"He is taking very useless trouble!" I said to myself, "can it be
+possible that he thinks he is giving me too great a pleasure by looking
+at me!--An excellent man--Perfectly good.... But that is all."
+
+We remained awake a long time that night talking, not of him, but of the
+employment of the ensuing summer, of where and how we should spend the
+winter. Mighty question, yet why? To me it appeared perfectly simple and
+evident that life was to consist in being happy, and in the future I
+could imagine nothing but happiness, so suddenly had our sombre old
+dwelling at Pokrovski filled itself with life and light.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The spring came. My former ennui had disappeared, and in exchange I felt
+the dreamy vernal sadness, woven of unknown hopes and unslaked desires.
+But my life was no longer the existence I had led during the early
+winter; I occupied myself with Sonia, with music, with studies, and I
+often went into the garden, to spend a long, long, time in wandering
+alone through the shady walks, or in sitting motionless upon some quiet
+bench. God knows what I was thinking, what I was wishing, what I was
+hoping! Sometimes for whole nights, especially if it was moonlight, I
+would remain kneeling at my window with my elbows on the sill; morning
+would find me there; and sometimes, without Macha's knowing it, I would
+steal down into the garden again after I was in my simple night-dress,
+and fly through the dew to the little pond; once I even went out into
+the fields, and spent the rest of the night roaming alone about the
+park.
+
+Now it is difficult for me to recall, still less to comprehend, the
+reveries which at this period filled my imagination. If I can succeed in
+remembering them, I can hardly believe that these reveries were my own,
+so strange were they, so outside of real life.
+
+At the end of May, Sergius Mikaïlovitch, as he had promised, returned
+from his journey.
+
+The first time he came to see us was in the evening, when we were not
+expecting him at all. We were sitting on the terrace, preparing to take
+tea. The garden was in full verdure, and at Pokrovski nightingales had
+their homes on all sides in the thick shrubbery. Here and there, large
+clumps of lilacs raised their heads, enamelled with the white or pale
+purple of their opening flowers. The leaves in the birch alleys seemed
+transparent in the rays of the setting sun. The terrace lay in
+refreshing shade, and the light evening dew was gathering upon the
+grass. In the court-yard behind the garden were heard the sounds of
+closing day, and the lowing of cows returning to their stable; poor
+half-witted Nikone came along the path at the foot of the terrace with
+his huge watering-pot, and soon the torrents of cool water traced in
+darkening circles over the newly-dug earth of the dahlia beds. Beside us
+on the terrace, the shining samovar hissed and sputtered on the white
+cloth, flanked by cream, pancakes, and sweetmeats. Macha, with her plump
+hands, was dipping the cups in hot water like a good housekeeper. As to
+me, with an appetite sharpened by my late bath, I could not wait for
+tea, but was eating a crust of bread soaked in fresh, rich cream. I had
+on a linen blouse with loose sleeves, and my damp hair was bound in a
+handkerchief.
+
+Macha was the first to perceive him.
+
+"Ah! Sergius Mikaïlovitch!" she cried; "we were just talking about you."
+
+I rose to run in and change my dress; but he met me as I reached the
+door.
+
+"Come, Katia, no ceremony in the country," said he, smiling, and looking
+at my head and my handkerchief, "you have no scruples before
+Gregory,--I can be Gregory to you."
+
+But at the same time it darted into my mind that he was not looking at
+me precisely as Gregory would have done, and this embarrassed me.
+
+"I will be back directly," I replied, drawing away from him.
+
+"What is wrong about it?" he exclaimed, following me, "one might take
+you for a little peasant girl!"
+
+"How strangely he looked at me," I thought, as I hastened up-stairs to
+dress myself. "At last, thank Heaven, here he is, and we shall be
+gayer!" And with a parting glance at the mirror I flew down again, not
+even trying to conceal my eager delight, and reached the terrace, out of
+breath. He was sitting near the table, talking to Macha about our
+business matters. Noticing me, he gave me a smile, and went on talking.
+Our affairs, he said, were in very satisfactory condition. We had
+nothing to do but to finish our country summer, and then we could go,
+either to St. Petersburg for Sonia's education, or abroad.
+
+"That would be very well, if you would come abroad with us," said Macha,
+"but by ourselves we should be like people lost in the woods."
+
+"Ah! would to Heaven I could go around the world with you," was the
+half-jesting, half-serious answer.
+
+"Well and good," said I, "let us go around the world then!"
+
+He smiled and shook his head.
+
+"And my mother? And my business? Come, we will let the tour of the world
+alone, now, and you can tell me how you have passed your time. Can it be
+possible that you have had the blues again?"
+
+When I told him that I had been able, without him, to employ myself and
+not to yield to ennui, and Macha had confirmed the good account, he
+praised me, with the same words and looks of encouragement he would have
+used to a child, and as if he had a perfect right to do so. It seemed to
+me quite natural that I should tell him frankly and minutely everything
+I had done that was right, and also, on the contrary, own to him, as if
+in the confessional, whatever I had done that might deserve his censure.
+The evening was so beautiful that, when the tea-tray was carried away,
+we remained upon the terrace, and I found the conversation so
+interesting that I only gradually became aware that all the sounds from
+the house were ceasing around us. Upon all sides arose the penetrating
+night perfume of flowers, the turf was drenched with heavy dew, the
+nightingale in a lilac bush near us was executing his roulades, stopping
+abruptly at the sound of our voices. The starry sky seemed to stoop
+close above our heads.
+
+What warned me that night had come, was the swift, heavy rush of a bat
+beneath the awning of the terrace, and its blind, terrified circling
+around my white dress. I fell back against the wall, and almost cried
+out, but with another dull swoop it was off again and lost in the
+blackness of the garden.
+
+"How I love your Pokrovski," said Sergius Mikaïlovitch, interrupting the
+conversation.... "One could linger for a lifetime on this terrace!"
+
+"Well," said Macha, "linger!"
+
+"Ah, yes! linger; but life--does not pause!"
+
+"Why do you not marry?" continued Macha; "you would make an excellent
+husband!"
+
+"Why?" he repeated, smiling. "People long ago, ceased to count me a
+marriageable man!"
+
+"What!" replied Macha, "thirty-six years old, and already you pretend to
+be tired of living?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, and even so tired that I desire nothing but rest. To
+marry, one must have something else to offer. There, ask Katia," he
+added, pointing me out with a nod "Girls of her age are the ones for
+marriage. For us ... our rôle is to enjoy their happiness."
+
+There was a secret melancholy, a certain tension in the tone of his
+voice, which did not escape me. He kept silence a moment; neither Macha
+nor I said anything.
+
+"Imagine now," he resumed, turning towards the table again, "if all at
+once, by some deplorable accident, I should marry a young girl of
+seventeen, like Katia Alexandrovna! That is a very good example, and I
+am pleased that it applies so well to the point ... there could not be
+a better instance."
+
+I began to laugh, but I could not at all understand what pleased him so
+much, nor to what it applied so well.
+
+"Come, now, tell me the truth, 'hand on heart,'" he went on, turning to
+me with a bantering air, "would it not be a great misfortune for you, to
+bind your life to a man already old, who has had his day, and wants
+nothing except to stay just where he is, while you,--Heaven knows where
+you would not want to run off to, as the fancy took you!"
+
+I felt uncomfortable, and was silent, not knowing very well what to say
+in reply.
+
+"I am not making a proposal for your hand," said he, laughing, "but,
+now, tell us the truth are you dreaming of such a husband, as you wander
+through your alleys in the evening, and would he not be a great
+misfortune?"
+
+"Not so great a misfortune ..." I began.
+
+"And not so great a boon, either," he finished for me.
+
+"Yes ... but I may be mistaken...."
+
+He interrupted me again.
+
+"You see?... she is perfectly right.... I like her honesty, and am
+delighted that we have had this conversation. I will add that--to me--it
+would have been a supreme misfortune!"
+
+"What an original you are! you have not changed in the least!" said
+Macha, leaving the terrace to order supper to be served.
+
+After her departure we were silent, and all was still around us. Then
+the solitary nightingale recommenced, not his abrupt, undecided notes of
+early evening, but his night song, slow and tranquil, whose thrilling
+cadence filled the garden; and from far down the ravine came for the
+first time a response from another nightingale. The one near us was mute
+for a moment, listening, then burst out anew in a rapture of song,
+louder and clearer than before. Their voices resounded, calm and
+supreme, amid that world of night which is their own and which we
+inhabit as aliens. The gardener went by, on his way to his bed in the
+orange-house, we heard his heavy boots on the path as he went farther
+and farther from us. Some one in the direction of the mountain blew two
+shrill, quick notes on a whistle, then all was still once more. Scarcely
+a leaf was heard to move; yet all at once the awning of the terrace
+puffed out slowly, stirred by a breath of air, and a more penetrating
+perfume stole up to us from below. The silence embarrassed me, but I did
+not know what to say. I looked at him. His eyes, bright in the darkness,
+were fixed upon me.
+
+"It is good to live in this world!" he murmured.
+
+I know not why, but at the words I sighed.
+
+"Well?" he questioned.
+
+"Yes, it is good to live in this world!" I repeated.
+
+Again the silence fell upon us, and again I felt ill at ease. I could
+not get it out of my head that I had hurt him, by agreeing with him that
+he was old; I would have liked to console him, but did not know how to
+set about it.
+
+"But good-bye!" he said, rising, "my mother expects me to supper. I
+have hardly seen her to-day."
+
+"I would have liked to play you my new sonata."
+
+"Another time," he replied coldly, at least so it seemed to me; then,
+moving off a step, he said with a careless gesture: "Good-bye!"
+
+I was more than ever convinced that I had given him pain, and this
+distressed me. Macha and I went with him, as far as the porch, and stood
+there awhile looking down the road where he had disappeared. When we no
+longer caught the slightest echo from his horse's feet, I began to walk
+about the terrace and watch the garden, and I remained a long time
+there, amid the heavy mist that deadened all the sounds of night, busy
+seeing and hearing whatever my fancy chose to make me see and hear.
+
+He came a second time, a third time, and the little embarrassment caused
+by our strange conversation soon vanished, and never returned.
+
+Throughout the whole summer he came to see us two or three times a week;
+I was so accustomed to him that, when a longer time than usual passed
+without his coming, it seemed to me painful to live alone; I was
+secretly indignant with him, and thought he was behaving badly in thus
+deserting me. He transformed himself for me, as it were, into a friendly
+comrade; inducing the most sincere frankness on my part, giving me
+advice and encouragement, scolding me sometimes, checking me when
+necessary. But despite these efforts to remain always upon my level, I
+was conscious that, besides all I knew of him, there existed within him
+an entire world, to which I was a stranger, and he did not think it was
+necessary to admit me; and this, more than anything else, tended to keep
+up my feeling of deference, and at the same time to attract me towards
+him. I knew from Macha and the neighbors that, besides his attentive
+care of his old mother, with whom he lived, besides his agricultural
+interests, and our guardianship, he had also on hand certain matters
+affecting all the nobles, which caused him much trouble and annoyance;
+but how he faced this complex situation, what were his thoughts, his
+plans, his hopes, I could never discover from him. If I endeavored to
+lead the conversation to his own affairs, a certain line appeared upon
+his brow, which seemed to say: "Stop there, if you please; what is that
+to you?" And he would immediately speak of something else. At first this
+offended me, then I grew so accustomed to it that we never talked of
+anything but what concerned me; which I finally came to think quite a
+matter of course.
+
+At first, too, I felt some displeasure, (while afterwards, on the
+contrary, it had a kind of charm,) in seeing the perfect indifference, I
+might almost say contempt, which he showed for my appearance. Never, by
+word or look, did he give the least idea that he thought me pretty; far
+from it, he frowned and began to laugh if any one remarked before him
+that I was "not bad-looking." He even took pleasure in criticizing the
+defects in my face, and teasing me about them. The fashionable dresses,
+the coiffures, with which Macha delighted to adorn me on our holidays,
+only excited his raillery, which chagrined my good Macha not a little,
+and at first disconcerted me. Macha, who had settled in her own mind
+that I was pleasing to Sergius Mikaïlovitch, could not at all comprehend
+why he did not prefer that a woman whom he admired should appear at her
+best. But I soon discovered what was the matter. He wished to believe
+that I was not coquettish. As soon as I understood this there no longer
+remained a trace of coquetry in my dress, hair, or manner; it was
+replaced--usual and shallow little trick--by another coquetry, the
+assumption of simplicity, before I had attained the point of really
+being artless. I saw that he loved me: whether as a child or woman I had
+not hitherto asked myself: this love was dear to me, and feeling that he
+considered me the best girl in the world, I could not help wishing that
+the delusion might continue to blind him. And indeed I deceived him
+almost involuntarily. But in deluding him, I was nevertheless growing
+more what he thought me. I felt that it would be better and more worthy
+of him to unveil to him the good points of my soul rather than those of
+my person. My hair, my hands, my face, my carriage, whatever they might
+be, whether good or bad,--it seemed to me he could appreciate at one
+glance, and that he knew very well that, had I desired to deceive him, I
+could add nothing at all to my exterior. My soul, on the contrary, he
+did not know: because he loved it, because just at this time it was in
+full process of growth and development, and finally because in such a
+matter it was easy to deceive him, and that I was in fact deceiving him.
+What relief I felt in his presence, when once I comprehended all this!
+The causeless agitation, the need of movement, which in some way
+oppressed me, completely disappeared. It seemed to me henceforth that
+whether opposite or beside me, whether standing or sitting, whether I
+wore my hair dressed high or low, he looked at me always with
+satisfaction, that he now knew me entirely; and I imagined that he was
+as well pleased with me, as I myself was. I verily believe that if,
+contrary to his custom, he had suddenly said to me as others did that I
+was pretty, I should even have been a little sorry. But, on the other
+hand, what joy, what serenity, I felt in the depth of my soul, if, upon
+the occasion of my expressing some thought or letting fall a few words,
+he looked at me attentively and said in a moved tone which he strove to
+render light and jesting:
+
+"Yes, yes, there is _something_ in you! You are a good girl, and I ought
+to tell you so."
+
+And for what did I receive this recompense which filled my heart with
+joy and pride? Perhaps because I had said that I sympathized with old
+Gregory's love for his little daughter, perhaps because I had been
+affected to tears while reading a poem or a romance, perhaps for
+preferring Mozart to Schuloff! I was amazed by this new intuition, which
+enabled me to divine what was good and what one ought to like, though as
+yet I had no positive knowledge of either. Most of my past habits and
+tastes were displeasing to him, and a look or an imperceptible movement
+of his eyebrows was enough to make me understand his disapproval of what
+I was about to do; while a certain air of slightly disdainful pity,
+which was peculiar to him, would at once make me believe that I no
+longer liked what had formerly pleased me. If the thought of giving me
+advice upon any subject, occurred to him, I knew beforehand what he was
+going to say to me. He questioned me with a glance, and already this
+glance had drawn from me the thought he wished to ascertain. All my
+thoughts, all my feelings during that time, were not my own; they were
+his, which suddenly became mine, penetrating and illuminating my life.
+In a manner insensible to me, I began to see everything with other eyes,
+Macha, my servants, Sonia, as well as myself and my own occupations. The
+books which formerly I had read only in order to ward off ennui appeared
+to me all at once one of the greatest charms of life, and for no reason
+except that we talked, he and I, of books, that we read them together,
+that he brought them to me. Hitherto I had considered my work with
+Sonia, the lessons I gave her, as a painful obligation, only fulfilled
+from a sense of duty; now that he sometimes came to assist at these
+lessons one of my delights was to observe Sonia's progress. To learn an
+entire piece of music had always seemed impossible, and now, knowing
+that he would listen and perhaps applaud it, I thought nothing of going
+over the same passage forty times in succession, poor Macha would end by
+stopping her ears with cotton wool, while I would not consider the
+performance at all tiresome. The old sonatas spoke out under my fingers
+in a very different and very superior voice. Even Macha, whom I had
+always known and loved as myself, seemed totally changed. It was only
+now that I understood that nothing had compelled her to be what she had
+been to us, a mother, a friend, a slave to our whims and fancies. I
+comprehended all the abnegation, all the devotion, of this loving
+creature, I realized the greatness of my obligations to her, and loved
+her so much the more. He had already taught me to regard our people, our
+peasants, our droroviés,[A] our men and women servants, in a totally
+different light. It is an odd fact, but at seventeen years of age, I was
+living in the midst of them a far greater stranger to them than to
+people I had never seen; not once had it crossed my mind that they were
+beings capable like myself of love, desires, regrets. Our garden, our
+woods, our fields, which I had known ever since I was born, suddenly
+became quite new to me, and I began to admire their loveliness. There
+was no error in the remark which he so often made, that, in life, there
+was but one certain happiness: to live for others. This had appeared
+strange to me, and I had not been able to understand it; but the
+conviction, unknown even to my own mind, was penetrating little by
+little into the depths of my heart. In short, he had opened before me a
+new life, full of present delights, without having in any wise changed
+or added to my old existence, save by developing each of my own
+sensations. From my infancy everything around me had remained buried in
+a sort of silence, only awaiting his presence to lift up a voice, speak
+to my soul, and fill it with happiness.
+
+Often, in the course of this summer, I would go up to my chamber, throw
+myself upon my bed, and there, in place of the old anguish of the
+spring, full of desires and hopes for the future, I would feel myself
+wrapped in another emotion, that of present happiness. I could not
+sleep, I would get up and go and sit on the side of Macha's bed, and
+tell her that I was perfectly happy,--which, as I look back upon it
+to-day was perfectly needless; she could see it well enough for herself.
+She would reply that neither had she anything more to wish for, that she
+too was very happy, and would embrace me. I believed her, so entirely
+natural and necessary did it seem to me for every one to be happy. But
+Macha had her night's rest to think of, so, pretending to be angry, she
+would drive me away from her bed, and drop off to sleep; I, on the
+contrary, would lie for a long time running over all my reasons for
+being gladsome. Sometimes I would rise, and begin my prayers a second
+time, praying in the fulness of my heart that I might thank God better
+for all the happiness He had granted me. In my chamber all was peaceful;
+there was no sound save the long-drawn regular breathing of the
+sleeping Macha, and the ticking of the watch by her side; I would return
+to bed, murmur a few words, cross myself, or kiss the little cross
+hanging at my neck. The doors were locked, the shutters fast over the
+windows, the buzzing of a fly struggling in a corner came to my ear. I
+could have wished never to leave this room; desired that morning might
+never come to dissipate the atmosphere impregnated with my soul, that
+enveloped me. It seemed to me that my dreams, my thoughts, my prayers,
+were so many animated essences which in this darkness lived with me,
+fluttered about my pillow, hovered above my head. And every thought was
+his thought, every feeling his feeling. I did not yet know what love
+was, I thought that it might always be thus--that it might give itself
+and ask nothing in return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+One day, during the grain harvest, Macha, Sonia, and I, went into the
+garden after dinner, to our favorite bench under the shade of the
+linden-trees at the head of the ravine, whence we could see the fields
+and the woods. For three days Sergius Mikaïlovitch had not been to see
+us, and we looked for him all the more confidently to-day, as he had
+promised our intendant to visit the harvest fields.
+
+About two o'clock we saw him coming over the rising ground in the middle
+of a rye field. Macha, giving me a smile, ordered a servant to bring out
+some peaches and cherries, which he was very fond of, then stretched
+herself upon the bench and was soon fast asleep. I broke off a little
+linden bough, its leaves and bark fresh with young sap, and, while I
+fanned Macha, went on with my reading, not without turning every instant
+to watch the field-path by which he must come to us. Sonia had
+established herself on a linden root, and was busy putting up a green
+arbor for her dolls.
+
+The day was very warm, without wind, it seemed as if we were in a
+hot-house; the clouds, lying in a low circle upon the horizon, had
+looked angry in the morning, and there had been a threat of storm,
+which, as was always the case, had excited and agitated me. But since
+mid-day the clouds had dispersed, the sun was free in a clear sky, the
+thunder was only muttering at a single point, rolling slowly through the
+depths of a heavy cloud which, seeming to unite earth and heaven,
+blended with the dust of the fields, and was furrowed by pale zig-zags
+of distant lightning. It was evident that for us at least there was no
+more to be dreaded for that day. In the part of the road running behind
+the garden there was continual sound and motion, now the slow, long
+grind of a wagon loaded with sheaves, now the quick jolt of the empty
+telégas[B] as they passed each other, or the rapid steps of the
+drivers, whose white smocks we could see fluttering as they hurried
+along. The thick dust neither blew away nor fell, it remained suspended
+above the hedges, a hazy background for the clear green leaves of the
+garden trees. Farther off, about the barn, resounded more voices, more
+grinding wheels; and I could see the yellow sheaves, brought in the
+carts to the enclosure, being tossed off into the air, and heaped up,
+until at length I could distinguish the stacks, rising like oval
+sharp-roofed buildings, and the silhouettes of the peasants swarming
+about them. Presently, there were new _telégas_ moving in the dusty
+fields, new piles of yellow sheaves, and in the distance the wheels, the
+voices, the chanted songs.
+
+The dust and heat invaded everything, except our little favorite nook of
+the garden. Yet on all sides, in the dust and heat, the blaze of the
+burning sun, the throng of laborers chattered, made merry, and kept in
+continual movement. As for me, I looked at Macha, sleeping so sweetly on
+our bench, her face shaded by her cambric handkerchief; the black juicy
+cherries on the plate; our light, dazzlingly clean dresses, the carafe
+of clear water, where the sun's rays were playing in a little rainbow;
+and I felt a sense of rare comfort. "What must I do?" thought I;
+"perhaps it is wicked to be so happy? But can we diffuse our happiness
+around us? How, and to whom, can we wholly consecrate
+ourselves--ourselves and this very happiness?"
+
+The sun had disappeared behind the tops of the old birch-trees bordering
+the path, the dust had subsided; the distances of the landscape stood
+out, clear and luminous, under the slanting rays; the clouds had
+dispersed entirely, long ago; on the other side of the trees I could
+see, near the barn, the pointed tops rise upon three new stacks of
+grain, and the peasants descend from them; finally, for the last time
+that day, the _telégas_ passed rapidly, making the air resound with
+their noisy jolts; the women were going homewards, singing, their rakes
+on their shoulders, and their binding withes hanging at their girdles;
+and still Sergius Mikaïlovitch did not come, although long ago I had
+seen him at the foot of the mountain. Suddenly he appeared at the end of
+the path, from a direction where I had not been looking for him at all,
+for he had to skirt the ravine to reach it. Raising his hat he came
+towards me, his face lighted up with sudden joy. At the sight of Macha,
+still asleep, his eyes twinkled, he bit his lip, and began tip-toeing
+elaborately. I saw at once that he was in one of those fits of causeless
+gayety which I liked so much in him, and which, between ourselves, we
+called "_le transport sauvage_." At such times he was like a boy just
+let out of school, his whole self from head to foot instinct with
+delight and happiness.
+
+"How do you do, little violet, how goes the day with you? Well?" said
+he, in a low voice, coming near and pressing my hand.... "And with me?
+oh, charmingly, also!" he replied to my similar question, "to-day I am
+really not over thirteen years old; I would like to ride a
+stick-horse,--I want to climb the trees!"
+
+"_Le transport sauvage!_" I commented, looking into his laughing eyes,
+and feeling this _transport sauvage_ take possession of me also.
+
+"Yes," he murmured, at the same time raising his eyebrows with an
+enquiring glance, and keeping back a smile. "But why are you so furious
+with our poor Macha Karlovna?"
+
+In fact I then became conscious that, while I was gazing up at him and
+continuing to brandish my linden bough, I had whipped off Macha's
+handkerchief, and was sweeping her face with the leaves. I could not
+help laughing.
+
+"And she will say she has not been asleep," I said, whispering, as if
+afraid of waking her; but I did not do it altogether for that,--it was
+so delightful to whisper when I spoke to him!
+
+He moved his lips in almost dumb show, imitating me, and as if he, on
+his side, was saying something that no one else must hear. Then, spying
+the plate of cherries, he pretended to seize it and carry it off by
+stealth, running away towards Sonia, and dropping on the grass under the
+linden-tree in the midst of her accumulation of dolls. Sonia was about
+to fly into a little rage, but he made peace with her by proposing a
+new game, the point of which lay in seeing which of the two could devour
+the most cherries.
+
+"Shall I order some more?" I asked, "or shall we go gather them for
+ourselves?"
+
+He picked up the plate, piled Sonia's dolls in it, and we all three
+started for the cherry orchard. Sonia, shouting with laughter, trotted
+after him, tugging at his coat to make him give her back her family. He
+did so; and turning gravely to me:
+
+"Come, how can you convince me that you are not a violet?" he said,
+still speaking very low, though there was now no one for him to be
+afraid of waking; "as soon as I came near you, after having been through
+so much dust and heat and fatigue, I seemed to perceive the fragrance of
+a violet, not, it is true, that violet with the powerful perfume, but
+the little early one, you know, which steals out first, still modest, to
+breathe at once the expiring snow and the springing grass...."
+
+"But, tell me, is the harvest coming on well?" I put in hastily, to
+cover the happy confusion his words caused me.
+
+"Wonderfully! what excellent people these all are,--the more one knows
+them, the more one loves them."
+
+"Oh, yes!--A little while ago, before you came, I sat watching their
+work, and it really went to my conscience to see them toiling so
+faithfully, while I was just idly taking my ease, and...."
+
+"Do not play with these sentiments, Katia," he interrupted, with a
+serious manner, giving me at the same time a caressing glance, "there is
+holy work there. May God guard you from _posing_ in such matters!"
+
+"But it was only to you that I said that!"
+
+"I know it.--Well, and our cherries?"
+
+The cherry orchard was locked, not a single gardener was to be found (he
+had sent them all to the harvest fields). Sonia ran off to look for the
+key; but, without waiting for her return, he climbed up at a corner by
+catching hold of the meshes of the net, and jumped down inside the
+wall.
+
+"Will you give me the plate?" he asked me, from within.
+
+"No, I want to gather some, myself; I will go get the key, I doubt if
+Sonia can find it."
+
+But at that moment a sudden fancy seized me, to find out what he was
+doing there, how he looked, in short his demeanor when he supposed no
+one could see him. Or rather, honestly, perhaps just then I did not feel
+like losing sight of him for a single instant. So on my tip-toes,
+through the nettles, I made a circuit around the little orchard and
+gained the opposite side, where the enclosure was lower; there, stepping
+up on an empty tub, I found the wall but breast-high, and leaned over. I
+made a survey of everything within; looked at the crooked old trees, the
+large serrated leaves, the black, vertical clusters of juicy fruit; and,
+slipping my head under the net, I could observe Sergius Mikaïlovitch
+through the twisted boughs of an old cherry-tree. He was certainly
+confident that I had gone, and that no one could see him.
+
+With bared head and closed eyes he was sitting on the mouldering trunk
+of an old tree, absently rolling between his fingers a bit of
+cherry-gum. All at once, he opened his eyes, and murmured something,
+with a smile. The word and smile were so little in keeping with what I
+knew of him that I was ashamed of having watched him. It really seemed
+to me that the word was: Katia! "That cannot be!" I said to myself.
+"Dear Katia!" he repeated lower, and still more tenderly. And this time
+I heard the two words distinctly. My heart began to beat so fast, I was
+so filled with joyful emotion, I even felt, as it were, such a kind of
+shock, that I had to hold on to the wall with both hands, to keep myself
+from falling, and so betraying myself. He heard my movement, and glanced
+behind him, startled; then suddenly casting down his eyes he blushed,
+reddening like a child. He made an effort to speak to me, but could not,
+and this failure made his face grow deeper and deeper scarlet. Yet he
+smiled as he looked at me. I smiled at him too. He looked all alive with
+happiness; this was no longer, then,--oh, no, this _was_ no longer an
+old uncle lavishing cares and caresses upon me; I had there before my
+eyes a man on my own level, loving me and fearing me; a man whom I
+myself feared, and loved. We did not speak, we only looked at each
+other. But suddenly he bent his brows darkly; smile and glow went out of
+his eyes simultaneously, and his bearing became again cold and fatherly,
+as if we had been doing something wrong, as if he had regained control
+of himself and was counselling me to do the same.
+
+"Get down from there, you will hurt yourself," said he. "And arrange
+your hair; you ought to see what you look like!"
+
+"Why does he dissemble so? Why does he wish to wound me?" I thought,
+indignantly. And at the moment came an irresistible desire to move him
+again, and to try my power over him.
+
+"No, I want to gather some cherries, myself," I said; and grasping a
+neighboring bough with my hands, I swung myself over the wall. He had
+no time to catch me, I dropped to the ground in the middle of the little
+space.
+
+"What folly is this?" he exclaimed, flushing again, and endeavoring to
+conceal his alarm under a semblance of anger. "You might injure
+yourself! And how are you going to get out?"
+
+He was much more perturbed than when he first caught sight of me; but
+now this agitation no longer gladdened me, on the contrary it made me
+afraid. I was attacked by it in my turn; I blushed, moved away, no
+longer knowing what to say to him, and began to pick cherries very fast,
+without having anything to put them in. I reproached myself, I repented,
+I was frightened, it seemed to me that by this step I had ruined myself
+forever in his eyes. We both remained speechless, and the silence
+weighed heavily upon both. Sonia, running back with the key, freed us
+from our embarrassing situation. However, we still persistently avoided
+speaking to each other, both preferring to address little Sonia instead.
+When we were again with Macha, (who vowed she had not been asleep, and
+had heard everything that had gone on,) my calmness returned, while he,
+on his side, made another effort to resume his tone of paternal
+kindness. But the effort was not successful, and did not deceive me at
+all. A certain conversation that had taken place two days before still
+lived in my memory.
+
+Macha had announced her opinion that a man loves more easily than a
+woman, and also more easily expresses his love. She added:
+
+"A man can say that he loves, and a woman cannot."
+
+"Now it seems to me that a man neither ought nor can say that he loves,"
+was his reply.
+
+I asked him why.
+
+"Because it would always be a lie. What is this discovery that a man
+_loves_? As if he had only to pronounce the word, and there must
+immediately spring from it something extraordinary, some phenomenon or
+other, exploding all at once! It seems to me that those people who say
+to you solemnly: 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or, which is
+worse, deceive others."
+
+"Then you think a woman is to know that she is loved, without being
+told?" asked Macha.
+
+"That I do not know; every man has his own fashion of speech. But such
+feelings make themselves understood. When I read a novel, I always try
+to imagine the embarrassed air of Lieutenant Crelski or Alfred, as he
+declares: 'Eléonore, I love thee!' which speech he fancies is going to
+produce something astounding, all of a sudden,--while in reality it
+causes nothing at all, neither in her nor in him: features, look,
+everything, remain precisely the same!"
+
+He spoke jestingly, but I thought I detected an undertone of serious
+meaning, which might have some reference to me; and Macha never allowed
+even playful aspersions upon her heroes of romance.
+
+"Always paradoxes!" she exclaimed. "Come now, be honest, have you
+yourself never said to a woman that you loved her?"
+
+"Never have I said so, never have I bowed a knee," he replied laughing,
+"and never will I!"
+
+"Yes, he need not tell me that he loves me!" I thought, now vividly
+recalling this conversation. "He does love me, and I know it. And all
+his efforts to seem indifferent cannot take away this conviction!"
+
+During the whole evening he said very little to me, but in every word,
+in every look and motion, I felt love, and no longer had any doubts. The
+only thing that vexed and troubled me was that he should still judge it
+necessary to conceal this feeling, and to feign coldness, when already
+all was so clear, and we might have been so easily and so frankly happy
+almost beyond the verge of possibility. Then, too, I was tormenting
+myself as though I had committed a crime, for having jumped down into
+the cherry orchard to join him, and it seemed as if he must have ceased
+to esteem me, and must feel resentment against me.
+
+After tea, I went to the piano, and he followed.
+
+"Play something, Katia, I have not heard you for a long time," he said,
+joining me in the drawing-room.
+
+"I wished ... Sergius Mikaïlovitch!" And suddenly I looked right into
+his eyes. "You are not angry with me?"
+
+"Why should I be?"
+
+"Because I did not obey you this afternoon," said I, blushing.
+
+He understood me, shook his head, and smiled. And this smile said that
+perhaps he would willingly have scolded me a little, but had no longer
+the strength to do so.
+
+"That is done with, then, isn't it? And we are good friends again?" I
+asked, seating myself at the piano.
+
+"I think so, indeed!"
+
+The large, lofty apartment was lighted, only by the two candles upon the
+piano, and the greater portion of it was in semi-darkness; through the
+open windows we beheld the luminous stillness of the summer night. The
+most perfect calm reigned, only broken at intervals by Macha's footfall
+in the adjoining room, which was not yet lighted, or by an occasional
+restless snort or stamp from our visitor's horse, which was tied under
+one of the casements. Sergius Mikaïlovitch was seated behind me, so
+that I could not see him, but in the imperfect darkness of the room, in
+the soft notes that filled it, in the very depths of my being, I seemed
+to feel his presence. Every look, every movement, though I could not
+distinguish them, seemed to enter and echo in my heart. I was playing
+Mozart's Caprice-sonata, which he had brought me, and which I had
+learned before him and for him. I was not thinking at all of what I
+played, but I found that I was playing well and thought he was pleased.
+I shared his enjoyment, and without seeing him, I knew that from his
+place his eyes were fixed on me. By a quite involuntary movement, while
+my fingers continued to run over the keys, unconscious of what they were
+doing, I turned and looked at him; his head stood out in dark relief
+against the luminous background of the night. He was sitting with his
+brow resting on his hand, watching me attentively with sparkling eyes.
+As mine met them, I smiled, and stopped playing. He smiled also, and
+made a motion with his head towards my notes, as if reproaching me and
+begging me to keep on. Just then the moon, midway in her course, soared
+in full splendor from a light cloud, pouring into the room waves of
+silvery radiance which overcame the feeble gleam of our wax candles, and
+swept in a sea of glory over the inlaid floor. Macha said that what I
+had done was like nothing at all, that I had stopped at the very
+loveliest part, and that, besides, I had played miserably; he, on the
+contrary, insisted that I had never succeeded better than this evening,
+and began pacing about restlessly, from the dim drawing-room into the
+hall, from the hall back again into the drawing-room, and every time he
+passed he looked at me and smiled. I smiled too though without any
+reason; I wanted to laugh, so happy was I at what had taken place that
+day, at that moment even. While the door hid him from me for an instant
+I pounced upon Macha and began to kiss her in my pet place on her soft
+throat under her chin, but when he reappeared I was perfectly grave,
+although it was hard work to keep from laughing.
+
+"What has happened to her, to-day?" Macha said.
+
+He made no answer, but began to tease and make laughing conjectures. He
+knew well enough what had happened to me!
+
+"Just see what a night!" he said presently, from the door of the
+drawing-room, opening on the garden balcony.
+
+We went and stood by him, and indeed I never remember such a night. The
+full moon shone down upon us from above the house with a glory I have
+never seen in her since; the long shadows of the roof, of the slender
+columns and tent-shaped awning of the terrace stretched out in oblique
+foreshortening, over the gravel walk and part of the large oval of turf.
+The rest lay in brilliant light, glistening with dew-drops turned by the
+moon's rays to liquid silver. A wide path, bordered with flowers, was
+diagonally cut into at one edge by the shadows of tall dahlias and their
+supporting stakes, and then ran on, an unbroken band of white light and
+gleaming pebbles until it was lost in the mist of distance. The glass
+roof of the orangery sparkled through the trees, and a soft vapor
+stealing up the sides of the ravine grew denser every moment. The tufts
+of lilac, now partially faded, were pierced through and through by the
+light; every slender foot-stalk was visible, and the tiny flowers,
+freshened by the dew, could easily be distinguished from each other. In
+the paths light and shadow were so blended that one would no longer have
+said there were trees and paths, but transparent edifices shaken with
+soft vibrations. On the right of the house all was obscure, indistinct,
+almost a horror of darkness. But out of it sprang, more resplendent from
+the black environment, the fantastic head of a poplar which, by some
+strange freak, ended abruptly close above the house in an aureole of
+clear light, instead of rising to lose itself in the distant depths of
+dark blue sky.
+
+"Let us go to walk," said I.
+
+Macha consented, but added that I must put on my galoshes.
+
+"It is not necessary," I said; "Sergius Mikaïlovitch will give me his
+arm."
+
+As if that could keep me from getting my feet wet! But at that moment,
+to each of us three, such absurdity was admissible, and caused no
+astonishment. He had never given me his arm, and now I took it of my own
+accord, and he did not seem surprised. We all three descended to the
+terrace. The whole universe, the sky, the garden, the air we breathed,
+no longer appeared to me what I had always known.
+
+As I looked ahead of me in the path we were pursuing, I began to fancy
+that one could not go beyond, that there the possible world ended, and
+that all there would abide forever in its present loveliness.
+
+However, as we went on, this enchanted wall, this barrier built of pure
+beauty, receded before us and yielded us passage, and I found myself in
+the midst of familiar objects, garden, trees, paths, dry leaves. These
+were certainly real paths that we were pursuing, where we crossed
+alternate spaces of light and spheres of darkness, where the dry leaves
+rustled beneath our feet, and the dewy sprays softly touched my cheek as
+we passed. It was really he, who walked by my side with slow, steady
+steps and with distant formality, allowed my arm to rest upon his own.
+It was the real moon, high in the heavens, whose light came down to us
+through the motionless branches.
+
+Once I looked at him. There was only a single linden in the part of the
+path we were then following, and I could see his face clearly. He was so
+handsome; he looked so happy....
+
+He was saying: "Are you not afraid?" But the words I heard, were: "I
+love thee, dear child! I love thee! I love thee!" His look said it, and
+his arm said it; the light, the shadow, the air, and all things repeated
+it.
+
+We went through the whole garden, Macha walked near us, taking short
+steps, and panting a little, she was so tired. She said it was time to
+go in, and I was so sorry for the poor creature. "Why does not she feel
+like us?" I thought. "Why is not everybody always young and happy? How
+full this night is of youth and happiness,--and we too!"
+
+We returned to the house, but it was a long time before Sergius
+Mikaïlovitch went away. Macha forgot to remind us that it was late; we
+talked of all sorts of things, perhaps trivial enough, sitting side by
+side without the least suspicion that it was three o'clock in the
+morning. The cocks had crowed for the third time, before he went. He
+took leave of us as usual, not saying anything particular. But I could
+not doubt that from this day he was mine, and I could no longer lose
+him. Now that I recognized that I loved him, I told Macha all. She was
+delighted and touched, but the poor woman got no sleep that night; and
+as for me, after walking a long, long time up and down the terrace, I
+went to the garden again, seeking to recall every word, every incident,
+as I wandered through the paths where we had so lately passed together.
+I did not go to bed, that night, and, for the first time in my life, I
+saw the sun rise and knew what the dawn of day is. Never again have I
+seen such a night and such a morning. But I still kept asking myself why
+he did not tell me frankly that he loved me. "Why," thought I, "does he
+invent such or such difficulties, why does he consider himself old,
+when everything is so simple and so beautiful? Why lose thus a precious
+time which perhaps will never return? Let him say that he loves, let him
+say it in words, let him take my hand in his, bend down his head and
+say: "I love." Let his face flush, and his eyes fall before me, and then
+I will tell him all. Or, rather, I will tell him nothing, I will only
+hold him fast in my arms and let my tears flow. But if I am
+mistaken?--if he does not love me?" This thought suddenly crossed my
+mind.
+
+I was terrified by my own feeling. Heaven knows where it might have led
+me; already the memory of his confusion and my own when I suddenly
+dropped down into the cherry orchard beside him, weighed upon me,
+oppressed my heart. The tears filled my eyes, and I began to pray. Then
+a thought, a strange thought, came to me, which brought me a great
+quietness, and rekindled my hope. This was, the resolution to commence
+my devotions, and to choose my birthday as my betrothal day.
+
+How and why? How could it come to pass? That I knew nothing about,--but
+from this moment I believed that it would be so. In the meantime, broad
+day had come, and every one was rising as I returned to my chamber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+It was the _Carême de l'Assomption_,[C] and consequently no one was
+surprised at my commencing a season of devotion.
+
+During this whole week Sergius Mikaïlovitch did not once come to see us,
+and far from being surprised, alarmed, or angry with him, I was content,
+and did not expect him before my birthday. Throughout this week I rose
+very early every day, and while the horses were being harnessed I walked
+in the garden, alone, meditating upon the past, and thinking what I must
+do in order that the evening should find me satisfied with my day, and
+proud of having committed no faults.
+
+When the horses were ready, I entered the droschky, accompanied by Macha
+or a maid-servant, and drove about three versts to church. In entering
+the church, I never failed to remember that we pray there for all those
+"who enter this place in the fear of God," and I strove to rise to the
+level of this thought, above all when my feet first touched the two
+grass-grown steps of the porch. At this hour there were not usually in
+the church more than ten or a dozen persons, peasants and droroviés,
+preparing to make their devotions; I returned their salutations with
+marked humility, and went myself, (which I regarded as an act of
+superior merit,) to the drawer where the wax tapers were kept, received
+a few from the hand of the old soldier who performed the office of
+staroste,[D] and placed them before the images. Through the door of the
+sanctuary I could see the altar-cloth Mamma had embroidered, and above
+the iconstase[E] two angels spangled with stars, which I had considered
+magnificent when I was a little girl; and a dove surrounded by a gilded
+aureole which, at that same period, often used to absorb my attention.
+Behind the choir I caught a glimpse of the embossed fonts near which I
+had so often held the children of our droroviés, and where I myself had
+received baptism. The old priest appeared, wearing a chasuble cut from
+cloth which had been the pall of my father's coffin, and he intoned the
+service in the same voice which, as far back as I could remember, had
+chanted the offices of the Church at our house, at Sonia's baptism, at
+my father's funeral service, at my mother's burial. In the choir I heard
+the familiar cracked voice of the precentor; I saw, as I had always seen
+her, a certain old woman, almost bent double, who came to every service,
+leaned her back against the wall, and, holding her faded handkerchief in
+her tightly clasped hands, gazed with eyes full of tears at one of the
+images in the choir, mumbling I knew not what prayers with her toothless
+mouth. And all these objects, all these beings,--it was not mere
+curiosity or reminiscence which brought them so near to me; all seemed
+in my eyes great and holy, all were full of profound meaning.
+
+I lent an attentive ear to every word of the prayers I heard read, I
+endeavored to bring my feelings into accord with them, and if I did not
+comprehend them, I mentally besought God to enlighten me, or substituted
+a petition of my own for that which I had not understood. When the
+penitential prayers were read, I recalled my past, and this past of my
+innocent childhood appeared to me so black in comparison with the state
+of serenity in which my soul was, at this time, that I wept over myself,
+terrified; yet I felt that all was forgiven me, and that even if I had
+had many more faults to reproach myself with, repentance would only have
+been all the sweeter to me.
+
+At the conclusion of the service, at the moment when the priest
+pronounced the words: "May the blessing of the Lord our God be upon
+you," I seemed to feel within me, instantaneously communicated to all my
+being, a sense of even, as it were, physical comfort, as if a current of
+light and warmth had suddenly poured into my very heart.
+
+When the service was over, if the priest approached me to ask if he
+should come to our house to celebrate vespers, and what hour would suit
+me, I thanked him with emotion for his offer, but told him that I would
+come myself to the church either on foot or in the carriage.
+
+"So you will yourself take that trouble?" he asked.
+
+I could not answer, for fear of sinning from pride. Unless Macha was
+with me, I sent the carriage home from the church, and returned on foot,
+alone, saluting humbly all whom I met, seeking occasion to assist them,
+to advise them, to sacrifice myself for them in some way; helping to
+lift a load or carry a child, or stepping aside into the mud to yield a
+passage.
+
+One evening I heard our intendant, in making his report to Macha, say
+that a peasant, Simon, had come to beg for some wood to make a coffin
+for his daughter, and for a silver rouble to pay for the mortuary
+service, and that his request had been complied with.
+
+"Are they so poor?" I enquired.
+
+"Very poor, my lady; they live without salt,"[F] replied the intendant.
+
+I was distressed, yet, at the same time, in a manner rejoiced to hear
+this. Making Macha believe that I was going for a walk, I ran upstairs,
+took all my money (it was very little, but it was all I had,) and,
+having made the sign of the cross, hurried off, across the terrace and
+garden, to Simon's cottage in the village. It was at the end of the
+little cluster of houses, and, unseen by anyone, I approached the
+window, laid the money upon the sill and tapped gently. The door opened,
+some one came out of the cottage and called to me; but I, cold and
+trembling with fear like a criminal, ran away home. Macha asked where I
+had been, what was the matter with me? But I did not even understand
+what she was saying, and made no reply.
+
+Everything at this moment appeared to me so small, and of so little
+consequence! I shut myself up in my chamber, and walked up and down
+there alone, for a long time, not feeling disposed to do anything, to
+think anything, and incapable of analyzing my own sensations. I imagined
+the delight of the whole family, and what they would all say about the
+person who had placed the money upon their window, and I began to regret
+that I had not given it to them myself. I wondered what Sergius
+Mikaïlovitch would have said, if he had known what I had done, and I was
+delighted to think that he never would know it. And I was so seized with
+joy, so filled with a sense of the imperfection in myself and in all,
+yet so inclined to view with gentleness all these others, as well as
+myself, that the thought of death offered itself to me as a vision of
+bliss. I smiled, I prayed, I wept, and at this instant I suddenly loved
+every creature in the world, and I loved myself with a strange ardor.
+Searching my prayer-book, I read many passages from the Gospel, and all
+that I read in this volume became more and more intelligible; the story
+of that divine life, appeared to me more touching and simple, while the
+depth of feeling and of thought revealed to me, in this reading, became
+more terrible and impenetrable. And how clear and easy everything
+seemed, when, on laying aside the book, I looked at my life and
+meditated upon it. It seemed impossible not to live aright, and very
+simple to love every one and to be loved by every one. Besides, every
+one was good and gentle to me, even Sonia, whom I continued to teach,
+and who had become totally different, who really made an effort to
+understand, and to satisfy me, and give me no annoyance. What I was
+trying to be to others, others were to me.
+
+Passing then to my enemies, from whom I must obtain forgiveness before
+the great day, I could not think of any except one young lady in the
+neighborhood, whom I had laughed at before some company, about a year
+before, and who had ceased to visit at our house. I wrote a letter to
+her, acknowledging my fault, and begging her pardon. She responded by
+fully granting it, and asking mine in return. I shed tears of pleasure
+while reading these frank lines, which seemed to me full of deep and
+touching sentiment. My maid wept when I asked her pardon also. Why were
+they all so good to me? How had I deserved so much affection? I asked
+myself. Involuntarily I began to think about Sergius Mikaïlovitch. I
+could not help it, and besides I did not consider it a light or
+frivolous diversion. True I was not thinking about him at all as I had
+done on that night when, for the first time, I found out that I loved
+him; I was thinking of him just as of myself, linking him, in spite of
+myself, with every plan and idea of my future. The dominating influence
+which his presence had exercised over me, faded away completely in my
+imagination. I felt myself to-day his equal, and, from the summit of the
+ideal edifice whence I was looking down, I had full comprehension of
+him. Whatever in him had previously appeared strange to me was now
+intelligible. To-day, for the first time, I could appreciate the thought
+he had expressed to me, that happiness consists in living for others,
+and to-day I felt in perfect unison with him. It appeared to me that we
+two were to enjoy a calm and illimitable happiness. No thought entered
+my mind of journeys to foreign lands, guests at home, excitement, stir,
+and gayety; it was to be a peaceful existence, a home life in the
+country, perpetual abnegation of one's own will, perpetual love for
+each other, perpetual and absolute thankfulness to a loving and helpful
+Providence.
+
+I concluded my devotions, as I had purposed, upon the anniversary of my
+birth. My heart was so overflowing with happiness, that day, when I
+returned from church, that there resulted all kinds of dread of life,
+fear of every feeling, terrors of whatever might disturb this happiness.
+But we had scarcely descended from the droschky to the steps before the
+house, when I heard the well-known sound of his cabriolet upon the
+bridge, and in a moment Sergius Mikaïlovitch was with us. He offered me
+his congratulations, and we went into the drawing-room together. Never
+since I had known him, had I found myself so calm, so independent in his
+presence, as upon this morning. I felt that I bore within myself an
+entire new world, which he did not comprehend and which was superior to
+him. I did not feel the least agitation in his society. He may, however,
+have understood what was passing within me, for his gentleness to me was
+peculiarly delicate, almost, as it were, a religious deference. I was
+going towards the piano, but he locked it and put the key in his pocket,
+saying:
+
+"Do not spoil the state of mind I see you are in; there is sounding, at
+this moment, in the depths of your soul, a music which no harmony of
+this earth can approach!"
+
+I was grateful to him for this thought, yet, at the same time, it was a
+little displeasing to me that he should thus understand, too easily, and
+too clearly, what was to remain secret from all, in the kingdom of my
+soul.
+
+After dinner he said that he had come to bring me his congratulations
+and to say farewell, as he was going to Moscow on the following day. He
+was looking at Macha when he said this, but he gave me a quick
+side-glance as if he was afraid of noticing some emotion upon my
+countenance. But I showed neither surprise nor agitation, and did not
+even ask if his absence would be long. I knew that he said so, but I
+knew that he was not going. How? I cannot, now, explain it in the least;
+but on this memorable day it appeared to me that I knew all that had
+been, and all that would be. I was in a mood akin to one of those happy
+dreams, where one has a kind of luminous vision of both the future and
+the past.
+
+He had intended going immediately after dinner, but Macha had left the
+table, to take her siesta, and he was obliged to wait until she awoke in
+order to take leave of her.
+
+The sun was shining full into the drawing-room, and we went out upon the
+terrace. We were scarcely seated, when I entered upon the conversation
+which was to decide the fate of my love. I began to speak, neither
+sooner nor later, but at the first moment that found us face to face
+alone, when nothing else had been said, when nothing had stolen into the
+tone and general character of the conversation which might hinder or
+embarrass what I wished to say. I cannot myself comprehend whence came
+the calmness, the resolution, the precision of my words. One would have
+said that it was not I who was talking, and that something--I know not
+what--independent of my own volition, was making me speak. He was
+seated opposite to me, and, having drawn down to him a branch of lilac,
+began to pluck off its leaves. When I opened my lips, he let go the
+little branch, and covered his face with his hand. This might be the
+attitude of a man who was perfectly calm, or that of a man yielding to
+great agitation.
+
+"Why are you going away?" I began, in a resolute tone; then stopped, and
+looked him straight in the eyes.
+
+He did not reply at once.
+
+"Business!" he articulated, looking down on the ground.
+
+I saw that it was difficult for him to dissemble in answering a question
+I put so frankly.
+
+"Listen," said I, "you know what this day is to me. In many ways it is a
+great day. If I question you, it is not only to show my interest in you
+(you know I am used to you, and fond of you), I question you because I
+must know. Why are you going away?"
+
+"It is excessively difficult to tell you the truth, to tell you why I am
+going away. During this week I have thought a great deal of you and of
+myself, and I have decided that it is necessary for me to go. You
+understand ... why? And if you love me, do not question me!"
+
+He passed his hand across his brow, and, covering his eyes again with
+the same hand, he added:
+
+"This is painful to me.... But you understand, Katia!"
+
+My heart began to beat hard in my breast.
+
+"I cannot understand," said I, "_I cannot do it_; but _you_, speak to
+me, in the name of God, in the name of this day, speak to me, I can hear
+everything calmly."
+
+He changed his attitude, looked at me, and caught the branch of lilac
+again.
+
+"Well," he resumed, after a moment's silence, in a voice which vainly
+struggled to appear firm, "though it may be absurd, and almost
+impossible to translate into words, and though it will cost me much, I
+will try to explain to you;"--and as he uttered the words there were
+lines on his brow, as if he was suffering physical pain.
+
+"Go on," I said.
+
+"You must suppose there is a gentleman,--A. we will call him,--old,
+weary of existence; and a lady,--Madame B. we will say,--young, happy,
+and as yet knowing neither the world nor life. In consequence of family
+relations A. loved B. like a daughter, with no fear of coming to love
+her differently."
+
+He was silent, and I did not interrupt him.
+
+"But," he suddenly pursued, in a brief, resolute voice, without looking
+at me, "he had forgotten that B. was young, that for her life was still
+but a game, that it might easily happen that he might love her, and that
+B. might amuse herself with him. He deceived himself, and one fine day
+he found that another feeling, weighty to bear as remorse, had stolen
+into his soul, and he was startled. He dreaded to see their old friendly
+relations thus compromised, and he decided to go away before these had
+time to change their nature."
+
+As he spoke, he again with seeming carelessness passed his hand across
+his eyes, and covered them.
+
+"And why did he fear to love differently?" I said, presently, in a
+steady voice, controlling my emotion; but no doubt this seemed to him
+mere playful banter, for he answered with the air of a deeply wounded
+man:
+
+"You are young; I am no longer so. Playing may please you, for me more
+is necessary. Only, do not play with me, for I assure you it will do me
+no good,--and you might find it weigh on your conscience! That is what
+A. said," he added,--"but all this is nonsense; you understand, now, why
+I am going; let us say no more about it, I beg you...."
+
+"Yes, yes, let us speak of it!" said I, and tears made my voice tremble.
+"Did she love him or not?"
+
+He did not reply.
+
+"And if he did not love her," I continued, "why did he play with her as
+if she were a child?"
+
+"Yes, yes, A. had been culpable," he replied interrupting me; "but all
+that is over, and they have parted from each other ... good friends!"
+
+"But this is frightful! And is there no other end?" I exclaimed,
+terrified at what I was saying.
+
+"Yes, there is one." And he uncovered his agitated face, and looked at
+me steadily. "There are even two other ends, quite different. But, for
+the love of God, do not interrupt me, and listen to me quietly. Some
+say," he went on, rising, and giving a forced, sad smile, "some say that
+A. went mad, that he loved B. with an insane love, and that he told her
+so.... But that she only laughed at him. For her the matter had been but
+a jest, a trifle; for him,--the one thing in his life!"
+
+I shivered, and would have broken in, to tell him that he should not
+dare to speak for me; but he stopped me, and, laying his hand upon mine:
+
+"Wait!" he said, in a shaking voice: "others say that she was sorry for
+him, that she fancied--poor little girl, knowing nothing of the
+world--that she might actually love him, and that she consented to be
+his wife. And he--madman--he believed,--believed that all his life was
+beginning again; but she herself became conscious that she was
+deceiving him and that he was deceiving her.... Let us talk no more
+about it!" he concluded, indeed evidently incapable of farther speech,
+and he silently sat down again opposite me.
+
+He had said, "Let us talk no more about it," but it was manifest that
+with all the strength of his soul he was waiting for a word from me.
+Indeed I tried to speak, and could not; something stopped my breath. I
+looked at him, he was pale, and his lower lip was trembling. I was very
+sorry for him. I made another effort, and suddenly succeeding in
+breaking the silence which paralyzed me. I said, in a slow, concentrated
+voice, fearing every moment it would fail me:
+
+"There is a third end to the story" (I stopped, but he remained silent),
+"and this other end is that he did not love her, that he hurt her, hurt
+her cruelly, that he believed he was right to do it, that he ... that he
+went away, and that, moreover, moreover, he was proud of it. It is not
+on my side, but on yours, that the trifling has been, from the first day
+I loved you; I loved you," I repeated, and at the word "loved" my voice
+involuntarily changed from its tone of slow concentration to a kind of
+wild cry which appalled myself.
+
+He was standing up before me, very pale, his lip trembled more and more,
+and I saw two heavy tears making their way down his cheeks.
+
+"This is dreadful!"--I could barely get out the words, choked with anger
+and unshed tears.--"And why?..." I jumped up hastily, to run away.
+
+But he sprang towards me. In a moment his head was upon my knees, my
+trembling hands were pressed again and again to his lips, and I felt hot
+drops falling upon them.
+
+"My God, if I had known!" he was murmuring.
+
+"Why? why?" I repeated mechanically, my soul in the grasp of that
+transport which seizes, possesses, and flies forever, that rapture which
+returns no more.
+
+Five minutes afterwards, Sonia went dashing upstairs to Macha, and all
+over the house, crying out that Katia was going to marry Sergius
+Mikaïlovitch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+There was no reason to delay our marriage, and neither he nor I desired
+to do so. It is true that Macha longed to go to Moscow to order my
+trousseau, and Sergius' mother considered it incumbent upon him before
+marrying to buy a new carriage and more furniture and have the whole
+house renovated, but we both insisted that this could all be done quite
+as well afterwards, and that we would be married at the end of the
+fortnight succeeding my birthday, without trousseau, parade, guests,
+groomsmen, supper, champagne, or any of the traditional attributes of a
+wedding. He told me that his mother was unwilling to have the great
+event take place without the music, the avalanche of trunks, the
+refurnished house, which, at a cost of thirty thousand roubles, had
+accompanied her own marriage; and how, without his knowledge, she had
+ransacked for treasures all the chests in the lumber rooms, and held
+sober consultations with Mariouchka, the housekeeper, on the subject of
+certain new carpets and curtains, quite indispensable to our happiness.
+On our side, Macha was similarly employed, with my maid Kouzminicha. She
+could not be laughed out of this; being firmly persuaded that when
+Sergius and I ought to have been discussing our future arrangements, we
+wasted our time in soft speeches (as was perhaps natural in our
+position); while of course, in fact, the very substance of our future
+happiness was dependent upon the cut and embroidery of my dresses, and
+the straight hems on our table-cloths and napkins. Between Pokrovski and
+Nikolski, every day and several times a day, mysterious communications
+were exchanged as to the progressing preparations; and though apparently
+Macha and the bridegroom's mother were upon the tenderest terms, one
+felt sure of the constant passage of shafts of keen and hostile
+diplomacy between the two powers.
+
+Tatiana Semenovna, his mother, with whom I now became more fully
+acquainted, was a woman of the old school, starched and stiff, and a
+severe mistress. Sergius loved her, not only from duty as a son, but
+also with the sentiment of a man who saw in her the best, the most
+intelligent, the tenderest, and the most amiable woman in the world.
+Tatiana had always been cordial and kind to us, particularly to me, and
+she was delighted that her son should marry; but as soon as I became
+betrothed to him it appeared to me that she wished to make me feel that
+he might have made a better match, and that I ought never to forget the
+fact. I perfectly understood her, and was entirely of her opinion.
+
+During these last two weeks, Sergius and I saw each other every day; he
+always dined with us and remained until midnight; but, though he often
+told me--and I knew he was telling the truth--that he could not now live
+without me, yet he never spent the whole day with me, and even, after a
+fashion, continued to attend to his business matters. Our outward
+relations, up to the very time of our marriage, were exactly what they
+had been; we still said "_you_" to each other, he did not even kiss my
+hand, and not only did he not seek, but he actually avoided occasions of
+finding himself alone with me, as if he feared giving himself up too
+much to the great and dangerous love he bore in his heart.
+
+All these days the weather was bad, and we spent most of them in the
+drawing-room; our conversations being held in the corner between the
+piano and the window.
+
+"Do you know that there is one thing I have been wishing to say to you
+for a long time?" he said, late one evening, when we were alone in our
+corner. "I have been thinking of it, all the time you have been at the
+piano."
+
+"Tell me nothing, I know all," I replied.
+
+"Well then, we will say no more about it."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, tell me; what is it?" I asked.
+
+"It is this. You remember me telling you that story about A. and B.?"
+
+"As if I could help remembering that foolish story! How lucky that it
+has ended so...."
+
+"A little more, and I would have destroyed my happiness with my own
+hand; you saved me; but the thing is, that I was not truthful with you,
+then; it has been on my conscience, and now I wish to tell you all."
+
+"Ah, please do not!"
+
+"Do not be afraid," he said, smiling, "it is only that I must justify
+myself. When I began to talk to you, I wished to debate the question."
+
+"Why debate?" said I, "that is never necessary."
+
+He looked at me in silence, then went on.
+
+"In regard to the end of that story,--what I said to you, then, was not
+nonsense; clearly there was something to fear, and I was right to fear
+it. To receive everything from you, and give you so little! You are yet
+a child, yet an unexpanded flower, you love for the first time, while
+I...."
+
+"Oh, yes, tell me the truth!" I exclaimed. But all at once I was afraid
+of his answer. "No, do not tell me!" I added.
+
+"Whether I have loved before? is that it?" he said, instantly divining
+my thought. "It is easy to tell you that. No, I have not loved. Never
+has such a feeling.... So, do you not see how imperative it was for me
+to reflect, before telling you that I loved you? What am I giving you?
+Love, it is true...."
+
+"Is that so little?" I asked, looking into his face.
+
+"Yes, that is little, my darling, little for you. You have beauty and
+youth. Often, at night, I cannot sleep for happiness; I am incessantly
+thinking how we are going to live together. I have already lived much,
+yet it seems to me that I have but just now come to the knowledge of
+what makes happiness. A sweet, tranquil life, in our retired corner,
+with the possibility of doing good to those to whom it is so easy to do
+it, and who, nevertheless, are so little used to it; then work,--work,
+whence, you know, some profit always springs; recreation, also, nature,
+books, music, the affection of some congenial friend; there is my
+happiness, a happiness higher than I ever dreamed of. And beyond all
+that, a loved one like you, perhaps a family; in one word, all that a
+man can desire in this world!"
+
+"Yes," said I.
+
+"For me, whose youth is done, yes; but for you ..." he continued. "You
+have not yet lived; perhaps you might have wished to pursue your
+happiness in some other path, and in some other path perhaps you might
+have found it. At present it seems to you that what I speak of is indeed
+happiness, because you love me...."
+
+"No, I have never desired nor liked any but this sweet home life. And
+you have just said precisely what I think, myself."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"It seems so to you, my darling. But that is little for you. You have
+beauty and youth," he repeated, thoughtfully.
+
+I was beginning to feel provoked at seeing that he would not believe me,
+and that in a certain way he was reproaching me with my beauty and my
+youth.
+
+"Come now, why do you love me?" I asked, rather hotly: "for my youth or
+for myself?"
+
+"I do not know, but I do love," he replied, fixing upon me an observant
+look, full of alluring sweetness.
+
+I made no response, but involuntarily met his eyes. All at once, a
+strange thing happened to me. I ceased to see what was around me, his
+face itself disappeared from before me, and I could distinguish nothing
+but the fire of the eyes exactly opposite mine; then it seemed to me
+that these eyes themselves were piercing into me, then all became
+confused, I could no longer see anything at all, and I was obliged to
+half close my eyelids to free myself from the mingled sensation of joy
+and terror produced by this look.
+
+Towards evening of the day previous to that appointed for our marriage,
+the weather cleared. After the heavy continuous rains of the summer we
+had the first brilliant autumnal sunset. The sky was pure, rigid, and
+pale. I went to sleep, happy in the thought that the next day would be
+bright, for our wedding. I woke in the morning with the sun upon me, and
+with the thought that here already was the day ... as if it astonished
+and frightened me. I went to the garden. The sun had just risen, and was
+shining through the linden-trees, whose yellow leaves were floating down
+and strewing the paths. There was not one cloud to be seen in the cold
+serene sky.
+
+"Is it possible that it is to-day?" I asked myself, not venturing to
+believe in my own happiness. "Is it possible that to-morrow I shall not
+wake here, that I shall open my eyes in that house of Nikolski, with its
+columns, in a place now all strange to me! Is it possible that
+henceforward I shall not be expecting him, shall not be going to meet
+him, shall not talk about him any more in the evenings, with Macha?
+Shall I no longer sit at the piano in our drawing-room at Pokrovski,
+with him beside me? Shall I no longer see him go away, and tremble with
+fear for him because the night is dark?" But I remembered that he had
+told me, the night before, that it was his last visit; and, besides,
+Macha had made me try on my wedding-dress. So that, by moments, I would
+believe, and then doubt again. Was it really true that this very day I
+was to begin to live with a mother-in-law, without Nadine, without old
+Gregory, without Macha? That at night I would not embrace my old nurse,
+and hear her say, making the sign of the cross, as she always did;
+"Good-night, my young lady?" That I would no longer hear Sonia's
+lessons, or play with her, or rap on the partition wall in the morning
+and hear her gay laugh? Was it possible that it was really to-day that I
+was to become, in a measure, an alien to myself, and that a new life,
+realizing my hopes and my wishes, was opening before me? And was it
+possible that this new life, just beginning, was to be for ever? I
+waited impatiently for Sergius, so hard it was for me to remain alone
+with these thoughts. He came early, and it was only when he was actually
+there that I was sure that to-day I was really going to be his wife, and
+no longer felt frightened at the thought.
+
+Before dinner we went to church, to hear the service for the dead, in
+commemoration of my father.
+
+"Oh, if he were still in this world!" thought I, as I was returning
+home, leaning silently on the arm of the man who had been his dearest
+friend. While the prayers were being read, kneeling with my brow pressed
+upon the cold flag-stones of the chapel floor, my father had been so
+vividly brought before my mind, that I could not help believing that he
+comprehended me and blessed my choice, and I imagined that, at the
+moment, his soul was hovering above us, and that his benediction rested
+upon me. These remembrances, these hopes, my happiness and my regrets,
+blended within me into a feeling at once solemn and sweet, which seemed,
+as it were, to be set in a frame of clear quiet air, stillness, bare
+fields, pale heavens whose brilliant but enfeebled rays vainly strove to
+bring the color to my cheek. I persuaded myself that my companion was
+understanding and sharing my feelings. He walked with slow steps, in
+silence, and his face, which I glanced into from time to time, bore the
+impress of that intense state of the soul, which is neither sadness nor
+joy, and which perfectly harmonized with surrounding nature and with my
+heart.
+
+All at once, he turned towards me, and I saw that he had something to
+say to me. What if he were not going to speak of what was in my
+thoughts? But without even naming him he spoke of my father, and added:
+
+"One day he happened to say to me, laughingly, 'You will marry my little
+Katia!'"
+
+"How glad he would have been, to-day," I responded, pressing closer to
+the arm on which I leaned.
+
+"Yes, you were then but a child," he went on, looking deep into my eyes;
+"I kissed those eyes and loved them simply because they were so like
+his, and I was far from thinking that one day they would be so dear to
+me in themselves."
+
+We were still walking slowly along the field-path, scarcely traceable
+among the trodden and scattered stubble, and heard no sound save our own
+footsteps and voices. The sun poured down floods of light that gave no
+warmth. When we spoke, our voices seemed to resound and hang suspended
+above our heads in the motionless atmosphere. We might have thought we
+two were alone upon the earth, alone beneath that blue vault vibrating
+with cold scintillations from the sun.
+
+When we arrived at the house, we found his mother already there, with
+the few guests whom we had felt obliged to invite, and I was not again
+alone with him until we had left the church and were in the carriage on
+our way to Nikolski.
+
+The church had been almost empty. At one glance I had seen his mother,
+standing near the choir; Macha, with her wet cheeks and lilac
+cap-ribbons; and two or three _droroviés_, who were gazing at me with
+curious eyes. I heard the prayers, I repeated them, but they had no
+meaning for me. I could not pray, myself, I only kept looking stupidly
+at the images, the wax tapers, the cross embroidered on the chasuble the
+priest had on, the iconostase, the church windows, but did not seem able
+to understand anything at all; I only felt that something very
+extraordinary was being done to me. When the priest turned towards us
+with the cross, when he gave us his congratulations, and said that he
+had baptized me and that now God had permitted him also to marry me;
+when Macha and Sergius' mother embraced us, when I heard Gregory's voice
+calling the carriage, I was astonished and frightened at the thought
+that all was finished, though no marvellous change, corresponding with
+the sacrament which had just been performed over me, had taken place in
+my soul. We kissed each other, and this kiss appeared to me so odd, so
+out of keeping with ourselves, that I could not help thinking: "It is
+only _that_?" We went out upon the parvise, the noise of the wheels
+echoed loudly within the arch of the church; I felt the fresh air upon
+my face, and was conscious that, Sergius with his hat under his arm, had
+assisted me into the carriage. Through the window I saw that the moon
+was shining in her place in the frosty sky. He took his seat beside me,
+and shut the door. Something, at this moment, seemed to strike through
+my heart, as if the assurance with which he did this had given me a
+wound. The wheels glanced against a stone, then began to revolve upon
+the smooth road, and we were gone. Drawn back into a corner of the
+carriage, I watched the fields flooded with light, and the flying road.
+Nevertheless, without looking at him, I was feeling that there he was,
+beside me. "Here, then, is all that this first moment from which I have
+expected so much, brings me?" I thought, and all at once I had a sense
+of humiliation and offence at finding myself seated thus alone with him
+and so close to him. I turned towards him, intending to say something,
+no matter what. But no word would come from my lips; one would have said
+that no trace of my former tenderness lingered within my heart, but that
+it was entirely replaced by this impression of alarm and offence.
+
+"Up to this moment, I still dared not believe that this might be!" he
+softly responded to my glance.
+
+"And I ... I am afraid ... I know not why!"
+
+"Afraid of me, Katia?" he said, taking my hand, and bending his head
+over it.
+
+My hand rested within his, lifeless; my heart stopped beating.
+
+"Yes," I murmured.
+
+But, at the same moment, my heart suddenly began to beat again, my hand
+trembled and clasped his, warmth returned to me; my eyes, in the dim
+light, sought his eyes, and I felt, all at once, that I was no longer
+afraid of him; that this terror had been but a new love, yet more tender
+and strong than the old. I knew that I was wholly his, and that I was
+happy to be wholly in his power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The days, the weeks, two entire months of lonely country life slipped
+away, imperceptibly, it appeared to us; but the sensations, the
+emotions, and the happiness of these two months would have sufficed to
+fill a whole life. My dreams, and his, concerning the mode of organizing
+our joint existence were not realized exactly as we had anticipated.
+But, nevertheless, the reality was not below our dreams. This was not
+the life of strict industry, full of duties, abnegation, and sacrifices,
+which I had pictured to myself when I became his betrothed; on the
+contrary, it was the absorbing and egotistical sentiment of love, joys
+without reason and without end, oblivion of everything in the world. He
+would, it is true, sometimes retire to his study and occupy himself with
+something demanding attention; sometimes he went to the city on
+business, or overlooked his agricultural matters; but I could see how
+hard it was for him to tear himself away from me. Indeed, he himself
+said that whenever I was not present, things appeared to him so devoid
+of interest that the wonder was that he could attend to them at all. It
+was precisely the same on my side. I read, I busied myself with my
+music, with Mamma, with the schools; but I only did so because all these
+employments were in some way connected with him, and met with his
+approbation, and the instant the thought of him ceased to be in some
+manner, direct or indirect, associated with anything whatever that I was
+doing, I would stop doing it. To me, he was the only person in the
+universe, the handsomest, noblest human being in the wide world; of
+course, therefore, I could live for nothing but him, could strive for
+nothing but to remain in his eyes what he considered me. For he honestly
+considered me the first and highest of women, gifted with every
+excellence and charm; and my one aim was to be in reality for him this
+highest and most complete of all existing creatures.
+
+Ours was one of those old country homes, where generation after
+generation of ancestors had lived, loved each other, and peacefully
+passed away. The very walls seemed to breathe out happy household
+memories, and no sooner had I set my foot upon the threshold, than these
+all appeared to become memories of my own. The arrangement and order of
+the dwelling were old-fashioned, carefully kept so by Tatiania
+Semenovna. No one could have said that anything was handsome or elegant,
+but everything, from the attendance to the furniture and the food, was
+proper, solid, regular, and seemed to inspire respect. In the
+drawing-room, tables, chairs, and divans were symmetrically ranged, the
+walls were hidden by family portraits, and the floor was covered with
+ancient rugs and immense landscapes in linen. In the small parlor there
+was an old grand piano, two chiffoniers of different shapes, a divan,
+and one or two tables decorated with wrought copper. My private room,
+adorned by Tatiana Semenovna, was honored with all the finest pieces of
+furniture, irrespective of varying styles and dates, and, among the
+rest, with an old mirror with doors, which at first I hardly dared to
+raise my eyes to, but which afterwards became like a dear old friend to
+me. Tatiana's voice was never heard, but the household went on with the
+regularity of a well-wound clock, although there were many more servants
+than were necessary. But all these servants, wearing their soft heelless
+slippers (for Tatiana Semenovna insisted that creaking soles and
+pounding heels were, of all things in the world, the most disagreeable),
+all these servants appeared proud of their condition, trembling before
+the old lady, showing to my husband and me a protecting good-will, and
+seeming to take special satisfaction in the discharge of their
+respective duties. Every Saturday, regularly, the floors were scoured,
+and the carpets shaken; on the first day of every month, a _Te Deum_ was
+chanted, and holy water sprinkled; while upon every recurring fête-day
+of Tatiana Semenovna and her son, and now also upon mine (which took
+place this autumn, for the first time), a feast was given to all the
+neighborhood. And all this was performed precisely as in the oldest
+times that Tatiana Semenovna could remember.
+
+My husband interfered in nothing concerning the management of the house,
+confining himself to the control of the estate, and the affairs of the
+peasants, which fully occupied him.
+
+He rose very early, even during the winter, so that he was always gone
+when I woke. He generally returned for tea, which we took alone
+together; and at these times, having finished the troubles and
+annoyances of his agricultural matters, he would often fall into that
+particularly joyous light-hearted state of mind, which we used to call
+_le transport sauvage_. Often, when I asked him to tell me what he had
+been doing all the morning, he would relate such perfectly absurd
+adventures, that we would almost die of laughing; sometimes when I
+demanded a sober account, he would give it to me, making an effort to
+restrain even a smile. As for me, I watched his eyes, or the motion of
+his lips, and did not understand a word he said, being entirely taken up
+with the pleasure of looking at him and hearing his voice.
+
+"Come, now, what was I saying?" he would ask; "repeat it to me!"
+
+But I never could repeat any of it.
+
+Tatiana Semenovna never made her appearance until dinner time, taking
+her tea alone, and only sending an ambassador to wish us good-morning. I
+always found it hard not to burst out laughing, when the maid entered,
+took her stand before us with her hands crossed one upon the other, and,
+in her measured tones informed us that Tatiana Semenovna desired to know
+whether we had slept well, and whether we liked the little cakes we had
+for tea. Until dinner time we seldom remained together. I played, or
+read, alone; he wrote, or sometimes went out again; but at four o'clock
+we went down to the drawing-room for dinner. Mamma came out of her
+chamber, and then the poor gentle-folk and pilgrims who happened to be
+lodging in the house, usually two or three in number made their
+appearance. Regularly every day my husband, following the ancient
+custom, offered his arm to his mother, to conduct her to the
+dining-room, and she requested him to take me upon his other arm. Mamma
+presided at dinner, and the conversation was of a serious, thoughtful
+turn, not altogether without a shade of solemnity. The simple every-day
+talk between my husband and myself was the only agreeable diversion in
+the grave aspect of these table sessions. After dinner, Mamma took her
+seat in a large arm-chair in the salon, and cut open the leaves of any
+newly-arrived books; we read aloud, or went to the piano in the small
+drawing-room. We read a great deal together during those two months, but
+music continued to be our supreme enjoyment, for every day it seemed to
+strike some new chord in our hearts, whose vibrations revealed us to
+each other more and more wholly. When I was playing his favorite airs he
+retired to a divan at some distance, where I could scarcely see him, and
+with a kind of modesty of sentiment tried to conceal from me the emotion
+my music produced; but, often, when he least expected it, I rose from
+the piano and ran to him, to try to surprise upon his countenance the
+traces of this deep feeling and to catch the almost supernatural light
+in the humid eyes which he vainly strove to conceal from me. I presided
+over our late tea in the large drawing-room, again all the family were
+gathered round the table, and for a long time this formal assembling
+near the samovar, as in a tribunal, with the distribution of the cups
+and glasses, discomposed me very much. It always seemed to me that I was
+not yet worthy of these honors, that I was too young, too giddy, to turn
+the faucet of that stately samovar, set the cups on Nikita's tray and
+say: "For Peter Ivanovitch; for Maria Minichna," and ask: "Is it sweet
+enough?" And afterwards give out the lumps of sugar for the white-haired
+nurse and the other old servants. "Perfect, perfect," my husband would
+often tell me; "quite a grown-up person!" and then I would feel more
+intimidated than ever.
+
+After tea Mamma played patience, or she and Maria Minichna had a game of
+cards together; then she embraced us both and gave us her blessing, and
+we withdrew to our own apartment. There, however, our evening
+_tête-à-tête_ was usually prolonged until midnight, for these were our
+pleasantest hours in the twenty-four. He told me about his past life, we
+made plans, occasionally we philosophized, all the time talking in a low
+tone lest we might be overheard. We lived, he and I, almost upon the
+footing of strangers in this huge old house, where everything seemed to
+be weighed upon by the severe spirit of ancient times and of Tatiana
+Semenovna. Not only she herself, but also the servants, all these old
+men and women, the furniture, the pictures, all inspired me with respect
+and a kind of fear, and at the same time with the consciousness that my
+husband and I were not exactly in our own place there and that our
+conduct must be extremely circumspect. As well as I remember, now, this
+severe order and the prodigious number of idle, inquisitive men and
+women about our house were very hard to bear: but even this sense of
+oppression only served to vivify our mutual love. Not only I, but he
+also, made an effort not to let it be seen that anything in our home was
+displeasing to us. Sometimes this calmness, this indulgence, this
+seeming indifference to everything, irritated me, and I could not help
+looking upon such conduct as weakness, and telling him so.
+
+"Ah, dear Katia," he replied, once, when I was expressing my annoyance,
+"how can a man show that anything, no matter what, is displeasing to
+him, when he is as happy as I am? It is a great deal easier to yield,
+than to make them yield, I have long been convinced of that,--and,
+moreover, of the fact there is no situation where one cannot be happy.
+Everything goes so well with us! I do not even know, any longer, how to
+get angry; for me, just now, there is nothing at all that is bad, there
+are only things that are either dull or droll. But, above all, 'let well
+enough alone.' You may hardly believe me, but whenever I hear a ring at
+the door-bell, whenever I receive a letter, actually whenever I wake in
+the morning, a fear takes hold of me, fear of the obligations of life,
+fear that something may be going to change; for nothing could be better
+than this present moment!"
+
+I believed him, but I could not understand him. I was happy, but it
+seemed to me that all was as it ought to be, and could not be otherwise;
+that it was the same with every one else, and that somewhere there were
+other joys still, not greater ones, but quite different.
+
+Thus two months passed by, bringing us to the cold, stormy winter, and
+although he was with me, I began to feel somewhat alone; I began to feel
+that life was doing nothing but repeating itself, as it were; that it
+offered nothing new either for me or for him; that, on the contrary, we
+seemed to be forever treading over and over again in our own footsteps.
+He was more frequently occupied with business matters away from me, than
+he had been at first, and once more I had the old feeling that far down
+in his soul lay a world, hidden and reserved, to which he would not
+admit me. His unalterable serenity irritated me. I loved him no less
+than formerly, was no less happy in his love; but my love remained
+stationary and did not seem to grow any more, and besides this love a
+new sentiment, full of anxiety, came creeping into my heart. Continuing
+to love seemed to me so small a thing after that great transport of
+first loving him; I felt as if my sentiments ought to include agitation,
+danger, sacrifice of myself. There were in me exuberant forces finding
+no employment in our tranquil existence, fits of depression which I
+sought to conceal from him as something wicked, fits of impetuous
+tenderness and gaiety which only alarmed him. He still had his old habit
+of watching me and studying my moods, and one day he came to me with a
+proposal to move to the city for a time; but I begged him not to go, not
+to alter anything whatever in our mode of life, not to touch our
+happiness. And, really and truly, I was happy; but I was tormenting
+myself because this happiness brought me no labor, no sacrifice, while,
+I felt all the powers of sacrifice and labor dying away within me. I
+loved him, I knew that I was entirely his; but I wished every one to see
+our love, wished that some one would try to prevent my loving him,--and
+then to love him all the same! My mind, and even my sentiments, found
+their field of action, but yet there was something--the sense of youth,
+with its need of movement--which had no sufficient satisfaction in our
+placid life. Why did he tell me that we could go to the city whenever
+the fancy seized me to do so? If he had not said this, perhaps I might
+have understood that the feeling which oppressed me was a pernicious
+chimera, a fault of which I was guilty.... But the thought kept coming
+into my head that simply by going to the city, I could escape from my
+ennui; but then, on the other hand, this would be withdrawing him from a
+life that he loved; I was ashamed to do this, but it cost me something
+not to do it.
+
+Time went on, the snow piled higher and higher against the walls of the
+house, and we were always alone, still alone, always with each other,
+while away yonder,--I knew not where, but yonder somewhere,--in stir and
+motion, in splendor and excitement, was the crowd, feeling, suffering,
+rejoicing, amusing itself, without one thought of us and our vanished
+existence. Worst of all to me was the consciousness that day by day the
+chain of habit was binding and pressing our life closer into its narrow
+mould, that our love itself would enter into bondage and become subject
+to the monotonous and dispassionate law of time. To be cheerful in the
+morning, respectful at dinner, affectionate in the evening! "To do
+good!" I said to myself, it is all very well and admirable to do good,
+and to live a worthy life, as he says; but we have yet time enough for
+that; there are other things for which, to-day, I feel powers within me.
+This is not what I wanted; what I wanted was combat, struggle; was to
+feel that love is our guide in life, not that life guides our love. I
+could have wished to draw near to the abyss with him, to say to him:
+"One more step, and I dash myself down, one more movement and I perish;"
+he, while paling on the brink of this abyss, he would have seized me
+with his powerful hand, held me there suspended above the gulf, my heart
+faint with fear,--and then he might have borne me whithersoever he
+would!
+
+This mood of my soul began to tell upon my health, my nerves began to
+be out of order. One morning I felt even more upset than usual, and
+Sergius returned home in rather a bad temper, which was an extremely
+rare occurrence with him; I noticed it at once, and asked him what was
+the matter, but he would not tell me, only remarking that it was not
+worth while. As I afterwards learned, the ispravnik,[G] from ill-will to
+my husband, had summoned several peasants, made some illegal exaction of
+them, and had even uttered menaces against him. My husband had not yet
+been able to look into the matter and, moreover, as it was but a piece
+of absurd impertinence he had not cared to tell me of it; but I imagined
+that his not telling me was because he considered me a child, and that
+in his eyes I was incapable of understanding what interested him. I
+turned from him in silence, without saying a word; he went into his
+study, gravely, and shut his door after him. When I could no longer hear
+him, I sat down on a divan, almost crying. "Why," said I to myself,
+"does he persist in humiliating me by his solemn calmness, by being
+always in the right? Am I not in the right also, when I am wearied, when
+everywhere I feel emptiness, when I long to live, to move, not to stay
+forever in one place and feel time walk over me? I wish to go onward,
+each day, each hour; I wish for something new, while he,--he wants to
+stand still in one spot, and keep me standing there with him! And yet
+how easy it would be for him to satisfy me! He need not take me to the
+city, it would only be necessary for him to be a little like me, for him
+to stop trying to constrain and crush himself with his own hands, for
+him to live naturally. That is what he is always advising me, and it is
+he who is not natural, that is all."
+
+I felt my tears getting the mastery of me, and my irritation against him
+increasing. I was afraid of this irritation, and I went to find him. He
+was sitting in his study, writing. Hearing my steps, he turned for an
+instant, looked at me with a calm and indifferent air, and continued
+writing; this look did not please me, and instead of going up to him, I
+stopped near the table where he was writing and, opening a book, began
+to run my eyes over the page. He turned then, a second time, and looked
+at me again:
+
+"Katia, you are not as bright as usual!"
+
+I only responded by a cold glance, meant to convey: "And why? And why so
+much amiability?" He shook his head at me, and smiled timidly and
+tenderly; but, for the first time, my smile would not answer his.
+
+"What was the matter with you this morning?" I asked, "why would you
+tell me nothing?"
+
+"It was a trifle! a slight worry," he replied. "I can tell you all about
+it, now. Two peasants had been summoned to the city...."
+
+But I would not let him finish.
+
+"Why did you not tell me when I asked you?"
+
+"I might have said something foolish, I was angry then."
+
+"That was just the time to tell me."
+
+"And why so?"
+
+"What you think, then, is that I never can help you in anything?"
+
+"What I think?" said he, throwing down his pen. "I think that without
+you I could not live. In all things, in all, not only are you a help to
+me, but it is by you that everything is done. You are literally to me
+'well-fallen,'" he went on smiling. "It is in you alone that I live; it
+seems to me nothing is good but because you are there, because you
+must...."
+
+"Yes, I know it, I am a nice little child who has to be petted and kept
+quiet," said I, in such a tone that he looked at me in amazement. "But I
+do not want this quieting; I have had enough of it!"
+
+"Come, let me tell you about this morning's trouble," he said hastily,
+as if he was afraid to give me time to say more: "let us see what you
+think of it!"
+
+"I do not wish to hear it now," I replied.
+
+I really did want to hear it, but it was more agreeable to me, at this
+moment, to disturb his tranquillity.
+
+"I do not wish to play with the things of life; I wish to live," I
+added; "like you."
+
+His face, which always so clearly and so readily reflected every
+impression, wore a look of suffering and intense attention.
+
+"I wish to live with you in perfect equality...."
+
+But I could not finish, such profound pain was on his face. He was
+silent an instant.
+
+"And in what do you not live with me on a footing of equality?" he said:
+"it is I, not you, that is concerned in this affair of the ispravnik and
+some drunken peasants."
+
+"Yes, but it is not only this case," said I.
+
+"For the love of God, do understand me, my darling," he continued; "I
+know how painful a thing care is for us all; I have lived, and I know
+it. I love you, therefore I would spare you every care. My life is
+centred in my love for you; so do not prevent my living!"
+
+"You are always right," said I, without looking at him.
+
+I could not bear to see him once more serene and tranquil, while I was
+so full of anger and a feeling somewhat resembling repentance.
+
+"Katia! What is the matter with you?" said he. "The question is not in
+the least which of us two is in the right, what we were talking about is
+something entirely different! What have you against me? Do not tell me
+at once; reflect, and then tell me all that is in your thoughts. You are
+displeased with me, you have, no doubt, a reason, but explain to me in
+what I am to blame."
+
+But how could I tell him all that I had in the bottom of my heart? The
+thought that he had seen through me at once, that again I found myself
+as a child before him, that I could do nothing that he did not
+comprehend and foresee, excited me more than ever.
+
+"I have nothing against you," said I, "but I am tired, and I do not like
+ennui. You say that this must be so, and, of course, once more you are
+right!"
+
+As I spoke, I looked in his face. My object was attained; his serenity
+had disappeared; alarm and pain were stamped upon his face.
+
+"Katia!" he began, in a low, agitated voice, "this is no jesting we are
+engaged in, at this moment. Our fate is being decided. I ask you to say
+nothing, only to hear me. Why are you torturing me thus?"
+
+But I broke in.
+
+"Say no more, you are right," said I, coldly, as if it were not I, but
+some evil spirit speaking with my lips.
+
+"If you knew what you are doing!" he exclaimed in a trembling voice.
+
+I began to cry, and I felt my heart somewhat relieved. He was sitting
+near me, silent. I was sorry for him, ashamed of myself, troubled by
+what I had done. I did not look at him. I felt sure that he was looking
+at me, and that his eyes were perplexed or severe. I turned; his eyes
+were indeed fixed upon me, but they were kind and gentle and seemed
+entreating forgiveness. I took his hand, and said:
+
+"Pardon me! I do not know, myself, what I said."
+
+"Yes, but I know what you said, and I know that you spoke the truth."
+
+"What truth?" I asked.
+
+"That we must go to St. Petersburg. This is no longer the place for us."
+
+"As you wish."
+
+He took me in his arms and kissed me.
+
+"You forgive me?" he said, "I have been to blame concerning you...."
+
+In the evening I was at the piano a long time playing for him, while he
+walked up and down the room, repeating something in a low tone to
+himself. This was a habit with him, and I often asked him what he was
+murmuring thus, and he, still thoughtful, would repeat it again to me;
+generally it was poetry, sometimes some really absurd thing, but even
+the very absurdity would show me what frame of mind he was in.
+
+"What are you murmuring there, now?" I asked after a time.
+
+He stood still, thought a little, then, smiling, repeated the two lines
+from Lermontoff:
+
+    "And he, the madman, invoked the tempest,
+     As if, in the tempest, peace might reign!"
+
+"Yes, he is more than a man; he sees everything!" thought I; "how can I
+help loving him!"
+
+I left the piano, took hold of his hand, and began to walk up and down
+with him, measuring my steps by his.
+
+"Well!" he said, looking down at me with a smile.
+
+"Well!" I echoed; and our two hearts seemed to spring to each other once
+more.
+
+At the end of a fortnight, before the fêtes, we were in St. Petersburg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Our removal to St. Petersburg, a week in Moscow, visits to his relatives
+and to my own, settling ourselves in our new apartment, the journey, the
+new city, the new faces, all seemed to me like a dream. All was so
+novel, so changeful, so gay, all was so brightened for me by his
+presence, by his love, that the placid country life appeared to me
+something very far off, a sort of unreal thing. To my great surprise,
+instead of the arrogant pride, the coldness, I had expected to
+encounter, I was welcomed by all (not only by our relatives, but by
+strangers,) with such cordiality that it seemed as if they had no
+thought of anything but me, and as if one and all had been longing for
+my arrival to complete their own happiness. Contrary to my
+anticipations, in the circles of society, even in those which seemed to
+me most select, I discovered many friends and connections of my husband
+whom he had never mentioned to me, and it often struck me as strange and
+disagreeable to hear him utter severe strictures upon some of these
+persons who seemed to me so good. I could not understand why he treated
+them so coldly, or why he tried to avoid some acquaintances whose
+intimacy I thought rather flattering. I thought that the more one knew
+of nice people, the better it was, and all these were nice people.
+
+"Let us see how we shall arrange things," he had said to me before we
+left the country: "here, we are little Croesuses, and there we shall be
+far from rich; so we cannot remain in the city longer than Easter, and
+we cannot go much into society, or we shall find ourselves embarrassed;
+and I would not like you...."
+
+"Why go into society?" I had answered; "we will only visit our
+relatives, go to the theatre and opera, and to hear any good music, and
+even before Easter we can be at home again in the country."
+
+But scarcely were we in St. Petersburg than all these fine plans were
+forgotten. I had been suddenly thrown into a world so new, so happy, so
+many delights had surrounded me, so many objects of heretofore unknown
+interest were offered to me, that all in a moment, as it were, and
+without being conscious of it, I disavowed all my past, I upset all the
+plans formerly arranged. Until now there had been nothing but play; as
+to life itself, it had not yet begun; but here it was now, the real, the
+true,--and what will it be in the future? thought I. The anxieties, the
+fits of depression, which came upon me in the country, disappeared
+suddenly as if by enchantment. My love for my husband became calmer,
+and, on the other hand, it never occurred to me, in this new life, to
+think that he was loving me less than formerly. Indeed, it was not
+possible for me to doubt this love; each thought was instantly
+understood by him, each sentiment shared, each wish gratified. His
+unalterable serenity had vanished, here, or perhaps it had only ceased
+to cause me any irritation. I even felt that besides his old love for me
+he seemed now to find some new charm in me. Often, after a visit, after
+I had made some new acquaintance, or after an evening at home, when,
+with secret misgiving lest I should commit some blunder, I had been
+performing the duties of hostess, he would say to me:
+
+"Well, my little girl! bravo! well done, indeed!"
+
+This would fill me with delight.
+
+A short time after our arrival he wrote to his mother, and, as he handed
+me the letter to let me add a few words, he said I must not read what he
+had written; I laughingly persisted in seeing it, and read:
+
+"You would not recognize Katia, I hardly recognize her myself. Where
+could she have acquired this lovely and graceful ease of manner, this
+affability, this fascination, this sweet, unconscious tact? And still
+always so simple, so gentle, so full of kindness. Every one is delighted
+with her; and as for me, I am never tired of admiring her, and, if that
+were possible, would be more in love with her than ever."
+
+"This, then, is what I am?" I thought. And it gave me so much pleasure
+and gratification that I felt as if I loved him more than ever. My
+success with all our acquaintances was a thing absolutely unexpected by
+me. On all sides I was told: here, that I had particularly pleased my
+uncle, there, that an aunt was raving over me; by this one, that there
+was not a woman in all St. Petersburg like me; by that one, that if I
+chose there would not be a woman in society so sought after as myself.
+There was one cousin of my husband especially, Princess D., a lady of
+high rank and fashion, no longer young, who announced that she had
+fallen in love with me at first sight, and who did more than any one
+else to turn my head with flattering attentions. When, for the first
+time, this cousin proposed to me to go to a ball, and broached the
+subject to my husband, he turned towards me with an almost imperceptible
+smile, and mischievous glance, and asked if I wanted to go. I nodded,
+and felt my face flush.
+
+"One would say, a little culprit, confessing a wish," he said, laughing
+good-humoredly.
+
+"You told me we must not go into company, and that you would not like
+it," I responded, smiling also, and giving him an entreating glance.
+
+"If you wish it very much, we will go."
+
+"Indeed, I would rather...."
+
+"Do you wish it, wish it very much?" he repeated.
+
+I made no answer.
+
+"The greatest harm is not in the world, society, itself," he went on;
+"it is unsatisfied worldly aspirations that are so evil, so unhealthful.
+Certainly we must go,--and we will go," he concluded, unhesitatingly.
+
+"To tell you the truth," I replied, "there is nothing in the world I
+long for so much as to go to this ball!"
+
+We went to it, and my delight was far beyond all my anticipations. At
+this ball, even more than before, it seemed to me that I was the centre
+around which everything was revolving; that it was for me alone that
+this splendid room was in a blaze of light, that the music was sounding,
+that the gay throng was gathering in ecstasy before me. All, from the
+hair-dresser and my maid to the dancers, and even the stately old
+gentlemen who slowly walked about through the rooms, watching the
+younger people, seemed to me to be either implying or telling me in
+downright speech that they were wild about me. The impression which I
+produced at this ball, and which my cousin proudly confided to me, was
+summed up in the general verdict that I was not the least in the world
+like other women, and that there was about me some peculiar quality
+which recalled the simplicity and charm of the country. This success
+flattered me so much that I frankly owned to my husband how I longed to
+go to at least two or three of the balls to be given in the course of
+the winter, "in order," I said, despite a sharp little whisper from my
+conscience, "that I may be satiated, once for all!"
+
+My husband willingly consented to this, and at first accompanied me,
+with evident pride and pleasure in my success, apparently forgetting or
+disavowing what he had formerly decided on principle.
+
+But after awhile I could see that he was bored, and growing tired of the
+life we were leading. However, this was not yet clear enough to my eyes
+for me to understand the full significance of the grave, watchful look
+he sometimes directed towards me, even if I noticed the look at all. I
+was so intoxicated by this love which I seemed so suddenly to have
+aroused in all these strangers, by this perfume of elegance, pleasure,
+and novelty, which I here breathed for the first time; by the apparent
+removal of what had hitherto, as it were, held me down, namely, the
+moral weight of my husband; it was so sweet to me, not only to walk
+through this new world on a level with him, but to find the place given
+me there even higher than his, and yet to love him with all the more
+strength and independence than before; that I could not understand that
+he looked on with displeasure at my utter delight in this worldly
+existence.
+
+I felt a new thrill of pride and deep satisfaction, when upon entering a
+ball-room, all eyes would turn towards me; and when he, as if disdaining
+to parade before the multitude his rights of proprietorship, would
+quietly and at once leave my side and go off to be lost in the mass of
+black coats.
+
+"Only wait!" I often thought, as my eyes sought him out at the end of
+the room, and rested on his face, dimly seen from the distance between
+us, but sometimes with a very weary look upon it; "wait! when we are at
+home again you shall see and know for whom I have been glad to be so
+beautiful and so brilliant, you shall know whom I love far, far above
+all around me this evening." It seemed to me, very sincerely, that my
+delight in my successes was only for his sake, and also because they
+enabled me to sacrifice even themselves for him. "One thing alone," I
+thought, "might be a danger to me in this life in the world: that is,
+that one of the men I meet here might conceive a passion for me, and my
+husband might grow jealous of him; but he had such confidence in me, he
+appeared to be so calm and indifferent, and all these young men seemed
+in my eyes so empty in comparison with him, that this peril, the only
+one, as I thought, with which social life could threaten me, had no
+terrors at all. Still, the attentions I received from so many persons in
+society gave me such pleasure, such a sense of satisfied self-love that
+I rather felt as if there was some merit in my very love for my husband,
+while at the same time it seemed to impress upon my relation to him
+greater ease and freedom.
+
+"I noticed how very animated your manner was, while you were talking to
+N. N.," I said to him, one evening, upon our return from a ball; and I
+shook my finger at him as I named a well-known lady of St. Petersburg
+with whom he had spent part of the evening. I only meant to tease him a
+little, for he was silent, and had a wearied look.
+
+"Ah, why say such a thing? And for you to say it, Katia!" he exclaimed,
+frowning, and pressing his lips together as if in physical pain. "That
+is not like you,--not becoming your position, or mine. Leave such
+speeches to others; bad jests of that kind might entirely do away with
+our good understanding,--and I still hope that this good understanding
+may return."
+
+I felt confused, and was silent.
+
+"Will it return, Katia? What do you think?" he asked.
+
+"It is not changed,--it will never change," I said, and then I firmly
+believed my assertion.
+
+"May God grant it!" he exclaimed, "but it is time we were going back to
+the country."
+
+This was the only occasion upon which he spoke to me in this way, and
+the rest of the time it seemed to me that everything was going on as
+delightfully for him as for me,--and as for me, oh! I was so
+light-hearted, so joyous! If occasionally I happened to notice that he
+was wearied, I would console myself by reflecting how long, for his
+sake, I had been wearied in the country; if our relations seemed to be
+undergoing some little alteration, I thought how speedily they would
+resume their old charm when we should find ourselves again alone, in the
+summer, at our own Nikolski.
+
+Thus the winter sped away without my realizing it; and Easter came, and,
+despite all our resolutions we were still in St. Petersburg.
+
+The Sunday following, however, we were really ready to go, everything
+was packed, my husband had made his final purchases of flowers, gifts,
+things of all kinds which were needed for the country, and was in one of
+his happiest, most affectionate moods. Shortly before we were to start,
+we had an unexpected visit from our cousin, who came to beg us to
+postpone our departure one week, so that we might attend a reception
+given by Countess R. on Saturday. She reminded me that I had already
+received several invitations from Countess R., which had been declined,
+and told me that Prince M., then in St. Petersburg, had, at the last
+ball, expressed a desire to make my acquaintance, that it was with this
+object in view that he purposed attending this reception, and that he
+was saying everywhere that I was the loveliest woman in Russia. The
+whole city would be there,--in one word, I must go! It would be nothing
+without me.
+
+My husband was at the other end of the room, talking to some one.
+
+"So you will certainly come, Katia?" said my cousin.
+
+"We meant to leave for the country, day after to-morrow," I replied,
+doubtfully, as I glanced at my husband. Our eyes met, and he turned away
+abruptly.
+
+"I will persuade him to stay," said my cousin, "and on Saturday we will
+turn all heads,--won't we?"
+
+"Our plans would be disarranged, all our packing is done," I objected
+feebly, beginning to waver.
+
+"Perhaps she had better go to-day, at once, to pay her respects to the
+prince!" observed my husband from his end of the room, with some
+irritation, and in a dictatorial tone I had never heard from him before.
+
+"Why, he is getting jealous; I see it for the first time!" exclaimed our
+cousin, ironically. "It is not for the prince alone, Sergius
+Mikaïlovitch, but for all of us, that I want her. That is why Countess
+R. is so urgent."
+
+"It depends upon herself," returned my husband, coldly, as he left the
+room.
+
+I had seen that he was much more agitated than usual; this troubled me,
+and I would not give a decided answer to my cousin. As soon as she was
+gone, I went to look for my husband. He was thoughtfully walking up and
+down his chamber, and neither saw nor heard me, as I stole softly in on
+tiptoe.
+
+"He is picturing to himself his dear Nikolski," thought I, watching him,
+"he is thinking about his morning coffee in that light drawing-room, his
+fields, his peasants, his evenings at home, and his secret little night
+suppers! Yes," I decided, in my own mind, "I would give all the balls in
+the world, and the flatteries of every prince in the universe, to have
+again his bright joyousness and his loving caresses!"
+
+I was about telling him that I was not going to the reception, that I no
+longer cared to go, when he suddenly glanced behind him. At the sight of
+me, his brow darkened, and the dreamy gentleness of his countenance
+changed entirely. The well-known look came to his face, the look of
+penetrating wisdom and patronizing calmness. He would not let me see in
+him simple human nature: he must remain for me the demi-god upon his
+pedestal!
+
+"What is it, my love?" he enquired, turning towards me with quiet
+carelessness.
+
+I did not answer. I resented his hiding himself from me, his not
+allowing me to see him as I best loved him.
+
+"So you wish to go to this reception, on Saturday?" he continued.
+
+"I did wish to go," I replied, "but it did not suit you. And then, too,
+the packing is done," I added.
+
+Never had he looked at me so coldly, never spoken so coldly.
+
+"I shall not leave before Tuesday, and I will order the packing to be
+undone," he said; "we will not go until you choose. Do me the favor to
+go to this entertainment. I shall not leave the city."
+
+As was his habit when excited, he went on walking about the room with
+quick, irregular steps, and did not look at me.
+
+"Most decidedly, I do not understand you," I said, putting myself in his
+way, and following him with my eyes. "Why do you speak to me in such a
+singular manner? I am quite ready to sacrifice this pleasure to you, and
+you, with sarcasm you have never before shown, you require that I shall
+go!"
+
+"Come! come! You _sacrifice_ yourself" (he laid strong emphasis on the
+word), "and I, I _sacrifice_ myself also! Combat of generosity! There, I
+hope, is what may be called 'family happiness'!"
+
+This was the first time I had ever heard from his lips words so hard and
+satirical. His satire did not touch, and his hardness did not frighten
+me, but they became contagious. Was it really he, always so opposed to
+any debating between us, always so simple and straightforward, who was
+speaking to me thus? And why? Just because I had offered to sacrifice
+myself to his pleasure, which was really the supreme thing in my eyes;
+just because, at this moment, with the thought, came the comprehension
+of how much I loved him. Our characters were reversed; it was he who had
+lost all frankness and simplicity, and I who had found them.
+
+"You are so changed," said I, sighing. "Of what am I guilty in your
+eyes? It is not this reception, but some old sin, which you are casting
+up against me in your heart. Why not use more sincerity? You were not
+afraid of it with me, once. Speak out,--what have you against me?"
+
+"No matter what he may say," I thought, quickly running over the events
+of the season in my mind, "there is not one thing that he has a right to
+reproach me with, this whole winter."
+
+I went and stood in the middle of the room, so that he would be obliged
+to pass near me, and I looked at him. I said to myself: "He will come
+close to me, he will put his arms around me and kiss me, and that will
+be the end of it all;" this thought darted into my head, and it even
+cost me something to let it end so, without my proving to him that he
+was in the wrong. But he stood still at the end of the room, and,
+looking in my face:
+
+"You still do not understand me?" he said.
+
+"No."
+
+"Yet ... how can I tell you?... I am appalled, for the first time, I am
+appalled at what I see--what I cannot but see." He stopped, evidently
+frightened at the rough tone of his voice.
+
+"What do you mean?" I demanded, indignant tears filling my eyes.
+
+"I am appalled that, knowing the prince's comments on your beauty, you
+should, after that, be so ready and willing to run after him, forgetting
+your husband, yourself, your own dignity as a woman,--and then for you
+not to understand what your husband has to feel in your stead, since you
+yourself have not this sense of your own dignity!--far from it, you come
+and declare to your husband that you will _sacrifice_ yourself, which is
+equivalent to saying, 'To please His Highness would be my greatest
+happiness, but I will _sacrifice_ it.'"
+
+The more he said, the more the sound of his own voice excited him, and
+the harder, more cutting and violent, became his voice. I had never
+seen, and had never expected to see him thus; the blood surged to my
+heart; I was frightened, but yet, at the same time, a sense of unmerited
+disgrace and offended self-love aroused me, and I keenly longed to take
+some vengeance on him.
+
+"I have long expected this outbreak," said I, "speak, speak!"
+
+"I do not know what you may have expected," he went on, "but I might
+have anticipated still worse things, from seeing you day by day steeped
+in this slime, this idleness, this luxury, this senseless society; and I
+did anticipate.... I did anticipate this that to-day covers me with
+shame, and sinks me in misery such as I have never experienced; shame
+for myself, when your dear friend, prying and fumbling about in my heart
+with her unclean fingers, spoke of my jealousy,--and jealousy of whom?
+Of a man whom neither you nor I have ever seen! And you, as if
+purposely, you will not understand me, you 'will sacrifice' to
+me,--whom? Great God!... Shame on your degradation! Sacrifice!" he
+repeated once more.
+
+"Ah, this then is what is meant by the husband's authority," I thought.
+"To insult and humiliate his wife, who is not guilty of the very least
+thing in the world! Here then are 'marital rights;'--but I, for one,
+will never submit to them!"
+
+"Well, I sacrifice _nothing_ to you, then," I returned, feeling my
+nostrils dilate, and my face grow bloodless. "I will go to the reception
+on Saturday. I most certainly will go!"
+
+"And God give you pleasure in it! Only--all is ended between us!" he
+exclaimed, in an uncontrollable transport of rage. "At least you shall
+not make a martyr of me any longer. I was a fool who...."
+
+But his lips trembled, and he made a visible effort not to finish what
+he had begun to say.
+
+At this moment I was afraid of him and I hated him. I longed to say a
+great many more things to him, and to avenge myself for all his insults;
+but if I had so much as opened my lips, my tears could no longer have
+been restrained, and I would have felt my dignity compromised before
+him. I left the room, without a word. But scarcely was I beyond the
+sound of his footsteps when I was suddenly seized with terror at the
+thought of what we had done. It seemed to me horrible that, perhaps for
+life, this bond, which constituted all my happiness, was destroyed, and
+my impulse was to return at once. But would his passion have subsided
+sufficiently for him to comprehend me, if, without a word, I should hold
+out my hand to him, and look into his eyes? Would he comprehend my
+generosity? Suppose he should regard my sincere sorrow as dissimulation?
+Or should consider my voluntary right-doing as repentance, and receive
+me on that score? Or grant me pardon, with proud tranquillity? And why,
+when I have loved him so much, oh, _why_ should he have insulted me so?
+
+I did not go back to him, but into my own room, where I sat for a long
+time, crying, recalling with terror every word of our conversation,
+mentally substituting other words for those we had used, adding
+different and better ones, then reminding myself again, with a mingled
+sense of fright and outraged feeling, of all that had taken place. When
+I came down to tea, in the evening, and in the presence of C., who was
+making us a visit, met my husband again, I was aware that from this day
+forward there must be an open gulf between us. C. asked me when we were
+going to leave the city. I could not answer her.
+
+"On Tuesday," replied my husband, "we are staying for Countess R's
+reception. You are going, no doubt?" he continued, turning to me.
+
+I was frightened at the sound of his voice, although it seemed quite as
+usual, and glanced at my husband. His eyes were fixed on me, with a hard
+ironical look, his tone was measured, cold.
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+Later, when we were alone, he approached me, and holding out his hand:
+
+"Forget, I entreat you, what I said to you."
+
+I took his hand, a faint smile came to my trembling lips, and the tears
+started to my eyes; but he quickly drew it away and, as if fearing a
+sentimental scene, went and sat down in an arm-chair at some distance
+from me. "Is it possible that he still believes himself right?" thought
+I; and I had on my lips a cordial explanation, and a request not to go
+to the reception.
+
+"I must write to mamma that we have postponed our departure," said he,
+"or she will be uneasy."
+
+"And when do you intend to leave?" I asked.
+
+"On the Tuesday after the reception."
+
+"I hope this is not on my account," said I, looking into his eyes, but
+they only looked back into mine without telling me anything, as if they
+were held far from me by some secret force. All at once, his face
+appeared to me old and disagreeable.
+
+We went to the reception, and seemingly our relations were again cordial
+and affectionate, but in reality they were quite unlike what they had
+been in the past.
+
+At the reception I was sitting in the midst of a circle of ladies, when
+the prince approached me, so that I was obliged to stand up and speak
+to him. As I did so, my eyes involuntarily sought my husband; I saw him
+look at me, from the other end of the room, and then turn away. Such a
+rush of shame and sorrow came over me, that I felt almost ill, and I
+knew that my face and neck grew scarlet under the eyes of the prince.
+But I had to stand and listen to what he was saying to me, all the while
+feeling him scrutinize me keenly from head to foot. Our conversation was
+not long, there was not room near me for him to sit down, and he could
+not help seeing how ill at ease I was with him. We talked of the last
+ball, where I was to spend the summer, _etc._ Upon leaving me he
+expressed a wish to make my husband's acquaintance, and in a little
+while I saw them meet, at the other end of the room, and begin to talk
+with each other. The prince must have made some remark concerning me,
+for I saw him smile and glance in my direction.
+
+My husband's face flushed darkly, he bowed, and was the first to
+conclude the interview. I felt my color rise, also, for I was mortified
+to think what opinion the prince must have formed of me, and more
+especially of Sergius. It seemed to me that every one must have observed
+my embarrassment while I was talking with the prince, and also his very
+singular manner; "God knows," said I to myself, "what interpretation may
+be put upon it; could any one happen to know of my wrangle with my
+husband?" My cousin took me home, and on the way we were talking about
+him. I could not resist telling her all that had passed between us in
+regard to this unfortunate reception. She soothed me by assurances that
+it was only one of those frequent quarrels, which signify nothing at all
+and leave no result behind them; and in explaining my husband's
+character from her point of view, she spoke of him as extremely reserved
+and proud. I agreed with her, and it seemed to me that, after this, I
+comprehended his character more clearly and much more calmly.
+
+But afterwards, when we were again alone together, this judgment of mine
+with regard to him appeared to me a real crime, which weighed upon my
+conscience, and I felt that the gulf between us was widening more and
+more.
+
+From this day on, our life and our mutual relations suffered a complete
+change. Being alone together was no longer a delight to us. There were
+subjects to be avoided, and it was easier for us to talk to each other
+in the presence of a third person. If in the course of conversation any
+allusion chanced to be made, either to life in the country, or to balls,
+dazzling wild-fire seemed to dance before our eyes and make us afraid to
+look at each other; I knew that his embarrassment was as great as my
+own; we both realized how far asunder we were thrust by that dividing
+gulf, and dreaded drawing nearer. I was persuaded that he was passionate
+and proud, and that I must be very careful not to run against his weak
+points. And, on his part, he was convinced that I could not exist
+outside of the life of the world, that a home in the country did not
+suit me at all, and that he must resign himself to this unhappy
+predilection. Therefore we both shunned any direct conversation upon
+such subjects, and each erroneously judged the other. We had long
+ceased to be respectively, in each other's eyes, the most perfect beings
+in this world; on the contrary, we were beginning to compare each other
+with those around us, and to measure with secret appreciation our own
+characters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+I had been very unwell before we left St. Petersburg, and instead of
+going home we moved into a villa at a short distance from the city,
+where my husband left me while he went to see his mother. I was then
+quite well enough to accompany him, but he urged me not to do so,
+alleging as his reason my state of health. I quite understood that he
+was not really afraid of my health, but he was possessed by the idea
+that it would not be good for us to be in the country; I did not insist
+very strenuously, and remained where I was. Without him I felt myself
+truly in the midst of emptiness and isolation; but when he returned I
+perceived that his presence no longer added to my life what it had been
+wont to add. Those former relations, when any thought, any sensation,
+not communicated to him, oppressed me like a crime; when all his
+actions, all his words, appeared to me models of perfection; when, from
+sheer joy, we would laugh at nothing, looking at each other; those
+relations had so insensibly changed into something quite different, that
+we ourselves hardly admitted the transformation. But the fact was that
+each of us had now separate occupations and interests, which we no
+longer sought to share. We had even ceased to be at all troubled at thus
+living in entirely distinct worlds, and entirely as strangers to each
+other. We had become habituated to this thought, and at the end of a
+year there was no longer the mutual embarrassment when our eyes chanced
+to meet. His boyishness, his outbursts of light-hearted gaiety when with
+me, were gone; gone, too, was that indulgent indifference, against which
+I had so often risen in rebellion; nor had the penetrating look
+survived, which, in other days, had at once disturbed and delighted me;
+there were no more of the prayers, no more of the hours of exaltation
+which we had so loved to share, and indeed we saw each other only very
+rarely; he was constantly out, and I no longer dreaded remaining alone,
+no longer complained of it; I was perpetually engrossed, on my side,
+with the obligations of society, and never felt any need of him
+whatever.
+
+Scenes and altercations between us were quite unheard-of. I endeavored
+to satisfy him, he carried out all my wishes, any one would have said
+that we still loved each other.
+
+When we were alone together, which was of rare occurrence, I felt
+neither joy, agitation, nor embarrassment, in his presence, any more
+than if I had been alone. I knew well that here was no new-comer, no
+stranger, but on the contrary, a very excellent man, in short my
+husband, whom I knew just as well as I knew myself. I was persuaded that
+I could tell beforehand all that he would do, all that he would think,
+precisely what view he would take of any matter, and if he did or
+thought otherwise I only considered that he made a mistake; I never
+expected anything at all from him. In one word, it was my husband, that
+was all. It seemed to me that things were so, and had to be so; that no
+other relations between us could exist, or indeed ever had existed. When
+he went away, especially at first, I still felt terribly lonely, and
+while he was absent I felt the full value of his support; when he came
+home, I would even throw myself in his arms with joy; but scarcely had
+two hours elapsed ere I had forgotten this joy, and would find that I
+had nothing to say to him. In these brief moments, when calm, temperate
+tenderness seemed to revive between us, it seemed to me that there never
+had been anything but this; that this alone was what had once so
+powerfully stirred my heart, and I thought I read in his eyes the same
+impression. I felt that to this tenderness there was a limit, which he
+did not wish to pass, and neither did I. Sometimes this caused me a
+little regret, but I had no time to think about it seriously, and I
+tried to put it out of my mind, by giving myself up to a variety of
+amusements of which I did not even render a clear account to myself, but
+which perpetually offered themselves to me. The life in the world,
+which, at first, had bewildered me with its splendor and the
+gratification it afforded to my self-love, had soon established entire
+dominion over my inclinations, and become at once a habit and a bondage,
+occupying in my soul that place which I had fancied would be the home of
+sentiment. Therefore I avoided being alone, dreading lest it might force
+me to look into and realize my condition. My whole time, from the
+earliest hour in the morning till the latest at night, was appropriated
+to something; even if I did not go out, there was no time that I left
+free. I found in this life neither pleasure, nor weariness, and it
+seemed to me it had always been thus.
+
+In this manner three years passed away, and our relations with each
+other remained the same, benumbed, congealed, motionless, as if no
+alteration could come to them, either for better or worse. During the
+course of these three years there were two important events in the
+family, but neither brought any change to my own life. These events were
+the birth of my first child, and the death of Tatiana Semenovna. At
+first the maternal sentiment took possession of me with such power, so
+great and unexpected a rapture seized upon me, that I imagined a new
+existence was beginning; but at the end of two months, when I commenced
+to go into society once more, this sentiment, which had been gradually
+subsiding, had become nothing more than the habitual and cold
+performance of a duty. My husband, on the contrary, from the day of this
+son's birth, had become his old self, gentle, calm, and home-loving,
+recalling for his child, all his former tenderness and gaiety. Often
+when I went in my ball-dress into the child's nursery, to give him the
+evening benediction before starting and found my husband there, I would
+catch a glance of reproach, or a severe and watchful look fixed upon me,
+and I would all at once feel ashamed. I was myself terrified at my
+indifference towards my own child, and I asked myself: "Can I be so much
+worse than other women?--But what is to be done?" I questioned. "Of
+course I love my son, but, for all that, I cannot sit down beside him
+for whole days at a time, that would bore me to death; and as for making
+a pretence, nothing in the world would induce me to do such a thing!"
+
+The death of my husband's mother was a great grief to him; it was very
+painful to him, he said, to live after her at Nikolski, but though I
+also regretted her and really sympathized with his sorrow, it would have
+been at that time more agreeable, more restful to me, to return and make
+our residence there. We had passed the greater part of these three years
+in the city; once only had I been at Nikolski, for a visit of two
+months; and during the third year we had been abroad.
+
+We passed this summer at the baths.
+
+I was then twenty-one years of age. We were, I thought, prosperous; from
+my home life I expected no more than it had already given me; all the
+people whom I knew, it seemed to me, loved me; my health was excellent,
+I knew that I was pretty, my _toilettes_ were the freshest at the baths,
+the weather was superb, an indefinable atmosphere of beauty and elegance
+surrounded me, and everything appeared to me in the highest degree
+delightful and joyous. Yet I was not, as light-hearted as I had been in
+the old days at Nikolski, when I had felt that my happiness was within
+myself, when I was happy because I deserved to be so, when my happiness
+was great but might be greater still. Now all was different;
+nevertheless the summer was charming. I had nothing to desire, nothing
+to hope, nothing to fear; my life, as it seemed to me, was at its full,
+and my conscience, it also seemed to me, was entirely clear.
+
+Among the men most conspicuous at the baths during this season, there
+was not one whom, for any reason whatever, I preferred above the others,
+not even old Prince K. our ambassador, who paid me distinguished
+attention. One was too young, another was too old, this one was an
+Englishman with light curly hair, that one, a bearded Frenchman; I was
+perfectly indifferent to all, but, at the same time, all were
+indispensable to me. Insignificant as they might be, they yet belonged
+to, and formed a part of, this life of elegance surrounding me, this
+atmosphere in which I breathed. However, there was one among them, an
+Italian, Marquis D. who, by the bold fashion in which he showed the
+admiration he felt for me, had attracted my attention more than the
+others. He allowed no occasion to escape him of meeting me, dancing with
+me, appearing on horseback beside me, accompanying me to the casino, and
+he was constantly telling me how beautiful I was. From my window I
+sometimes saw him wandering around our house, and more than once the
+annoying persistence of the glances shot towards me from his flashing
+eyes had made me blush and turn away.
+
+He was young, handsome, elegant; and one remarkable thing about him was
+his extraordinary resemblance to my husband, especially in his smile and
+something about the upper part of the face, though he was the handsomer
+man of the two. I was struck by the likeness, in spite of decided
+differences in some particulars, in the mouth for instance, the look,
+the longer shape of the chin; and instead of the charm given to my
+husband's face by his expression of kindness and ideal calmness, there
+was in the other something gross and almost bestial. After a while I
+could not help seeing that he was passionately in love with me; I
+sometimes found myself thinking of him with lofty pity. I undertook to
+tranquillize him, and bring him down to terms of cordial confidence and
+friendship, but he repelled these attempts with trenchant disdain, and,
+to my great discomfiture, continued to show indications of a passion,
+silent, indeed, as yet, but momentarily threatening to break forth.
+Although I would not acknowledge it to myself, I was afraid of this man,
+and seemed, against my own will, as it were, forced to think of him. My
+husband had made his acquaintance, and was even more intimate with him
+than with most of our circle, with whom he confined himself to being
+simply the husband of his wife, and to whom his bearing was haughty and
+cold.
+
+Towards the end of the season I had a slight illness, which confined me
+to the house for two weeks. The first time I went out, after my
+recovery, was to listen to the music in the evening, and I was at once
+told of the arrival of Lady C. a noted beauty, who had been expected
+for some time. A circle of friends quickly gathered around me, eagerly
+welcoming me once more among them, but a yet larger circle was forming
+about the new belle, and everybody near me was telling me about her and
+her beauty. She was pointed out to me; a beautiful and bewitching woman,
+truly, but with an expression of confidence and self-sufficiency which
+impressed me unpleasantly, and I said so. That evening, everything that
+usually seemed so bright and delightful was tiresome to me. The
+following day Lady C. organized an expedition to the castle, which I
+declined. Hardly any one remained behind with me, and the aspect of
+affairs was decidedly changed to my eyes. All, men and things, seemed
+stupid and dull; I felt like crying, and resolved to complete my cure as
+soon as possible and go home to Russia. At the bottom of my heart lurked
+bad, malevolent feelings, but I would not confess it to myself. I said
+that I was not well, making that a pretext for giving up society. I very
+seldom went out, and then only in the morning, alone, to drink the
+waters, or for a quiet walk or drive about the environs with L. M., one
+of my Russian acquaintances. My husband was absent at this time, having
+gone, some days before, to Heidelberg, to wait there until the end of my
+prescribed stay should allow our return to Russia, and he came to see me
+only now and then.
+
+One day Lady C. had carried off most of the company on some party of
+pleasure, and after dinner L. M. and I made a little excursion to the
+castle by ourselves. While our carriage was slowly following the winding
+road between the double rows of chestnuts, centuries old, between whose
+gray trunks we saw in the distance the exquisite environs of Baden,
+lying in the purple light of the setting sun, we unconsciously fell into
+a serious strain of conversation, which had never before been the case
+with us. L. M., whom I had known so long, now for the first time
+appeared to me as a lovely intelligent woman, with whom one could
+discuss any topic whatever, and whose society was full of charm and
+interest. We talked about family duties and pleasures, children, the
+vacuous life led in such places as we were now in, our desire to return
+to Russia, to the country, and we both fell into a grave, gentle mood,
+which was still upon us when we reached the castle. Within its broken
+walls all was in deep shadow, cool and still, the summits of the towers
+were yet in the sunlight, and the least sound of voice or footstep
+re-echoed among the arches. Through the doorway we saw the beautiful
+stretch of country surrounding Baden,--beautiful, yet to our Russian
+eyes, cold and stern.
+
+We sat down to rest, silently watching the sinking sun. Presently we
+heard voices, they grew more distinct, and I thought I caught my own
+name. I listened involuntarily, and heard a few words. I recognized the
+voices; they were those of the Marquis D. and of a Frenchman, his
+friend, whom I also knew. They were talking about me and Lady C. The
+Frenchman was comparing one with the other, and analyzing our beauty. He
+said nothing objectionable, yet I felt the blood rush to my heart as he
+spoke. He entered into detail as to what he found attractive in both
+Lady C. and myself. As for me, I was already a mother, while Lady C. was
+but nineteen years of age; my hair was more beautiful, but Lady C.'s was
+more gracefully arranged; Lady C. was more the high born dame "while
+yours," he said, alluding to me, "is one of the little princesses so
+often sent us by Russia." He concluded by saying that it was very
+discreet in me not to attempt to contest the field with Lady C., for, if
+I did, I most assuredly would find Baden my burial-place.
+
+This cut me to the quick.
+
+"Unless she chose to console herself with you!" added the Frenchman with
+a gay, cruel laugh.
+
+"If she goes, I shall follow," was the coarse reply of the voice with
+the Italian accent.
+
+"Happy mortal! he can still love!" commented the other, mockingly.
+
+"Love!" the Italian was silent a moment, then went on. "I cannot help
+loving! Without love there is no life. To make of one's life a
+romance,--that is the only good. And my romances never break off in the
+middle; this one, like the others, I will carry out to the end."
+
+"Good luck, my friend!" said the Frenchman.
+
+I heard no more for the speakers seemed to turn the angle of the wall,
+and their steps receded on the other side. They descended the broken
+stairs, and in a few moments emerged from a side-door near us, showing
+much surprise at the sight of us. I felt my cheeks flame when Marquis D.
+approached me, and was confused and frightened at his offering me his
+arm upon our leaving the castle. I could not refuse it, and following L.
+M. who led the way with his friend, we went down towards the carriage. I
+was indignant at what the Frenchman had said of me, though I could not
+help secretly admitting that he had done nothing but put into language
+what I myself had already felt, but the words of the marquis had
+confounded and revolted me by their grossness. I was tortured by the
+thought of having heard them, and at the same time I had suddenly lost
+all fear of him. I was disgusted at feeling him so near me; without
+looking at him, without answering him, trying, though I still had his
+arm, to keep so far from him that I could not hear his whispers, I
+walked on quickly, close behind L. M. and the Frenchman. The marquis was
+talking about the lovely view, the unexpected delight of meeting me, and
+I know not what besides, but I did not listen to him. The whole time I
+was thinking about my husband, my son, Russia; divided feelings of shame
+and pity took hold of me, and I was possessed by a desire to hurry home,
+to shut myself up in my solitary room in the _Hôtel de Bade_, where I
+might be free to reflect upon all that seemed so suddenly to have risen
+up within my soul. But L. M. was walking rather slowly, the carriage was
+still some distance away, and it seemed to me that my escort was
+obstinately slackening our pace, as if he meant to be left alone with
+me. "That shall not be!" I said to myself, quickening my steps. But he
+undisguisedly kept me back, holding my arm with a close pressure; at
+this moment L. M. turned a corner of the road, and we were left alone.
+I was seized with alarm.
+
+"Excuse me," said I coldly, drawing my arm out of his, but the lace
+caught on one of his buttons. He stooped towards me to disengage it, and
+his ungloved fingers rested on my arm. A new sensation--not fright,
+certainly not pleasure--sent a chill shiver through me. I looked up at
+him, meaning my glance to express all the cold contempt I felt for him;
+but instead of this, he seemed to read in it only agitation and alarm.
+His ardent, humid eyes were fixed passionately upon me, his hands
+grasped my wrists, his half-open lips were murmuring to me, telling me
+that he loved me, that I was everything to him, his hold upon me growing
+stronger and closer with every word. I felt fire in my veins, my vision
+was obscured, I trembled from head to foot, and the words I tried to
+utter died away in my throat. Suddenly I felt a kiss upon my cheek; I
+shivered, and looked into his face again, powerless to speak or stir,
+expecting and wishing I knew not what.
+
+It was only an instant. But this instant was terrible! In it I saw him
+as he was, I analyzed his face at a glance: low brow, straight correct
+nose with swelling nostrils, fine beard and mustache waxed and pointed,
+cheeks carefully shaven, brown neck. I hated him, I feared him, he was a
+stranger to me; nevertheless, at this moment, how powerfully the emotion
+and passion of this detestable man, this stranger, was re-echoing within
+me!
+
+"I love you!" was the murmur of the voice so like my husband's. My
+husband and my child,--hurriedly my mind flashed to them, as beings
+dearly loved, once existent, now gone, lost, done with. But suddenly
+from around the turn of the road I heard L. M.'s voice calling me. I
+recovered myself, snatched away my hands without looking at him, and
+almost flew to rejoin her. Not until we were in the caléche did I glance
+back at him. He took off his hat, and said something to me--I know not
+what--smiling. He little knew what inexpressible torture he made me
+endure at that moment.
+
+Life appeared so miserable, the future so desperate, the past so
+sombre! L. M. talked to me, but I did not understand one word she was
+saying. It seemed as though she was only talking to me from compassion,
+and to hide the contempt she felt. I thought I read this contempt, this
+insulting compassion in every word, every glance. That kiss was burning
+into my cheek with cutting shame, and to think of my husband and child
+was insupportable to me. Once alone in my chamber, I hoped to be able to
+meditate upon my situation, but I found it was frightful to remain
+alone. I could not drink the tea that was brought me, and without
+knowing why, hurriedly I decided to take the evening train for
+Heidelberg, to rejoin my husband. When I was seated with my maid in the
+empty compartment, when the train was at last in motion, and I breathed
+the fresh air rushing in through the empty windows, I began to be myself
+again, and to think with some degree of clearness over my past and my
+future. All my married life, from the day of our departure for St.
+Petersburg, lay before me in a new light, that of awakened and accusing
+conscience.
+
+For the first time, I vividly recalled the commencement of my life in
+the country, my plans; for the first time, the thought came to my mind:
+how happy he was then! And I suddenly felt guilty towards him. "But
+then, why not check me, why dissimulate before me, why avoid all
+explanation, why insult me?" I asked myself. "Why not use the power of
+his love? But perhaps he no longer loved me?"--Yet, whether he was to
+blame or not, here was this on my cheek, this kiss which I still felt.
+The nearer I came to Heidelberg, and the more clearly my husband's image
+presented itself, the more terrible became the imminent meeting with
+him. "I will tell him all, all; my eyes will be blinded with tears of
+repentance," thought I, "and he will forgive me." But I did not myself
+know what was this "all" that I was going to tell him, nor was I
+absolutely sure that he would forgive me. In fact, when I entered his
+room and saw his face, so tranquil despite its surprise, I felt no
+longer able to tell him anything, to confess anything, to entreat his
+forgiveness for anything. An unspeakable sorrow and deep repentance were
+weighing me down.
+
+"What were you thinking of?" he said: "I intended joining you at Baden
+to-morrow." But a second glance at me seemed to startle him. "Is
+anything wrong? What is the matter with you?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Nothing," I replied, keeping back my tears. "I have come away ... I am
+not going back ... Let us go--to-morrow if we can--home to Russia!"
+
+He was silent for some time, watching me narrowly.
+
+"Come, tell me what has occurred," he said, at length.
+
+I felt my face grow scarlet, and my eyes sank. His were glittering with
+an indefinable foreboding, and hot anger. I dreaded the thoughts which
+might be assailing him, and, with a power of dissimulation of which I
+could not have believed myself capable, I made haste to answer:
+
+"Nothing has occurred,--but I was overwhelmed by weariness and
+dejection; I was alone, I began to think of you, and of our life. How
+long I have been to blame towards you! After this, you may take me with
+you wherever you wish! Yes, I have long been to blame," I repeated, and
+my tears began to fall fast. "Let us go back to the country," I cried,
+"and forever!"
+
+"Ah! my love, spare me these sentimental scenes," said he, coldly; "for
+you to go to the country will be all very well, just now, for we are
+running a little short of money; but as for its being 'forever,' that is
+but a notion: I know you could not stay there long! Come, drink a cup of
+tea,--that is the best thing to do," he concluded, rising to call a
+servant.
+
+I could not help imagining what his thoughts of me doubtless were, and I
+felt indignant at the frightful ideas which I attributed to him as I met
+the look of shame and vigilant suspicion which he bent upon me. No, he
+will not, and he cannot comprehend me!... I told him that I was going
+to see the child, and left him. I longed to be alone, and free to weep,
+weep, weep....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Our house at Nikolski, so long cold and deserted, came to life again;
+but the thing which did not come to life was our old existence. Mamma
+was there no longer, and henceforth we were alone, we two alone with
+each other. But not only was solitude no longer to us what it had once
+been, but we found it a burden and constraint. The winter passed all the
+more drearily for me from my being out of health, and it was not until
+some time after the birth of my second son that I recovered my strength.
+
+My relations with my husband continued cold and friendly, as at St.
+Petersburg; but here in the country there was not a floor, not a wall,
+not a piece of furniture, which did not remind me of what he had been
+to me, and what I had lost. There stood between us, as it were, an
+offence not forgiven; one would have said that he wished to punish me
+for something, and that he was pretending to himself to be unconscious
+of it. How could I ask forgiveness without knowing for what fault? He
+only punished me by no longer entirely giving himself up to me, by no
+longer surrendering to me his whole soul; but to no one, and under no
+circumstances, was his soul surrendered, any more than if he had none.
+It sometimes came into my head that he was only making a pretence of
+being what he now was, in order to torment me, and that his feelings
+were in reality what they had formerly been, and I tried to provoke him
+into letting this be seen; but he invariably eluded all frank
+explanation; one would have said that he suspected me of dissimulation,
+and dreaded all manifestations of tenderness as attempts to ridicule
+him. His looks and his air seemed to say: "I know all, there is nothing
+to tell me; all that you would confide to me, I already know; I know
+that you talk in one manner and act in another." At first I was hurt by
+his apparent fear of being frank with me, but I soon accustomed myself
+to the thought that in him this was not so much lack of frankness, as
+lack of necessity for frankness.
+
+And on my side, my tongue was no longer capable of telling him
+impulsively, as in the old days, that I loved him, of asking him to read
+the prayers with me, of calling him to listen to my music when I was
+going to play; there seemed to be certain rules of formality tacitly
+decreed between us. We lived our own lives; he, with his various
+interests and occupations, in which I no longer claimed nor desired a
+share; I, with my idle hours, about which he no longer seemed to trouble
+himself. As for the children, they were still too young to be in any way
+a bond between us.
+
+Spring came. Macha and Sonia returned to the country for the summer; and
+as Nikolski was undergoing repairs, we went with them to Pokrovski. The
+same old home, the terrace, the out-of-door tea-table, the piano in the
+half-lighted room, my own old chamber with its white curtains, and the
+girlish dreams which seemed to have been left behind there, forgotten.
+In this chamber were two beds; over one, which had been my own, I now
+bent nightly to bless my sturdy Kokocha,[H] in the midst of his bedtime
+frolics; in the other lay little Vasica,[I] his baby-face rosy with
+sleep, under the soft white blankets. After giving the benediction, I
+often lingered a long time in this peaceful chamber, and from every
+corner of its walls, from every fold of its curtains, came stealing
+around me forgotten visions of my youth; childish songs, gay choruses,
+floated again to my ears. And what were they now,--these visions? Were
+they sounding still, anywhere,--these glad and sweet old songs? All that
+I had hardly dared to hope had come true. My vague and confused dreams
+had become reality, and it was now my life, so hard, so heavy, so
+stripped of joy. And yet here around me were not all things as before?
+Was it not the same garden that I saw beneath my window, the same
+terrace, the same paths and benches? Far off there, across the ravine,
+the songs of the nightingales still seemed to rise out of the ripples of
+the little pond, the lilacs bloomed as they used to do, the moon still
+stood in white glory over the corner of the house, yet for me all was so
+changed, so changed! Macha and I had our old quiet talks, sitting
+together as of old in the salon, and we still talked of him. But Macha's
+brow was grave, her face was wan, her eyes no longer shone with
+contentment and hope, but were full of sad sympathy, and almost
+expressed compassion. We no longer went into ecstasies over him, as in
+the past; we judged him, now; we no longer marvelled at our great
+happiness and wondered how it came to be ours, we no longer had the
+impulse to tell all the world what we felt; we whispered in each other's
+ear like conspirators; for the hundredth time we asked each other why
+all was so sad, so changed. As for him, he was still the same, except
+that the line between his brows was deeper, and his temples were more
+silvery, and his eyes, watchful, deep, continually turned away from me,
+were darkened by a shadow. I, too, was still the same, but I no longer
+felt either love or desire to love. No more wish to work, no more
+satisfaction with myself. And how far off, how impossible, now appeared
+my old religious fervor, my old love for him, my old fulness of life! I
+could not, now, even comprehend what in those days was so luminous and
+so true: the happiness of living for others. Why for others? when I no
+longer wished to live for myself....
+
+I had entirely given up my music during our residence in St. Petersburg,
+but now my old piano and my old pieces brought back the love for it.
+
+One day when I was not feeling well, I stayed at home, alone, while
+Macha and Sonia went with my husband to see the improvements at
+Nikolski. The tea-table was set, I went down-stairs, and, while waiting
+for them, seated myself at the piano. I opened the sonata _Quasi una
+fantasia_, and began to play. No living creature was to be seen or
+heard, the windows were open upon the garden; the familiar notes, so
+sad and penetrating, resounded through the room. I concluded the first
+part, and unconsciously, simply from old habit, I looked across to the
+corner where he used to sit and listen to me. But he was no longer
+there, a long-unmoved chair occupied his old place; from the side of the
+open window a projecting branch of lilac stood out against the burning
+west, the evening air stole quietly in. I leaned my elbows on the piano,
+covered my face with both hands, and fell into a fit of musing. I
+remained there a long time, mournfully recalling the old days,
+irrevocably gone, and timidly looking at the days to come. But
+hereafter, it seemed to me, there could be nothing, I could hope
+nothing, desire nothing. "Is it possible that I have outlived all that!"
+thought I, raising my head with horror, and in order to forget and to
+cease thinking, I began to play again, and still the same old _andante_.
+"My God!" I said, "pardon me if I am guilty, or give back to my soul
+what made its beauty ... or teach me what I ought to do,--how I ought to
+live!"
+
+The sound of wheels echoed on the turf and before the door, then I heard
+on the terrace steady steps, well-known to me, then all was quiet. But
+it was no longer the old feeling which stirred in me at these familiar
+footsteps. They came up behind me when I had finished the sonata, and a
+hand was laid upon my shoulder.
+
+"A happy thought, to play the old sonata!" he said.
+
+I made no answer.
+
+"Have not you had tea?"
+
+I shook my head, without turning towards him, for I did not want him to
+see the traces of agitation on my face.
+
+"They will be here presently; the horses were a little unruly, and they
+are coming home on foot, by the road," he continued.
+
+"We will wait for them," I said, going out on the terrace, in the hope
+that he would follow, but he inquired for the children, and went up to
+see them. Once more, his presence, the sound of his voice, so kind, so
+honest, dissuaded me from believing that all was lost for me. "What
+more is there to desire?" I thought: "he is good and true, he is an
+excellent husband, an excellent father, and I do not myself know what is
+missing,--what I want."
+
+I went out on the balcony, and sat down under the awning of the terrace,
+on the same bench where I was sitting upon the day of our decisive
+explanation long ago. The sun was nearly down, dusk was gathering; a
+shade of spring softened the pure sky, where one tiny spark was already
+gleaming. The light wind had died away, not a leaf or blade of grass
+stirred; the perfume of the lilacs and cherry-trees, so powerful that
+one might have thought all the air itself was in bloom, came in puffs
+over garden and terrace, now faint and now full, making one feel an
+impulse to close the eyes, to shut out all sight and sound, to banish
+every sensation save that of inhaling this exquisite fragrance. The
+dahlias and rose-bushes, yet leafless, stood in still lines in the
+newly-dug black mould of their beds, lifting their heads above their
+white props. From afar came the intermittent notes of the nightingales,
+or the rush of their restless flight from place to place.
+
+It was in vain that I strove to calm myself, I seemed to be waiting and
+wishing for something.
+
+Sergius came from up-stairs, and sat down beside me.
+
+"I believe it is going to rain," he said, "they will get wet."
+
+"Yes," I replied; and we were both silent.
+
+In the meantime, the cloud, without any wind, had crept slowly and
+stealthily above our heads; nature was yet more perfectly tranquil,
+sweet, and still: suddenly one drop fell, and, so to speak, rebounded,
+upon the linen of the awning, another rolled, a growing ball of dust,
+along the path; then, with a sound like deadened hail, came the heavy
+dash of rain, gathering force every moment. At once, as if by concert,
+frogs and nightingales were silent; but the light plash of the fountain
+was still heard beneath the beating of the rain, and far off in the
+distance some little bird, no doubt safe and dry under a sheltering
+bough, chirped in monotonous rhythm his two recurring notes. Sergius
+rose to go into the house.
+
+"Where are you going?" said I, stopping him. "It is so delightful here!"
+
+"I must send an umbrella and some overshoes."
+
+"It is not necessary, this will be over directly."
+
+He assented, and we remained standing together by the balustrade of the
+balcony. I put my hand on the wet slippery rail, and leaned forward into
+the rain, the cool drops falling lightly on my hair and neck. The cloud,
+brightening and thinning, scattered in shining spray above us, the
+regular beat of the shower was succeeded by the sound of heavy drops
+falling more and more rarely from the sky or from the trees. The frogs
+resumed their croaking, the nightingales shook their wings and began
+again to respond to each other from behind the glistening shrubs, now on
+one side, now on another. All was serene again before us.
+
+"How good it is to live!" he said, leaning over the balustrade and
+passing his hand over my wet hair.
+
+This simple caress acted on me like a reproach, and I longed to let my
+tears flow.
+
+"What more can a man need?" continued he. "I am at this moment so
+content, that I feel nothing wanting, and I am completely happy!"
+
+("You did not speak so to me when to hear it would have made my
+happiness," I thought. "However great yours was, then, you used to say
+that you wished for more of it, still more. And now you are calm and
+content, when my soul is full of inexpressible repentance and
+unsatisfied tears!")
+
+"To me, too, life is good," said I, "and it is precisely because it is
+so good to me, that I am sad. I feel so detached, so incomplete; I am
+always wanting some other thing, and yet everything here is so good, so
+tranquil! Can it be possible that for you no sorrow ever seems mingled
+with your pleasure in life?--as if, for instance, you were feeling
+regret for something in the past?"
+
+He drew away the hand resting on my head, and was silent for a moment.
+
+"Yes, that has been the case with me, formerly, particularly in the
+spring," he said, as if searching his memory. "Yes, I also have spent
+whole nights in longings and fears,--and what beautiful nights they
+were!... But then all was before me, and now all is behind; now I am
+content with what is, and that to me is perfection," he concluded, with
+such easy frankness of manner, that, painful as it was to hear, I was
+convinced that it was the truth.
+
+"Then you desire nothing more?" I questioned.
+
+"Nothing impossible," he replied, divining my thought. "How wet you have
+made your head," he went on, caressing me like a child, and passing his
+hand again over my hair; "you are jealous of the leaves and grass which
+the rain was falling on; you would like to be the grass and the leaves
+and the rain; while I--I enjoy simply seeing them, as I do seeing
+whatever is good, young, happy."
+
+"And you regret nothing in the past?" I persisted, with the dull weight
+on my heart growing heavier and heavier.
+
+He seemed to muse for a moment, keeping silent. I saw that he wished to
+answer honestly.
+
+"No!" he said, at length, briefly.
+
+"That is not true! that is not true!" I cried, turning and facing him,
+with my eyes fixed upon his. "You do not regret the past?"
+
+"No!" he repeated. "I bless it, but I do not regret it."
+
+"And you would not wish to go back to it?"
+
+He turned away, looking out over the garden.
+
+"I no more wish that than I would wish to have wings. It cannot be."
+
+"And you would not re-make this past? And you reproach neither yourself,
+nor me?"
+
+"Never! all has been for the best."
+
+"Listen!" said I, seizing his hand to force him to turn towards me.
+"Listen! Why did you never tell me what you wished from me, that I might
+have lived exactly as you desired? Why did you give me a liberty which
+I knew not how to use? why did you cease to teach me? If you had wished
+it, if you had cared to guide me differently, nothing, nothing would
+have happened," I went on, in a voice which more and more energetically
+expressed anger and reproach, with none of the former love.
+
+"What is it that would not have happened?" said he with surprise,
+turning towards me. "There has been nothing. All is well, very well," he
+repeated smiling.
+
+"Can it be possible," I thought, that he does not understand me? "or,
+worse still, that he will not understand me?" and my tears began to
+fall.
+
+"This would have happened,--that, not having made me guilty towards you,
+you would not have punished me by your indifference, your contempt," I
+broke out. "What would _not_ have happened is seeing myself, with no
+fault on my own part, suddenly robbed by you of all that was dear to
+me."
+
+"What are you saying, my darling?" he exclaimed, as if he had not
+understood my words.
+
+"No, let me finish! You have robbed me of your confidence, your love,
+even of your esteem, and this because I ceased to believe that you still
+loved me after what had taken place! No," I went on, checking him again
+as he was about to interrupt me, "for once I must speak out all that has
+been torturing me so long! Was I to blame because I did not know life,
+and because you left me to find it out for myself?... And am I to blame
+that now,--when at last I comprehend, of myself, what is necessary in
+life; now, when for more than a year I have been making a struggle to
+return to you,--you constantly repulse me, constantly pretend not to
+know what I want? and things are so arranged that there is never
+anything for you to reproach yourself with, while I am left to be
+miserable and guilty? Yes, you would cast me back again into that life
+which must make wretchedness for me and for you!"
+
+"And how am I doing that?" he asked, with sincere surprise and alarm.
+
+"Did not you tell me yesterday,--yes, you tell me so perpetually,--that
+the life here does not suit me, and that we must go to St. Petersburg
+again for the winter? Instead of supporting me," I continued, "you avoid
+all frankness with me, any talk that is sweet, and real. And then if I
+fall, you will reproach me with it, or you will make light of it!"
+
+"Stop, stop," he said severely and coldly; "what you are saying is not
+right. It only shows that you are badly disposed towards me, that you do
+not...."
+
+"That I do not love you! say it! say it, then!" I exclaimed, blind with
+my tears. I sat down on the bench, and covered my face with my
+handkerchief.
+
+"That is the way he understands me!" I thought, trying to control my
+choking sobs. "It is all over with our old love!" said the voice in my
+heart. He did not come near me, and made no attempt to console me. He
+was wounded by what I had said. His voice was calm and dry, as he began:
+
+"I do not know what you have to reproach me with, except that I do not
+love you as I used to do!"
+
+"As you used to love me!..." I murmured under my handkerchief, drenching
+it with bitter tears.
+
+"And for that, time and ourselves are equally guilty. For each period
+there is one suitable phase of love...."
+
+He was silent.
+
+"And shall I tell you the whole truth, since you desire frankness? Just
+as, during that first year of our acquaintance, I spent night after
+night without sleep, thinking of you and building up my own love, until
+it grew to fill all my heart, so in St. Petersburg and while we were
+abroad I spent fearful nights in striving to break down and destroy this
+love which was my torment. I could not destroy it, but I did at least
+destroy the element which had tormented me; I became tranquil, and yet I
+continued to love you,--but it was with another love."
+
+"And you call _that_ love, when it was nothing but a punishment!" I
+replied. "Why did you let me live in the world, if it appeared to you
+so pernicious that because of it you would cease to love me?"
+
+"It was not the world, my dear, that was the guilty one."
+
+"Why did you not use your power? Why did you not strangle me? Murder me?
+That would have been better for me to-day than to have lost all that
+made my happiness,--it would have been better for me, and at least there
+would not have been the shame!"
+
+I began to sob again, and I covered my face.
+
+Just at that moment Macha and Sonia, wet and merry, ran up on the
+terrace, laughing and talking; but at the sight of us their voices were
+hushed, and they hurried into the house.
+
+We remained where we were, for a long time, silent; after they were
+gone, I sobbed on until my tears were exhausted and I felt somewhat
+calmer. I looked at him. He was sitting with his head resting on his
+hand, and appeared to wish to say something to me in response to my
+glance, but he only gave a heavy sigh and put his head down again.
+
+I went to him and drew his hand away. He turned then, and looked at me
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes," he said, as if pursuing his own thoughts, "for all of us, and
+particularly for you women, it is necessary that we should ourselves
+lift to our own lips the cup of the vanities of life, before we can
+taste life itself; no one believes the experience of others. You had
+not, at that time, dipped very deep into the science of those entrancing
+and seducing vanities. Therefore I allowed you to plunge for a moment; I
+had no right to forbid it, simply because my own hour for it was long
+since over."
+
+"Why did you let me live among these vanities, if you loved me?"
+
+"Because you would not--nay, more, you could not--have believed me about
+them; it was necessary for you to learn for yourself; and you have
+learned."
+
+"You reasoned a great deal," said I. "That was because you loved me so
+little."
+
+We were silent again.
+
+"What you have just said to me is hard, but it is the truth," he
+resumed, after a while, rising abruptly, and beginning to walk about the
+terrace; "yes, it is the truth! I have been to blame," he went on,
+stopping before me.... "Either I ought not to have let myself love you
+at all, or I ought to have loved you more simply--yes!"
+
+"Sergius, let us forget everything," said I, timidly.
+
+"No, what is gone never comes again, there can be no turning back ..."
+his voice softened as he spoke.
+
+"It has already come again," said I, laying my hand on his shoulder.
+
+He took the hand in his, and pressed it.
+
+"No, I was not telling the truth, when I pretended not to regret the
+past; no, I do regret your past love; I bitterly mourn over it,--this
+love, which can no longer exist. Who is to blame? I do not know. Love
+there may even yet be, but not the same; its place is still there, but
+darkened and desolated; it is without savor and without strength; the
+remembrance has not vanished, nor the gratitude, but...."
+
+"Do not speak so," I interrupted. "Let it come to life again, let it be
+what it was.... Might that be?" I asked, looking into his face. His eyes
+were serene, quiet, and met mine without their old deep look.
+
+Even as I asked the question I felt the answer, felt that my wish was no
+longer possible to realize. He smiled; it seemed to me an old man's
+smile, gentle and full of peace.
+
+"How young you still are, and how old I am already!" he said. "Why
+delude ourselves?" he added, still with the same smile.
+
+I remained near him, silent, and feeling my soul grow more and more
+tranquil.
+
+"Do not let us try to repeat life," he went on, "nor to lie to
+ourselves. But it is something, to have no longer, God willing, either
+disquiet or distress. We have nothing to seek for. We have already
+found, already shared, happiness enough. All we have to do now is to
+open the way,--you see to whom...." he said, pointing out little Vania,
+in his nurse's arms, at the terrace door. "That is necessary, dear
+love," he concluded, bending over me and dropping a kiss on my hair.
+
+It was no longer a lover, it was an old friend who gave the caress.
+
+The perfumed freshness of night was rising, sweeter and stronger, from
+the garden; the few sounds audible were solemn and far off, and soon
+gave way to deep tranquillity; one by one the stars shone out. I looked
+at him, and all at once I became conscious of infinite relief in my
+soul; it was as if a moral nerve, whose sensitiveness had caused me keen
+suffering had suddenly been removed. Quietly and clearly I comprehended
+that the dominant sentiment of this phase of my existence was
+irrevocably gone, as was the phase itself, and that not only was its
+return impossible, but that it would be to me full of unendurable pain.
+There had been enough of this time; and had it indeed been so
+good,--this time, which to me had seemed to enclose such joys? And
+already it had lasted so long, so long!
+
+"But tea is waiting," he said, gently; and we went together to the
+drawing-room.
+
+At the door I met Macha, and the nurse with Vania. I took the child in
+my arms, wrapped up the little bare feet, and, holding it close to my
+heart, barely touched its lips with a light kiss. Almost asleep as it
+was, it moved its little arms, stretched out the crumpled fingers, and
+opened its bewildered eyes, as if trying to find or remember something;
+all at once its eyes fell on me, a look of intelligence sparkled in
+them, and the pink pursed-up lips lengthened in a baby smile. "You are
+mine, mine!" thought I, with a delicious thrill running through me, and
+as I strained it to my heart I was half afraid of hurting it with my
+eager embrace. Over and over I kissed its cold little feet, its breast,
+its arms, and head with the scant covering of down. My husband came up
+to us, quickly drew the wrapping over the baby's face, then, drawing it
+away again:
+
+"Ivan Sergevitch!" he said with finger under the little chin.
+
+But I, in my turn, covered up Ivan Sergevitch. No one should look at
+him so long, except myself. I glanced at my husband, his eyes laughed as
+they rested on mine, and it was long since I had met his with such happy
+joy.
+
+This day ended my romance with my husband. The old love remained, and
+the dear remembrance of what could never come back to me; but a new love
+for my children and my children's father, began another life and another
+way of happiness, up to this hour unending ... for at last I know that
+in home, and in the pure joys of home will be found--real happiness!
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =WAR AND PEACE.= A Historical Novel, by Count Leon Tolstoï,
+     translated into French by a Russian Lady and from the French by
+     Clara Bell. _Authorized Edition._ Complete, Three Parts in Box.
+     Paper, $3.00. Cloth, $5.25. Half calf, $12.00.
+
+     =Part I.= =Before Tilsit=, 1805-1807, in two volumes. Paper, $1.00.
+     Cloth, $1.75 per set.
+
+     =" II.= =The Invasion=, 1807-1812 in two volumes. Paper, $1.00. Cloth,
+     $1.75 per set.
+
+     =" III.= =Borodino, The French at Moscow--Epilogue=, 1812-1820, in two
+     volumes. Paper, $1.00. Cloth, $1.75 per set.
+
+OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
+
+"A story of Russia in the time of Napoleon's wars. It is a story of the
+family rather than of the field, and is charming in its delineations of
+quaint Russian customs. It is a novel of absorbing interest, full of
+action and with a well managed plot; a book well worth
+reading."--_Philadelphia Enquirer._
+
+"The story of 'War and Peace' ranks as the greatest of Slavic historical
+novels. It is intensely dramatic in places and the battle scenes are
+marvels of picturesque description. At other points the vein is quiet
+and philosophical, and the reader is held by the soothing charm that is
+in complete contrast with the action and energy of battle."--_Observer,
+Utica, N.Y._
+
+"War and Peace is a historical novel and is extremely interesting, not
+only in its description of the times of the great invasion eighty years
+ago, but in its vivid pictures of life and character in
+Russia."--_Journal of Commerce, New York._
+
+"On general principles the historical novel is neither valuable as fact
+nor entertaining as fiction. But 'War and Peace' is a striking exception
+to this rule. It deals with the most impressive and dramatic period of
+European history. It reproduces a living panorama of scene, and actors,
+and circumstance idealized into the intense and artistic life of
+imaginative composition, and written with a brilliancy of style and
+epigrammatic play of thought, a depth of significance, that render the
+story one of the most fascinating and absorbing."--_Boston Evening
+Traveller._
+
+_Wm. S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =THE COSSACKS.=--A Tale of the Caucasus in 1852, by =Count Leo
+     Tolstoy=, from the Russian by Eugene Schuyler. One vol. Paper, 50
+     cts. Cloth binding. $1.00.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Cossacks" forms the culmination of the period in which he
+photographed with miraculous realism and no definite purpose, detached
+pictures of life and studies of the affections, and the period in which
+he began to see and suggest the spiritual meaning of and the chain of
+ultimate purpose binding together the panorama of human existence. The
+book is an idyl of semi-barbarous life and yet the hero begins to
+struggle with the problems that puzzled Sergius, that Levin half solved,
+and from which Tolstoi himself escapes in a Quaker creed.
+
+Olenin is a young Russian noble whose career has simulated outwardly
+that of his companions, but whose soul has been unsatisfied and empty,
+driving him finally to break away from his old associations and go for a
+campaign in the Caucasus. With that campaign the story does not concern
+itself, going on to its conclusion when the young man settles down in a
+Cossack village to wait for his promotion. This portion of the book is
+inimitable for the slight, almost imperceptible touches through which
+Tolstoi has the power, greater than that of any one else, of reproducing
+the actual scene he wishes to transcribe. This power can scarcely be
+called realism. It might be better characterized as realization. It is
+possible in this way to know the exact life of this brave, indolent,
+good-tempered, healthful race of half-Russians, half-Circassians, and to
+feel the charm they possessed for Olenin. It is a curious fact that the
+most civilized natures are most akin to barbarism. The simple directness
+of barbaric virtues, the healthy passion and aggressiveness of its vices
+make the process of atavism easy to a nature that has risen above the
+mere materialism of civilization. The process of this reversion in
+Olenin is hastened, of course, by love for a Cossack woman, one of those
+clean-minded girls who think no harm in a kiss or caress, but whose
+virtue is an absolute and natural thing that admits of no question or
+discussion. His love is not of the kind that could mean her dishonor,
+and he asks for Marianka's hand in marriage, feeling helplessly and
+hopelessly all the while that real union is impossible between
+them--that though he can understand her and go down into her
+semi-barbarism, she can never know him or appreciate the motives that
+impel him to leave a state that she considers higher than her own. The
+story ends abruptly and what is called by the professional novel-reader
+"unsatisfactorily." Marianka clings in preference to her Cossack lover,
+and Olenin feeling despairingly that this rude, simple, barbarous life
+can never absorb, can only encyst him, goes rack to his duties at the
+front.--_New York World._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                                  THE
+
+                             EBERS GALLERY
+
+                       A COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS
+
+                            ILLUSTRATING THE
+
+                        ROMANCES OF GEORG EBERS
+
+                        BY THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS
+
+         L. ALMA-TADEMA, W. A. BEER, W. GENTZ, P. GROT-JOHANN,
+             H. KAULBACH, FERD. KELLER, O. KNILLE, F. SIMM,
+               LAURA TADEMA, E. TESCHENDORFF, P. THUMANN.
+
+                         =TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS=
+
+                    _WITH DESCRIPTIVE LETTER-PRESS_
+
+         _Printed from handsome large new type on plate-paper_
+
+       Photographic Reproduction by Friedrich Bruckmann of Munich
+
+  IN LOOSE SHEETS, in cloth covered box,                $22.50
+
+  ONE VOL., FOLIO, bound in half morocco, gilt edges,
+    by Alfred Matthews,                                  40.00
+
+  ONE VOL., FOLIO, superbly bound in full morocco extra,
+    by Alfred Matthews,                                  50.00
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =THE BRIDE OF THE NILE=, A ROMANCE, BY =Georg Ebers=, from the German
+     by CLARA BELL. _Authorized edition_, in two volumes. Price, paper
+     covers, $1.00, cloth binding, $1.75 per set.
+
+"This romance has much value, apart from its interest as a narrative.
+The learned author, who has made the Land of the Nile an object of
+special study and research, throws a clear, steady light on one of those
+complicated periods of history when nationality seems submerged in the
+conflicting interests of sects and factions. The history of Egypt
+towards the middle of the seventh century, A. D., forms a sort of
+historical whirlpool. The tide of Moslem invasion and the
+counter-current of patriotism were temporarily swayed by the
+intermingling currents of sectarianism, ecclesiasticism and individual
+self-interest.
+
+"All the leading characters are typical of these contending forces, and
+also display an unreasoning impulsiveness in both love and hatred,
+characteristic of a tropical clime.
+
+"The Egyptian heathen, the Egyptian Christian, the Greek Christian, the
+Moslem and Ethiopian show the feelings peculiar to their political
+conditions by word and act, thus making their relationship to one
+another very distinct, and though not an historical study, at least a
+study of the probabilities of that epoch. It is also a reliable picture
+of the manners, customs and civilization of a period less generally
+known than those remote, and consequently more attractive periods of the
+building of the pyramids, and of the Pharoahs.
+
+"The portrayal of individual character and arrangement of incidents are
+necessarily secondary to the higher aims of this entertaining and
+instructive romance. It is only towards the end of the second volume
+that the significance of the title becomes apparent. The 'Bride' was a
+Greek Christian doomed by the superstitious authorities to be drowned in
+the Nile as a sacrifice to appease the anger of the creative powers,
+supposed to be withholding the usual overflow of its waters. She escaped
+her watery fate, and her rival, an unprincipled heiress, became a
+voluntary sacrifice through vanity and despair. This author has already
+won much renown by previous romances founded on interesting epochs of
+Egyptian history."--_Daily Alta, California._
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =THE MARTYR OF GOLGOTHA=, by =Enrique Perez Escrich=, from the Spanish
+     by Adèle Josephine Godoy, in two volumes. Price, paper covers,
+     $1.00. Cloth binding, $1.75.
+
+"There must always be some difference of opinion concerning the right of
+the romancer to treat of sacred events and to introduce sacred
+personages into his story. Some hold that any attempt to embody an idea
+of our Saviour's character, experiences, sayings and teachings in the
+form of fiction must have the effect of lowering our imaginative ideal,
+and rendering trivial and common-place that which in the real Gospel is
+spontaneous, inspired and sublime. But to others an historical novel
+like the 'Martyr of Golgotha' comes like a revelation, opening fresh
+vistas of thought, filling out blanks and making clear what had hitherto
+been vague and unsatisfactory, quickening insight and sympathy, and
+actually heightening the conception of divine traits. The author gives
+also a wide survey of the general history of the epoch and shows the
+various shaping causes which were influencing the rise and development
+of the new religion in Palestine. There is, indeed, an astonishing
+vitality and movement throughout the work, and, elaborate though the
+plot is, with all varieties and all contrasts of people and conditions,
+with constant shiftings of the scene, the story yet moves, and moves the
+interest of the reader too, along the rapid current of events towards
+the powerful culmination. The writer uses the Catholic traditions, and
+in many points interprets the story in a way which differs altogether
+from that familiar to Protestants: for example, making Mary Magdalen the
+same Mary who was the sister of Lazarus and Martha, and who sat
+listening at the Saviour's feet. But in general, although there is a
+free use made of Catholic legends and traditions, their effort is
+natural and pleasing. The romance shows a degree of a southern fervor
+which is foreign to English habit, but the flowery, poetic
+style--although it at first repels the reader--is so individual, so much
+a part of the author, that it is soon accepted as the naive expression
+of a mind kindled and carried away by its subject. Spanish literature
+has of late given us a variety of novels and romances, all of which are
+in their way so good that we must believe that there is a new generation
+of writers in Spain who are discarding the worn-out forms and
+traditions, and are putting fresh life and energy into works which will
+give pleasure to the whole world of readers."--_Philadelphia American_,
+March 5, 1887.
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =THE KING'S TREASURE HOUSE.=--A Romance of Ancient Egypt, by =Wilhelm
+     Walloth=, from the German by Mary J. Safford, in one vol. Paper, 50
+     cts. Cloth, 90 cts.
+
+"It deals, in the main, with the cruel bondage of the Israelites in
+Egypt, and is remarkably varied in incident and impressive in dramatic
+power. The interest is uncommonly exciting, and is sustained with great
+skill to the very end. A fine poetic feeling pervades the narrative, and
+the descriptive portions of the book often glow with picturesque
+splendor. The work is also very attractive in the cleverness and the
+vividness with which the manners and people of ancient Egypt are
+depicted, showing in this aspect careful thought and study. The story
+may take a foremost rank in the long line of German romances which have
+aimed at reproducing the life of antiquity."--_Boston Saturday Evening
+Gazette, May 23, 1886._
+
+     =THE CHALDEAN MAGICIAN.=--An Adventure in Ancient Rome, by =Ernst
+     Eckstein=, from the German by Mary J. Safford. One vol. Paper, 25
+     cts. Cloth, 50 cts.
+
+"The 'Chaldean Magician' is a tale of Rome in the days of the Emperor
+Diocletian, and is an expose of the so-called magical art of that
+period. The love story which runs through it will please the
+sentimental, while the pictures given of Roman life and society will
+interest the general reader."--_Chicago Evening Journal._
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =QUINTUS CLAUDIUS.=--A Romance of Imperial Rome, by =Ernst Eckstein=,
+     from the German by Clara Bell, in two vols. Paper, $1.00. Cloth,
+     $1.75.
+
+"We owe to Eckstein the brilliant romance of 'Quintus Claudius,' which
+Clara Bell has done well to translate for us, for it is worthy of place
+beside the Emperor of Ebers and the Aspasia of Hamerling. It is a story
+of Rome in the reign of Domitian, and the most noted characters of the
+time figure in its pages, which are a series of picturesque descriptions
+of Roman life and manners in the imperial city, and in those luxurious
+retreats at Baiae and elsewhere to which the wealthy Romans used to
+retreat from the heats of summer. It is full of stirring scenes in the
+streets, in the palaces, in the temples, and in the amphitheatre, and
+the actors therein represent every phase of Roman character, from the
+treacherous and cowardly Domitian and the vile Domitia down to the
+secret gatherings of the new sect and their exit from life in the
+blood-soaked sands of the arena, where they were torn in pieces by the
+beasts of the desert. The life and the manners of all classes at this
+period were never painted with a bolder pencil than by Eckstein in this
+masterly romance, which displays as much scholarship as
+invention."--_Mail and Express, N. Y._
+
+"These neat volumes contain a story first published in German. It is
+written in that style which Ebers has cultivated so successfully. The
+place is Rome; the time, that of Domitian at the end of the first
+century. The very careful study of historical data, is evident from the
+notes at the foot of nearly every page. The author attempted the
+difficult task of presenting in a single story the whole life of Rome,
+the intrigues of that day which compassed the overthrow of Domitian, and
+the deep fervor and terrible trials of the Christians in the last of the
+general persecutions. The court, the army, the amphitheatre, the
+catacombs, the evil and the good of Roman manhood and womanhood--all are
+here. And the work is done with power and success. It is a book for
+every Christian and for every student, a book of lasting value, bringing
+more than one nation under obligation to its author."--_New Jerusalem
+Magazine, Boston, Mass._
+
+"_A new Romance of Ancient Times!_ The success of Ernst Eckstein's new
+novel, 'Quintus Claudius,' which recently appeared in Vienna, may fairly
+be called phenomenal, critics and the public unite in praising the
+work."--_Grazer Morgenpost._
+
+"'Quintus Claudius' is a finished work of art, capable of bearing any
+analysis, a literary production teeming with instruction and interest,
+full of plastic forms, and rich in the most dramatic changes of
+mood."--_Pester Lloyd._
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =PRUSIAS.=--A Romance of Ancient Rome under the Republic, by =Ernst
+     Eckstein=, from the German by Clara Bell. Authorized edition. In two
+     vols. Paper, $1.00. Cloth, $1.75.
+
+"The date of 'Prusias' is the latter half of the first century B. C.
+Rome is waging her tedious war with Mithridates. There are also risings
+in Spain, and the home army is badly depleted. Prusias comes to Capua as
+a learned Armenian, the tutor of a noble pupil in one of the
+aristocratic households. Each member of this circle is distinct. Some of
+the most splendid traits of human nature develop among these grand
+statesmen and their dignified wives, mothers, and daughters. The ideal
+Roman maiden is Psyche; but she has a trace of Greek blood and of the
+native gentleness. Of a more interesting type is Fannia, who might,
+minus her slaves and stola, pass for a modern and saucy New York beauty.
+Her wit, spirit, selfishness, and impulsive magnanimity might easily
+have been a nineteenth-century evolution. In the family to which Prusias
+comes are two sons, one of military leanings, the other a student. Into
+the ear of the latter Prusias whispers the real purpose of his coming to
+Italy. He is an Armenian and in league with Mithridates for the
+reduction of Roman rule. The unity which the Senate has tried to extend
+to the freshly-conquered provinces of Italy is a thing of slow growth.
+Prusias by his strategy and helped by Mithridates's gold, hopes to
+organize slaves and disaffected provincials into a force which will
+oblige weakened Rome to make terms, one of which shall be complete
+emancipation and equality of every man before the law. His harangues are
+in lofty strain, and, save that he never takes the coarse, belligerent
+tone of our contemporaries, these speeches might have been made by one
+of our own Abolitionists. The one point that Prusias never forgets is
+personal dignity and a regal consideration for his friends. But after
+all, this son of the gods is befooled by a woman, a sinuous and
+transcendently ambitious Roman belle, the second wife of the dull and
+trustful prefect of Capua; for this tiny woman had all men in her net
+whom she found it useful to have there.
+
+"The daughter of the prefect--hard, homely-featured, and hating the
+supple stepmother with an unspeakable hate, tearing her beauty at last
+like a tigress and so causing her death--is a repulsive but very strong
+figure. The two brothers who range themselves on opposite sides in the
+servile war make another unforgettable picture; and the beautiful slave
+Brenna, who follows her noble lover into camp, is a spark of light
+against the lurid background. The servile movement is combined with the
+bold plans of the Thracian Spartacus. He is a good figure and
+perpetually surprises us with his keen foresight and disciplinary power.
+
+"The book is stirring, realistic in the even German way, and full of the
+fibre and breath of its century." _Boston Ev'g Transcript._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =THE WILL.=--A NOVEL, by =Ernst Eckstein=, from the German by Clara
+     Bell, in two vols. Paper, $1.00 Cloth, $1.75 per set.
+
+"Since the appearance of 'Debit and Credit' we have not seen a German
+novel that can rank, in the line struck out by that famous work, with
+'The Will,' by Ernst Eckstein. It is a vivid picture of German city
+life, and the characters, whether quaint, commonplace, tragical, or a
+mixture of all three, are admirably drawn. All the German carefulness is
+in Eckstein's work, but there is besides a sparkle and _verve_ entirely
+French--and French of the best kind."--_Catholic Mirror, Baltimore._
+
+"The chief value of the book is in its well-drawn and strong pictures of
+life in both German cities and villages, and Clara Bell, has, as usual,
+proved herself a mistress of the German Tongue."--_Sunday Star,
+Providence._
+
+"ERNST ECKSTEIN, hitherto known as a writer of classical romance, now
+tries his hand upon a _genre_ story of German life. To our mind, it is
+his most successful work."--_Bulletin, San Francisco, Cal._
+
+"The present work is entitled 'The Will,' and is written by Ernst
+Eckstein, the author of the striking historical novel, Quintus Claudius.
+The name of Clara Bell as the translator from the German is assurance
+enough of the excellence of its rendering into English. The plot of the
+story is not a novel one, but it is skillfully executed, and the whole
+tale is developed with much dramatic power."--_Boston Zion's Herald._
+
+"'THE WILL,' by Eckstein, is the latest and best work of its author. The
+scene, the people, the events of the story are new, the plot is
+ingenious, and the action rapid and exciting enough to please the most
+jaded novel reader. The character of schoolmaster Heinzius would alone
+make the reputation of a new writer, and there are other sketches from
+life none the less masterly. Ernst Eckstein excels in heroines, of whom
+there are several in the book--all clearly defined--contending for the
+sympathy of the reader."--_The Journal of Commerce, New York._
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT.=--A Romance by =Anton Giulio Barrili=, from
+     the Italian by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90
+     cts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If Italian literature includes any more such unique and charming
+stories as this one, it is to be hoped that translators will not fail to
+discover them to the American public. The 'Eleventh Commandment' deals
+with a variety of topics--the social intrigues necessary to bring about
+preferment in political life, a communal order, an adventurous
+unconventional heiress, and her acquiescent, good-natured uncle, and
+most cleverly are the various elements combined, the whole forming an
+excellent and diverting little story. The advent of a modern Eve in the
+masculine paradise (?) established at the Convent of San Bruno is
+fraught with weighty consequences, not only to the individual members of
+the brotherhood, but to the well-being of the community itself. The
+narrative of M'lle Adela's adventures is blithely told, and the moral
+deducible therefrom for men is that, on occasion, flight is the surest
+method of combating temptation."--_Art Interchange, New York._
+
+"Very entertaining is the story of 'The Eleventh Commandment,'
+ingeniously conceived and very cleverly executed."--_The Critic, New
+York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =A WHIMSICAL WOOING.=--By =Anton Giulio Barrili=, from the Italian by
+     Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 25 cts. Cloth, 50 cts.
+
+"If 'The Eleventh Commandment,' the previous work of Barrili, was a good
+three-act play, 'A Whimsical Wooing' is a sparkling comedietta. It is
+one situation, a single catastrophe, yet, like a bit of impressionist
+painting of the finer sort, it reveals in a flash all the possibilities
+of the scene. The hero, Roberto Fenoglio, a man of wealth, position, and
+accomplishments, finds himself at the end of his resources for
+entertainment or interest. Hopelessly bored, he abandons himself to the
+drift of chance, and finds himself, in no longer space of time than from
+midnight to daylight--where and how, the reader will thank us for not
+forestalling his pleasure in finding out for himself."--_The Nation, New
+York._
+
+"'A Whimsical Wooing' is the richly-expressive title under which 'Clara
+Bell' introduces a cleverly-narrated episode by Anton Giulio Barrili to
+American readers. It is a sketch of Italian life, at once rich and
+strong, but nevertheless discreet in sentiment and graceful in diction.
+It is the old story of the fallacy of trusting to a proxy in love
+matters."--_Boston Post._
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =ERNESTINE.=--A Novel, by =Wilhelmine von Hillern=, from the German by
+     S. Baring-Gould, in two vols. Paper, 80 cts. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"'Ernestine' is a work of positive genius. An English critic has likened
+the conception of the heroine in her childhood to George Eliot's Maggie
+Tulliver, and truly there is a certain resemblance; but there is in the
+piece a much stronger suggestion of George Eliot's calm mastery of the
+secret springs of human action, and George Eliot's gift of laying bare
+the life of a human soul, than of likeness between particular characters
+or situations here and those with which we are familiar in George
+Eliot's works."--_New York Evening Post._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =THE HOUR WILL COME.=--A Tale of an Alpine Cloister, by =Wilhelmine
+     von Hillern=, from the German by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 40
+     cts. Cloth, 75 cts.
+
+"'_The Hour Will Come_' is the title of a translation by Clara Bell from
+the German original of Wilhelmine von Hillern, author of that beautiful
+romance 'Geier-Wally.' 'The Hour Will Come' is hardly less interesting,
+its plot being one of the strongest and most pathetic that could well be
+imagined. The time is the Middle Ages, and Frau von Hillern has achieved
+a remarkable success in reproducing the rudeness, the picturesqueness
+and the sombre coloring of those days. Those who take up 'The Hour Will
+Come' will not care to lay it down again until they have read it
+through."--_Baltimore Gazette._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =HIGHER THAN THE CHURCH.=--An Art Legend of Ancient Times, by
+     =Wilhelmine von Hillern=, from the German by Mary J. Safford, in one
+     vol. Paper, 25 cts. Cloth, 50 cts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Mary J. Safford translates acceptably a very charming short story from
+the German of Wilhelmine von Hillern. If it was not told by the
+sacristan of Breisach, it deserves to have been. It has the full flavor
+of old German and English love tales, such as have been crystallized in
+the old ballads. The Emperor, the gifted boy, his struggles with the
+stupidity of his townsmen, his apparently hopeless love above him; these
+form the old delightful scene, set in a Düreresque border. There are
+touches here and there which refer to the present. The sixteenth century
+tale has a political moral that will appeal to Germans who believe that
+Alsatia, once German in heart as well as in tongue, ought to be held by
+force to the Fatherland till she forgets her beloved France."--_N. Y.
+Times._
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =ASPASIA.=-A Romance, by =Robert Hamerling=, from the German by Mary J.
+     Safford, in two vols. Paper, $1.00. Cloth, $1.75.
+
+"We have read his work conscientiously, and, we confess, with profit.
+Never have we had so clear an insight into the manners, thoughts, and
+feelings of the ancient Greeks. No study has made us so familiar with
+the age of Pericles. We recognize throughout that the author is master
+of the period of which he treats. Moreover, looking back upon the work
+from the end to the beginning, we clearly perceive in it a complete
+unity of purpose not at all evident during the reading."
+
+"Hamerling's Aspasia, herself the most beautiful woman in all Hellas, is
+the apostle of beauty and of joyousness, the implacable enemy of all
+that is stern and harsh in life. Unfortunately, morality is stern, and
+had no place among Aspasia's doctrines. This ugly fact, Landor has
+thrust as far into the background as possible. Hamerling obtrudes it. He
+does not moralize, he neither condemns nor praises; but like a fate,
+silent, passionless, and resistless, he carries the story along, allows
+the sunshine for a time to silver the turbid stream, the butterflies and
+gnats to flutter above it in rainbow tints, and then remorselessly draws
+over the landscape gray twilight. He but follows the course of history;
+yet the absolute pitilessness with which he does it is almost
+terrible."--_Extracts from Review in Yale Literary Magazine._
+
+"No more beautiful chapter can be found in any book of this age than
+that in which Pericles and Aspasia are described as visiting the poet
+Sophocles in the garden on the bank of the Cephissus."--_Utica Morning
+Herald._
+
+"It is one of the great excellencies of this romance, this lofty song of
+the genius of the Greeks, that it is composed with perfect artistic
+symmetry in the treatment of the different parts, and from the first
+word to the last is thoroughly harmonious in tone and coloring.
+Therefore, in 'Aspasia,' we are given a book, which could only proceed
+from the union of an artistic nature and a thoughtful mind--a book that
+does not depict fiery passions in dramatic conflict, but with dignified
+composure, leads the conflict therein described to the final
+catastrophe."--_Allgemeine Zeitung._ (Augsburg).
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =ELIZABETH=; OR THE EXILES OF SIBERIA.--From the French of =Mme.
+     Sophie Cottin=, one vol. Paper, 25 cents. Cloth, 50 cents.
+
+"A new edition of the English translation of that famous old story
+'Elizabeth; or the Exiles of Siberia,' which used to be the standard
+French reader in private schools, where many a tender-hearted
+school-girl cried not only over the hard task of rendering the difficult
+French phrases into her own tongue, but also over the misfortunes of
+this generous-souled heroine. There are few French tales so full of deep
+pure feeling as this, by Mme. Sophie Cottin (born 1773, died 1807), and
+although it seems almost too well known to create a fresh sensation, it
+will always be one of the few books that mothers can safely place into
+the hands of their young daughters, knowing at the time that the perusal
+of them will not only amuse but waken tender and generous feelings in
+the young heart, that perhaps needed a story like this to make them
+spring into life."--_Albany Times._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =ELIANE.=--A Novel, by =Mme. Augustus Craven=, from the French by Lady
+     Georgiana Fullerton, in one vol. Paper, 50 cents. Cloth, 90 cents.
+
+"It is not only pure, but is, we believe, a trustworthy description of
+the dignified French life of which it is a picture. 'Eliane' is one of
+the very best novels we have read for one or two seasons past"--_The
+American Literary Churchman, Baltimore._
+
+"'Eliane' is interesting not only because it is such a record of the
+best kind of French life and manners as could only have been written by
+a person thoroughly at home in the subject, but also because of the
+delicate drawing of character which it contains."--_London Sat. Review._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =RANTHORPE.=--A Novel, by =George Henry Lewes=, in one vol. Paper, 40
+     cents. Cloth, 75 cents.
+
+"There is a good deal of wisdom in it that is not without its
+use."--_Popular Science Monthly._
+
+"'Ranthorpe' is a reprint of a novel written in 1842, by George Henry
+Lewes, the well-known husband of George Eliot. It belongs to the
+psychological class, and is keenly introspective throughout. The style
+is well adapted to the work, displaying the versatility of a mind whose
+natural bent was towards metaphysics and the exact sciences."--_Montreal
+Star._
+
+_William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                              GEORG EBERS'
+
+                         ROMANCES & BIOGRAPHIES
+
+                              COMPRISING:
+
+                        _AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS_,
+                              TWO VOLUMES
+
+                        _THE BRIDE OF THE NILE_,
+                              TWO VOLUMES
+
+                       _THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+                               _SERAPIS_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+                             _THE EMPEROR_,
+                              TWO VOLUMES
+
+                                _UARDA_,
+                              TWO VOLUMES
+
+                              _HOMO SUM_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+                             _THE SISTERS_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+                             _A QUESTION_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+                         _A WORD, ONLY A WORD_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+                         _LORENZ ALMA-TADEMA_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+                           _RICHARD LEPSIUS_,
+                               ONE VOLUME
+
+
+  ROMANCES, 14 volumes, cloth, in case,                   $11.00
+      "     and BIOGRAPHIES, 16 volumes, cloth, in case,   13.00
+      "      "       "        " half calf extra, in case,  32.00
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] Peasants attached to the household, and not to the soil.
+
+[B] Russian cart, consisting of a flat frame-work of bark, between four
+wheels.
+
+[C] This expression, peculiar to Russia, corresponds to what in
+Catholic countries is called: Making a preparatory retreat.
+
+[D] In the Greek Church the staroste acts as church-warden, collector
+of alms, _etc._
+
+[E] Screen, upon which are the images.
+
+[F] Strong Russian phrase, to express great poverty.
+
+[G] Justice of the peace, of the district.
+
+[H] Diminutive of Nicolas.
+
+[I] Yvan.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber:
+
+tête-à-tête=> tête-à-tete {pg 104}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Katia, by Leo Tolstoy
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44266 ***
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-Title: Katia
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-Author: Leo Tolstoy
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-Release Date: November 23, 2013 [EBook #44266]
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KATIA ***
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