Vera thought that she had more experience also, but she merely said,
"Take me away from here. There is no Vera any longer. I want to be your
Marfinka. Take me away from this old house over there to you."
The two heads rested side by side on the pillow. They lay in a close
embrace and fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXX
Vera rose the next morning pale and exhausted, but without any fever.
She had wept out her malady on her grandmother's breast. The doctor
professed himself satisfied, and said she should stay in her room for a
few days. Everything in the house went on as before. There were no
festivities in honour of Vera's name day, as she had expressed a wish
that there should be none. Neither Marfinka nor the Vikentevs came; a
messenger was sent to Kolchino with the announcement that Vera
Vassilievna was unwell and was keeping her room. Tushin sent his
congratulations in a respectful note, asking for permission to come and
see her. Her reply was that he should wait a little until she was better.
Under the pretext of Vera's illness, callers who came from the town to
present their congratulations were not admitted. Only the servants
celebrated the occasion in their own way; the maids appeared in their
gay dresses, and the coachmen and the lackeys got drunk.
Vera and her aunt developed a new relationship. Tatiana Markovna's
consideration for Vera was by no means assumed, but her kindness did not
make Vera's heart lighter. What she had expected and wished was severe
judgment, a penance, perhaps exile for half a year or a year to Tatiana
Markovna's distant estate, where she would gradually win back her peace
of mind or at any rate forget, if it was true, as Raisky said, that time
extinguishes all impressions. "I see," thought Vera, "that Grandmother
suffers inexpressibly. Grief has changed her altogether; her figure is
bowed and her face more deeply furrowed. Perhaps she is only sparing me
now because her heart has opened itself to pity. She cannot bear to
punish me, now that I am ill and repentant." Vera had lost her pride,
her self-respect and her dignity, and if once these flowers are taken
out of the crown which adorns the head of man, his doom is at hand. She
tried to pray and could not, for she had nothing to pray for, and could
only bow her head in humility.
Raisky came into much closer relation with his aunt and Vera. His
naturalness and genuine affection, the friendly intimacy of his
conversation, his straightforwardness, his talkative humour, and the
gleaming play of his fancy were a distraction and a consolation to both
of them. He often drew a laugh from them, but he tried in vain to
distract them from the grief which hung like a cloud over them both and
over the whole house. He himself was sad when he saw that neither his
esteem nor Tatiana Markovna's kindness could give back to poor Vera her
courage, her pride, her confidence and her strength of will.
Tatiana Markovna spent the nights in the old house on the divan opposite
Vera's bed and watched her sleep. But it nearly always happened that
they were both observing one another, so that neither of them found
refreshing sleep. On the morning after a sleepless night of this kind,
Tatiana Markovna sent for Tiet Nikonich. He came gladly, plainly
delighted that the illness which threatened Vera Vassilievna had blown
over, and bringing with him a water melon of extraordinary size and a
pineapple for a present. But a glance at his old friend was enough to
make him change colour. Tatiana Markovna hastily put on her fur-trimmed
cloak, threw a scarf over her head, and signed to him to follow her as
she led the way into the garden. They sat for two hours on Vera's bench.
Then she went back to the house with bowed head, while he drove home,
overcome with grief, ordered his servants to pack, sent for post horses,
and drove to his estate, to which he had not been for many years.
Raisky, who had gone to see him, heard the news with astonishment. He
questioned his aunt, who told him that some disturbance had broken out
on Tiet Nikonich's estate. Vera was sadder than ever. Lines began to
appear on her forehead, which would one day become furrows. Sometimes
she would approach the table on which the unopened blue letter lay and
then turn away. Where should she flee, where conceal herself from the
world? When night fell, she lay down, put out the light, and stared
wide-eyed in front of her. She wanted to forget, to sleep, but sleep
would not come. Dark spots, blacker than night, danced before her eyes,
shadows moved up and down with a wave-like motion in the glimmer of
light that lay around the window. But she felt no fear, she would not
have died of terror if there had risen suddenly out of the corner a
ghost, a thief or a murderer; she would not have felt any fear if she
had been told that her last hour was come. She looked out unceasingly
into the darkness, at the waving shadows, at the flitting specks which
stood out the more clearly in the blackness of the night, at the rings
of changing colour which whirled shimmering round her.
Slowly and quietly the door opened. Vera propped herself on her elbow
and saw a hand carrying a lamp carefully shaded. Tatiana Markovna
dropped her cloak from her shoulder on to a chair and approached the bed,
looking not unlike a ghost in her white dressing-gown. Vera had laid her
head back on the pillow and pretended to sleep. Tatiana Markovna put the
lamp on the table behind the bed-head, and sat down carefully and
quietly on the divan with her head leaning on her hand. She did not take
her eyes from Vera, and when Vera opened her own an hour later Tatiana
Markovna was still looking fixedly at her. "Can't you sleep, Vera?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Why do you punish me in the night too, Grandmother?" asked Vera in a
low tone. The two women looked at one another and both seemed to
understand the speech in their eyes. "You are killing me with sympathy,
Grandmother," Vera went on. "It would be better to drive me from your
sight. But it is very hard for me to bear when you measure out your
scorn drop by drop. Either forgive me or, if that is impossible, bury me
alive. Why are you silent? What is in your mind? Your silence tortures
me; it seems to say something, and yet never says it."
"It is so hard, Vera, to speak. Pray, and understand your Grandmother
even when she is silent."
"I have tried to pray, and cannot. What have I to pray for, except that
I should die the sooner. I shall die I know; only let it come quickly,
for like this it is impossible to live."
"It is possible," said Tatiana Markovna, drawing a deep sigh.
"After ... that?"
"After _that_," replied her grandmother.
"You don't know, Grandmother," said Vera with a hopeless sigh. "You have
not been a woman like me."
Tatiana Markovna stooped down to Vera, and whispered in a hardy audible
voice, "A woman like you."
Vera looked at her in amazement, then let her head fall back on the
pillow and said wearily, "You were never in my position. You are a
saint."
"A sinner," rejoined Tatiana Markovna.
"We are all sinners, but not a sinner of that kind."
"Of that kind."
Vera seized Tatiana Markovna's dress with both hands, and pressed her
face to hers. The words that came from her troubled breast sounded like
hisses. "Why do you slander yourself? Is it in order to calm and help me?
Grandmother, do not lie!"
"I never lie and you know it, and how should I begin to do so now. I am
a sinner, and myself need forgiveness," she said, throwing herself on
her knees and bowing her grey head.
"Why do you say these things to me?" said Vera, staring at the kneeling
woman, and pressing her head to her breast. "Take your words back again.
I have not heard them or will forget them; will regard them as the
product of a dream. Do not torture yourself for my sake. Rise,
Grandmother." Tatiana Markovna lay on her breast, sobbing like a child.
"Why did you tell me this?" said Vera.
"It was God's wish that I should humble myself to ask you, my child, for
forgiveness. If you grant me your forgiveness, Vera, I, too, can forgive
you. I had hoped to keep my secret until I died, and now my sin has
plunged you into ruin."
"You rescue me, Grandmother, from despair."
"And myself, Vera. God forgives, but he demands cleansing. I thought my
sin was forgotten and forgiven. Because of my silence I seemed to men to
be virtuous, but my virtue was a lie. God has punished my sin. Forgive
me from your heart."
"Does one forgive one's Mother? You are a saint, a Mother without a peer
in the whole wide world. If I had known you, as you really are, how
could I have acted contrary to your will?"
"That is my second terrible sin. I was silent, and did not tell you to
beware of the precipice. Your dead Mother will call me to account for my
failure, I know. She comes to me in my dreams, and is now here between
us. Do you also forgive me, Departed One," she cried wildly, stretching
out her arms in supplication.
Vera shuddered.
"Forgive me, Vera. I ask forgiveness of you both. We will pray."
Vera tried to raise her to her feet, and Tatiana Markovna raised herself
with difficulty, and sat down on the divan.
Vera bathed her temples with eau de Cologne, and gave her a sedative;
then she kneeled down before her and covered her hand with kisses.
"What is hidden must be revealed," began Tatiana Markovna, when she had
recovered a little. "For forty-five years only two human beings beside
myself have known it, _he_ and Vassilissa, and I thought the secret
would die with me. And now it is made public. My God!" she cried, wildly,
stretching her folded arms to the picture of the Christ. "Had I known
that this stroke would ever fall on another, on _my_ child, I would
have confessed my sin there and then to the all world in the Cathedral
square."
Vera still hesitated to believe what she heard. Was it a heroic measure,
a generous invention to rescue and restore her own self-respect? But her
aunt's prayers, her tears, her appeal to Vera's dead mother, no actress
would have dared to use such devices, and her aunt was the soul of truth
and honour.
Warm life pulsed in Vera's heart, and her heart was lightened. She felt
as if life was streaming through her veins after an evil dream. Peace
tapped at the door of her soul, the dark forsaken temple, which was now
gaily lighted once more and a home of prayer. She felt that Tatiana
Markovna and she were inseparable sisters, and she even began
involuntarily to address her as "thou," as she had done Raisky when her
heart responded to his kindness. As these thoughts whirled in her head,
she had a sensation of lightness and freedom, like a prisoner whose
fetters have been removed.
"Grandmother," she said, rising, "you have forgiven me, and you love me
more than you do any of the others, more than Marfinka, that I realise.
But do you know and understand my love for you? I should not have
suffered as I did, but for my love for you. How long we have been
strangers!"
"I will tell you all, Vera, and you must hear my confession. Judge me
severely, but pardon me, and God will pardon us both."
"I will not, I ought not, I may not," cried Vera. "To what end should I
hear it?"
"So that I may suffer once more, as I suffered five-and-forty years ago.
You know my sin, and Boris shall know it. He may laugh at the grey hairs
of old Kunigunde."
As she strode up and down, shaking her head in her fanatical seriousness,
with sorrow and triumphant dignity in her face, her resemblance to the
old family portrait in the gallery was very marked.
Beside her Vera felt like a small and pitiful child as she gazed timidly
into her aunt's eyes; she measured her own young strength by the
strength of this old woman who had ripened and remained unbroken in the
long struggle of life.
"My whole life can never repay what you have done for me, Grandmother.
Let this be the end of your penance, and tell me no more. If you are
determined that Boris shall know, I will whisper a word about your past
to him. Since I have seen your anguish, why should you suffer a longer
martyrdom? I will not listen. It is not my place to sit in judgment on
you. Let me hold your grey hairs sacred."
Tatiana Markovna sighed, and embraced Vera.
"As you will. Your will is like God's forgiveness to me, and I am
grateful to you for sparing my grey hairs."
"Now," said Vera, "let us go across to your house, where we can both
rest."
Tatiana Markovna almost carried her across to the new house, laid her on
her own bed, and lay down beside her.
When Vera had fallen peacefully asleep, her aunt rose cautiously, and,
in the light of the lamp, watched the marble beauty of her forehead, her
closed eyes, all sculptured pure and delicate as if by a master hand,
and at the expression of deep peace that lay on her face. She made the
sign of the cross over Vera as she slept, touched her forehead with her
lips, and sank on her knees in prayer.
"Have mercy on her!" she breathed. "If Thy anger is not yet appeased,
turn it from her and strike my grey head."
Presently she lay down beside Vera, with her arm around her neck. Vera
woke occasionally, opened her eyes, and closed them again. She pressed
closer and closer to Tatiana Markovna as if no harm could befall her
within the circle of those faithful arms.
CHAPTER XXXI
As the days went by Malinovka assumed its wonted calm. The quiet life
which had been brought to a pause by the catastrophe, flowed evenly on.
The peaceful atmosphere was not undisturbed by anxiety. Autumn had laid
her hand on men as well as on nature. The household was thoughtful,
silent, and cold; smiles, laughter, and joy had vanished like the
falling leaves, and even though the worst crisis was passed, it had left
behind it an atmosphere of gloom.
Tatiana Markovna ruled her little kingdom once more. Vera was busily
engaged in the house, and devoted much care and taste to the choice of
Marfinka's trousseau. She had determined not to avoid any task, however
simple and trivial it might be, while she awaited the opportunity of
some serious work that life might offer her; she recognised that with
most people avoidance of the trivial and the hope of something
extraordinary and unprecedented were dictated either by idleness and
incompetence, or by morbid self-love and vanity.
She was paler than before, her eyes were less sparkling, and she had
lost some of her vivacity of gesture; but these changes were put down by
everyone to her narrow escape from nervous fever.
In fulfilment of Tatiana Markovna's insistently expressed wish, Vera had
spoken to Raisky of their aunt's passion, of which Tiet Nikonich had
been the object, but she said nothing of the sin. Even this partial
confidence explained to Raisky the riddle, how Tatiana Markovna, who in
his eyes was an old maid, could find the strength, not only to bear the
brunt of Vera's misfortune, but to soothe her, and to rescue her from
moral collapse and despair.
He showed in his intercourse with her, more clearly than before, a deep
and affectionate esteem, and an unbounded devotion. He now no longer
contradicted her, so that an end was put to the earlier semi-comic
warfare he had waged against her; even in his gestures there was a
certain reserve. She inspired him with the astonishment and admiration
which are called forth by women of exceptional moral strength.
The servants, too, were different, even though the cloud had passed.
There was no sound of quarrelling, abuse or laughter. Vassilissa found
herself in an exceptionally difficult position, since, now that her
mistress was restored to health, she was called on to fulfil her vow.
One morning Yakob vanished from the yard. He had taken money from the
box where the cash was kept for buying the oil for the lamps kept
burning in front of the ikons, which were in his charge, and had bought
the promised candle, which he set up before the sacred picture in the
village church at early Mass. As there was a small surplus he crossed
himself piously, then betook himself to the poorer quarter of the town,
where he spent his riches, and then reeled home again on his unsteady
legs, displaying a slight redness on his nose and his cheeks. Tatiana
Markovna happened to meet him. She immediately smelt the brandy, and
asked in surprise what he had been doing. He replied that he had been to
church, bowed his head devoutly, and folded his arms on his breast.
He explained to Vassilissa that he had done his duty in fulfilling his
vow. She looked at him in perturbation, for in her anxieties about her
mistress and in the preparations for the wedding she had not thought of
her own vow. Here was Yakob who had fulfilled his and was going about
with a pious jubilant air, and reminding her of her promised pilgrimage
to Kiev.
"I don't feel strong enough," she complained. "I have hardly any bones
in me, only flesh. Lord, have mercy on me!"
For thirty years she had been steadily putting on flesh; she lived on
coffee, tea, bread, potatoes and gherkins, and often fish, even at those
times of the year when meat was permitted. In her distress she went to
Father Vassili, to ask him to set her doubts at rest. She had heard that
kind priests were willing to release people from their vows or to allow
substituted vows, where weakness of body hindered the performance of the
original.
"As you agreed to go, you must go," said Father Vassili.
"I agreed because I was frightened, Little Father. I thought that
Mistress would die, but she was well again in three days; why then
should I make the long journey?"
"Yes, there is no short road to Kiev. If you had no inclination to go
you should not have registered the vow."
"The inclination is there, but strength fails me. I suffer from want of
breath even when I go to church. I am already in my seventh decade,
Father. It would be different if Mistress had been three months in bed,
if she had received the sacraments and the last unction, and then had
been restored to health by God in answer to my prayer; then I would have
gone to Kiev on my hands and knees."
"Well, what is to be done?" asked Father Vassili, smiling.
"Now I should like to promise something different. I will lay a fast on
myself, never to eat another bit of meat until I die."
"Do you like meat?"
"I can't bear the sight of it, and have weaned myself from eating it."
"A difficult vow," said Father Vassili with another smile, "must be
replaced by something as difficult or more difficult, but you have
chosen the easiest. Isn't there anything that it would be hard for you
to carry out? Think again!"
Vassilissa thought, and said there was nothing.
"Very well then, you must go to Kiev."
"I would gladly go, if I were not so stout."
"How can your vow be eased?" said Father Vassili, thinking aloud. "What
do you live on?"
"On tea, coffee, mushroom soup, potatoes...."
"Do you like coffee?"
"Yes, Little Father."
"Abstain from coffee."
"That is nearly as bad," she sighed, "as going to Kiev. What am I to
live on?"
"On meat."
It seemed to her that he was laughing, and indeed he did laugh when he
saw her face.
"You don't like it," he said. "But make the sacrifice."
"What good does it do me, and to eat meat is not fasting, Father."
"Eat it on the days when it may be eaten. The good it will do is that
you will lay on less fat. In six months you are absolved of your vow."
She went away in some distress, and began to execute the priest's
instructions the next day, turning her nose sadly away from the steaming
coffee that she brought her mistress in the morning.
In about ten days Marfinka returned in company with her fiance and his
mother. Vikentev and she brought their laughter, their gaiety and their
merry talk into the quiet house. But within a couple of hours after
their arrival they had become quiet and timid, for their gaiety had
aroused a melancholy echo, as in an empty house. A mist lay on
everything. Even the birds had ceased to fly to the spot where Marfinka
fed them; swallows, starlings and all the feathered inhabitants of the
park were gone, and not a stork was to be seen flying over the Volga.
The gardener had thrown away the withered flowers; the space in front of
the house, usually radiant and sweet with flowers, now showed black
rings of newly-dug earth framed in yellowish grass. The branches of some
of the trees had been enveloped in bast, and the trees in the park
became barer with every day. The Volga grew darker and darker, as if the
river were preparing for its icy winter sleep.
Nature does not create, but it does emphasise human melancholy. Marfinka
asked herself what had happened to everybody in the house, as she looked
doubtfully round her. Even her own pretty little room did not look so
gay; it was as if Vera's nervous silence had invaded it.
Her eyes filled with tears. Why was everything so different? Why had
Veroshka come over from the other house, and why did she walk no more in
the field or in the thicket? Where was Tiet Nikonich?
They all looked worried, and hardly spoke to one another; they did not
even tease Marfinka and her fiance. Vera and grandmother were silent.
What had happened to the whole house? It was the first trouble that
Marfinka had encountered in her happy life, and she fell in
unconsciously with the serious, dull tone that obtained in Malinovka.
Silence, reserve and melancholy were equally foreign to Vikentev's
nature. He urged his mother to persuade Tatiana Markovna to allow
Marfinka to go back with them to Kolchino until the wedding at the end
of October. To his surprise permission was given easily and quickly, and
the young people flew like swallows from autumn to the warmth, light,
and brightness of their future home.
Raisky drove over to fetch Tiet Nikonich. He was haggard and yellow, and
hardly stirred from his place, and he only gradually recovered, like a
child whose toys have been restored to him, when he saw Tatiana Markovna
in her usual surroundings and found himself in the middle of the picture,
either at table with his serviette tucked in his collar, or in the
window on the stool near her chair, with a cup of tea before him poured
out by her hands.
Another member was added to the family circle at Malinovka, for Raisky
brought Koslov to dinner one day, to receive the heartiest of welcomes.
Tatiana Markovna had the tact not to let the poor forsaken man see that
she was aware of his trouble. She greeted him with a jest.
"Why have you not been near us for so long, Leonti Ivanovich? Borushka
says that I don't know how to entertain you, and that you don't like my
table. Did you tell him so?"
"How should I not like it? When did I say such a thing?" he asked Raisky
severely. "You are joking!" he went on, as everybody laughed, and he
himself had to smile.
He had had time to find his own bearings, and had begun to realise the
necessity of hiding his grief from others.
"Yes, it is a long time since I was here. My wife has gone to Moscow to
visit her relations, so that I could not...."
"You ought to have come straight to us," observed Tatiana Markovna,
"when it was so dull by yourself at home."
"I expect her, and am always afraid she may come when I am not at home."
"You would soon hear of her arrival, and she must pass our house. From
the windows of the old house we can see who comes along the road, and we
will stop her."
"It is true that the road to Moscow can be seen from there," said Koslov,
looking quickly, and almost happily, at his hostess.
"Come and stay with us," she said.
"I simply will not let you go to-day," said Raisky. "I am bored by
myself, and we will move over into the old house. After Marfinka's
wedding I am going away, and you will be Grandmother's and Vera's first
minister, friend and protector."
"Thank you. If I am not in the way...."
"How can you talk like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"Forgive me, Tatiana Markovna."
"Better eat your dinner; the soup is getting cold."
"I am hungry too," he said suddenly, seizing his spoon. He ate his soup
silently, looking round him as if he were seeking the road to Moscow,
and he preserved the same demeanour all through the meal.
"It is so quiet here," he said after dinner, as he looked out of the
window. "There is still some green left, and the air is so fresh. Listen,
Boris Pavlovich, I should like to bring the library here."
"As you like. To-morrow, as far as I am concerned. It is your possession
to do as you please with."
"What should I do with it now? I will have it brought over, so that I
can take care of it; else in the end that man Mark will...."
Raisky strode about the room, Vera's eyes were fixed on her needlework,
and Tatiana Markovna went to the window. Shortly after this Raisky took
Leonti to the old house, to show him the room that Tatiana Markovna had
arranged for him. Leonti went from one window to another to see which of
them commanded a view of the Moscow road.
CHAPTER XXXII
On a misty autumn day, as Vera sat at work in her room, Yakob brought
her a letter written on blue paper, which had been brought by a lad who
had instructions to wait for an answer. When she had recovered from the
first shock at the sight of the letter, she took it, laid it on the
table, and dismissed Yakob. She tried to go on with her work but her
hands fell helplessly on her lap.
"When will there be an end of this torture?" she whispered, nervously.
Then she took from her bureau the earlier unopened blue letter, laid it
by the side of the other, and covered her face with her hands. What
answer could he expect from her, she asked herself, when they had parted
for ever? Surely he dare not call her once more. If so, an answer must
be given, for the messenger was waiting. She opened the letters and read
the earlier one:--
"Are we really not to meet again, Vera? That would be incredible. A few
days ago there would have been reason in our separation, now it is a
useless sacrifice, hard for both of us. We have striven obstinately with
one another for a whole year for the prize of happiness; and now that
the goal is attained you run away. Yet it is you who spoke of an eternal
love. Is that logical?"
"Logical!" she repeated, but she collected her courage and read on.
"I am now permitted to choose another place of residence. But now I
cannot leave you, for it would be dishonourable. You cannot think that I
am proud of my victory, and that it is easy for me to go away. I cannot
allow you to harbour such an idea. I cannot leave you, because you love
me."
Once more she interrupted her reading, but resumed it with an effort--
"And because my whole being is in a fever. Let us be happy, Vera. Be
convinced that our conflict, our quarrelling was nothing but the mask of
passion. The mask has fallen, and we have no other ground of dispute. In
reality we have long been one. You ask for a love which shall be eternal;
many desire that, but it is an impossibility."
She stopped her reading to tell herself with a pitying smile that his
conception of love was of a perpetual fever.
"My mistake was in openly asserting this truth, which life itself would
have revealed in due course. From this time onwards, I will not assail
your convictions, for it is not they, but passion, which is the
essential factor in our situation. Let us enjoy our happiness in silence.
I hope that you will agree to this logical solution."
Vera smiled bitterly as she continued to read.
"They would hardly allow you to go away with me, and indeed that is
hardly possible. Nothing but a wild passion could lead you to do such a
thing, and I do not expect it. Other convictions, indifferent to me,
would be needed to impel you to this course; you would be faced with a
future which fulfils neither your own wishes nor the demands of your
relations, for mine is an uncertain existence, without home, hearth or
possessions. But if you think you can persuade your Grandmother, we will
be betrothed, and I will remain here until--for an indefinite time. A
separation now would be like a bad comedy, in which the unprofitable
role is yours, at which Raisky, when he hears of it, will be the first
to laugh. I warn you again now, as I did before. Send your reply to the
address of my landlady, Sekletaia Burdalakov."
In spite of her exhaustion after reading this epistle Vera took up the
one which Yakob had just brought. It was hastily written in pencil.
"Every day I have been wandering about by the precipice, hoping to see
you in answer to my earlier letter. I have only just heard by chance of
your indisposition. Come, Vera. If you are ill, write two words, and I
will come myself to the old house. If I receive no answer to-day, I will
expect you to-morrow at five o'clock in the arbour. I must know quickly
whether I should go or stay. But I do not think we shall part. In any
case, I expect either you or an answer. If you are ill, I will make my
way into your house."
Terrified by his threat of coming, she seized pen and paper, but her
hands trembled too much to allow her to write.
"I cannot," she exclaimed. "I have no strength, I am stifled! How shall
I begin, and what can I write? I have forgotten how I used to write to
him, to speak to him."
She sent for Yakob, and told him to dismiss the messenger and to say
that an answer would follow later. She wondered as she walked slowly
back to her room, when she would find strength that day to write to him;
what she should say. She could only repeat that she could not, and would
not, and to-morrow she told herself, he would wait for her in the arbour,
he would be wild with disappointment, and if he repeats his signals with
the rifle he will come into conflict with the servants, and eventually
with grandmother herself. She tried to write, but threw the pen aside;
then she thought she would go to him herself, tell him all she had to
say, and then leave him. As once before her hands sought in vain her
mantilla, her scarf, and without knowing what she did, she sank
helplessly down on the divan.
If she told her grandmother the necessary steps would be taken, but
otherwise the letters would begin again. Or should she send her cousin,
who was after all her natural and nearest friend and protector, to
convince Mark that there was no hope for him? But she considered that he
also was in the toils of passion, and that it would be hard for him to
execute the mission, that he might be involved in a heated dispute,
which might develop into a dangerous situation. She turned to Tushin,
whom she could trust to accomplish the errand effectively without
blundering. But it seemed impossible to set Tushin face to face with the
rival who had robbed him of his desires. Yet she saw no alternative. No
delay was possible; to-morrow would bring another letter, and then,
failing an answer, Mark himself.
After brief consideration, she wrote a note to Tushin, and this time the
same pen covered easily and quickly the same paper that had been so
impracticable half an hour before. She asked him to come and see her the
next morning.
Until now Vera had been accustomed to guard her own secrets, and to
exercise an undivided rule in the world of her thoughts. If she had
given her confidence to the priest's wife, it was out of charity. She
had confided to her the calendar of her everyday life, its events, its
emotions and impressions; she had told her of her secret meetings with
Mark, but concealed from her the catastrophe, telling her simply that
all was over between them. As the priest's wife was ignorant of the
denouement of the story at the foot of the precipice, she put down
Vera's illness to grief at their parting.
Vera loved Marfinka as she loved Natalie Ivanovna, not as a comrade, but
as a child. In more peaceful times she would again confide the details
of her life to Natalie Ivanovna as before; but in a crisis she went to
Tatiana Markovna, sent for Tushin, or sought help from her cousin Boris.
Now she put the letters in her pocket, found her aunt, and sat down
beside her.
"What has happened, Vera? You are upset."
"Not upset, but worried. I have received letters, from _there_."
"From _there_!" repeated Tatiana Markovna, turning pale.
"The first was written some time ago, but I have only just opened it,
and the second was brought to me to-day," she said, laying them both on
the table.
"You want me to know what is in them?"
"Read them, Grandmother."
Tatiana Markovna put on her glasses, and tried to read them, but she
found that she could not decipher them, and eventually Vera had to read
them. She read in a whisper, suppressing a phrase here and there; then
she crumpled them up and put them back in her pocket.
"What do you think, Veroshka?" asked Tatiana Markovna, uncertainly. "He
is willing to be betrothed and to remain here. Perhaps if he is prepared
to live like other people, if he loves you, and if you think you could
be happy--"
"He calls betrothal a comedy, and yet suggests it. He thinks that only
that is needed to make me happy. Grandmother, you know my frame of mind;
so why do you ask me?"
"You came to me to ask me what you should decide," began Tatiana
Markovna with some hesitation, as she did not yet understand why Vera
had read her the letters. She was incensed at Mark's audacity, and
feared that Vera herself might be seized with a return of her passion.
For these reasons she concealed her anxiety.
"It was not for that that I came to you, Grandmother. You know that my
mind has long been made up. I will have no more to do with him. And if I
am to breathe freely again, and to hope to be able to live once more, it
is under the condition that I hear nothing of him, that I can forget
everything. He reminds me of what has happened, calls me down there,
seeks to allure me with talk of happiness, will marry me.... Gracious
Heaven! Understand, Grandmother," she went on, as Tatiana Markovna's
anxiety could no longer be concealed, "that if by a miracle he now
became the man I hoped he would be, if he now were to believe all that I
believe, and loved me as I desired to love him, even if all this
happened I would not turn aside from my path at his call." No song could
have been sweeter to the ears of Tatiana Markovna. "I should not be
happy with him," Vera continued. "I could never forget what he had been,
or believe in the new Mark. I have endured more than enough to kill any
passion. There is nothing left in my heart but a cold emptiness, and but
for you, Grandmother, I should despair."
She wept convulsively, her head pressed against her aunt's shoulder.
"Do not recall your sufferings, Veroshka, and do not distress yourself
unnecessarily. We agreed never to speak of it again."
"But for the letters I should not have spoken, for I need peace. Take me
away, Grandmother, hide me, or I shall die. He calls me--to that place."
Tatiana Markovna rose and drew Vera into the armchair, while she drew
herself to her full height.
"If that is so," she said, "if he thinks he can continue to annoy you,
he will have to reckon with me. I will shield and protect you. Console
yourself, child, you will hear no more of him."
"What will you do?" she asked in amazement, springing from her chair.
"He summons you. Well, I will go to the rendezvous in your place, and we
will see if he calls you any more, or comes here, or writes to you." She
strode up and down the room trembling with anger. "At what time does he
go to the arbour to-morrow. At five, I think?" she asked sharply.
"Grandmother, you don't understand," said Vera gently, taking her hand.
"Calm yourself. I make no accusation against him. Never forget that I
alone am guilty. He does not know what has happened to me during these
days, and therefore he writes. Now it is necessary to explain to him how
ill and spiritless I am, and you want to fight. I don't wish that. I
would have written to him, but could not; and I have not the strength to
see him. I would have asked Ivan Ivanovich, but you know how he cares
for me and what hopes he cherishes. To bring him into contact with a man
who has destroyed those hopes is impossible."
"Impossible," agreed Tatiana Markovna. "God knows what might happen
between them. You have a near relation, who knows all and loves you like
a sister, Borushka."
"If that were how he loved me," thought Vera. She did not mean to reveal
Raisky's passion for her, which remained her secret.
"Perhaps I will ask my cousin," she said. "Or I will collect my strength,
and answer the letter myself, so as to make him understand my position
and renounce all hope. But in the mean time, I must let him know so that
he does not come to the arbour to wait in vain for me."
"I will do that," struck in Tatiana Markovna.
"But you will not go yourself?" asked Vera, looking direct into her eyes.
"Remember that I make no complaint against him, and wish him no evil."
"Nor do I," returned her aunt, looking away. "You may be assured I will
not go myself, but I will arrange it so that he does not await you in
the arbour."
"Forgive me, Grandmother, for this fresh disturbance."
Tatiana Markovna sighed, and kissed her niece. Vera left the room in a
calmer frame of mind, wondering what means her aunt proposed to take to
prevent Mark from coming next day to the arbour.
Next day at noon Vera heard horse's hoofs at the gate. When she looked
out of the window her eyes shone with pleasure for a moment, as she saw
Tushin ride into the courtyard. She went to meet him.
"I saw you from the window," she said, adding, as she looked at him,
"Are you well?"
"What else should I be?" he answered with embarrassment, turning his
head away so that she should not notice the signs of suffering on his
face. "And you?"
"I fell ill, and my illness might have taken an ill turn, but now it is
over. Where is Grandmother?" she asked, turning to Vassilissa.
"The Mistress went out after tea, and took Savili with her."
Vera invited Tushin to her room, but for the moment both were
embarrassed.
"Have you forgiven me?" asked Vera after a pause, without looking at him.
"Forgiven you?"
"For all you have endured. Ivan Ivanovich, you have changed. I can see
that you carry a heavy heart. Your suffering and Grandmother's is a hard
penance for me. But for you three, Grandmother, you, and Cousin Boris,
I could not survive."
"And yet you say that you give us pain. Look at me; I think I am better
already. If you would only recover your own peace of mind it will all be
over and forgotten."
"I had begun to recover, and to forget. Marfinka's marriage is close at
hand, there was a great deal to do and my attention was distracted, but
yesterday I was violently excited, and am not quite calm now."
"What has happened? Can I serve you, Vera Vassilievna?"
"I cannot accept your service."
"Because you do not think me able...."
"Not that. You know all that has happened; read what I have received,"
she said, taking the letters from a box, and handing them to him.
Tushin read, and turned as pale as he had been when he arrived.
"You are right. In this matter my assistance is superfluous. You alone
can...."
"I cannot, Ivan Ivanovich," she said, while he looked at her
interrogatively. "I can neither write a word to him, nor see him; yet I
must give him an answer. He will wait there in the arbour, or if I leave
him without an answer he will come here, and I can do nothing."
"What kind of answer?" |
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