FIRST LOVE (1860) (continued 2)

And, my God! with what fresh violence did love flame up within me!

XVI

After dinner the visitors were assembled again in the wing, and the young Princess came out to them. The whole company was present, in full force, as on that first evening, never to be forgotten by me: even Nirmátzky had dragged himself thither. Maidánoff had arrived earlier than all the rest; he had brought some new verses. The game of forfeits began again, but this time without the strange sallies, without pranks and uproar; the gipsy element had vanished. Zinaída gave a new mood to our gathering. I sat beside her, as a page should. Among other things, she proposed that the one whose forfeit was drawn should narrate his dream; but this was not a success. The dreams turned out to be either uninteresting (Byelovzóroff had dreamed that he had fed his horse on carp, and that it had a wooden head), or unnatural, fictitious. Maidánoff regaled us with a complete novel; there were sepulchres and angels with harps, and burning lights and sounds wafted from afar. Zinaída did not allow him to finish. “If it is a question of invention,”—said she,—“then let each one relate something which is positively made up.”—Byelovzóroff had to speak first.

The young hussar became confused.—“I cannot invent anything!”—he exclaimed.

“What nonsense!”—interposed Zinaída.—“Come, imagine, for instance, that you are married, and tell us how you would pass the time with your wife. Would you lock her up?”

“I would.”

“And would you sit with her yourself?”

“I certainly would sit with her myself.”

“Very good. Well, and what if that bored her, and she betrayed you?”

“I would kill her.”

“Just so. Well, now supposing that I were your wife, what would you do then?”

Byelovzóroff made no answer for a while.—“I would kill myself....”

Zinaída burst out laughing.—“I see that there’s not much to be got out of you.”

The second forfeit fell to Zinaída’s share. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and meditated.—“See here,”—she began at last,—“this is what I have devised.... Imagine to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer night, and a marvellous ball. This ball is given by the young Queen. Everywhere there are gold, marble, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, the smoke of incense—all the whims of luxury.”

“Do you love luxury?”—interrupted Lúshin.

“Luxury is beautiful,”—she returned;—“I love everything that is beautiful.”

“More than what is fine?”—he asked.

“That is difficult; somehow I don’t understand. Don’t bother me. So then, there is a magnificent ball. There are many guests, they are all young, very handsome, brave; all are desperately in love with the Queen.”

“Are there no women among the guests?”—inquired Malévsky.

“No—or stay—yes, there are.”

“Also very handsome?”

“Charming. But the men are all in love with the Queen. She is tall and slender; she wears a small gold diadem on her black hair.”

I looked at Zinaída—and at that moment she seemed so far above us, her white forehead and her impassive eyebrows exhaled so much clear intelligence and such sovereignty, that I said to myself: “Thou thyself art that Queen!”

“All throng around her,”—pursued Zinaída;—“all lavish the most flattering speeches on her.”

“And is she fond of flattery?”—asked Lúshin.

“How intolerable! He is continually interrupting.... Who does not like flattery?”

“One more final question,”—remarked Malévsky:—“Has the Queen a husband?”

“I have not thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?”

“Of course,”—assented Malévsky;—“why should she have a husband?”

“Silence!”—exclaimed, in English, Maidánoff, who spoke French badly.

“Merci,”—said Zinaída to him.—“So then, the Queen listens to those speeches, listens to the music, but does not look at a single one of the guests. Six windows are open from top to bottom, from ceiling to floor, and behind them are the dark sky with great stars and the dark garden with huge trees. The Queen gazes into the garden. There, near the trees is a fountain: it gleams white athwart the gloom—long, as long as a spectre. The Queen hears the quiet plashing of its waters in the midst of the conversation and the music. She gazes and thinks: ‘All of you gentlemen are noble, clever, wealthy; you are all ready to die at my feet, I rule over you; ... but yonder, by the side of the fountain, by the side of that plashing water, there is standing and waiting for me the man whom I love, who rules over me. He wears no rich garments, nor precious jewels; no one knows him; but he is waiting for me, and is convinced that I shall come—and I shall come, and there is no power in existence which can stop me when I wish to go to him and remain with him and lose myself with him yonder, in the gloom of the park, beneath the rustling of the trees, beneath the plashing of the fountain....’”

Zinaída ceased speaking.

“Is that an invention?”—asked Malévsky slyly.

Zinaída did not even glance at him.

“But what should we do, gentlemen,”—suddenly spoke up Lúshin,—“if we were among the guests and knew about that lucky man by the fountain?”

“Stay, stay,”—interposed Zinaída:—“I myself will tell you what each one of you would do. You, Byelovzóroff, would challenge him to a duel; you, Maidánoff, would write an epigram on him.... But no—you do not know how to write epigrams; you would compose a long iambic poem on him, after the style of Barbier, and would insert your production in the Telegraph. You, Nirmátzky, would borrow from him ... no, you would lend him money on interest; you, doctor....” She paused.... “I really do not know about you,—what you would do.”

“In my capacity of Court-physician,” replied Lúshin, “I would advise the Queen not to give balls when she did not feel in the mood for guests....”

“Perhaps you would be in the right. And you, Count?”

“And I?”—repeated Malévsky, with an evil smile.

“And you would offer him some poisoned sugar-plums.”

Malévsky’s face writhed a little and assumed for a moment a Jewish expression; but he immediately burst into a guffaw.

“As for you, M’sieu Voldemar....” went on Zinaída,—“but enough of this; let us play at some other game.”

“M’sieu Voldemar, in his capacity of page to the Queen, would hold up her train when she ran off into the park,”—remarked Malévsky viciously.

I flared up, but Zinaída swiftly laid her hand on my shoulder and rising, said in a slightly tremulous voice:—“I have never given Your Radiance the right to be insolent, and therefore I beg that you will withdraw.”—She pointed him to the door.

“Have mercy, Princess,”—mumbled Malévsky, turning pale all over.

“The Princess is right,”—exclaimed Byelovzóroff, rising to his feet also.

“By God! I never in the least expected this,”—went on Malévsky:—“I think there was nothing in my words which.... I had no intention of offending you.... Forgive me.”

Zinaída surveyed him with a cold glance, and smiled coldly.—“Remain, if you like,”—she said, with a careless wave of her hand.—“M’sieu Voldemar and I have taken offence without cause. You find it merry to jest.... I wish you well.”

“Forgive me,”—repeated Malévsky once more; and I, recalling Zinaída’s movement, thought again that a real queen could not have ordered an insolent man out of the room with more majesty.

The game of forfeits did not continue long after this little scene; all felt somewhat awkward, not so much in consequence of the scene itself as from another, not entirely defined, but oppressive sensation. No one alluded to it, but each one was conscious of its existence within himself and in his neighbour. Maidánoff recited to us all his poems—and Malévsky lauded them with exaggerated warmth.

“How hard he is trying to appear amiable now,”—Lúshin whispered to me.

We soon dispersed. Zinaída had suddenly grown pensive; the old Princess sent word that she had a headache; Nirmátzky began to complain of his rheumatism....

For a long time I could not get to sleep; Zinaída’s narrative had impressed me.—“Is it possible that it contains a hint?”—I asked myself:—“and at whom was she hinting? And if there really is some one to hint about ... what must I decide to do? No, no, it cannot be,”—I whispered, turning over from one burning cheek to the other.... But I called to mind the expression of Zinaída’s face during her narration.... I called to mind the exclamation which had broken from Lúshin in the Neskútchny Park, the sudden changes in her treatment of me—and lost myself in conjectures. “Who is he?” Those three words seemed to stand in front of my eyes, outlined in the darkness; a low-lying, ominous cloud seemed to be hanging over me—and I felt its pressure—and waited every moment for it to burst. I had grown used to many things of late; I had seen many things at the Zasyékins’; their disorderliness, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, gloomy Vonifáty, the shabby maids, the manners of the old Princess herself,—all that strange life no longer surprised me.... But to that which I now dimly felt in Zinaída I could not get used.... “An adventuress,”—my mother had one day said concerning her. An adventuress—she, my idol, my divinity! That appellation seared me; I tried to escape from it by burrowing into my pillow; I raged—and at the same time, to what would not I have agreed, what would not I have given, if only I might be that happy mortal by the fountain!...

My blood grew hot and seethed within me. “A garden ... a fountain,” ... I thought.... “I will go into the garden.” I dressed myself quickly and slipped out of the house. The night was dark, the trees were barely whispering; a quiet chill was descending from the sky, an odour of fennel was wafted from the vegetable-garden. I made the round of all the alleys; the light sound of my footsteps both disconcerted me and gave me courage; I halted, waiting and listening to hear how my heart was beating quickly and violently. At last I approached the fence and leaned against a slender post. All at once—or was it only my imagination?—a woman’s figure flitted past a few paces distant from me.... I strained my eyes intently on the darkness; I held my breath. What was this? Was it footsteps that I heard or was it the thumping of my heart again?—“Who is here?”—I stammered in barely audible tones. What was that again? A suppressed laugh?... or a rustling in the leaves?... or a sigh close to my very ear? I was terrified.... “Who is here?”—I repeated, in a still lower voice.

The breeze began to flutter for a moment; a fiery band flashed across the sky; a star shot down.—“Is it Zinaída?”—I tried to ask, but the sound died on my lips. And suddenly everything became profoundly silent all around, as often happens in the middle of the night.... Even the katydids ceased to shrill in the trees; only a window rattled somewhere. I stood and stood, then returned to my chamber, to my cold bed. I felt a strange agitation—exactly as though I had gone to a tryst, and had remained alone, and had passed by some one else’s happiness.

XVII

The next day I caught only a glimpse of Zinaída; she drove away somewhere with the old Princess in a hired carriage. On the other hand, I saw Lúshin—who, however, barely deigned to bestow a greeting on me—and Malévsky. The young Count grinned and entered into conversation with me in friendly wise. Among all the visitors to the wing he alone had managed to effect an entrance to our house, and my mother had taken a fancy to him. My father did not favour him and treated him politely to the point of insult.

“Ah, monsieur le page,”—began Malévsky,—“I am very glad to meet you. What is your beauteous queen doing?”

His fresh, handsome face was so repulsive to me at that moment, and he looked at me with such a scornfully-playful stare, that I made him no answer whatsoever.

“Are you still in a bad humour?”—he went on.—“There is no occasion for it. It was not I, you know, who called you a page; and pages are chiefly with queens. But permit me to observe to you that you are fulfilling your duties badly.”

“How so?”

“Pages ought to be inseparable from their sovereigns; pages ought to know everything that they do; they ought even to watch over them,”—he added, lowering his voice,—“day and night.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do I mean? I think I have expressed myself plainly. Day—and night. It does not matter so much about the day; by day it is light and there are people about; but by night—that’s exactly the time to expect a catastrophe. I advise you not to sleep o’nights and to watch, watch with all your might. Remember—in a garden, by night, near the fountain—that’s where you must keep guard. You will thank me for this.”

Malévsky laughed and turned his back on me. He did not, in all probability, attribute any special importance to what he had said to me; he bore the reputation of being a capital hand at mystification, and was renowned for his cleverness in fooling people at the masquerades, in which that almost unconscious disposition to lie, wherewith his whole being was permeated, greatly aided him.... He had merely wished to tease me; but every word of his trickled like poison through all my veins.—The blood flew to my head.

“Ah! so that’s it!”—I said to myself:—“good! So it was not for nothing that I felt drawn to the garden! That shall not be!” I exclaimed, smiting myself on the breast with my fist; although I really did not know what it was that I was determined not to permit.—“Whether Malévsky himself comes into the garden,”—I thought (perhaps he had blurted out a secret; he was insolent enough for that),—“or some one else,”—(the fence of our vegetable-garden was very low and it cost no effort to climb over it)—“at any rate, it will be all the worse for the person whom I catch! I would not advise any one to encounter me! I’ll show the whole world and her, the traitress,”—(I actually called her a traitress)—“that I know how to avenge myself!”

I returned to my own room, took out of my writing-table a recently purchased English knife, felt of the sharp blade, and, knitting my brows, thrust it into my pocket with a cold and concentrated decision, exactly as though it was nothing remarkable for me to do such deeds, and this was not the first occasion. My heart swelled angrily within me and grew stony; I did not unbend my brows until nightfall and did not relax my lips, and kept striding back and forth, clutching the knife which had grown warm in my pocket, and preparing myself in advance for something terrible. These new, unprecedented emotions so engrossed and even cheered me, that I thought very little about Zinaída herself. There kept constantly flitting through my head Aleko, the young gipsy:[6]—“Where art thou going, handsome youth?—Lie down....” and then: “Thou’rt all with blood bespattered!... Oh, what is’t that thou hast done?... Nothing!” With what a harsh smile I repeated that: that “Nothing!”

My father was not at home; but my mother, who for some time past had been in a state of almost constant, dull irritation, noticed my baleful aspect at supper, and said to me:—“What art thou sulking at, like a mouse at groats?”—I merely smiled patronisingly at her by way of reply and thought to myself: “If they only knew!”—The clock struck eleven; I went to my own room but did not undress; I was waiting for midnight; at last it struck.—“’Tis time!”—I hissed between my teeth, and buttoning my coat to the throat and even turning up my sleeves I betook myself to the garden.

I had selected a place beforehand where I meant to stand on guard. At the end of the garden, at the spot where the fence, which separated our property from the Zasyékins’, abutted on the party-wall, grew a solitary spruce-tree. Standing beneath its low, thick branches, I could see well, as far as the nocturnal gloom permitted, all that went on around; there also meandered a path which always seemed to me mysterious; like a serpent it wound under the fence, which at that point bore traces of clambering feet, and led to an arbour of dense acacias. I reached the spruce-tree, leaned against its trunk and began my watch.

The night was as tranquil as the preceding one had been; but there were fewer storm-clouds in the sky, and the outlines of the bushes, even of the tall flowers, were more plainly discernible. The first moments of waiting were wearisome, almost terrible. I had made up my mind to everything; I was merely considering how I ought to act. Ought I to thunder out: “Who goes there? Halt! Confess—or die!”—or simply smite.... Every sound, every noise and rustling seemed to me significant, unusual.... I made ready.... I bent forward.... But half an hour, an hour, elapsed; my blood quieted down and turned cold; the consciousness that I was doing all this in vain, that I was even somewhat ridiculous, that Malévsky had been making fun of me, began to steal into my soul. I abandoned my ambush and made the round of the entire garden. As though expressly, not the slightest sound was to be heard anywhere; everything was at rest; even our dog was asleep, curled up in a ball at the gate. I climbed up on the ruin of the hothouse, beheld before me the distant plain, recalled my meeting with Zinaída, and became immersed in meditation....

I started.... I thought I heard the creak of an opening door, then the light crackling of a broken twig. In two bounds I had descended from the ruin—and stood petrified on the spot. Swift, light but cautious footsteps were plainly audible in the garden. They were coming toward me. “Here he is.... Here he is, at last!”—darted through my heart. I convulsively jerked the knife out of my pocket, convulsively opened it—red sparks whirled before my eyes, the hair stood up on my head with fright and wrath.... The steps were coming straight toward me—I bent over, and went to meet them.... A man made his appearance.... My God! It was my father!

I recognised him instantly, although he was all enveloped in a dark cloak,—and had pulled his hat down over his face. He went past me on tiptoe. He did not notice me although nothing concealed me; but I had so contracted myself and shrunk together that I think I must have been on a level with the ground. The jealous Othello, prepared to murder, had suddenly been converted into the school-boy.... I was so frightened by the unexpected apparition of my father that I did not even take note, at first, in what direction he was going and where he had disappeared. I merely straightened up at the moment and thought: “Why is my father walking in the garden by night?”—when everything around had relapsed into silence. In my alarm I had dropped my knife in the grass, but I did not even try to find it; I felt very much ashamed. I became sobered on the instant. But as I wended my way home, I stepped up to my little bench under the elder-bush and cast a glance at the little window of Zinaída’s chamber. The small, somewhat curved panes of the little window gleamed dully blue in the faint light which fell from the night sky. Suddenly their colour began to undergo a change.... Behind them—I saw it, saw it clearly,—a whitish shade was lowered, descended to the sill,—and there remained motionless.

“What is the meaning of that?”—I said aloud, almost involuntarily, when I again found myself in my own room.—“Was it a dream, an accident, or....” The surmises which suddenly came into my head were so new and strange that I dared not even yield to them.

XVIII

I rose in the morning with a headache. My agitation of the night before had vanished. It had been replaced by an oppressive perplexity and a certain, hitherto unknown sadness,—exactly as though something had died in me.

“What makes you look like a rabbit which has had half of its brain removed?”—said Lúshin, who happened to meet me. At breakfast I kept casting covert glances now at my father, now at my mother; he was calm, as usual; she, as usual, was secretly irritated. I waited to see whether my father would address me in a friendly way, as he sometimes did.... But he did not even caress me with his cold, everyday affection.—“Shall I tell Zinaída all?”—I thought.... “For it makes no difference now—everything is over between us.” I went to her, but I not only did not tell her anything,—I did not even get a chance to talk to her as I would have liked. The old Princess’s son, a cadet aged twelve, had come from Petersburg to spend his vacation with her; Zinaída immediately confided her brother to me.—“Here, my dear Volódya,”—said she (she called me so for the first time), “is a comrade for you. His name is Volódya also. Pray, like him; he’s a wild little fellow still, but he has a good heart. Show him Neskútchny Park, walk with him, take him under your protection. You will do that, will you not? You, too, are such a good fellow!”—She laid both hands affectionately on my shoulder—and I was reduced to utter confusion. The arrival of that boy turned me into a boy. I stared in silence at the cadet, who riveted his eyes in corresponding silence on me. Zinaída burst out laughing and pushed us toward each other.—“Come, embrace, children!”—We embraced.—“I’ll take you into the garden if you wish,—shall I?”—I asked the cadet.

“Certainly, sir,”—he replied, in a hoarse, genuine cadet voice. Again Zinaída indulged in a burst of laughter.... I managed to notice that never before had she had such charming colour in her face. The cadet and I went off together. In our garden stood an old swing. I seated him on the thin little board and began to swing him. He sat motionless in his new little uniform of thick cloth with broad gold galloon, and clung tightly to the ropes.

“You had better unhook your collar,”—I said to him.

“Never mind, sir,[7] we are used to it, sir,”—he said, and cleared his throat.

He resembled his sister; his eyes were particularly suggestive of her. It was pleasant to me to be of service to him; and, at the same time, that aching pain kept quietly gnawing at my heart. “Now I really am a child,” I thought; “but last night....” I remembered where I had dropped my knife and found it. The cadet asked me to lend it to him, plucked a thick stalk of lovage, cut a whistle from it, and began to pipe. Othello piped also.

But in the evening, on the other hand, how he did weep, that same Othello, over Zinaída’s hands when, having sought him out in a corner of the garden, she asked him what made him so melancholy. My tears streamed with such violence that she was frightened.—“What is the matter with you? What is the matter with you, Volódya?”—she kept repeating, and seeing that I made her no reply, she took it into her head to kiss my wet cheek. But I turned away from her and whispered through my sobs:—“I know everything: why have you trifled with me?... Why did you want my love?”

“I am to blame toward you, Volódya” ... said Zinaída.—“Akh, I am very much to blame” ... she said, and clenched her hands.—“How much evil, dark, sinful, there is in me!... But I am not trifling with you now, I love you—you do not suspect why and how.... But what is it you know?”

What could I say to her? She stood before me and gazed at me—and I belonged to her wholly, from head to foot, as soon as she looked at me.... A quarter of an hour later I was running a race with the cadet and Zinaída; I was not weeping; I was laughing, although my swollen eyelids dropped tears from laughing; on my neck, in place of a tie, was bound a ribbon of Zinaída’s, and I shouted with joy when I succeeded in seizing her round the waist. She did with me whatsoever she would.

XIX

I should be hard put to it, if I were made to narrate in detail all that went on within me in the course of the week which followed my unsuccessful nocturnal expedition. It was a strange, feverish time, a sort of chaos in which the most opposite emotions, thoughts, suspicions, hopes, joys, and sufferings revolved in a whirlwind; I was afraid to look into myself, if a sixteen-year-old can look into himself; I was afraid to account to myself for anything whatsoever; I simply made haste to live through the day until the evening; on the other hand, at night I slept ... childish giddiness helped me. I did not want to know whether I was beloved, and would not admit to myself that I was not beloved; I shunned my father—but could not shun Zinaída.... I burned as with fire in her presence, ... but what was the use of my knowing what sort of fire it was wherewith I burned and melted—seeing that it was sweet to me to burn and melt! I surrendered myself entirely to my impressions, and dealt artfully with myself, turned away from my memories and shut my eyes to that of which I had a presentiment in the future.... This anguish probably would not have continued long ... a thunder-clap put an instantaneous end to everything and hurled me into a new course.

On returning home one day to dinner from a rather long walk, I learned with surprise that I was to dine alone; that my father had gone away, while my mother was ill, did not wish to dine and had shut herself up in her bedroom. From the footmen’s faces I divined that something unusual had taken place.... I dared not interrogate them, but I had a friend, the young butler Philípp, who was passionately fond of poetry and an artist on the guitar; I applied to him. From him I learned that a frightful scene had taken place between my father and mother (for in the maids’ room everything was audible, to the last word; a great deal had been said in French, but the maid Másha had lived for five years with a dressmaker from Paris and understood it all); that my mother had accused my father of infidelity, of being intimate with the young lady our neighbour; that my father had first defended himself, then had flared up and in his turn had made some harsh remark “seemingly about her age,” which had set my mother to crying; that my mother had also referred to a note of hand, which appeared to have been given to the old Princess, and expressed herself very vilely about her, and about the young lady as well; and that then my father had threatened her.—“And the whole trouble arose,”—pursued Philípp, “out of an anonymous letter; but who wrote it no one knows; otherwise there was no reason why this affair should have come out.”

“But has there been anything?”—I enunciated with difficulty, while my hands and feet turned cold, and something began to quiver in the very depths of my breast.

Philípp winked significantly.—“There has. You can’t conceal such doings, cautious as your papa has been in this case;—still, what possessed him, for example, to hire a carriage, or to ... for you can’t get along without people there also.”

I dismissed Philípp, and flung myself down on my bed. I did not sob, I did not give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how all this had taken place; I was not surprised that I had not guessed it sooner, long before—I did not even murmur against my father.... That which I had learned was beyond my strength; this sudden discovery had crushed me.... All was over. All my flowers had been plucked up at one blow and lay strewn around me, scattered and trampled under foot.

XX

On the following day my mother announced that she was going to remove to town. My father went into her bedroom in the morning and sat there a long time alone with her. No one heard what he said to her, but my mother did not weep any more; she calmed down and asked for something to eat, but did not show herself and did not alter her intention. I remember that I wandered about all day long, but did not go into the garden and did not glance even once at the wing—and in the evening I was the witness of an amazing occurrence; my father took Count Malévsky by the arm and led him out of the hall into the anteroom and, in the presence of a lackey, said coldly to him: “Several days ago Your Radiance was shown the door in a certain house. I shall not enter into explanations with you now, but I have the honour to inform you that if you come to my house again I shall fling you through the window. I don’t like your handwriting.” The Count bowed, set his teeth, shrank together, and disappeared.

Preparations began for removing to town, on the Arbát,[8] where our house was situated. Probably my father himself no longer cared to remain in the villa; but it was evident that he had succeeded in persuading my mother not to make a row. Everything was done quietly, without haste; my mother even sent her compliments to the old Princess and expressed her regret that, owing to ill-health, she would be unable to see her before her departure. I prowled about like a crazy person, and desired but one thing,—that everything might come to an end as speedily as possible. One thought never quitted my head: how could she, a young girl,—well, and a princess into the bargain,—bring herself to such a step, knowing that my father was not a free man while she had the possibility of marrying Byelovzóroff at least, for example? What had she hoped for? How was it that she had not been afraid to ruin her whole future?—“Yes,”—I thought,—“that’s what love is,—that is passion,—that is devotion,” ... and I recalled Lúshin’s words to me: “Self-sacrifice is sweet—for some people.” Once I happened to catch sight of a white spot in one of the windows of the wing.... “Can that be Zinaída’s face?”—I thought; ... and it really was her face. I could not hold out. I could not part from her without bidding her a last farewell. I seized a convenient moment and betook myself to the wing.

In the drawing-room the old Princess received me with her customary, slovenly-careless greeting.

“What has made your folks uneasy so early, my dear fellow?”—she said, stuffing snuff up both her nostrils. I looked at her, and a weight was removed from my heart. The word “note of hand” uttered by Philípp tormented me. She suspected nothing ... so it seemed to me then, at least. Zinaída made her appearance from the adjoining room in a black gown, pale, with hair out of curl; she silently took me by the hand and led me away to her room.

“I heard your voice,”—she began,—“and came out at once. And did you find it so easy to desert us, naughty boy?”

“I have come to take leave of you, Princess,”—I replied,—“probably forever. You may have heard we are going away.”

Zinaída gazed intently at me.

“Yes, I have heard. Thank you for coming. I was beginning to think that I should not see you.—Think kindly of me. I have sometimes tormented you; but nevertheless I am not the sort of person you think I am.”

She turned away and leaned against the window-casing.

“Really, I am not that sort of person. I know that you have a bad opinion of me.”

“I?”

“Yes, you ... you.”

“I?”—I repeated sorrowfully, and my heart began to quiver as of old, beneath the influence of the irresistible, inexpressible witchery.—“I? Believe me, Zinaída Alexándrovna, whatever you may have done, however you may have tormented me, I shall love and adore you until the end of my life.”

She turned swiftly toward me and opening her arms widely, she clasped my head, and kissed me heartily and warmly. God knows whom that long, farewell kiss was seeking, but I eagerly tasted its sweetness. I knew that it would never more be repeated.—“Farewell, farewell!” I kept saying....

She wrenched herself away and left the room. And I withdrew also. I am unable to describe the feeling with which I retired. I should not wish ever to have it repeated; but I should consider myself unhappy if I had never experienced it.

We removed to town. I did not speedily detach myself from the past, I did not speedily take up my work. My wound healed slowly; but I really had no evil feeling toward my father. On the contrary, he seemed to have gained in stature in my eyes ... let the psychologists explain this contradiction as best they may. One day I was walking along the boulevard when, to my indescribable joy, I encountered Lúshin. I liked him for his straightforward, sincere character; and, moreover, he was dear to me in virtue of the memories which he awakened in me. I rushed at him.

“Aha!”—he said, with a scowl.—“Is it you, young man? Come, let me have a look at you. You are still all sallow, and yet there is not the olden trash in your eyes. You look like a man, not like a lap-dog. That’s good. Well, and how are you? Are you working?”

I heaved a sigh. I did not wish to lie, and I was ashamed to tell the truth.

“Well, never mind,”—went on Lúshin,—“don’t be afraid. The principal thing is to live in normal fashion and not to yield to impulses. Otherwise, where’s the good? No matter whither the wave bears one—’tis bad; let a man stand on a stone if need be, but on his own feet. Here I am croaking ... but Byelovzóroff—have you heard about him?”

“What about him? No.”

“He has disappeared without leaving a trace; they say he has gone to the Caucasus. A lesson to you, young man. And the whole thing arises from not knowing how to say good-bye,—to break bonds in time. You, now, seem to have jumped out successfully. Look out, don’t fall in again. Farewell.”

“I shall not fall in,”—I thought.... “I shall see her no more.” But I was fated to see Zinaída once more.

XXI

My father was in the habit of riding on horseback every day; he had a splendid red-roan English horse, with a long, slender neck and long legs, indefatigable and vicious. Its name was Electric. No one could ride it except my father. One day he came to me in a kindly frame of mind, which had not happened with him for a long time: he was preparing to ride, and had donned his spurs. I began to entreat him to take me with him.

“Let us, rather, play at leap-frog,”—replied my father,—“for thou wilt not be able to keep up with me on thy cob.”

“Yes, I shall; I will put on spurs also.”

“Well, come along.”

We set out. I had a shaggy, black little horse, strong on its feet and fairly spirited; it had to gallop with all its might, it is true, when Electric was going at a full trot; but nevertheless I did not fall behind. I have never seen such a horseman as my father. His seat was so fine and so carelessly-adroit that the horse under him seemed to be conscious of it and to take pride in it. We rode the whole length of all the boulevards, reached the Maidens’ Field,[9] leaped over several enclosures (at first I was afraid to leap, but my father despised timid people, and I ceased to be afraid), crossed the Moscow river twice;—and I was beginning to think that we were on our way homeward, the more so as my father remarked that my horse was tired, when suddenly he turned away from me in the direction of the Crimean Ford, and galloped along the shore.—I dashed after him. When he came on a level with a lofty pile of old beams which lay heaped together, he sprang nimbly from Electric, ordered me to alight and, handing me the bridle of his horse, told me to wait for him on that spot, near the beams; then he turned into a narrow alley and disappeared. I began to pace back and forth along the shore, leading the horses after me and scolding Electric, who as he walked kept incessantly twitching his head, shaking himself, snorting and neighing; when I stood still, he alternately pawed the earth with his hoof, and squealed and bit my cob on the neck; in a word, behaved like a spoiled darling, pur sang. My father did not return. A disagreeable humidity was wafted from the river; a fine rain set in and mottled the stupid, grey beams, around which I was hovering and of which I was so heartily tired, with tiny, dark spots. Anxiety took possession of me, but still my father did not come. A Finnish sentry, also all grey, with a huge, old-fashioned shako, in the form of a pot, on his head, and armed with a halberd (why should there be a sentry, I thought, on the shores of the Moscow river?), approached me, and turning his elderly, wrinkled face to me, he said:

“What are you doing here with those horses, my little gentleman? Hand them over to me; I’ll hold them.”

I did not answer him; he asked me for some tobacco. In order to rid myself of him (moreover, I was tortured by impatience), I advanced a few paces in the direction in which my father had retreated; then I walked through the alley to the very end, turned a corner, and came to a standstill. On the street, forty paces distant from me, in front of the open window of a small wooden house, with his back to me, stood my father; he was leaning his breast on the window-sill, while in the house, half concealed by the curtain, sat a woman in a dark gown talking with my father: the woman was Zinaída.

I stood rooted to the spot in amazement. I must confess that I had in nowise expected this. My first impulse was to flee. “My father will glance round,” I thought,—“and then I am lost.”... But a strange feeling—a feeling more powerful than curiosity, more powerful even than jealousy, more powerful than fear,—stopped me. I began to stare, I tried to hear. My father appeared to be insisting upon something. Zinaída would not consent. I seem to see her face now—sad, serious, beautiful, and with an indescribable imprint of adoration, grief, love, and a sort of despair. She uttered monosyllabic words, did not raise her eyes, and only smiled—submissively and obstinately. From that smile alone I recognised my former Zinaída. My father shrugged his shoulders, and set his hat straight on his head—which was always a sign of impatience with him.... Then the words became audible: “Vous devez vous séparer de cette.”... Zinaída drew herself up and stretched out her hand.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, an incredible thing came to pass:—all at once, my father raised the riding-whip, with which he had been lashing the dust from his coat-tails,—and the sound of a sharp blow on that arm, which was bare to the elbow, rang out. I could hardly keep from shrieking, but Zinaída started, gazed in silence at my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the mark which glowed scarlet upon it.

My father hurled his riding-whip from him, and running hastily up the steps of the porch, burst into the house.... Zinaída turned round, and stretching out her arms, and throwing back her head, she also quitted the window.

My heart swooning with terror, and with a sort of alarmed perplexity, I darted backward; and dashing through the alley, and almost letting go of Electric, I returned to the bank of the river.... I could understand nothing. I knew that my cold and self-contained father was sometimes seized by fits of wild fury; and yet I could not in the least comprehend what I had seen.... But I immediately felt that no matter how long I might live, it would be impossible for me ever to forget that movement, Zinaída’s glance and smile; that her image, that new image which had suddenly been presented to me, had forever imprinted itself on my memory. I stared stupidly at the river and did not notice that my tears were flowing. “She is being beaten,”—I thought.... “She is being beaten ... beaten....”

“Come, what ails thee?—Give me my horse!”—rang out my father’s voice behind me.

I mechanically gave him the bridle. He sprang upon Electric ... the half-frozen horse reared on his hind legs and leaped forward half a fathom ... but my father speedily got him under control; he dug his spurs into his flanks and beat him on the neck with his fist.... “Ekh, I have no whip,”—he muttered.

I remembered the recent swish through the air and the blow of that same whip, and shuddered.

“What hast thou done with it?”—I asked my father, after waiting a little.

My father did not answer me and galloped on. I dashed after him. I was determined to get a look at his face.

“Didst thou get bored in my absence?”—he said through his teeth.

“A little. But where didst thou drop thy whip?”—I asked him again.

My father shot a swift glance at me.—“I did not drop it,”—he said,—“I threw it away.”—He reflected for a space and dropped his head ... and then, for the first and probably for the last time, I saw how much tenderness and compunction his stern features were capable of expressing.

He set off again at a gallop, and this time I could not keep up with him; I reached home a quarter of an hour after him.

“That’s what love is,”—I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my writing-table, on which copy-books and text-books had already begun to make their appearance,—“that is what passion is!... How is it possible not to revolt, how is it possible to endure a blow from any one whomsoever ... even from the hand that is most dear? But evidently it can be done if one is in love.... And I ... I imagined....”

The last month had aged me greatly, and my love, with all its agitations and sufferings, seemed to me like something very petty and childish and wretched in comparison with that other unknown something at which I could hardly even guess, and which frightened me like a strange, beautiful but menacing face that one strives, in vain, to get a good look at in the semi-darkness....

That night I had a strange and dreadful dream. I thought I was entering a low, dark room.... My father was standing there, riding-whip in hand, and stamping his feet; Zinaída was crouching in one corner and had a red mark, not on her arm, but on her forehead ... and behind the two rose up Byelovzóroff, all bathed in blood, with his pale lips open, and wrathfully menacing my father.

Two months later I entered the university, and six months afterward my father died (of an apoplectic stroke) in Petersburg, whither he had just removed with my mother and myself. A few days before his death my father had received a letter from Moscow which had agitated him extremely.... He went to beg something of my mother and, I was told, even wept,—he, my father! On the very morning of the day on which he had the stroke, he had begun a letter to me in the French language: “My son,”—he wrote to me,—“fear the love of women, fear that happiness, that poison....” After his death my mother sent a very considerable sum of money to Moscow.

XXII

Four years passed. I had but just left the university, and did not yet quite know what to do with myself, at what door to knock; in the meanwhile, I was lounging about without occupation. One fine evening I encountered Maidánoff in the theatre. He had contrived to marry and enter the government service; but I found him unchanged. He went into unnecessary raptures, just as of old, and became low-spirited as suddenly as ever.

“You know,”—he said to me,—“by the way, that Madame Dólsky is here.”

“What Madame Dólsky?”

“Is it possible that you have forgotten? The former Princess Zasyékin, with whom we were all in love, you included. At the villa, near Neskútchny Park, you remember?”

“Did she marry Dólsky?”

“Yes.”

“And is she here in the theatre?”

“No, in Petersburg; she arrived here a few days ago; she is preparing to go abroad.”

“What sort of a man is her husband?”—I asked.

“A very fine young fellow and wealthy. He’s my comrade in the service, a Moscow man. You understand—after that scandal ... you must be well acquainted with all that ...” (Maidánoff smiled significantly), “it was not easy for her to find a husband; there were consequences ... but with her brains everything is possible. Go to her; she will be delighted to see you. She is handsomer than ever.”

Maidánoff gave me Zinaída’s address. She was stopping in the Hotel Demuth. Old memories began to stir in me.... I promised myself that I would call upon my former “passion” the next day. But certain affairs turned up: a week elapsed, and when, at last, I betook myself to the Hotel Demuth and inquired for Madame Dólsky I learned that she had died four days previously, almost suddenly, in childbirth.

Something seemed to deal me a blow in the heart. The thought that I might have seen her but had not, and that I should never see her,—that bitter thought seized upon me with all the force of irresistible reproach. “Dead!” I repeated, staring dully at the door-porter, then quietly made my way to the street and walked away, without knowing whither. The whole past surged up at one blow and stood before me. And now this was the way it had ended, this was the goal of that young, fiery, brilliant life? I thought that—I pictured to myself those dear features, those eyes, those curls in the narrow box, in the damp, underground gloom,—right there, not far from me, who was still alive, and, perchance, only a few paces from my father.... I thought all that, I strained my imagination, and yet—

resounded through my soul. O youth, youth! Thou carest for nothing: thou possessest, as it were, all the treasures of the universe; even sorrow comforts thee, even melancholy becomes thee; thou are self-confident and audacious; thou sayest: “I alone live—behold!”—But the days speed on and vanish without a trace and without reckoning, and everything vanishes in thee, like wax in the sun, like snow.... And perchance the whole secret of thy charm consists not in the power to do everything, but in the possibility of thinking that thou wilt do everything—consists precisely in the fact that thou scatterest to the winds thy powers which thou hast not understood how to employ in any other way,—in the fact that each one of us seriously regards himself as a prodigal, seriously assumes that he has a right to say: “Oh, what could I not have done, had I not wasted my time!”

And I myself ... what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future did I foresee, when I barely accompanied with a single sigh, with a single mournful emotion, the spectre of my first love which had arisen for a brief moment?

And what has come to pass of all for which I hoped? Even now, when the shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what is there that has remained for me fresher, more precious than the memory of that morning spring thunder-storm which sped so swiftly past?

But I calumniate myself without cause. Even then, at that frivolous, youthful epoch, I did not remain deaf to the sorrowful voice which responded within me to the triumphant sound which was wafted to me from beyond the grave. I remember that a few days after I learned of Zinaída’s death I was present, by my own irresistible longing, at the death-bed of a poor old woman who lived in the same house with us. Covered with rags, with a sack under her head, she died heavily and with difficulty. Her whole life had been passed in a bitter struggle with daily want; she had seen no joy, she had not tasted the honey of happiness—it seemed as though she could not have failed to rejoice at death, at her release, her repose. But nevertheless, as long as her decrepit body held out, as long as her breast heaved under the icy hand which was laid upon it, until her last strength deserted her, the old woman kept crossing herself and whispering:—“O Lord, forgive my sins,”—and only with the last spark of consciousness did there vanish from her eyes the expression of fear and horror at her approaching end. And I remember that there, by the bedside of that poor old woman, I felt terrified for Zinaída, and felt like praying for her, for my father—and for myself.