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MARIE NICOLAEVNA TARNOWSKA

MARIE TARNOWSKA

By A. VIVANTI CHARTRES

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY LETTER
BY PROFESSOR L. M. BOSSI OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF GENOA

PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK MCMXV

Copyright, 1915, by
The Century Co.

Published, October, 1915
All rights reserved

PREFATORY NOTE

On the morning of September 3rd, 1907, Count Paul Kamarowsky, a wealthy Russian nobleman, was fatally shot in his apartments on the Lido in Venice by an intimate friend, Nicolas Naumoff, son of the governor of Orel. The crime was at first believed to be political. The wounded man refused to make any statement against his assailant, whom he himself had assisted to escape from the balcony to a gondola in waiting below.

Count Kamarowsky was taken to a hospital, and for three days his recovery seemed assured; but the chief surgeon, in a sudden mental collapse—he has since died in an insane asylum—ordered the stitches to be removed from the fast-healing wounds, and Count Kamarowsky died in great agony a few hours later. His last words were a message of love to his betrothed at Kieff, a beautiful Russian woman, Countess Marie Tarnowska.

In her favor Count Kamarowsky had, shortly before his death, made a will and also insured his life for the sum of £20,000.

A number of telegrams from this lady were found addressed to a Russian lawyer, Donat Prilukoff, who had been staying at the Hotel Danieli in Venice until the day of the murder. Both this man and the Countess Tarnowska were arrested.

After a sensational trial they were found guilty of instigating the young Nicolas Naumoff to commit the murder. Countess Tarnowska was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in the penitentiary of Trani; Prilukoff was condemned to ten years' penal servitude; while Naumoff himself was liberated in view of his having undergone two years' incarceration while awaiting his trial.

TO THE AUTHOR

Signora:

Not only as the medical expert for the defense at the trial of the Countess Tarnowska, but as one who has made it his life-work to investigate the relation in women between criminal impulse and morbid physical condition, I cannot but feel the keenest interest in this book, in which you set forth the problem of wide human interest presented by the case of the prisoner of Trani.

When first I suggested to you that you should write this book—which (apart from its interest as dealing with a cause célèbre whose protagonists are still living and well known in European society) might bring into wider knowledge doctrines that modern physiologists and psychologists are endeavoring to diffuse—you reminded me that the medical elements of the problem could not in such a work be discussed or even clearly stated. This, of course, is true, and the significance of certain indications scattered through these pages will doubtless be lost upon those who are not familiar with such matters. Nevertheless, it was important that the book should be written, for if after her release and appropriate medical treatment the Countess Tarnowska is restored, as many of us confidently anticipate, to the complete sanity of moral well-being, your book in the light of that essential fact will have fulfilled a notable mission.

It will have helped to bring home to the general consciousness the knowledge, hitherto confined to the scientific few, that moral obliquity in women is in most cases due to pathological causes comparatively easy of diagnosis and of cure; that a woman-criminal may be morally redeemed by being physically healed; and that just as alcoholism, typhus, pyemia or other modes of toxic infection may result in delirium and irresponsibility, so certain forms of disease in women, by setting up a condition of persistent organic poisoning, may and very often do conduce to mental and moral aberration and consequent crime.

Your book, Signora, contains a truthful exposition of a group of psychic values with which physicians and psychopathists are concerned, and I believe that eventually it will promote the realization that even in the darkest regions of moral degradation it is possible for science to raise the torch of hope. Thus, though appealing for the moment to the interest of the general reader, it will ultimately constitute a significant document in the history of the evolution of pathological science.

Genoa,
January 12th, 1915.

TO THE READER

This book is not written to plead Marie Tarnowska's cause. The strange Russian woman whose hand slew no man, but whose beauty drove those who loved her to commit murder for her sake, will soon have ended her eight years' captivity and will come forth into the world once more.

I have not sought in any way to minimize her guilt, or attenuate her responsibility for the sin and death that followed in her train. Though she must be held blameless for the boy Peter Tarnowsky's tragic fate and even for Dr. Stahl's suicide, yet Bozevsky's death, Naumoff's downfall and the murder of Count Kamarowsky will forever be laid at her door.

I have tried to convey to the cool, sober mind of the Anglo-Saxon reader—to whom much of this amazing story of passion and crime may appear almost incredible—that sequence of tragic events which brought Marie Nicolaevna to her ruin.

Weighted by a heritage of disease (her mother was a neurasthenic invalid and two of her aunts are even now confined in an insane asylum in Russia), she was married when still on the threshold of girlhood and swept into the maëlstrom of a wild life—a frenzied, almost hallucinated, existence such as is led by a certain section of the Russian aristocracy, whom self-indulgence drives to depths of degeneracy hardly to be realized by the outside world.

With the birth of her child, Tania, Marie Tarnowska's fragile health broke down completely, and the few years preceding the tragedy which led to her arrest were spent traveling through Europe in a feverish quest of health or at least of oblivion of her sufferings. According to such medical authorities as Redlich, Fenomenof, Rhein, Bossi, and many other eminent gynecologists and alienists, she is, and has been for some years past, suffering from a slow form of blood poisoning which affects the nervous centers and the brain, and which—as I myself had a painful opportunity of witnessing when I saw her in prison—causes periodic cataleptic seizures that imperil her life.

It was by one of her medical advisers, Professor Luigi Bossi, of the University of Genoa, that the idea of this book was first given to me.

“I was called as an expert for the defense at the Venice trial,” said the Professor, “and I was grieved and indignant at the heavy sentence inflicted upon this unhappy woman. Marie Tarnowska is not delinquent, but diseased; not a criminal, but an invalid; and her case, like that of many other female transgressors, is one for the surgeon's skill and the physician's compassionate care, not for the ruthless hand of the law. Indeed,” the illustrious Professor continued, “it is becoming more and more a recognized fact that many cases of criminality in woman have a physical, not a moral origin. By her very mission—maternity—woman is consecrated to pain; and whereas by nature she is a creature of gentleness and goodness, the effect of physical suffering, of ailments often unconfessed—nay, often unrealized by herself—is to transform her into a virago, a hypochondriac, or a criminal. Then our duty is to cure her, not to punish her.

“It may be merely a question,” he explained, “of a slight surgical intervention; sometimes even brief medical treatment is sufficient to save a woman's life and reason. The wider knowledge of this simple scientific fact in the social life of our time would redeem and rehabilitate thousands of unfortunate women who people the prisons and the madhouses of the world.

“As for the unhappy Countess Tarnowska,” added Professor Bossi, “the Venetian tribunal refused to regard her as a suffering human being, but flung her out of society like some venomous reptile. Read these notes that she wrote in prison,” he said, placing in my hand a book of almost illegible memoranda. “If they touch your heart, then do a deed of justice and generosity. Go to the penitentiary of Trani, see the prisoner yourself, and give her story to the world. So will you perform an act of humanity and beneficence by helping to diffuse a scientific truth in favor, not of this one woman alone, but of all women.”

After glancing through the strange human document he had given me I decided to do what he asked; for, indeed, from those poor, incoherent pages there seemed to rise the eternal cry of suffering womanhood—the anguished cry of those that perpetuate the gift of life—which no sister-soul can hear unmoved.

Thus it was that my mind was first directed to the theme of this book and that I undertook the task—fraught with almost insuperable difficulties—of breaking down official prohibitions and reaching the Russian captive in her distant Italian prison.

And now that I have been brought face to face with that strange and mournful figure, now that I have heard her story from her own pale lips, I am moved by the puissant impulse of art, which takes no heed of learned theory or ethical code, to narrate in these pages the profound impression made upon me by that tragic personality, by the story of that broken life.

I have endeavored to do so with faithfulness, exaggerating nothing, coloring nothing, extenuating nothing. It will be for the pontiffs of science and morals to achieve the more complex task of drawing conclusions and establishing theories that may one day diminish injustice and suffering in the world.

A. Vivanti Chartres.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MARIE TARNOWSKA

I

Ed or, che Dio mi tolga la memoria.

Contessa Lara.

The verdant landscape of Tuscany swung past the train that carried me southward. The looped vineyards—like slim, green dancers holding hands—fled backwards as we passed, and the rays of the March sun pursued us, beating hotly through the open windows on the dusty red velvet cushions of the carriage.

Soon the train was throbbing and panting out of Pisa, and the barefooted children of the Roman Campagna stood to gaze after us, with eyes soft and wild under their sullen hair.

Since leaving the station of Genoa I had seen nothing of the fleeting springtide landscape; my gaze and thoughts were riveted on the pages of a copy-book which lay open on my knee—a simple school copy-book with innocent blue-lined sheets originally intended to contain the carefully labored scrawls of some childish hand. A blue ornamental flourish decked the front; and under the printed title, “Program of Lessons,” the words “History,” “Geography,” “Arithmetic,” were followed by a series of blank spaces for the hours to be filled in. Alas, for the tragic pupil to whom this book belonged, in what school of horror had she learned the lesson traced on these pages by her slim, white hand—the fair patrician hand which had known the weight of many jewels, the thrill of many caresses, and was now held fast in the merciless grip of captivity.

I turned the page: before me lay a flow of pale penciled words in a sloping handwriting. At every turn the flourish of some strange seignorial name met my eye: long Russian names of prince, of lover or of murderer. On every page was the convulsion of death or the paroxysm of passion; wine and morphia, chloral and cocaine surged across the pallid sheets, like the wash of a nightmare sea.

From the midst of those turbid billows—like some ineffable modern Aphrodite—rose the pale figure of Marie Nicolaevna Tarnowska.

The first words—traced by her trembling hand in the prison at Venice—are almost childish in their simplicity.

“When I was eight years old, I fell ill with measles and almost lost my eyesight. I wore blue spectacles. I was very happy. My mother loved me very much; so did my father. So did the servants. Everybody loved me very much.”

I pause in my reading, loth to proceed. I wish I could stop here with the little girl whom every one loved and who gazed out through her blue spectacles at a rose-colored world.

Ah! Marie Nicolaevna, had your luminous eyes remained for all time hidden behind those dim blue glasses, no one to-day would raise his voice in execration of you, nor call anathema upon your fair bowed head.

But when the little Russian countess was twelve years old an oculist from Kieff ordered that her eyes should be uncovered, and “Mura,” as her parents fondly called her, looked out upon the world with those clear light eyes that were one day to penetrate the darkest depths of crime.

I continue to read without stopping. The serried pages, scrawled feverishly and hurriedly in the cells of La Giudecca in defiance of prison rules, are in thin handwriting, with names and dates harshly underlined; but here and there whole sentences are struck out, as if the writer's memory wavered, or her feelings altered as she wrote.

Immediately, on the very first page, the bold figure of young Vassili Tarnowsky confronts us: the radiant, temerarious lover, who came to woo her in her marveling adolescence.

“His voice thrilled the heart like the tones of a violoncello; in his eyes were the lights of heaven, in his smile all the promises of love. I was already seventeen years old, and wise beyond my years. But, sagacious as I thought myself, I could never believe anything that was told me against Vassili. My eyes saw nothing but his beauty. On the twelfth day of April I ran away from home with him; and we were married in a little church far away on the desolate steppes. I never thought that life could hold such joy.”

A PAGE FROM MARIE TARNOWSKA'S NOTE-BOOK

But on the very next page we come face to face with the astounding list of Vassili's perfidies: a musical enumeration of feminine names which rings the knell of his child-wife's happiness. “I never thought,” writes Marie Tarnowska simply, “that life could hold such sorrow.”

Further on there are gaps and incoherences; here and there a passing efflorescence of literary phrase, or a sudden lapse into curt narrative, as if a wave of apathy had suddenly submerged the tragic heroine and left in her place only a passive narrator of fearful events. Now and then even a note of strident humor is struck, more poignant, more painful than pathos.

Ever and anon there appears throughout the funereal story—as if smiling out through the window of a charnel-house—the innocent face of a child: Tioka. He is all bright curls and laughter. Unaware of the carnage that surrounds him, he runs with light, quick feet through pools of blood to nestle in the gentle maternal breast which for him is all purity and tenderness.

········

As I read on and on the writing trembles and wavers, as if the hand and the heart of the writer wearied of their task. With a sudden break the sad story closes, unfinished, incomplete.

“If I could tell of the tears I have shed, if I could describe the anguish I have suffered, I am sure that pity would be shown to me. Surely if the world knew of my torment and my sufferings—”

Nothing more. Thus abruptly the tragic manuscript ends.

The train slackens speed, falters, shivers—stops. I am at Trani; at the furthermost end of Italy; almost beyond civilization; almost out of the world.

Soon I shall see before me the woman I have come so far to seek: the woman who never gave the gift of love without the gift of death.

The high white walls of the penitentiary glared down in the blazing southern sun. The languid Adriatic trailed its blue silken waters past the barred windows. I raised the heavy knocker; it fell from my hand with a reverberating clang, and the massive prison-door opened slowly before me.

The Mother Superior and two gentle-looking Sisters fluttered—black and white and timid as swallows—across the sunlit courtyard. They were expecting me.

“She whom you seek is in the chapel,” said the Mother Superior, in a low voice. “I will call her!” She left us. The two Sisters accompanied me up a broad stone staircase to a small waiting-room. Then they stood quietly beside me; and when I looked at them, they smiled.

In the silence that followed I could hear women's voices singing in the prison chapel, simple, untutored voices, clear and shrill:

“Kyrie eleison

Christe eleison...”

and the low notes of the organ rolled beneath the treble voices, full and deep;

“Mater purissima

Mater inviolata...”

“Number 315—that is the Countess Marie,” said one of the two Sisters, “plays the organ for the other prisoners. She plays every day at noon and evensong.”

“And at four o'clock in the morning,” added the other Sister.

(How far, how far away, Marie Nicolaevna, are the passionate days of Moscow, the glowing, unslept nights of Venice!)

“Rosa mystica

Stella matutina...”

Suddenly the music ceased and we stood waiting in the hot, white silence. Then the door opened, and on the threshold stood Marie Tarnowska—the murderess, the devastating spirit, the Erinnys.

II

Tall and motionless in her fearful striped dress she stood, gazing at me with proud clear eyes; her brow was calm and imperious under the humiliating prisoner's coif, and her long hands—those delicate hands whose caresses have driven men to commit murder for her sake—hung loosely at her side. Her mouth, curving and disdainful, trembled slightly.

“Signora,” I began. Her lips wavered into a faint smile as with a quick downward sweep of her eyelashes she indicated her dress of shame.

“Signora,” I repeated, “I have come here neither out of compassion nor curiosity.”

She was silent, waiting for me to proceed. The three nuns had seated themselves quietly near the wall, with eyes cast down and meek hands folded in their laps.

“I have come,” I continued, “to vindicate my sisters in your eyes. I know you think that all women are ruthless and unkind.”

Another smile, fleeting, vivid and intelligent, lit up her eyes. Then the narrow face closed and darkened again.

“For two years,” I proceeded, “I have been haunted by the thought that you, shut in this place, must be saying to yourself that all men are base and all women pitiless. As to the men—I cannot say. But I wish you to know that not all women are without pity.”

She was silent a few moments. Then in a weak voice she spoke:

“In the name of how many women do you bring this message to me?”

I smiled in my turn. “There are four of us,” I said, cheerfully. “Two Englishwomen, a Norwegian, who is deaf and dumb—and myself. The deaf and dumb one,” I added, “is really very intelligent.”

Marie Tarnowska laughed! It was a low, sudden trill of laughter, and she herself seemed startled at the unaccustomed sound. The Sisters turned to look at her with an air of gentle amazement.

But in my eyes Marie Tarnowska had ceased to be the murderess, the Erinnys. Through the criminal in her dress of shame I had caught a glimpse of the little girl in the blue spectacles, the happy little girl who felt that every one loved her. That lonely, tremulous trill of laughter astray on the tragic lips stirred me to the depths; and sudden tears filled my eyes.

Marie Tarnowska saw this, and turned pale. Then she sat down, unconsciously assuming the same chastened attitude as the Sisters, her hands submissively folded, her dark lashes cast down over her long light eyes. For some time there was silence.

“I have read your notes,” I said at last.

“My notes? I do not remember writing them.” Suddenly her voice sounded harsh and her glance flashed at me keen as a blade of steel.

“You wrote them in the prison at Venice, in pencil, in a child's exercise book.”

“It may be so.” Marie Tarnowska breathed a long sigh. “That was a time of dreams,” she said, raising her stricken eyes to mine. “I sometimes dream that this is all a dream. I think I must have fallen asleep one day when I was a little child, at home in Otrada—perhaps in our garden on the swing. I used often to fall asleep on that creaky old swing, reading a book, or looking at the sky. Perhaps I shall wake up soon, and find that none of all these dreadful things are true.” She fingered the broad brown-and-white stripes of her prison-garb and gazed round the dreary room. Then her eyes strayed from the whitewashed walls, bare except for a large ebony crucifix, to the narrow iron-barred window, and back to the Sisters sitting along the wall like a triptych of Renunciation, with folded hands and lips moving silently in their habitual prayer. “Yes, I shall wake up soon and find myself in our old garden again. My mother will come down the path and across the lawn, with her little white shawl on her head; she will call me: 'Mura! Mura! Where are you? Come, child, it is time for tea; and Vassili is asking for you.' Then I shall jump from the swing and run to her and hide my face on her breast. 'Mother, if you knew what a dream I have had—a terrible dream, all about deaths and murders! I thought I had married Vassili, and he was unkind to me—as if Vassili could be unkind!—and I was locked in a prison in Italy—imagine, mother, to be imprisoned in Italy, where people only go for their honeymoon!' And mother will kiss me and laugh at the crazy dream as we go across the lawn together, happily, arm in arm.”

I found no word to say, though her eyes seemed to question me; and her fragile voice spoke again: “Surely, this cannot all be true? It cannot be true that they are all dead. My mother? And little Peter? And Bozevsky? And Stahl? And Kamarowsky? Why, it is like—like 'Hamlet.'” She broke into strident laughter. “Do you remember how they all die in 'Hamlet'? One here, one there, one in the stream, one behind the curtain, drowned, stabbed, strangled—” Suddenly she was silent, looking straight before her with startled eyes.

“Poor Mura!” I murmured, and lightly touched her hand.

At the sound of the tender Russian appellative she turned to me quickly. Then she began speaking under her breath in hurried whispers.

“Who told you my name? Who are you? Are you my sister Olga? Do you remember the merry-go-round at the school-feast in Kieff? How we cried when it swung us round and round and round and would not stop? I seem to be still on the merry-go-round, rushing along, hastening, hurrying with the loud music pealing in my head.”

The Mother Superior rose and approached her. “Hush,” she spoke in soothing tones. “You will soon be quiet and at rest.”

But Marie Tarnowska paid no heed. Her eyes were still fixed on mine with a despairing gaze. “Wake me, wake me!” she cried. “And let me tell you my dream.”

And during those long mild April days she told it to me as follows.

Where shall I begin? Wait, let me think—ah, yes! Where I fell asleep that day in the garden, on the swing. I remember it was a hot day even in Otrada; almost as hot as it is here. And it was my birthday; I was sixteen years old. My mother herself, with great solemnity, in the presence of my father and sisters, had twisted up my long curling hair and pinned it in great waves and coils on the top of my head. There were to be no more long plaits hanging down my back!

“Your childhood is over, Mura,” said my mother. “At sixteen one has to look and behave like a grown-up young lady.”

“That is exactly what I am, mother dear,” I replied with great self-assurance.

My mother smiled and sighed and kissed me. “You are such a child—such a child still, my little snowdrop,” she said, and her eyes were tender and anxious.

But I ran gaily out into the garden, feeling very proud of my red-gold helmet of curls. I sprang fearlessly on the swing, tossing my head from side to side, delighted to feel the back of my neck cool and uncovered to the breeze. What would Vassili say to see me like this! But soon the hairpins felt heavy; they pulled a hair or two here, and a hair or two there, and hurt me. I stopped the swing, and with my head bent forward I quickly drew all the hairpins out and threw them on the ground.

The heavy coils of hair loosened, untwisted like a glittering snake, and fell all about me like a cloak of gold. I leaped upon the swing again and, standing, swung myself in wide flights through the clear air. What joy it was! As I flew forward my hair streamed out behind me like a flag, and in the backward sweep it floated all about my head in a whirling canopy of light.

I laughed and sang out loud to myself. How delightful was the world! How blissful to be alive and in the sunshine!

Suddenly Vassili appeared at the end of the path with my cousin, Prince Troubetzkoi. They were coming towards me arm in arm, smoking cigarettes and gazing at me. I felt shy of my loosened hair; I should have liked to jump down and run away, but the swing was flying too high and I could not stop it.

The two men looked at me with strange intent eyes, as no one had ever looked at me before. I felt a hot blush rise to my cheeks like a flame. Obeying a sudden, overmastering impulse I let go the ropes and covered my face with my hands. I heard a cry—did it come from me?—then everything whirled round me.... For an instant I saw the gravel path rise straight in front of me as if to strike me on the forehead. I threw myself back, something seemed to crash into the nape of my neck—and I remember no more.

III

I see the ensuing days as through a vague blue mist. I see myself reclining in an armchair, and my mother sitting beside me with her crochet-work. She is crocheting something of yellow wool. It is strange how the sight of that yellow wool hurts and repels me, but I cannot find words in which to express it, I seem unable to speak; and mother crochets on calmly, with quick white hands. I am conscious of a dull pain in the nape of my neck. Then I see Vassili come in; he is carrying an enormous cage in his hand; and Olga follows him, laughing and radiant. “Here he is! here he is!” cries Vassili triumphantly, putting the cage down beside me; and in it, to my horror, I see a parrot, a huge gray and scarlet creature, twisting a hard black tongue round and round as he clambers about the cage. I cry out in terror: “Why—why do they bring me things that frighten me?” And I burst into tears. Every one gazes at me in amazement; my mother bends tenderly over me: “But, my own darling, yesterday you said you wanted to have a parrot. Vassili has been all the way to Moscow to buy it for you.”

“No, no! it is not true! I never said I wanted a parrot! Take it away! It frightens me. And so does the yellow wool.” I hear myself weeping loudly; then everything is blotted out and vanishes—parrot, Vassili, yellow wool, Olga—nothing remains but my mother's sad and anxious face bending above me, dim and constant as the light of a lamp in a shadowy chapel.

When I was able to come down to breakfast for the first time, my father stood waiting for me, straight and solemn at the foot of the great staircase. He gave me his arm with much ceremony and led me to my place, where flowers lay in fragrant heaps round my plate. Every one embraced and complimented me and I was very happy.

“I feel as if I were a princess!” I cried, clapping my hands; and they all laughed except my father, who answered gravely:

“If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince Ivan has asked for your hand.”

“Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?” All the gladness went out of my heart.

“Yes. And so has Katerinowitch,” exclaimed Olga, with a bitter smile; and I noticed that she looked pale and sad.

“Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!” Then glancing at my mother, whose eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly, “Is that all? No one else?”

My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and I saw my father knitting his brows. But my mother lifted her eyes for an instant and looked at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read my happiness!

But Olga was speaking. “Yes,” she said, “there is some one else. Vassili Tarnowsky has asked to marry you.” And she added, with a touch of bitterness: “I wonder what has possessed all three of them!”

Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang like a clarion in my ears. I should be Vassili's wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska—the happiest woman in all this happy world. Every other girl on earth—poor luckless girls who could not marry Vassili—would envy me. On his arm I should pass proudly and serenely through life, rejoicing in his beauty, protected by his strength. Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass over my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me.

COUNT O'ROURKE

“I trust that your choice will fall on Troubetzkoi,” said my father.

“Or on Vassili,” cried Olga quickly.

I jumped up and embraced her. “It shall not be Katerinowitch, that I promise,” I whispered, kissing the little pink ear that nestled under her fair curls. “He is to be for you!”

Time was to fulfil this prophecy.

As I went round the table, and passed my mother—poor little nervous mother!—I laid my hand on her arm. I noticed that she was trembling all over. Then I summoned up courage and approached my father.

“Father, dear, if you want your little Mura to be happy, you must let her marry Vassili.”

“Never,” cried my father, striking the table with his fist. The soul of the ancient O'Rourke—a demoniacal Irish ancestor of ours whose memory always struck terror to our souls—had awakened in him. I saw Olga and my mother turn pale. Nevertheless I laughed and kissed him again. “If I do not marry Vassili, I shall die! And please, father, do not be the Terrible O'Rourke, for you are frightening mother!”

But papa, dominated by the atavistic influence of the O'Rourke, grew even more terrible; and mother was greatly frightened. She sat white and rigid, with scarcely fluttering breath; suddenly in her transparent eyes the pupils floated upward like two misty pale-blue half-moons; she was in the throes of one of her dreaded epileptic seizures.

Then they were all around her, helping her, loosening her dress, fanning her; while I stood aside trembling and woebegone, and the pains in the nape of my neck racked me anew.

I said to myself that my father was hard and wicked, that I should marry Vassili and carry mother off with me, ever so far away!

As for papa, he should only be allowed to see us once a year. At Christmas.

I have married Vassili.

········

I pretended to be seized with such convulsions that my poor dear mother, being at her wits' end, at last allowed me to run away with him.

Do I say “I pretended”? I am not sure that that is correct. At first the convulsions were certainly a mere pretense. I would say to myself: “Now I shall make myself have convulsions.” But as soon as I had begun I could not stop. After I had voluntarily gnashed my teeth they seemed to become locked as in a vice; my fists that I had purposely clenched would not reopen. My nails dug into the palms of my hands, and I could see the blood flowing down my wrists without being able to unclasp or relax my fingers.

Doctor Orlof, summoned in haste from Kieff, shook his head gravely.

“There are indications of epilepsy, due to the fall from the swing.”

“No, no, no!” I cried. “Not the swing! It is because of Vassili!”

My mother trembled and wept.

How cruel we are in our childhood! How we torture the mothers that adore us, even though we love them with all our hearts. And oh! the tragedy of not understanding this until it is too late, when we can never, never ask for their forgiveness, nor console them or atone to them again.

I married Vassili.

My father, more the Terrible O'Rourke than ever, at once refused to have anything to do with me. He denied me his kiss and his forgiveness. I was very unhappy.

“Oh, don't bother your head about that tiresome old man,” said Vassili, much annoyed by my tears.

As for my mother, she could only entreat Vassili to be kind and gentle with me.

“Take care of her, Vassili,” she implored. “I have given her to you lest she should die of a broken heart: but she is really too young to be any one's wife—she is but a child! I do not know whether you understand me. Remember she is not yet a woman. She is a child.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Vassili, without paying much attention. “That's all right. I shall tweak her nose if she is naughty.”

“And if I am good?” I asked, lifting ecstatic eyes to his handsome nonchalant face.

“If you are good you shall have sweets and kisses!” and he laughed, showing all his white teeth.

“Promise me, Vassili, that you will always sing my favorite song: 'Oh distant steppes, oh savage plains,' to me, and to no one else.”

“To you and to no one else,” said Vassili with mock solemnity. “Come then, Marie Tarnowska!” and he drew my arm under his, patting my hand on which the new nuptial ring shone in all its brightness.

“Marie Tarnowska!” What a beautiful name! I could have wished the whole world to know that name; I could have wished that every one seeing me should say: “Behold, behold Marie Tarnowska, happiest and most blessed among women.”

IV

On my wedding night, in the hotel at Kharkoff, I summoned the chambermaid. She knocked and entered. She was a pert, pretty creature, and after surveying me from head to foot she threw a rapid glance at Vassili. He was seated in an armchair, lighting a cigarette.

“What is your name?” he asked the girl.

“Rosalia, at your service, sir,” she replied.

“Very good, Rosalia,” said my husband. “This evening we shall do without you. Possibly in a day or two I may wish to see you again.”

The girl laughed, made a slight curtsey, and went out, closing the door behind her.

“But who is going to do my hair?” I asked, feeling very much out of countenance and shy at remaining alone with him.

“Never mind about your hair,” said Vassili. “Don't be so tedious. You're a little bore.” And he kissed me.

Then he sat down and smoked his cigarette, watching me out of narrowed eyelids as I wandered about the room in great trepidation and embarrassment. I was about to kneel down by the bedside to say my prayers, when he suddenly grasped my wrist and held it tightly.

“What are you doing now?” he inquired.

“I am going to say my prayers,” I replied.

“Don't bother about your prayers,” he said. “Try not to be such an awful little bore. Really you are quite insufferable.”

But I would not have missed my prayers for the world. At home prayers had always been a matter of great importance. Olga and I used to say them aloud in unison morning and evening. And now that Olga was far away I must say them alone. I buried my face in my hands and said them devoutly, with all my heart.

They were, I admit, numerous and long; and they were in many languages, for every nurse or governess that came to us in Otrada had taught us new ones; and Olga and I were afraid to leave any out, lest God should be offended; we were also rather doubtful as to which language He understood the best.

I had just come to an English prayer—

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake...

(Here Olga and I used always to interpolate a short prayer of our own invention: “Please, dear God, do not on any account let us die to-night. Amen.”)—when Vassili interrupted me.

“Haven't you finished?” he cried, putting his arm round my neck. “You are very tiresome. You bore me to extinction.”

“You bore me!” That was the perpetual refrain of all his days. I always bored him. Perhaps it was not surprising. At seventeen one is not always clever and entertaining, especially outside the family circle. At home I had always been considered rather witty and intelligent, but to Vassili I was never anything but “a dreadful bore.”

When I caught sight of him pinching Rosalia's cheek and I burst into tears: “You are a fearful bore,” he said crossly. If I noticed the scent of musk or patchouli on his coat and ventured to question him about it—“You are an insufferable little bore,” would be all the answer I got. When he went out (taking the music of “My Savage Plains” with him) and stayed away all night, on his return next morning I sobbed out my anguish on his breast. “I must say you bore me to death,” he yawned.

And one day I heard that he had had a child by a German baroness.

At the sight of my paroxysm of despair he grew angry. “What does it matter to you, silly creature, since you have not got one yourself?” he exclaimed. “Wearisome little bore that you are; you can't even have a child.”

I was aghast. What—what did he mean? Why could I not—?

“No! no!” he shouted, with his handsome mouth rounded and open like those of the stone cherubs on the walls of his castle, “you will never have any children. You are not a woman. Your mother herself said so.” And the look which he flashed across my frail body cut me like a sword.

I fell fainting to the ground.

Then he became alarmed. He called everybody. He summoned the whole staff of the hotel. He sent for all the ladies he knew in Kharkoff (and they were many) imploring them all to save me, to recall me to life. When I came to myself the room was filled with women: there was Rosalia, and two Hungarian girls from the adjoining apartment, and there was also the German baroness, and little Julia Terlezkaja, the latest and fairest of my husband's conquests. All these graceful creatures were bending over my couch, while Vassili on his knees with his head buried in the coverlet was sobbing: “Save her! She is dead! I have killed her!”

I put out my hand and touched his hair.

“I am alive,” I said softly; and he threw himself upon me and kissed me. The women stood round us in a semi-circle, gay and graceful as the figures on a Gobelin tapestry.

“I love you,” Vassili was exclaiming; “I love you just as you are. I should hate you to be like everybody else.” And in French he added, looking at Madame Terlezkaja: “C'est très rigolo d'avoir une femme qui n'est pas une femme.”

I hid my face in the pillow, and wept; while the fair Terlezkaja, who seemed to be the kindest of them all, bent over and consoled me.

“Pay no heed to him,” she whispered. “I think he has been drinking a little.”

The door opened. A doctor, who had been sent for by the manager of the hotel, entered with a resolute authoritative air. At the sight of him the women disappeared like a flight of startled sparrows. Of course they took Vassili with them.

To the good old doctor I confided the secret which Vassili had disclosed to me and which was burning my heart.

“I want to have a child, a little child of my own!” I cried.

“Of course. Of course. So you shall,” said the old doctor, with a soothing smile. “There is no reason why you should not. You are a little anemic, that is all.”

He scribbled some prescriptions on his tablets.

“There. You will take all that. And you will go to Franzensbad. Within a year you will be asking me to act as godpapa.”

I took all he prescribed. But I did not go to Franzensbad. Vassili wanted to go to Petersburg, so, of course, it was to Petersburg we went.

The very first evening we were there a number of his friends came to call on him.

I remember, among the rest, a certain German Grand Duke, who, after showing me an infinite amount of attention, drew Vassili aside and spoke to him in undertones. I heard him mention the name of a famous restaurant and the words: “A jolly supper-party to-night—some ravishingly pretty tziganes....” There followed names of men and women whom I did not know, and my husband laughed loudly.

Then the Grand Duke turned to me, and bowing deeply and ceremoniously kissed my hand.

For an instant a frenzied impulse came over me to clutch that well-groomed head and cry: “Wicked man! Why are you trying to lure my husband from me?” But social conventions prevailed over this elementary instinct, and when the Grand Duke raised his patrician head he found me all amiability and smiles.

“She is indeed a bewitching creature!” I heard him mutter to Vassili. “Looks just like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels. Well then, at eleven o'clock to-night, at the 'Hermitage.'”

Promptly at a quarter to eleven Vassili, sleek, trim and immaculate, kissed my cheek gaily and went out.

I was alone. Alone in the great drawing-room, gorgeous with lights and mirrors and gilded decorations. What was the good of being a bewitching creature? What was the good of looking like one of Botticelli's diaphanous angels?...

V

I rang for my maid, Katja, a good creature, ugly beyond words—and gladly chosen by me on that account—and I told her that she was to undress me for I was going to bed. While she was unfastening my dress I could hear her muttering: “If it were me, I should not go to bed. If it were me, I should put on my diamonds and my scarlet chiffon gown; I should take a good bottle of vitriol in my pocket, and go and see what they were up to.”

“Katja, what are you mumbling? Do you mean to say that you—that you think I ought to go—?”

“Of course,” she cried, and her small squinting eyes shot forth, to the right and left, fierce, divergent flashes of indignation. “Why should my lady not go?”

Why should I not, indeed? Had I not the right—nay, the duty—to follow Vassili? Had I not most solemnly promised so to do, in the little church on the steppes a year ago? “Follow him!” With what tremulous joy had I repeated after the priest those two words of tenacity and submission. Had they no application to the Hermitage restaurant?

“Perhaps I might venture to go,” I murmured, “but, Katja, do not other women always have rouge and powder to put on when they go out? I have nothing.”

“Nothing but your eighteen years, madame,” replied Katja.

She dressed me in the low-necked scarlet chiffon gown. She drew on my flame-colored stockings, and my crimson shoes. On my head she placed the diamond and ruby tiara, and about my shoulders she wound a red and gold scarf which looked like a snake of fire.

“Alas, Katja!” I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror; “what would my mother say if she were to see me like this? What do I look like?”

“You look like a lighted torch,” said Katja.

I made her come with me in the troika, which sped swiftly and silently through the dim snow-covered streets. I was shaking with fear at the thought of Vassili. Katja was mumbling some prayers.

We drew up at the brilliant entrance of the restaurant.

“Oh, heavens, Katja! What will my husband say?”

“He will say that you are beautiful.”

How did I ever venture across that threshold of dazzling light? How was I able to ascend the red-carpeted stairs, preceded and followed by bows and smiles and whispers? At the head of the wide staircase, in front of a double-paneled door of white and gold, I paused with beating heart, almost unable to breathe. I could hear the gipsy-music inside, and women's voices and men's laughter and the tinkling of glasses.

An impassive head-waiter stood before me, calmly awaiting my orders.

“Tell”—I stammered—“tell—” as I thought of Vassili my courage failed me—“tell his Highness the Grand Duke that I wish to see him.”

Then I clung to the balustrade and waited. As the door opened and was quickly closed again, there came forth a puff of heat and sound which enwrapped me like a flame.

Almost immediately the door opened again and the Grand Duke appeared upon the threshold, his countenance still elated by recent laughter. He stared at me in astonishment, without recognition. “What—what can I do for you?” he asked. Then his eyes widened in limitless astonishment. “Upon my word! It is the Botticelli angel!”

I said “Yes,” and felt inclined to weep.

“Come in, come in!” he cried eagerly, taking me by the arm and leading me to the door.

A waiter threw it wide open. I had a dazzling vision of a table resplendent with crystal, silver, and flowers, and the bare jeweled shoulders of women.

“Tarnowsky!” called the Grand Duke from the threshold. “Fortunate among men! Behold—the most glorious of your conquests!”

Vassili had started to his feet and was looking at me with amazed and incredulous eyes. There was a deep silence. I felt as if I should die. Vassili came up to me. He took me brusquely by the hand, crushing my fingers in his iron clasp. “You are mad!” he said. Then he looked at me from head to foot—not with the gaze of a husband, nor yet with that of a lover, but with the cold curious scrutiny of the perfect connoisseur.

“Come,” he said at last, drawing me towards the others who were in a riot of laughter. “I have always told my friends that you were a chilling, lily-white flake of snow. You are not!” And he laughed. “You are a blazing little firebrand! Come in!”

Thenceforward my husband would always have me with him. My untutored adolescence was trailed from revelry to revelry, from banquet to orgy; my innocence swept into the maelstrom of a licentious life. I was forced to look into the depths of every depravity; to my lips was proffered every chalice of shame.

Oh, if as I stood trembling on the confines of maidenhood, some strong and tender hand had drawn me into safety, should not I have been like other women, those happy women who walk with lofty brows in the sunshine, august and ruthless in their purity?

But, alas! when with tardy and reluctant step I issued forth from my long childhood, a thousand cruel hands were thrust out to push me towards the abyss.

Oh, white pathway of innocence which knows no return! Oh, tenuous light of purity which, once quenched, kindles no more! Did I not grieve and mourn for you when I lost you before my twentieth year? Sadly, enviously, like some poor exile, I saw other girls of my age passing in blithe security by the side of their mothers, blushing at an eager word or at a daring glance. Alas! I felt that I was unworthy to kiss the hem of their skirts.

But bliss was to be vouchsafed to me. Redeeming and triumphant there came to me at last the Angel of Maternity. With proud humility I bore the little human flower fluttering in my breast. At every throb of life I felt myself swooning with joy—with the ineffable joy of my reconquered purity.

My mother was with me, and in the tender haven of her arms I found shelter for my meek and boundless ecstasy.

How is it possible, I asked myself, that there are women who dread this perfect happiness, who weep and suffer through these months fraught with rapturous two-fold life?

For me, I felt like a flowering plant in springtime, impelled by some potent influence towards its perfect blossoming. The whole of that blissful period seemed a sublime ascent to unalloyed felicity; everything enchanted me, from the awed and tremulous waiting to the final crowning consummation.

When at last the fragile infant—my son!—lay in my arms, he seemed to me sufficient to fill my entire life. I nursed him into ever-growing wonder and beauty. Day by day he seemed fairer, more entrancing, like a delicate flower in some fantastic lunar legend.

Oh, the wee groping hands against my face! The wilful little caprices, the cries like those of an angry dove! And the dimples on the elbows; the droll battle with the little cap always awry, and the joyous impatience of the tiny kicking feet!

Each day my mother and I invented new names for him—names of little flowers, names of little animals, nonsense-names made up of sweet senseless sounds.

I had no thought, I had no desire. Pale and pure I sat enthroned in the milk-white paradise of maternity.

VI

Soon after that my thoughts are adrift, my recollections grow confused. I see my mother with my baby in her arms, and myself in traveling attire, with my arms twined about them, weeping, despairing, refusing to leave them and set out on a journey of Vassili's planning. But Vassili grows impatient. Vassili grows angry. He is tired of playing the papa, tired of seeing me no longer a little “firebrand,” but calm as a young Madonna in the beatific purity of motherhood.

Vassili has taken it into his head that he wants to study singing. He has made up his mind to go to Italy, to Milan, to study scales and exercises; and I must go with him.

“But our baby, Vassili, our little Tioka! We must take our baby with us!”

No. Vassili does not want babies. He does not want to be bothered or hindered. “We are carting about eight trunks as it is!” he says, cynically.

And so we start for Italy—Italy, the yearned-for goal of all my girlish dreams.

At Milan Vassili sings. I seem always to see him with his handsome mouth open, singing scales and arpeggios. But a slow poison is creeping through my blood and I fall ill, ill with typhoid fever.

Again my thoughts go adrift and my recollections are confused. They dance in grotesque and hideous visions through my brain. I see livid hallucinated faces peering at me, towers and mountains tottering above me, undefined horrors all about me, and in the midst of them all I see Vassili—singing! He sings scales and arpeggios with his rounded open mouth. Now I can see a white spider—no, two white spiders—running about on a scarlet coverlet.... They are my hands. They frighten me. And Vassili is singing.

“Vassili, why are you singing? Don't sing! Don't sing!”

“No, darling, I am not singing. You only imagine it. You are ill; you are feverish. Calm yourself.”

········

“Vassili, where is my baby?”

“At home in Kieff, with grandmama. Dear grandmama is taking such good care of him!”

“And why are we not with him? Where are we?”

“We are at Pegli, darling.”

“Why? Why? Where is Pegli? What are we doing at Pegli?”

“Come now, dearest; you know—we came to Italy because I wanted to sing—”

“Ah, you see! You wanted to sing! Why do you want to sing when the baby is crying? The baby is so helpless. Why did you take me away from him? You sing, you sing so loud that I cannot hear my baby crying. Don't sing!”

But even as I speak I see that Vassili has his round mouth open again and he sings and sings, and the white spiders run over the scarlet counterpane and come close to my face—and the white spiders are my hands. I shriek and shriek to have them taken away. But the baby is crying and Vassili is singing and no one hears me.

········

Then I drop down to the bottom of a deep well. I feel myself falling, falling, until with a great shock I touch the bottom. And there I lie motionless in the dark.

········

When I open my eyes there is a great deal of light; the windows are open, the sun is pouring in; I know that outside there is the sea. Beside my bed sits a doctor with a gray beard, feeling my pulse. Under the light intermittent pressure of his fingers my pulse seems to grow quieter; I can see the doctor's head giving little nods as he counts the beats.

“Sixty-five. Excellent, excellent!” The doctor pats my hand gently and encouragingly. “That is first-rate. We are quite well again.”

Then I hear some one weeping softly, and I know it is my mother. I try to turn and smile at her, but my head will not move. It is like a ball of lead sunk in the pillow. Immediately afterwards—or have years passed?—I hear some one say: “Here is the Professor!” And again the same doctor with the gray beard comes in and smiles at me.

Before sitting down beside the bed he turns to my mother: “Has she not yet asked about her child?” My mother shakes her head and presses her handkerchief to her eyes. Then the doctor sits down beside my bed and strokes my forehead and speaks to me.

He speaks about a baby. He repeats a name over and over again—perhaps it is Tioka. Tioka? Who is Tioka? I watch his beard moving up and down, and do not know what he is saying. The ball of lead on my pillow rolls from side to side with a dull and heavy ache.

My mother weeps bitterly: “Oh, doctor, do not let her die!”

The white spiders are there again, running over the coverlet. And I fall once more, down, down, down, to the bottom of the well.

VII

For how many months was I ill? I do not know. Vassili, restless and idle, “carted” me and my medicines and my sufferings from Pegli to Genoa, from Genoa to Florence. He seemed to have forgotten that we had a home; he seemed to have forgotten that we had a child.

Our rooms at the hotel in Florence were bright with sunshine and with the frivolous gaiety of a graceful trio of Russian ladies—the Princess Dubinskaja, her sister Vera Vojatschek, and the fair-haired Olga Kralberg, who came to see us every day. But I felt lost and lonely, as if astray in the world. My mother had returned to Russia, and my vacant and aching heart invoked Vassili, who, alas! was never by my side.

“You must win him back,” said Olga Kralberg to me one day—she, whose fate it was on a not distant day to commit suicide for his sake. “Every man, especially if he is a husband, has—after some time—to be won back again.”

“That is sooner said than done,” I replied despondently. “To win a man is easy enough. But to win him back—”

“There are various ways of doing it,” she said. “Have you tried being very affectionate?”

“Yes, indeed,” said I.

“How did it answer?”

“He was bored to death.”

“Have you tried being cool and distant? Being, so to speak, a stranger to him?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And he?”

“He never even noticed that I was being a stranger to him. He was as happy and good-tempered as ever.”

Olga shook her head dejectedly. “Have you tried being hysterical?” she asked after a while.

I hesitated. “I think so,” I said at last. “But I do not quite know what you mean.”

“Well,” explained Olga sententiously, “with some men, who cannot bear healthy normal women, hysteria is a great success. Of course, it must be esthetic hysteria—you must try to preserve the plastic line through it all,” and Olga sketched with her thumb a vague painter's gesture in the air. “For example, you deluge yourself in strange perfumes. You trail about the house in weird clinging gowns. You faint away at the sight of certain shades of color—”

“What an absurd idea!” I exclaimed.

“Not at all. Not in the least,” said Olga. “On the contrary, it is very modern, very piquant to swoon away every time you see a certain shade of—of mauve, for instance.”

“But what if I don't see it?”

“Silly! You must see it. Give orders to a shop to send you ten yards of mauve silk. Open the parcel in your husband's presence. Then—then you totter; you fall down—but mind,” added Olga, “that you fall in a graceful, impressionist attitude. Like this.” And Olga illustrated her meaning in what appeared to me a very foolish posture.

“I think it ridiculous,” I said to her. And she was deeply offended.

“Good-by,” she said, pinning her hat on briskly and spitefully.

“No, no! Don't go away. Do not desert me,” I implored. “Try to suggest something else.”

Olga was mollified. After reflecting a few moments she remarked.

“Have you tried being a ray of sunshine to him?”

I lost patience with her. “What do you mean by a 'ray of sunshine'? You seem to be swayed by stock phrases, such as one reads in novels.”

This time Olga was not offended. She explained that in order to be a ray of sunshine in a man's life, one must appear before him gay, sparkling and radiant at all hours of the day.

“Always dress in the lightest of colors. Put a ribbon in your hair. When you hear his footsteps, run to meet him and throw your arms round his neck. When he goes out, toss a flower to him from the window. When he seems dull or silent, take your guitar and sing to him.”

“You know I don't play the guitar,” I said pettishly.

“That does not matter. What really counts is the singing. The atmosphere that surrounds him should be bright with unstudied gaiety. He ought to live, so to speak, in a whirlwind of sunshine!”

“Well, I will try,” I sighed, without much conviction.

I did try.

I dressed in the lightest of colors and I pinned a ribbon in my hair. When I heard his footstep, I ran to meet him and threw my arms round his neck.

“What is the matter?” he asked. “And what on earth have you got on your head? You look like a barmaid.”

To the best of my powers I was a whirlwind of sunshine; and as soon as I saw that he was dull and silent (and this occurred almost immediately) I said to myself that the moment was come for me to sing to him.

I sat down at the piano. I have not much ear, but a fine strong voice, even if not always quite in tune.

At the second bar Vassili got up, took his hat and left the house. I threw a flower to him from the window.

He did not come back for three days.

VIII

When I talked it over with Olga, she was very sympathetic.

“I know,” she mused, “that these things sometimes succeed and sometimes do not. Men are not all alike.” Then she added: “But there is one sure way of winning them back. It is an old method, but infallible.”

“What is it?” I asked skeptically.

“By making them jealous. It is vulgar, it is rococo, it causes no end of trouble. But it is infallible.”

We reviewed the names of all the men who could possibly be employed to arouse Vassili's jealousy. We could think of no one. I was surrounded by nothing but women.

“It is past belief,” said Olga, surveying me from head to foot, “that there should be no one willing to—”

I shook my head moodily. “No one on earth.”

Olga grasped my wrist. “Stay! I have an idea. We will get some one who is not on earth. Some one who is dead. It will be much simpler. I remember there was an idea of that kind in an unsuccessful play I saw a year or two ago. What we need is a dead man—recently dead, if possible, and, if possible, young. If he has committed suicide, so much the better.”

“What on earth do you want with a dead man?” I asked, shuddering.

“Why! can't you see? We will say that he died for your sake!” cried Olga, “that he killed himself on your account. We will have a telegram sent to us by some one in Russia. We will get them to telegraph to you: 'I die for your sake. Am killing myself. Farewell!'”

“But who is to sign it?”

“Oh, somebody or other,” said Olga vaguely. “Or we could have it signed with an imaginary name, if you prefer it. That would enable us to dispense with the corpse.”

“I most certainly prefer that,” I remarked. “But, frankly, I can't see—”

“What can't you see? Don't you see the effect upon Vassili of the news that a man has killed himself for your sake? Don't you see the new irresistible attraction which you will then exercise over him? Surely you know what strange subtle charm emanates from the 'fatal woman'—the woman whose lethal beauty—”

“Very well, very well,” I said, slightly encouraged. “Let us have the telegram written and sent to me.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon composing it.

Three days later Vassili entered the drawing-room where Olga and I were having tea; he held a telegram in his hand; his face was of a ghastly pallor.

“He's got it,” whispered Olga hysterically, pinching my arm.

“Mura,” said Vassili; “a horrible thing has happened. Horrible!” His white lips trembled as he uttered the incoherent words:

“Dead—he is dead—he has killed himself—”

He was unable to go on. His voice broke in a sob.

I sprang to my feet. “Who, Vassili? Who?”

Olga thought the moment had arrived for putting things in the proper light. She turned to me with a significant glance, and grasped my hand.

“Ah! It is the man who loved you!” she exclaimed. “And this—this is what you dreaded!”

“What! What!” shouted Vassili, clutching her arm and pushing her roughly aside. Then he turned upon me and seized me by the shoulder. “You—you knew of this? You dreaded this?”

I stood trembling, struck dumb with terror. I could hear the futile and bewildered explanations of Olga:

“Why, surely,” she was saying with an insensate smile, “it is a thing that might happen to anybody. It is not her fault if people love her to distraction.”

But Vassili was crushing my wrist. “My brother—he loved you?” he gasped.

“Your brother? Your brother—little Peter?” I stammered.

“Yes, yes! Peter,” shouted Vassili. “My brother! What have you to do with his death?”

“Nothing, nothing.” I groaned. “I swear it—nothing!”

And Olga, realizing at last that she stood in the presence of a genuine tragedy and not of the jest we had plotted, darted forward and caught his arm.

“Vassili, you are mistaken. She knows nothing about it; nothing whatever. We had planned a joke to play on you, and we thought—” She pursued her agitated and incoherent explanations.

Vassili looked from one to the other of us, scanning our faces, hardly hearing what Olga was saying. Suddenly he seemed to understand, and loosening his hold on my arm he fell upon the couch and buried his face in his hands.

The telegram had dropped on the carpet. Olga picked it up and read it; then she handed it to me:

Peter hanged himself last night. Come at once.

Tarnowsky.

We left for Kieff the same evening. Throughout the entire journey Vassili never spoke. I sat mournful and silent opposite him and thought of my brother-in-law, Peter. Not of the pale youth, already corrupted by absinthe and women, whom we had left at Kieff a few months before, but of the child Peter, in his short velvet suit and lace collar, whom I had loved so dearly in the days of my girlhood—little Peter who used to run to meet me in the sun-splashed avenues of the Villa Tarnowsky, trotting up with his little bare legs and serious face, stopping to be kissed and then trotting hurriedly off again, the nape of his neck showing fair and plump beneath the upturned brim of his sailor-hat.

How well I remember that sailor-hat! The black ribbon round the crown bore, between two anchors, the word, “Implacable”; and from under that fierce device the round and gentle countenance of little Peter gazed mildly out into the world.

Little Peter's legs were always cold. He was brought up in English fashion, with short socks even in the depths of winter. From afar you could see little Peter's chilly bare legs, crimson against a background of snow. Sometimes, rubbing his knees, he would say to me: “I wish God had made me of fur, instead of—of leather, like this.” And again he would remark: “I don't like being alive. Not that I want to die; but I wish I had never begun.”

And now little Peter had finished. Little Peter lay solemn and magnificent in the chambre ardente where his dead ancestors had lain solemn and magnificent before him. “Implacable” indeed he lay, unmoved by the tears of his mother and father; his lofty brow was marble; his fair eyelashes lowered over his quenched and upturned eyes.

When I thought of him thus I felt afraid.

And it seemed strange to be afraid of little Peter.

IX

After we had crossed the Russian frontier another thought—a thought that filled me with unspeakable happiness—put all others to flight: my child! I should see my child again! All our relations would certainly be assembled at the Tarnowskys' house, so I should find my parents and my little Tioka there too. The image of the living child soon displaced the tragic memory of the dead youth. As the train sped towards Kieff my fever of gladness and impatience increased. Yes, to-morrow would be poor Peter's funeral, but this very evening I should clasp little Tioka in my arms!

Raising my eyes, I saw that Vassili was looking at me with a scowl. “I have been watching you for some time,” he said. “Heartless creature that you are, to laugh—to laugh in the face of death.”

“I was thinking of Tioka,” I stammered. Vassili did not reply. But in the depths of my heart joy sang and whispered like a hidden fountain.

Thus, inwardly rejoicing, did I enter the house of death and hasten to the dark-red room—the very scene of Peter's suicide—in which they had placed my baby's cradle; thus, while others mourned with prayers and tears in the gloomy death-chamber, I ran across the sun-filled garden holding my infant to my breast. I hid myself with him in the orchard and laughed and laughed aloud, as I kissed his starry eyes and his tiny, flower-like mouth.

But Death, the Black Visitor, had entered my life. Little Peter had shown him the way, had opened the door to him.

From that day forward the dread Intruder never forsook my threshold.

Death, lurking at my door in terrifying silence, stretched out his hand at intervals and clutched some one belonging to me. Generally it was with a swift gesture—a fell disease or a pistol-shot—that he struck down and flung into the darkness those I loved.

But towards me Death comes with a slower, more deliberate tread. For years, ever since the birth of my little daughter Tania,—my white rosebud born midst the snows of a dreary winter in Kieff—I have felt Death creeping towards me, slow, insidious, inexorable, holding in his hand a knot of serpents, each of which will fasten its poisoned fangs upon me. Disease, the venomous snake, will hide in my bosom and thrust its way through my veins. The heavy snake of Grief will coil round my heart and crush me in its spirals. Insanity will glide into my brain and nest there. Then—last but not least horrible—the little glass viper, the syringe of Pravaz, whose fang is a hollow needle, will draw me into the thraldom of its virulent grip. It will spurt its venom into my blood. The bland balm of coca, the milky juice of the poppy, will flow into my veins, soothing, assuaging, lulling me into sleep and forgetfulness—only to waken me in renewed agony of suffering to a renewed bite of the envenomed fang. For the only antidote to the poison of narcotics is the narcotic itself, the only alleviation to the tearing agony of the poison generated by morphia is morphia again. And so the fatal sequence swings on forever, in ever-widening circles of torment....

X

From Alexis Bozevsky to Stepan Nebrasoff.

Kieff, Thursday.

Dear Stepan, my good Friend,—

I am here in the house of your cousin, Dr. Stahl, who seems to have grown longer and leaner than ever. He is a mere shadow. It is here that your letter reaches me. You tell me to write to you about myself. To-day, the 15th of October, 1903, I am twenty-four years old. What gift will Destiny give me for my birthday? Love? Wealth? A hero's death?

Your cousin Stahl, in his cavernous voice that seems to come echoing up from underground, says that the gift of Destiny is precisely these four-and-twenty years of mine! Perhaps he is right. I feel them eddying in my blood like four-and-twenty cyclones.

The world is a whirlwind of youth.

Kaufmann this morning lent me his sorrel stallion—the finest horse in the Empire—and I had a gallop along the bastions. All the women looked at me. In a phaeton I saw the brazen and beautiful Princess Theodora, blonde and torrid as a Mexican landscape. She was resplendent in amethyst and heliotrope, her red locks flaming to the sun; no one but a princess would permit herself to display such a riot of violent colors.

Soon afterwards I saw Vera Voroklizkaja, reclining in her carriage, aloof and severe as a vestal virgin; her glossy black tresses parted over her brow enclosed the narrow oval of her face like soft black wings. Beside her sat little Miriam Grey, clothed in her youthfulness as in an armor of roses. The beauty of all these women courses through my blood like sun and wine.

Upon my word life is an excellent institution.

And you—what are you doing?

Ever yours,
Bozevsky.

The next day.

Stepan, Stepan, Stepan!—

I am in love! Madly, sublimely, tragically in love! This morning I went to the parade-ground as in a dream; I found myself speaking to the colonel in a gentle winning voice that was perfectly ludicrous. When I drilled my company I could hear myself giving the words of command in an imploring tone which I still blush to remember. I am obsessed, hallucinated; there floats before my eyes a slender, ethereal creature, with red lips that never smile, and hair that looks like a cataract of champagne.

Stahl introduced me to her yesterday, here at his house. “Come,” he said, taking me by the arm. “You are going to make the acquaintance of a superior being, soft of voice and sad of countenance, who bears the gentle name of Marie.”

“Let me off,” I replied skeptically. “Sad and superior beings are not to my liking.”

“You will like this one,” said Stahl.

“I know I shan't,” I replied curtly. I saw Stahl's eye warn me, and, turning, found myself face to face with the subject of our conversation, a tall, flower-like vision, with translucent eyes and a mystic inscrutable face.

I knew she had overheard me, and as I bowed low before her, she said: “That you should like me is of no importance. What really matters is that I should be pleased with you.”

Her beauty and the scornful levity of her words struck me strangely. “Madame,” and I was surprised to feel that I spoke with sincerity, “to please you will be henceforward the highest aim of my desire.”

She looked at me a moment; then she spoke quietly: “You have attained your aim.”

She turned and left me. I stood thunderstruck by the brief and daring reply and by the flash of that clear gaze. She had spoken the words without a smile.

She did not address me during the rest of the evening. When she left, she barely glanced at me and vouchsafed neither smile nor greeting.

Just for an instant she raised her black-fringed eyes and gazed at me; then her lashes fell; and it was as if a light had been blown out.

I am in love with her! Madly, divinely, desperately in love. Ah, Stepan, love—what an ecstasy and what a disaster!

Your Bozevsky.

It was Dr. Stahl, the “Satanic Stahl,” who got these letters from his cousin Stepan Nebrasoff, and showed them to me. They bewildered and troubled me. What? Was I really so attractive and so perturbing in the eyes of the gallant young Pole—the handsomest officer in the Imperial Guard? I repeated to myself his disquieting epithets: “flower-like,” “ethereal,” “inscrutable”; and in my room at night when I loosened my hair, I wondered: “Does it really look like a cataract of champagne?” When I went out I never smiled, even when I felt inclined to do so, since my gravity had seemed so charming to him.

Night and day he followed me like a shadow—or rather, should I say, like a blaze of light. In whatever direction I turned I was sure to encounter his radiant smile and his flashing glance. His passion encompassed me; I felt like Brunnhilde surrounded by a sea of flame. I was elated yet terrified.

One evening at dinner I made up my mind to speak to Vassili about it.

“Vassili,” I said falteringly, “I think we ought to go away for a time.”

“Away? Where to?” asked my husband.

“Anywhere—anywhere away from Kieff.”

“Why?”

I felt myself turning pale! “I am afraid,” I stammered, “I am afraid—that Bozevsky—”

“Well?” asked Vassili serenely, pouring some vodka into his champagne and drinking it.

“I am afraid that Bozevsky is falling in love with me.”

“And who would not fall in love with you, dushka?” laughed Vassili. “As for Bozevsky, may the wolves eat him.”

And dinner being over, he lit his cigar and went out.

········

I go sadly upstairs to the nursery where Tioka and Tania, like blonde seraphs, lie asleep.

A dim lamp hangs between the two white cots and illumines their favorite picture—an artless painting of the Virgin Mary, holding in her youthful arms the infant Jesus with a count's coronet on His head.

I kneel down beside the two little beds and weep.

Aunt Sonia, rectilinear and asexual in her gray flannel dressing-gown, comes in softly and bends over me.

“You must trust in Providence,” she says, raising towards the ceiling her long virginal face. “And take a little camomile tea. That always does one good.”

I obey her meekly and gratefully. It comforts me to think that a day will come when I also shall be like Aunt Sonia; when I also shall be content to wear gray flannel dressing-gowns and turn in my sorrows to Providence and to camomile tea.

And I wish that that day of peace were near.

XI

So we stayed on in Kieff and Bozevsky came to see us every day. He brought me flowers—wonderful orchids the color of amethyst, tenuous contorted blossoms that looked as if they had bloomed in some garden of dreams. He brought me books; books of nebulous German poetry; Spanish plays by Echegaray all heroism and fire; and disquieting, neurotic French novels. Then he brought me English books which filled me with pleasant surprise. How far removed from our Slav souls were those limpid Anglo-Saxon minds! How child-like and simple was their wit, how bland and practical their outlook on life. That was the literature I liked best of all; perhaps because it was so different from everything in myself. I felt that I was a strange, ambiguous, complicated creature compared with those candid elemental natures.

Bozevsky liked to find me reading. He would arrive in the evening—usually after Vassili had gone out, alone or with friends—and enter the drawing-room with bright and cheerful greeting. He always smiled when he found me with one of his books in my hand, sitting beside Aunt Sonia placidly knitting in her armchair.

“I like your thoughts to be far away from here,” he would say, kissing my hand. “I like to know that your soul is far from the frivolous society you live in, far from the petty preoccupations, the compliments and the flattery which surround you. Let me read with you; let me join you in the purer realm of fancy, far away from the world.” And he would sit down beside me, with an air of protecting fraternal affection.

One evening he found me nervous and agitated.

“What has happened?” he asked.

“I have been reading a ghastly book,” I told him with a shudder. “The story of a mysterious plant, a sort of huge octopus that feeds on human flesh—”

“Ugh!” laughed Bozevsky, “how gruesome!” and he bent his sunny head over the page.

“Just imagine,” I continued, “its branches are long moving tentacles, its thick leaves are quite black and hard; they glitter and move like living scorpions....”

“Horrid, horrid,” said Bozevsky with his shining smile as he took the book out of my hand. “Forget the scorpions. To-night I shall read you some Italian poetry. I want you to make friends with Carducci.”

He opened a plainly bound volume at random, and read to me.

“Oh favolosi prati d'Eliseo...”

I forgot the tree of scorpions. I forgot Bozevsky. I forgot Aunt Sonia and the world. The unknown poet had wrapped my spirit in his giant wings and was bearing me far away.

It was about this time that Vassili took me to Moscow. There, one evening, our friends the Maximoffs brought a stranger to see us. They introduced him as an estimable Moscow lawyer of high repute. I was surrounded by other friends and I greeted him absently, without hearing his name. I remember casually noticing that he was neither young nor old, neither ugly nor handsome. His wife, a timid, fair-haired woman, was with him.

At Vassili's suggestion we all went to the “Strelna,” a famous night-restaurant. I remember that there was a great deal of laughter at the grotesque jokes which Vassili and Maximoff and also the estimable lawyer played on the pretty dark-faced tziganes.

I noticed that the lawyer's wife did not laugh. She passed her hand across her wistful Madonna-like brow, and listened only to the music.

Like her I felt out of tune with the merriment around me. My thoughts wandered back to the silent drawing-room at Kieff: I thought of Aunt Sonia and her peaceful knitting, of Bozevsky and the books he had brought me. I seemed to hear his voice saying, “Ugh! a tree of scorpions”—and at that very instant something cold and claw-like clutched my bare shoulder. I uttered a piercing shriek, which seemed to turn every one—including myself—cold with terror. But it was only the estimable lawyer, who, having drunk rather too much, had playfully climbed upon the sofa behind me and, to save himself from falling off, had laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“What on earth has happened?” exclaimed Vassili. “What made you scream like that?”

“I don't know,” I stammered, taken aback, “I thought—I thought it was a scorpion!”

Every one laughed and for the rest of the evening the lawyer was nicknamed “the Scorpion.” Perhaps this name added to the unreasoning fear I felt of him, or perhaps I was merely nervous, but he seemed to be always close behind me, and during the whole of that evening I kept on turning round, with little shivers running down my spine, to see what he was doing.

Suddenly he had disappeared. Vassili laughed loudly. “Hullo! Where's the Scorpion?” And amidst the laughter of the guests he set himself to count the flippant tziganes one by one to see if any were missing. But they were all there—and I was glad for the sake of the Scorpion's poor little Madonna-wife.

It was three in the morning when we went back to our sleighs. It was very cold; the clear deep-blue sky was powdered with stars. Assisted by Maximoff I was about to step into the sleigh, when, with another cry, I drew back; my foot had touched something soft and shapeless that was lying huddled up beneath the rug.

“What is the matter now?” cried Vassili. “Another scorpion?”

No, it was the same one. It was the estimable lawyer very drunk and fast asleep at the bottom of the sleigh.

On our way back to the hotel, driving through the keen night air, I asked Vassili:

“Who was that man?”

“What man?” said Vassili, who sat opposite to us and was pressing the small feet of Maximoff's wife.

“You know—the man who frightened me.”

“Oh, the Scorpion?” laughed Vassili. “That was Donat Prilukoff.”

When we returned to Kieff I told Bozevsky the adventure of our evening at the Strelna, and described the Scorpion to him with as much humor as I could. But Bozevsky did not laugh. My absence had embittered and exasperated him. He no longer sat beside me with an air of protective fraternal affection. He would not speak of literature or poetry any more. He spent entire evenings making mute scenes of jealousy and despair, while dear Aunt Sonia, instinctively feeling the atmosphere around her charged with electricity, dropped many stitches in her knitting and became sour and irritable.

“My child, this must not go on any longer. Either Alexis Bozevsky must be forbidden the house or we ourselves must go away. I cannot understand how Vassili—” Her honest cheeks kindled with indignation. “Enough. I shall speak to him about it myself.”

She did so: and Vassili, with his usual brief comment that we all bored him to death, expressed the hope that wild beasts might devour Bozevsky, and ordered us to pack up and leave for the country at once.

XII

So we all left for the country—to the great delight of Aunt Sonia and the children.

Let my mind linger for an instant on those springtide days—the last for me, though I did not know it, of unalloyed serenity. The children and I used to rise at dawn and go into the vast garden all a-shimmer with dew. On the glittering lawn, among the flower-beds, down the shady avenues of the park the two little elfin figures flitted before me, calling to me, eluding me, darting to and fro like twin will-o'-the-wisps; then turned and ran towards me with wind-light steps and gilt locks afloat, to shelter in my outstretched arms. Oh! my children, my little boy and girl, when you remember your mother I pray that God may lead your memories back to those clear morning hours, and may the rest be blotted out and dark.

Vassili was inexpressibly bored with rural solitude and sought new means of diversion. His latest fad was target-shooting. He filled the house with rifles and revolvers and invited every one in the neighboring country houses to take part in shooting matches in our grounds. From morning to night, in the garden, in the courtyard, even from the windows of the house, there was a ceaseless crackling of firearms.

One afternoon when the house was filled with guests, Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky arrived in their troika from the neighboring castle of the Grigorievskys, where they had been staying. To my astonishment, Vassili received them jubilantly and embraced them both. He had quite forgotten the reasons which had led to our departure from Kieff.

Bozevsky came to greet me at once, and for the rest of the day never left my side. He enveloped me in a whirlwind of ecstatic tenderness. His infatuation, which he sought neither to conceal nor to control, disquieted me deeply.

I noticed that his friend Dr. Stahl watched us continually. I had not seen the doctor for many months, and he struck me as strangely altered. His very light eyes, in which the pupils were contracted until they seemed mere pin-points, followed me continuously.

“Doctor,” I said to him, “what strange eyes you have! Just like the eyes of a cat when it looks at the sun!”

“I do not look at the sun,” he answered slowly, speaking with great stress. “I look into an abyss, the abyss of annihilation and oblivion. Some day, if ever you are irremediably unhappy, come to me and I will open to you, also, the doors of my unearthly paradise—of this chasm of deadly joy which engulfs me.”

“Shame on you, Stahl! How dare you suggest such a thing!” exclaimed Bozevsky, casting a look almost of hatred upon the morphinomaniac. “Why must you and your kind always seek to drag others down into your own gehenna?”

Stahl sighed. “It is terrible, I know. But it is a characteristic of our malady.”

I listened without comprehending. I did not then know of Stahl's enslavement to the drug. “What are you speaking of? What malady? I do not understand.”

“It is better not to understand,” murmured Bozevsky with knitted brows. “Stahl is distraught; he is ill. Pay no attention to him. And never follow either his advice nor his example. But pray,” he added, “do not worry your head over anything we have said; the shooting match will soon begin. I think your husband is looking for you.”

But Vassili was far from troubling himself about me. He was rushing to and fro setting up rows of bottles that were to serve as targets, and distributing guns and cartridges to all our guests. Then he hurried towards us. “There,” he said to Dr. Stahl and to Bozevsky, giving them each a Flobert rifle, “these are for you.”

“And what about the Countess?” asked Stahl in his hollow voice. “Is she not going to compete in the shooting?”

“Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “I am much too frightened.”

“Nonsense!” cried Vassili, pushing a gun into my unwilling hands. “Of course you must shoot with the rest. And I warn you that if you are not brave I shall play William Tell with an apple on your head!” He passed on laughing, with Madame Grigorievskaja armed with a Browning by his side.

I was not at all brave; I held the rifle at arm's length, trembling with fear lest it should explode by itself. Stahl was amused by my terror, while Bozevsky sought to encourage and comfort me.

“Poor timid birdling,” he murmured, “do not be frightened. See, I will teach you. It is done like this”—and he lifted the gun to my shoulder, placed my hands in position, and with his glowing face quite close to mine, showed me how I was to take aim. What with my terror of the gun and the fragrance of his fair hair near my cheek I felt quite dizzy.

“There, that's it. Now press the trigger.”

“No! no! Don't say that! don't let me!” I screamed, incoherent with terror while Stahl and Bozevsky laughed.

Vassili from a distance caught sight of me: “Bravo, Mura!” he cried. “That's right. Go on. Shoot!”

“No! no!” I cried with my eyes shut and standing rigid in the position in which Bozevsky had placed me, for I dared not move a muscle.

Vassili called impatiently: “What on earth are you waiting for?”

Still motionless, I gasped:

“Perhaps—I might dare—if some one were to cover my ears.”

Amidst great amusement Bozevsky came behind me and placed his two hands over my ears.

“Come now!” cried Stahl. “Do not be frightened.”

“Mind you hit the third bottle,” shouted Vassili from the distance.

Bozevsky standing behind me was clasping my head as though in a vice and whispering into my hair: “Darling, darling, darling! I love you.”

“Don't,” I cried, almost in tears under the stress of different emotions, “and don't hold my ears so tight.”

The warm clasp relaxed at once.

“Oh, no, no!” I cried. “I can hear everything. I don't want to hear—,” but even as I spoke the gun went off. I felt a blow near my shoulder, and thought I was wounded; but it was only the recoil of the weapon.

Everybody was laughing and applauding.

“What have I killed?” I asked, cautiously opening my eyes.

“The third bottle!” cried Vassili, and he was so delighted with my exploit that he ran up and embraced me. But the pistol he was holding in his hand and Bozevsky's glance of jealous wrath filled me afresh with twofold terror.

The afternoon passed as if in a dream. Vassili became very much excited and drank a great deal of vodka. Then Madame Grigorievskaja, who had once visited the United States, concocted strange American drinks which we had never tasted before—cocktails, mint-juleps, pousse-cafés and gin-slings. They were much approved of by every one.

I remember vaguely that half way through the afternoon some one let down my hair and set me among the shattered bottles with an apple on my head. I seem to see Vassili standing in front of me with a rifle and taking aim at me while the others utter cries of protest. Suddenly Bozevsky snatches the weapon from my husband's hands, and there is a brief struggle between them. Soon they are laughing again, and shaking hands—then Bozevsky joins me among the shattered bottles, and stands in front of me; he is so tall that I can see nothing but his broad shoulders and his fair hair. And Vassili is shooting—the bullets whirr over my head and all around me, but I have no sense of fear; Bozevsky stands before me, straight and motionless as a rampart.

We go in to dinner; gipsy musicians arrive and play for us. Late at night when the garden is quite dark we go out again to the targets; instead of the bottles Vassili has ordered a row of lighted candles to be set up, and we are to extinguish them with our shots without knocking them down. There is much noise around me; Vassili is dancing a tarantelle with Ivan Grigorievsky on the lawn. Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky are always by my side. I keep on shooting at the candles, but they spin round before my confused eyes like catharine-wheels; and Stahl laughs, and Bozevsky sighs, and the gipsies play....

Suddenly Tioka's nurse comes hurriedly down the pathway towards me.

“May I speak to your ladyship for a moment?”

“Yes, Elise. What is it?”

“Master Tioka cannot go to sleep. He says you have forgotten to bid him good-night.”

I put down my rifle and follow the straight small figure of Elise Perrier through the garden. I hasten after her into the house and upstairs to the nursery.

Little Tania is already fast asleep, with scarlet lips parted and silken hair scattered on her pillow. But Tioka is sitting up in his cot awaiting me. His bright soft eyes wander over my face, my hair, my dress; his innocent gaze seems to pierce me like a fiery sword. He holds out his arms to me and I hide my flushed face on his childish breast.

“Good-night, mother dear,” he whispers, kissing me and patting my face with his small hand. Then he adds, with a funny little sniff at my cheeks and hair: “You smell of many things—of perfume and powder and cigarettes and wine....”

This sequence of gay words on the childish lips strikes at my heart like so many daggers.

“Hush, darling,” I whisper, taking refuge in those frail arms as in a haven of safety. “Forgive—forgive your mother.”

But he does not know what there is to forgive; and he laughs and yawns and then nestles down in his pillow, still holding tightly to my hand.

“Must you go away?” he sighs, in a sleepy, endearing voice.

“No, darling, no. I will stay with you.”

“Then tell me the poetry about the Virgin Mary coming down to see us in the night.”

Holding my child's hand in my own, I begin softly:

“When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary

Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...”

But already Tioka is in the land of dreams.

XIII

The whole party of guests stayed at our house that night. Even one of the gipsy musicians was found next morning asleep on the sofa in the library.

No one came down to breakfast. Only Bozevsky got up early and went for a gallop on the hills.

I awoke at eight o'clock and rang the bell. Elise Perrier came in and opened the windows. The fresh April breeze blew in and the chirrup of the nests greeted me.

“Elise, is the morning fine? Can the mountains be seen?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Elise, when you see the mountains do you not feel homesick for Switzerland?”

“Yes, my lady.” And Elise stooped down to set out my slippers and to hide the flush that rose to her face.

“I am homesick, too, Elise. I am homesick I hardly know for what—homesick for solitude and peace.”

She made no reply.

“Should I find them in your Switzerland, do you think?”

Elise Perrier shakes her head and answers in a low tone: “No, my lady. Swiss homesickness and Russian homesickness are different.”

“In what way?”

“We Swiss are homesick for—how shall I say?—for the outside things we are far away from ... homesick for mountains and pine-trees and villages. But Russians are homesick for what they miss in their own hearts.”

“You are right, Elise.”

Tioka in his nightdress followed by Tania sucking the head of her favorite rubber doll have run gaily in and embrace me.

“Are we going to Switzerland?” cries Tioka, who has overheard what we were saying. “How nice! When do we start?”

“How nice! When do we start?” says Tania, who always echoes everything her brother says.

“I like to be always going away,” adds Tioka.

And Tania repeats, “I like to be always going away.”

I marvel at finding in these two children of mine, my own unrest already stirring, like a butterfly poised with quivering wings on the dawning flower of their souls.

I went down alone into the garden and entered the grove, where the sunshine only penetrates with mild rays of almost lunar whiteness. The grass under my feet was studded with periwinkles, their prim, pert faces lifted to the sky; tenuous ferns unfolded their embroidered scrolls, and masses of gentle wild violets, conscious of their pallor and their scentlessness, drooped shyly in the shade.

In the branches overhead wild hidden birds tried their new springtide voices in soft modulations and trills, or in long-drawn contralto notes of liquescent sweetness. Thus April spoke to me in gentle voices. With a sudden overwhelming longing to be nearer to the very soul of spring, I knelt on the grass and buried my face in the cool leaves and blossoms, bidding my heart be pure and cool as they.

On my homeward way I passed the targets. The servants had put everything in order—pistols, rifles and cartridges; and a fresh row of bottles seemed to await with glassy eye the shots of the amateur marksmen. With a deep sense of humiliation I remembered the feverish agitations of the previous day, and once more I said to myself: “Henceforward may my life be serene and pure.”

A gay voice rang out close behind me, and startled me from my reverie.

“Lady Marie, good morrow!” It was Bozevsky, who, clicking his spurred heels together, saluted me with a radiant smile. His morning canter seemed to have given him an added touch of beauty and of daring; his fair hair gleamed in the sunshine, his smile was reckless and resplendent.

I bowed without speaking and attempted to pursue my way to the house, but he took my hand and detained me.

“Why go in? Everybody is still asleep. Come now,” he urged, with a frank engaging smile, “stay here for awhile and practise at the targets.”

So saying he chose a rifle and loaded it. Then he held it out to me. I took it from him and put it to my shoulder. I aimed carefully and was about to press the trigger when suddenly Bozevsky, with a lightning movement, put out his hand and pressed his palm against the muzzle of my gun.

“Wait!” he cried, with a wild, extravagant laugh. “Wait a moment! Before you press the trigger I want you to say—'Alexis, I love you!'”

“You are mad!” I exclaimed. “Take away your hand!”

“No. First you must say—'Alexis, I love you.'”

I felt a hot flush rise to my brow. “Take away your hand!” I repeated and looked steadily at him.

He did not move.

“Take it away, I implore you!”

Still he never moved, and I could see that hand stopping the muzzle of my gun—a long, slender hand with fingers separate and outstretched, and I felt almost as if I were under the influence of some hallucination. It was not only his hand that I saw—I seemed in a kind of frenzy to see the hands of all men outstretched before me, ready to grasp me, to crush me, to beat me down. Doubtless a wave of madness swept over me; a convulsive spasm shook my wrist—and the gun went off. I saw the long, lithe hand drop like some wounded creature.

With a cry I let the rifle fall, and covered my face. But Bozevsky had sprung upon me, and with his other hand seized both mine and pressed them down. He was as white as death. “You little tigress,” he gasped. Then, as I was about to cry out again, he covered my mouth with his shattered hand, and I felt the blood gush over my face.

What distant heritage of madness broke upon us at that moment? What primitive frenzy lashed us together in a fierce embrace? I cannot tell. All I know is that from that hour I was his—tamed, vanquished, broken in spirit, and yet glad. He was the first, the last, the only lover of my devastated youth, and by his side the brief springtime of my happiness flowered and died. When the fearful death that was so soon to lay him low came upon him, when I saw him fall at my feet shot by Vassili—my reason gave way. The rest of my life lies behind me like a somber nightmare landscape, through which I wander, groping in the dark, stumbling forward on my way to perdition....

Yet sometimes I dream that it is all not true, that he still lives, that one day the door of my cell will open, and the lover of my youth appear to me again. I shall see him standing on the threshold, a halo of sunshine lighting his fair hair, like some young martyr-saint come to deliver me from my bondage. The hand I wounded will be filled with roses, and his clear voice will call me by my name.

Then rising from this gloomy prison bench I shall move to meet him. Shame and crime and captivity will fall away from me like a dark and worn-out cloak.

Free and fair as in those distant April days in which he loved me, with white, winged footsteps I shall follow him.

XIV

Suddenly, almost from one day to another, Vassili grew jealous. When I had adored him he had neglected and forsaken me. Now that he feared to lose me he was inconsolable.

“You and Tioka are very much alike,” I said to him one day when we were all at luncheon.

“Do you think so?” said Vassili, patting his little son's fair head and contemplating the small face, which at that moment was making a terrible grimace over its food. “What makes you say so?”

“You shall see.” I leaned over to the child. “Tioka, my darling, won't you eat your nice dinner?”

“No!” said Tioka with great decision.

“Come, now, darling, eat your nice soup,” and I held a spoonful to his lips.

“No,” said Tioka, turning his face away.

“Why not, dear? Don't you like it?”

“No. It's nasty.”

“Well, then,” I said, putting down the spoon, “we will give it to the farmer's little boy.”

“No! no!” cried Tioka, and he quickly devoured the soup in large spoonfuls.

Vassili laughed. “He is quite right. His soup is not for the farmer's little boy. To each one his own soup, isn't that so, Tioka!”

“No,” said Tioka.

“Why 'no'? You should say 'yes.'”

“No,” declared Tioka doggedly. “This is my 'no' day.”

“Your what?” exclaimed his father.

“My day for saying 'no,'” announced Tioka with great decision.

His father was much amused. “I also shall have my 'no' days,” he declared. “And I shall begin at once. To-day, Mura, we shall receive no visitors.”

“But, Vassili,” I protested, “we must see the Grigorievskys; we have invited them to dinner.”

“No,” said my husband.

“And Semenzoff. And Bozevsky.”

“No,” he repeated.

“Do you really mean that we are not to receive them?”

“No,” he reiterated. “This is my 'no' day.” And the reception for that evening was actually put off. The jest seemed highly entertaining to Vassili. I heard him laughing to himself as he went downstairs; and in the days that followed he frequently repeated it.

Shortly afterwards he took us all back to Kieff and there he had many “no” days. In particular he would not let Bozevsky visit us; and more than a month passed without my seeing him.

At last it happened that the Stahls invited us to a ball, and Vassili, who chanced to be in a good temper, accepted. I knew I should meet Bozevsky there, and at the mere thought of seeing him again I trembled with joy and fear.

Elise Perrier dressed me in a filmy gossamer gown of soft opalescent tints, and fastened round my neck the famous O'Rourke pearls—those pearls which, according to family traditions, had once decorated the slender neck of Mary Stuart.

As Vassili put me into the troika he was all kindness and amiability; he wrapped me closely in the furs, and then took his seat beside me, muffling himself up to his nose in the bearskins. The horses started and we were off like the wind.

During the drive tender and kindly feelings towards Vassili filled my heart. I said to myself that perhaps he was after all not wholly to blame for his faults and follies. He, too, was so young; perhaps if I had been less of a child at the time of my marriage I should have known how to make him love me more. And, after all, were we not still in time to reshape our lives? What if we were to go far away from Kieff, far from St. Petersburg, and try to take up the thread of our broken idyll again? My hand sought his. He grasped it and held it warmly clasped under the rug without turning towards me; I could see his eyes shining under his fur cap as he gazed straight before him, while we sped over the silent snow. During that drive, from the bottom of my heart, I forgave him all his transgressions and silently craved forgiveness for mine. Already I seemed to see myself with him and the children and Aunt Sonia happily secluded in some smiling rose-clad mansion in Italy. He would take up the study of his music again, perhaps he would compose, as he had often spoken of doing—while I, seated at his feet, would read the Italian poets that I loved, raising my eyes now and then to contemplate the motionless blue wave of the distant Apennines....

But the troika had stopped, and Vassili sprang out upon the snow. Through the illuminated windows the tzigane music poured forth its waves of sensuous melody—and alas! the rhythmic swing of it swept away, as in a whirlwind, the peaceful dreams of Italy, of the rose-clad mansion and the Italian poets.

While the servants were taking our cloaks and snowshoes from us I whispered hurriedly to Vassili: “Dearest, be good to-night. Do not drink much.”

“Why not? What a strange idea!” he said; and we passed into the overheated, overlighted rooms.

At the far end of the ballroom some thirty tziganes, women and men, in their picturesque costumes were making music. The men played and the women sang. The dancing couples whirled round in the scent-laden air.

Doctor Stahl's wife, a kindly German woman, received us with amiable smiles; Stahl himself greeted us with excited effusiveness. He was quite pale with two red spots on the summit of his cheeks. I was struck anew by his strange air of intoxication, for I knew he never touched wine. Immediately, from the end of the room Bozevsky came hastening to meet us, superb in his full uniform—blue tunic and scarlet belt.

“Hail Fata Morgana!” he cried. “Give me this dance,” and he put his arm round my waist. But I drew back.

“Alas, Prince Charming, I dare not.”

He turned pale; then he bowed, twirled on his heels and moved away. He did not come near me again until late in the evening. I saw him surrounded by women, who danced with him, smiling into his face, floating with languid grace in his arms.

I shrank into a corner of the vast room where tall plants and flowers screened me from the dancers.

“Why, what are you doing hidden here?” cried Stahl, coming up to me. His pupils were narrower than ever and his breath came and went in short gasps. He bent over me and scanned my face. “What are your thoughts, Countess Marie?”

“I have no thoughts,” I replied sadly.

“Then I will give you one,” said he laughing; “a blithe and comforting thought—think that a hundred years hence we shall all be dead!”

“True,” I answered, and a wave of unspeakable melancholy invaded my soul. “We may, perhaps, be dead even fifty years hence.”

“Or thirty,” laughed Stahl.

“Or twenty,” I sighed, in even deeper despondency.

“Oh, no,” said Stahl. “Twenty years hence you will still be a charming matron getting on towards middle-age.” And, as some one was calling him, he turned away and left me.

His words sank into my heart, heavy and searing as molten lead. How short, how short was life! How the years flew past! How brief were the wings of youth and happiness! I raised my eyes—doubtless they were full of sadness—and I saw that Bozevsky at the far end of the room was looking at me. Several brilliantly attired women were laughing and talking to him, but abruptly, without excuse or explanation, he left them and crossed the room to where I sat.

The tziganes were playing a wild, nerve-thrilling czarda. Without a word Bozevsky put his arm round me and drew me into the dance.

The music went faster and faster, wilder and ever more wild.

Light as air I swung round in Bozevsky's arm. I could have wished to dance thus forever—dance, dance to the very brink of life and, still dancing, to plunge over into the abyss of death.

As we whirled round I perceived that Vassili was watching us. He was drinking champagne with vodka in it and was laughing loudly while he spoke to Stahl; but his eyes never left me as I swept round the ballroom with Bozevsky. His gaze alarmed me. I was dizzy and out of breath, but I did not dare to stop dancing for fear of Vassili. I danced and danced, breathless and distraught; I felt my heart beating furiously, pulsing with the mad rapidity, the battering throb of a motor-cycle at full speed—and still I danced and danced on, while the ballroom, the guests, the tziganes spun round and round before my blurred eyes....

Vassili's gaze still followed me.

XV

Suddenly my strength failed me. The room seemed to be paved with water; the floor yielded and undulated under my feet; the motor-cycle pulsing in my breast stopped dead. Then I felt Bozevsky's arm sustain me as I fell forward on his breast. Everything whirled, darkened—vanished.

When I opened my eyes I was seated near the window; the dancers crowded round me. Stahl was bending over me with a small shining instrument in his hand. It was a hypodermic syringe.

I shrank back in terror. “No, no!” I cried.

Seeing that I had recovered my senses Vassili, who stood behind me, laid an iron hand on my bare shoulder.

“Come,” he said in a hoarse and brutal voice. “Come at once.”

“Where to?” I rose trembling to my feet. I still felt dizzy and weak, and scarcely knew where I was.

“Home,” said Vassili, bending over me with a terrible look. His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath upon me, hot and laden with that subtle sweetish exhalation of ether that vodka leaves behind it. “The dance is over,” he muttered. “It is over, it is over.” I noticed his clenched fists; and I was afraid. A deep silence had fallen on the entire room. “Come!” he repeated in a tone that made me quake.

I shrank back in terror. Then Vassili put out his hand and seized my pearl necklace; it broke in his grasp. The milky gems fell to the ground and rolled away in all directions; the guests, both men and women, stooped down to search for them and pick them up.

But now Bozevsky had taken a step forward, and stood, haughty and aggressive, in front of Vassili. He uttered a brief word in a low voice.

Vassili turned upon him with livid countenance. “Insolent scoundrel!” he cried, wildly searching his pockets for a weapon; then in a frenzy he turned on the awe-stricken assembly: “Go away, everybody!” he shouted. “Stahl, turn out the lights. We are going to have a game of blind man's buff, the Uhlan and I. A game of blind man's buff in the dark! Quick, Stahl, give us a couple of revolvers. Send all these people away and turn out the lights.”

He was beside himself with vodka and with wrath.

Bozevsky still faced him, calm and unmoved. “Why should it be in the dark, Count Tarnowsky? Why not in the light of day—at ten paces?”

“No!” roared Vassili. “I'll kill you in the dark, evil beast that you are. I'll slaughter you like a wild beast in the dark!”

I never knew how we succeeded in getting him out into the troika, but at last the feat was accomplished, and he drove off with Madame Grigorievska and Semenzoff, the only two people who had any influence over him. I followed in another sleigh, alone with Dr. Stahl, who during the entire drive panted and shivered beside me, as if in the throes of some fierce physical agony.

Through the starry calm of the night, while the sleighs glided silently over the snow, we could hear Vassili's strident and drunken voice still roaring: “Blind man's buff with the officer! Ha, ha, ha! In the dark—bing bang. Blind man's buff!”

The scandal in Kieff was enormous. The whole town spoke of nothing else. All the women sided with Vassili, and all the men with me. As for Vassili, he cared nothing for the opinion of either. He came and went with lowering brows, never speaking either to me or to the children.

I was unspeakably frightened and unhappy. At last, one evening, unable to endure the strain of his silence any longer, and praying God to give me courage, I went tremblingly and knocked at his study door.

He said “Come in,” and I entered.

He was standing by the window, smoking, and he turned upon me a cold vindictive eye.

“Vassili”—my voice trembled—“Vassili, don't be angry with me any more. Forgive me. I did not mean to offend you. I did not mean—” I burst into tears.

He seemed somewhat moved and held out his hand to me without speaking.

I grasped it eagerly. He continued to smoke and look out of the window, while I stood awkwardly beside him, holding his hand and not knowing what to say.

Perhaps my silence pleased him, for soon I felt him press my trembling fingers more closely. Looking timidly up into his face I saw that his lips were quivering.

“Vassili,” I whispered.

He turned to me abruptly. “Let us go away,” he said, “Mura, let us go away!”

“Where?” I asked, overcome with sudden fear.

“Far away from here, far away from Russia. I cannot live in this accursed country any longer.” And Vassili let go my hand in order to clench his fists.

“I had thought of it, too,” I said unsteadily. And in a low voice I told him my thoughts of the rose-clad house in Italy, my dreams of an azure exile in that beauteous land, alone with him and the children.

“Mura! Mura!” he said, taking my face between his hands and gazing deeply into my eyes. “Tell me—is it not too late?”

Was it too late?

In my soul my unlawful passion for Bozevsky rose like a giant wave, towered over me, enveloped and submerged me. Then—then to the eyes of my spirit there came the vision of my children, of a flower-filled Italian garden, of peace reconquered and deliverance from evil. “No, Vassili, no. It is not too late!”

With a sigh I lay my cheek against his shoulder and bowed my face upon his breast.

Before our departure from Russia, in order not to leave ill-feeling or evil talk behind us, it was decided that Vassili and Bozevsky should meet and be reconciled.

The Stahls and Grigorievskys gladly undertook to organize an afternoon reception at which we were to take leave of all our friends and acquaintances. After that there would be a theater party at the opera, and, finally, the more intimate of our friends were to be the guests of Bozevsky himself at a supper at the Grand Hotel. There we were to say farewell to one another for many years, perhaps forever.

In spite of the burning desire which drew me towards Bozevsky, I had honorably kept my part of the agreement and had refused to see him for even an instant before the appointed day.

Vassili took the necessary steps to get our passports and every preparation was made for our final departure from Russia.

And now the eve of our journey had come—the afternoon reception was over; and this was the fatal evening which was to mark the supreme and ultimate hour of my happiness.

Satins and jewels decked my aching heart; flowers garlanded my ringleted hair; I wanted Alexis to see me for the last time looking my fairest. I longed to remain forever in his memory a loved and radiant vision.

“You are dazzlingly beautiful,” said my cousin Vera to me, as soon as I entered the room, surveying me from top to toe. “I can quite understand why every one is crazy about you.”

I was immediately surrounded by all our most intimate friends, who lamented in every key our resolve to leave Russia.

“Without you, Kieff will be empty. It will be like a ring which has lost its brightest gem.”

I smiled and sighed, feeling both gratified and mournful.

Who would have thought that after this evening all those who now surrounded me with flattering words would pass me by without a greeting, would turn from me as from some vile and tainted creature?

Bozevsky, pallid and stern, came to me, and bowed low as he kissed my hand.

“Ave! Ave ... Maria!” he said. Then he raised his eyes and looked at me long and fixedly. Despair was so clearly written on his countenance, that I felt afraid lest Vassili should notice it; Alexis read the fear in my eyes, and laughed. “Do you know what I believe?” he said.

I looked at him without understanding.

“I believe,” he continued in scornful tones, “that I am in a trap.”

“A trap? What do you mean?” I gazed questioningly into his face.

“Yes, yes, a trap,” said he with a cynical laugh. Then in a tone that seemed in keeping with the frivolous atmosphere that surrounded us:

“Countess,” he continued, “has it ever happened to you to go wrong in some well-known quotation? To begin, for instance, with one author, and to end with another?”

“I do not understand,” I stammered, perplexed by the strangeness of his manner. “What—what do you mean?”

Vassili was approaching, and Alexis with a scornful laugh raised his voice slightly as he spoke. “Because to-night,” he said, “a misquotation of that kind keeps ringing through my brain. “Ave, Maria!... Morituri te salutant!”

Vassili stood beside us and heard the words with a puzzled smile.

“Morituri?” he said, holding out his hand to Bozevsky with a frank and friendly gesture. “Morituri? Indeed I hope not.”

Bozevsky took his hand and looked him in the face. Vassili returned his gaze; then, with an impulsive gesture, in true Russian fashion, my husband bent forward and kissed him on both cheeks.

No! no, it was not a trap! From the depths of my broken heart, from my inmost consciousness, there springs up this protest on behalf of him who on that fatal evening wrecked my life. I know that it was an impulse of his fervent heart that impelled Vassili to open his arms to the man whom an hour before he had hated—and whom an hour later he slew.

No; it was not a trap.

XVI

Doubtless that evening I was beautiful. During the supper party at the Grand Hotel I felt that I diffused around me an atmosphere of more subtle intoxication than the music or the wines. Placed between Vassili and Stahl I laughed and laughed in a fever of rapturous gaiety. I was excited and overwrought.

Bozevsky sat facing me. As I glanced at his proud, passionate face, I said in my heart: “To-morrow you will see him no more. But this evening he is here; you see him, pale for the love of you, thrilled by your presence. Do not think of to-morrow. To-morrow is far away!”

So I laughed and laughed while the rhythmic charm of waltzes played on muted strings wrought upon my senses, swaying me towards an unreal world, a world of transcendent passion and incomparable joys.

Stahl, seated at my right hand, was flushed and elated, but still drew the hurried sibilant breaths I had so often noticed in him. Vassili seemed to have fallen in love with me anew. He murmured rapturous words into my ear. “To-morrow you shall be mine, mine only, out of reach of all others, beyond the sight and the desire of all these people—whose necks I should like to wring.” And he drank his Clicquot looking at me with kindling eyes.

“Vassili,” I whispered imploringly, “do not drink any more.”

“Don't you wish me to?” he asked, turning to me with his glass of champagne in his hand. “Don't you wish it? Well—there!” He flung the glass full of blonde wine behind him over his shoulder. The thin crystal chalice was shattered into a thousand pieces.

“What are you doing, Vassili? What are you doing?” cried Grigorievsky. “Are you playing the King of Thule?”

“Precisely,” laughed Vassili. “Was he not the paragon of all lovers, who chose to die of thirst in order to follow his adored one to the grave?”

And somewhat uncertainly he quoted:

“Then did he fling his chalice

Into the surging main,

He watched it sink and vanish—

And never drank again.”

“Here's to the King of Thule!” cried one of the guests. And they all drank Vassili's health.

Bozevsky had sprung to his feet; his eyes gleamed strangely. “You may be the King of Thule, Tarnowsky,” he cried in a mocking tone, “but I am the knight Olaf. You know the legend?” His clear insolent eyes surveyed the guests provocatively. “Olaf—you remember—was condemned to death for daring to love the king's daughter. He was at his last banquet. 'Take heed, Olaf,' said the king. 'The headsman stands at the door!' 'Let him stay there, sire, while I bid farewell to life in a last toast!' And standing up—just as I stand here—he raised his glass, as I raise mine:

“I drink to the earth, I drink to the sky,

I drink to the sea and the shore;

I drink to the days that I have seen,

And the days I shall see no more;

I drink to the King who has sentenced me,

And the Headsman at the door.

“I bless the joys that I have had

And the joys that I have missed;

I bless the eyes that have smiled on me

And the lips that I have kissed!”

Here Bozevsky turned and looked straight at me:

“To thy red lips that I have kissed

I raise this cup of wine,

I bless thy radiant loveliness

That made my life divine,

And I bless the hour that brings me death

For the hour that thou wert mine!”

He uttered these words in a loud voice, with his daring eyes fixed steadily on mine; then he raised his glass and drained it.

Vassili had sprung to his feet. But instantly Stahl was beside him, speaking rapidly, while Grigorievsky exclaimed:

“The sleighs are waiting. It is time to go home!”

Amid nervous and hurried farewells the perilous moment passed and the danger was averted. We all hastened to our sleighs; my cousin Vera and Madame Grigorievska were beside me; Stahl and Grigorievsky had each with an air of easy friendliness taken my husband by the arm.

“Good-by! Good-by! Bon voyage! Good-by!” The last farewells had been exchanged. The impatient horses were shaking their bells in the icy night air. Vera had already taken her place in the sleigh, and I was about to step in beside her, when I saw Bozevsky striding rapidly towards me. He passed in front of my husband, who was standing near the second sleigh with Stahl and Grigorievsky, and came straight to me. He stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair.

“So it is all over—all over!” he said. “And this is good-by!”

His voice broke, and he bent his fair head over my hand, crushing my fingers in his feverish clasp.

At that instant the report of a shot rang out, followed by a mad outburst of laughter from Vassili. I saw the horses of the sleigh plunge and rear.

Bozevsky, still clasping my hand, wrenched himself upright; a convulsive shiver passed through him, and his head jerked backwards with a strange, wooden movement like that of a broken doll—then with a shrill burst of laughter which showed all his teeth, he fell forward at my feet.

With a cry I bent over him, and I felt a splash of blood on my face. It spurted forth like the jet of a fountain from the side of his neck. Once again my hands, my dress were covered with his blood—I thought I was in a dream. Every one had come rushing up. Now they raised him. I saw Stahl snatch a white scarf from some one's shoulders and wind it round and round the wounded neck, and immediately a dark stain appeared on the scarf and slowly widened.

Supported by Stahl, Bozevsky stared about him with haggard eyes, until his gaze met mine.

A quiver passed over his face. “I bless the hour—” he gasped. Then a gush of blood came from his mouth, and he was silent.

XVII

Bozevsky was carried to his room and the manager and servants of the Grand Hotel thronged in murmuring consternation round his door. A Swedish doctor, staying at the hotel, was summoned in haste. He appeared in his dressing-gown, and with Stahl's assistance carefully dressed and bound up the deep double wound caused by the bullet, which had passed through the left side of Bozevsky's neck and come out beneath his chin.

Trembling and weeping I followed the sinister procession, and with Cousin Vera and Madame Stahl entered Bozevsky's room. Now I stood, silently praying, at the foot of the bed. Bozevsky sunken in his pillow, with his eyes closed and his head and neck in bandages, looked as if he were already dead.

He suddenly opened his eyes, and his gaze wandered slowly from side to side until it rested on me. He moved his lips as if to speak, and I hastened to his pillow and bent over him.

He whispered, “Stay here.”

“Yes,” I said, and sat down beside him, taking his moist, chill hand between my own.

He repeated weakly: “Stay here. Do not go away.”

The Swedish doctor was washing his hands and talking in a low voice to Stahl. He turned to me and said:

“You must try not to agitate him. Do not let him speak or move his head.” Then he went out into the corridor with Stahl.

Mrs. Stahl and Vera sat mute and terror-stricken in a corner. I watched Bozevsky, with a deep, dull ache racking my heart. He seemed to be falling asleep. I felt his hand relax in mine and his short breathing became calmer and more regular.

But Stahl came in again, and Bozevsky opened his eyes.

Stahl approached the bedside and stood for a long while looking down at his friend. Then he turned to me. “A nurse is coming,” he said. “I will take you ladies home and then come back and pass the night with him.”

Take me home! How could I return home? How could I endure to meet Vassili again? At the mere thought of seeing him, who with a treacherous shot from behind had shattered this young existence, hatred and terror flamed up within me. No! I would not return home. Never again would I touch the hand of Vassili Tarnowsky.

While these thoughts traversed my mind, some one knocked at the door. It was the nurse. Vera and Madame Grigorievska, after questioning me with their eyes, got up softly; then, with a glance of pity at Bozevsky, they went on tiptoe out of the room.

At the door Stahl beckoned to me to come. But I shook my head. As if he knew what was passing Bozevsky opened his eyes again.

“Stay here,” he whispered. Then he put his hand to the bandage round his neck. “If you leave me I will tear it all off.” He made a gesture as if he would do so.

“I shall not leave you,” I whispered bending over him. “I shall never leave you again.”

I kept my word.

Later I learned that Vassili had given himself up to the authorities, and that my grief-stricken mother had come to fetch our children and had taken them with her to Otrada. To her and to my father they were the source of much melancholy joy.

Thus did the old garden of my youth open again its shadowy pathways and flowery lawns to the unconscious but already sorrow-touched childhood of little Tioka and Tania—those tragic children whose father was in prison and whose mother, far away from them, watched and suffered by the sinister death-bed of a stranger. To me the two innocent, angelic figures often came in my dreams; and I cried out to them with bitterest tears: “Oh, my own children, my two loved ones, forgive your mother that she does not forsake one who is dying for her sake. This very night, perhaps, or to-morrow—soon, soon, alas!—his life will end. And with a broken heart your mother will return to you.”

But Bozevsky did not die that night. Nor the following day. Nor the day after.

Fate had in store for him and for me a much more appalling doom. He dragged his frightful death-agony through the interminable hours of a hundred days and a hundred nights. He was doomed to trail his torment from town to town, from surgeon to surgeon, from specialist to charlatan. One after another, they would unbandage the white and withered neck, probe the blue-edged wound, and then cover up again with yellow gauze the horrifying cavity; leaving us to return, heart-stricken and silent, to the luxurious hotels that housed our irremediable despair.

About that time I heard that Vassili had been released on bail. Later on he was acquitted by a jury in the distant city of Homel, on the ground of justifiable homicide.

Perhaps it was a just verdict. But for him whom he had struck down—and for me—what anguish, great Heavens! What lingering torture of heart-breaking days and nights.

Ah, those nights, those appalling nights! We dreaded them as one dreads some monstrous wild beast, lurking in wait to devour us. All day long we thought only of the night. As soon as twilight drew near Bozevsky, lying in his bed with his face towards the window, clutched my hand and would not let it go.

“I am afraid,” he would murmur. “I wish it were not night. If only it were not night!”

“Nonsense, dearest,” I would say, cheerfully. “It is quite early. It is still broad daylight. Everybody is moving about. The whole world is awake and out of doors.”

But night, furtive and grim, crouched in the shadowy room, lurked in dark corners, and then suddenly was upon us, black, silent, terrifying. Round us the world lay asleep, and we two were awake and alone with our terror.

Then began the never-ending question, ceaselessly repeated, reiterated throughout the entire night:

“What is the time?”

It was only nine o'clock. It was half-past nine.... Ten... Half-past ten... A quarter to eleven... Eleven o'clock... Five minutes past...

As soon as it was dawn, at about four o'clock, Bozevsky grew calm. Silence fell, and he slept.

The last station of our calvary was at Yalta, in the Crimea. We had gone there with a last up-flaming of hope. There were doctors there whom we had not yet consulted. There was Ivanoff and the world-famed Bobros.

“Continue the same treatment,” said the one.

“You must try never to move your head,” said the other.

That was all.

And to our other tortures was added the martyrdom of complete immobility.

“I want to turn my head,” Bozevsky would say in the night.

“No, dearest, no. I implore you—”

“I must. I must turn it from one side to the other. If I stay like this any longer I shall go mad!”

Then, with infinite precautions, with eyes staring and terror-filled, like one who yields to an overwhelming temptation or performs some deed of insane daring, Bozevsky would turn his sad face slowly round, and let his cheek sink into the pillow.

His fair curls encircled with flaxen gaiety his spent and desolate face.

XVIII

Alone with him during those long terrible hours, my anguish and my terror constantly increased. At last I could endure it no longer and I telegraphed to Stahl:

“Come immediately.”

At dusk the following day Stahl arrived.

I had hoped to derive courage and consolation from his presence. But as soon as he stepped upon the threshold my heart turned faint within me. Thinner and more spectral than ever, with hair dishevelled and eyes sunken and dull, he looked dreamily at me, while a continual tremor shook his hands.

I greeted him timorously, and the touch of his chill, flaccid fingers made me shudder.

Bozevsky seemed glad to see him. Stretching out his wasted hand to him he said at once:

“Stahl, I want to move my head.”

Stahl seemed not to understand, and Bozevsky repeated: “I want to turn my head from one side to another.”

“Why not?” said Stahl, sitting down beside the bed and lighting a cigarette. “Turn it by all means.”

It was growing late; outside it was already dark. I drew the curtains and turned on the lights. Bozevsky began very slowly to turn his head from side to side; at first very timorously with frightened eyes, then by degrees more daringly, from right to left and from left to right.

“Keep still, keep still, dearest,” I entreated, bending over him.

“Stahl said it would not hurt,” panted Bozevsky. “Did you not, Stahl?” Stahl made no reply. He was smoking, with his heavy eyes half closed. At the sight of him I was filled with loathing and fear.

“Have you dined?” I inquired of him after a long silence. He nodded and went on smoking.

I tried to coax Bozevsky to take an egg beaten up in milk, but he continued to turn his head from side to side and would touch nothing. Little by little the sounds in the hotel died away. The gipsy music which had been audible, faintly in the distance, ceased. Night crept upon us sinister and silent.

Presently Stahl roused himself and opened his eyes. He looked at me and then at Bozevsky, who lay in the circular shadow cast by the lamp shade, dozing with his mouth slightly open; he looked pitiful and grotesque in his collar of yellow gauze.

Stahl made a grimace; then his breath became short and hurried as on that night of the ball when he sat beside me in the sleigh. He was panting with a slight sibilant sound and with a quick nervous movement of his head.

“Stahl,” I whispered, leaning towards him and indicating Bozevsky, “tell me—how do you think he is?”

Stahl did not answer. He seemed not to have heard me, but to be absorbed in some mysterious physical suffering of his own.

“What is the matter, Stahl? What is the matter? You are frightening me.”

With a nervous twist of his lips intended for a smile Stahl got up and began to walk up and down the room. His breath was still short and hurried. He drew the air through his teeth like one who is enduring spasms of pain.

Then he began to talk to himself in a low voice. “I can wait,” he said under his breath. “I can wait a little longer. Yes—yes—yes, I can wait a little longer.”

Bozevsky had opened his eyes and was watching him.

Horror held me motionless and shivers ran like icy water down my spine.

“Stahl, Stahl, what is the matter?” I said, and began to cry.

Stahl seemed not to hear me. He continued to walk up and down muttering to himself: “I can wait, I can wait. Just a little longer—a little longer—”

Bozevsky groaned. “Tell him to keep still,” he said, his gaze indicating Stahl.

I seized Stahl by the arm. “You must keep quiet,” I said. “Keep quiet at once.”

He turned to me a vacuous, bewildered face. I grasped his arm convulsively, clutching it with all my strength: “Keep still!”

Stahl sat down. “Right,” he said. “All right.”

He searched his pocket and drew out a small leather case.

Bozevsky moved and moaned. “I am thirsty,” he said. “Give me something to drink.”

I hurried to the bedside, and taking up a glass of sweetened water, I raised him on his pillow and held the glass to his lips. He drank eagerly. Then—horror!... horror! Even as he drank I perceived a spot of pale red color, wetting the gauze round his neck, oozing through it and spreading in an ever-widening stain. What—what could it be? It was the water he was drinking; he was not swallowing it ... it was trickling out through the wound in his neck. All the gauze was already wet—now the pillow as well.

“Stahl, Stahl!” I shrieked. “Look, look at this!”

Stahl, who seemed to have suddenly regained his senses, came quickly to the bedside. I had laid Bozevsky back on the pillow and he was looking at us with wide-open eyes.

“Yes,” said Stahl, contemplating him thoughtfully. “Yes.” Suddenly he turned to me. “Come here, come here. Why should I let you suffer?”

Then I saw that he had in his hand a small glass instrument—a morphia syringe. He seized my wrist as in a vice and with the other hand pushed back the loose sleeve of my gown.

“What are you going to do?” I gasped.

“Why, why should you suffer?” cried Stahl, holding me tightly by the arm.

“Are you killing me?” I cried.

“No, no. I shall not kill you. You will see.”

I let him take my arm and he pricked it with the needle of the syringe, afterwards pressing and rubbing the punctured spot with his finger.

“Now you will see, now you will see,” he repeated over and over again with a vague stupefied smile. “Sit down there,” and he impelled me towards an armchair.

Bozevsky in his wet bandages on his wet pillow was watching us. I wanted to go to his assistance, to speak to him—but already a vague torpor was stealing over me, a feeling of gentle langour weighed upon my limbs. My tense and quivering nerves gradually relaxed. I felt as if I were submerged in a vague fluid serenity. Every anxious thought dissolved in a bland and blissful somnolence.... I could see Bozevsky move restlessly and again begin to turn his head from side to side. Sunk in the divine lassitude that held me, I watched his movements, glad that the sight of them gave me no pain.

I saw that Stahl had stretched himself on the couch and lay there with a vacant ecstatic smile on his lips.

All at once Bozevsky uttered a cry. I heard him, but I felt no inclination to answer. He struggled into a sitting position and looked at us both with wide, horrified eyes. He called us again and again. Then he began to weep. I could hear his weeping, but the beatific lethargy which engulfed me held me motionless. Perhaps I was even smiling, so free and so remote did I feel from all distress and suffering.

And now I saw Bozevsky with teeth clenched and hands curved like talons, madly clutching and tearing away the bandages from his neck.

He dragged and tore the gauze with quick frenzied movements, while from his lips came a succession of whimpering cries as of a dog imprisoned behind a door.

I smiled, I know I smiled, as I gazed at him from my armchair.

Stahl's eyes were shut; he was fast asleep.

Even when the wasted neck was stripped bare, those quick, frenzied movements still continued. What my eyes then saw I can never tell....

Thus died Alexis Bozevsky, the handsomest officer in the Imperial Guard.

XIX

After that all is dark. A blood-red abyss seems to open in my memory wherein everything is submerged—even my reason.

My reason! I have felt it totter and fall, like something detached and apart from myself; and I know that it has sunk into the grave that covers Alexis Bozevsky.

Vaguely, from my distant childhood, a memory rises up and confronts me.

I am in a school. I know not where. It is sunset, and I am at play, happy and alone, in the midst of a lawn; the daisies in the grass are already closed and rose-tipped, blushing in their sleep. Some one calls my name, and raising my eyes I see the small eager face of my playmate Tatiana peering out of an oval window in an old turret, where none of us are ever allowed to go. “Mura! Mura! Come quickly,” she cries. “The turret is full of swallows!”

“Full of swallows!” I can still recall the ecstasy of joy with which those three words filled me. I ran to the entrance of the old tower and helter-skeltered up the dark and narrow staircase; then, pushing aside a mildewed door, I found myself with Tatiana in a gloomy loft, and yes, yes! it was full of swallows!

They flew hither and thither, darting over our heads, brushing our faces, making us shriek with delight. We managed to catch any number of them. Many were even lying on the ground. Tatiana filled her apron with the fluttering creatures, while I held some in my handkerchief and some in my hands. Then we ran downstairs into the dining-hall: “Look, look! we have caught a lot of swallows!” I can still see the girls crowding round us, and the face of the mistress bending forward with an incredulous smile; I see her shrink back, horrified and pale, with a cry of disgust: “Mercy upon us! They are all bats!”

Even now the recollection of the shrieks we uttered as we flung them from us makes my flesh creep; even now I seem to feel the slippery smoothness of those cold membranes gliding through my fingers and near my cheeks....

To what end does this childish recollection enter into the dark tragedy of my life? This—that when I mount into the closed turret of my mind in quest of winged thoughts and soaring fancies, alas! there glide through my brain only the monstrous spirits of madness, the black bats of hypochandria....

I remember little or nothing of those somber days in Yalta. I can vaguely recollect Stahl telling me over and over again in answer to my delirious cries for Bozevsky: “He is dead! He is dead! He is dead!” And as I could not and would not believe him, he took me in a closed carriage through many streets; then into a low building and through echoing stone passages into a large bare room—a dissecting room!

The horror of it seals my lips.

Still more vaguely do I recollect the death of Stahl himself. I know that one evening he shot himself through the heart, and was carried to the hospital. I know that he sent me the following words traced in tremulous handwriting on a torn piece of paper: “Mura! I have only half an hour to live. Come to me, I implore you. Come!”

I did not go to him. The terrible lessons he had taught me were bearing fruit; all I did when brought face to face with some new calamity was to take injection after injection of morphia; and thus I sank down again into the twilight world of unreality in which, during that entire period, I moved like one in a dream.

I seemed to be living under water, in a perpetual dimness—a fluid, undulating dusk.

No sooner did I find myself rising to the surface of consciousness, and the noisy harshness of life confronted me again, than my trembling hands sought the case that hid the little glass viper of oblivion—the hypodermic syringe of Pravaz.

Over the tremulous flame of a candle I heated the phial of whitish powder and watched it gradually dissolve into a clear crystalline liquid that the hollow needle thirstily drank up: then I bared my arm and thrust the steel point aslant into my flesh. Soothing and benumbing the morphia coursed through my veins; and I sank once more into the well-known beatific lethargy, the undulating dusk of unreality and sleep....

But one day a call thrilled through the enveloping cloud and reached my heart: it was the call of motherhood. Tioka! Tania! Where were my children? Why, why were my arms empty when these two helpless and beloved creatures were mine?

Horrified at myself and at the dream-like apathy in which I had strayed so long, I tore myself from the degrading captivity of narcotics and with trembling steps tottered towards the threshold of life once more.

With dazed eyes I beheld the altered world around me.

How everything had changed! I was no longer the Countess Tarnowska, flattered, envied and beloved. The women who had formerly been my friends turned their eyes away from me, while on the other hand men stared at me boldly in a way they had never dared to look at me before. Vassili—the frivolous, light-hearted Vassili—shut his door upon me, and secluded himself in grim and formidable silence as in the walls of a fortress. Vainly did I beat upon it with weak hands, vainly did I pray for pity. Inexorable and inaccessible he remained, locked in his scorn and his resentment. Nor ever have the gates of his home or of his heart opened to me again.

I took refuge with my children at Otrada.

My parents received us in sorrow and humiliation. Themselves too broken in spirit to offer me any consolation, they moved silently through the stately mansion, blushing for me before the servants, hiding me from the eyes of their friends.

Even my children hung their heads and crept about on tiptoe, mute and abashed without knowing why.

One day Tania, my little Tania, was snatched from my arms. Vassili took her from me, nor did I ever see her again.

I had gone out, I remember, sad and alone, into the wintry park. By my side trotted Bear, my father's faithful setter, who every now and then thrust his moist and affectionate nose into my hand. In my thoughts I was trying to face what the future might have in store for me.

“When my little Tioka grows up,” I said to myself, “I know, alas! that I shall lose him. He will want to live with his father: he will look forward to entering upon life under happy and propitious auspices. Yes, Tioka will leave me, I know. But my little girl will stay with me. Tania will be my very own. She will grow up, fair and gentle, by my side; I shall forget my sorrows in her clinging love; I shall live my life over again in hers. I shall be renewed, in strength and purity, in my daughter's stainless youth.”

As I thus reflected I saw my mother running to meet me, her gray head bare in the icy wind; she was weeping bitterly. Tania was gone! Vassili had taken her away!

Notwithstanding all my tears and prayers it was never vouchsafed to me to see my little girl again.

But when the day came in which they sought to tear my son from me as well, I fought like a maddened creature, vowing that no human power should take him from me while I lived. I fled with him from Otrada—I fled I knew not and cared not whither, clasping in my arms my tender fair-haired prey, watching over him in terror, guarding him with fervent prayers. I fled, hunted onward by the restlessness that was in my own blood, pursued by the bats of madness in my brain.

Thus began my aimless wanderings that were to lead me so far astray.

Alone with little Tioka and the humble Elise Perrier, I took to the highways of the world.

How helpless and terrified we were, all three of us! It was like living in a melancholy fairy tale; it was like the story of the babes lost in the wood. Sometimes, in the midst of a street in some great unknown city, little Tioka would stop and say: “Mother, let us find some one who knows us, and ask them where we are to go and what we are to do.”

“No, no! Nobody must know us, Tioka.”

Then Tioka would begin to cry. “I feel as if we were lost, as if we were lost!...” And I knew not how to comfort him.

One day—we were at Moscow, I remember—there appeared to me for the first time that lean and threatening wolf which is called—Poverty. Poverty! I had never seen it at close range before. I almost thought it did not really exist. I knew, to be sure, that there were people in the world who were in need of money; but those were the people whom we gave charity to; that was all.

Poverty? What had poverty to do with us?

During all my life I had never given a thought to money.

XX

“Elise, I cannot bear to see myself in this ugly black dress any longer. Write to Schanz and tell him to send me some new gowns. I want a dark green tailor-made costume, and a pearl-gray voile.”

“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, Schanz says that he would like to be paid.”

“Well, let us pay him then.”

“Yes, my lady. But, begging your ladyship's pardon, his bill is twenty-five thousand rubles.”

“Well, let him have them.”

“I am sorry, my lady, but we have not got twenty-five thousand rubles.”

It was true. We had not got twenty-five thousand rubles.

“Elise, Tioka wants to be amused. He would like a toy railway.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Mind,” cried Tioka, “it must be like the one we saw yesterday, with all those stations and canals, and a Brooklyn bridge.”

“Yes, Master Tioka.”

“Well, Elise, what are you waiting for?”

“Begging your ladyship's pardon, it costs eighty rubles.”

“Well?”

“We have not got them.”

True enough; we had not got eighty rubles.

“Elise, I have no more perfumes. Go and get me a bottle of Coty's Origant.”

“Yes, my lady. But—”

“But what?”

“It costs twelve rubles.”

“Well?”

“We have not got them.”

And indeed we had not got twelve rubles.

I thought it very sad not to have twenty-five thousand rubles, nor even twelve rubles, when I required them.

I resolved to telegraph to my mother.

Feeling sad and perplexed, I went to the telegraph office and sat down at a table to write my message:

“Mother, dear, we are unhappy and forlorn; Tioka and I want to come home and stay with you always. Please send us at once—”

I was meditating on what sum to mention, when I felt the touch of a hand upon my shoulder. Startled, I turned, and raised my eyes. Before me stood a man—dark, rather tall, with a brown mustache and pendulous cheeks. Surely I knew him! Where had I seen that face before? Suddenly there flashed into my mind the recollection of a crowded, brilliantly lighted restaurant. I saw Vassili, amid much laughter, counting the dark-eyed tziganes to see if one of them were missing—Prilukoff! “The Scorpion!” It was he who stood before me.

“Countess Tarnowska! Who would have dreamt of finding you here!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing in Moscow?”

“I—I do not know,” I stammered. I had in fact not infrequently asked myself what I was doing in Moscow.

“I have heard of all your misfortunes,” he said, lowering his voice, and gazing at me sympathetically. “I have read the papers and heard all the fuss. Come now, come,” he added, “you must not weep. Let us go and have tea at the Métropole; there we can talk together.” And he took me familiarly by the arm.

I drew back. “I wanted to telegraph—,” I began.

“Telegraph? To whom?” inquired Prilukoff with an authoritative air.

“To my mother.”

“Why? What do you want to telegraph to her for?”

I flushed. “I—I have no money—” I stammered.

“Well, I have,” said Prilukoff, and he drew me out of the office.

At the top of the steps he stopped and looked me in the face. “What a fortunate meeting!” he said. “Our lucky star must have brought it about.” With these words his brown eyes looked straight into mine. “Our lucky star!” he repeated.

Merciful heaven, why did not a whisper, not a breath of warning come to me then? Why did no tremor in my soul admonish me, no heavenly inspiration hold me back? Nothing, nothing checked the smile upon my lips, nor the words in which I gaily answered him:

“Our lucky star! So be it.” And I took his arm.

The die of my destiny was cast. I went out on my way to destruction and ruin.

There were many people and much music in the Métropole when we entered.

It is strange to think how all the memorable and significant hours of my life are associated in my mind with the entrancing rhythm of dance-music, with the lilting tunes of waltz, mazurka and polonaise.

All the tragedies, all the extravagances that convulsed my existence bloomed up like tragic modern flowers in the hothouse of some fashionable restaurant, under the feverish breath of a tzigane orchestra.

So great became the power of this obsession over me, that no sooner did I enter a restaurant where there were people, and lights, and the music of stringed instruments, than I straightway felt as if I had lost my senses. Under the influence of such an atmosphere all my thoughts assumed disordered and extravagant forms. The tones of the violins excited and electrified me; as the bows swept the quivering strings I also quivered and vibrated, shaken with indescribable perturbation. The waves of sound seemed to envelop me in a turbid vortex of sentiment and sensibility.

Ah, if there had been more silence in my life, more shade, more seclusion! It is not within the safe walls of the home, not at one's own peaceful and inviolate hearth that perversity stirs to life and catastrophe is born.

Oh! Tania, my only daughter, if the wishes of your sorrowful mother could but reach you and her prayers for you be granted, they would encompass with shade and silence your young and virginal heart.

And I—ah, if I could but go back to the white vacant land of childhood, I would kneel down and entreat from heaven naught else but shade and silence in my life....

But in the Café Métropole the blazing lights were lit, the orchestra was swinging its unhallowed censer of waltz-music through the perfumed air and the Scorpion was sitting before me drinking his tea and laughing.

“Do you remember how much afraid you were of me at the Strelna, when I jumped from the divan and touched your shoulder? And afterwards—when you found me asleep at the bottom of the sleigh?”

Yes, I remembered.

“And now you are no longer afraid of me?”

No. Now I was no longer afraid of him.

Fate, the Fury, standing behind me, must have laughed as with her nebulous hand she covered my smiling eyes.

XXI

What charmed and delighted me most in the Scorpion was a pet phrase of his that he was constantly using: “Leave that to me!”

He said it every minute, a hundred times a day. Occasionally there might be a slight variation; he might say, “Don't trouble your head about that”; or “Never mind, I'll see to it.” But as a rule it was the brief enchanting sentence: “Leave that to me.”

I cannot possibly describe the sense of utter relief and comfort with which those few words inspired me. I felt unburdened, as it were, exonerated, set free from every responsibility, from every anxiety, almost from every thought. It was as if Prilukoff had said of my very soul, “Leave it to me,” so complete was my sense of tranquil relinquishment.

In truth I had never given much thought to the practical side of life. No sense of responsibility had ever weighed upon my narrow shoulders; there had always been so many people around me to give me advice, to direct me, to think and to act on my behalf!

When I had suddenly found myself alone in the world with Tioka and Elise I had felt more frightened and more helpless than they. But now, here once more was some one ready to direct me, ready to think and act and decide for me. Occasionally, realizing my position, I exclaimed anxiously: “Dear me, what shall I do about money?”

Prilukoff would answer briefly: “Leave that to me.”

“But how shall I pay my bills?”

“Leave your bills to me.”

“And how shall I prevent Vassili from robbing me of Tioka!”

“Don't bother about Tioka. Leave him to me.”

“And, oh dear! I wish I could be divorced from Vassili.”

“You shall be divorced; I shall see to it.”

“But what will my mother say?”

“Leave your mother to me.”

There seemed to be nothing in the world that could not be left to the omniscient and all-sufficing care of Donat Prilukoff. I was deeply moved and grateful.

“How shall I ever be able to thank you?”

“Leave the thanking to me,” said Prilukoff.

For a long time, indeed, he seemed neither to desire nor expect any gratitude. He looked after my interests, my divorce, my parents, my son, my maid, my debts, and my health. But he asked for no thanks; all he required was that I should be docile and content.

It was a period of respite. Soon I forgot that I had ever thought of him as a Scorpion or an octopus. Indeed, he was to my eyes a strange and delightful mixture of knight errant, of guardian saint, of commissionaire and hero.

I did not feel then that every favor, every counsel I asked of him, was but another link in the subtle chain that bound me to him.

Soon I was unable to do anything without asking for his opinion and his assistance. Tioka, Elise and I grew accustomed to see him arrive with his masterful air and brisk greeting every afternoon; then every morning; then every evening as well. We never went out without him; no letter was received or written without its being given to him to read.

If Tioka broke a toy, if Elise was overcharged in an account, if I received an anonymous letter, it was immediately referred to Prilukoff. He put everything into his pocket, saying: “Leave that to me.”

And, true to his word, he mended the toys, he adjusted the accounts, he discovered and punished my anonymous slanderers. He was astute, deliberate and intelligent.

I felt convinced that he was also kind and generous and good.

Who can say that in those days he was not so? The dreadful Prilukoff, assassin and blackmailer, who turned against me, livid with wrath, in the court-room at Venice, was he—could he be?—the same Prilukoff who, in those far-off days, mended little Tioka's playthings? Who was so anxious if he saw me looking pale? Of whom Elise, clasping her work-worn hands, used to say: “When he appears he seems to me like Lohengrin!”

Lohengrin! How bitterly I smile, remembering all that ensued. And yet—I cannot believe it. I cannot understand it. Which of those two beings—the maleficent demon or the chivalrous knight—was the real Prilukoff?

Perhaps, when these sinister years of prison and sorrow are past that cancel in their flight so many things, and shed light upon so many others, some day he may cross my path again. Shall I then not discern in his faded, grief-stricken face the strong and compassionate Lohengrin of long ago?...

Meanwhile I drifted on, submissive to my fate.

Only two things perturbed me. One was the fear lest Tioka should be taken from me—an anguish that was with me day and night. The other was a torturing secret, which I confided to no one. It was—how shall I say it?—my terror of closed doors!

Every time I found myself alone in front of a closed door, I did not dare to open it. I had the fixed, frightful idea that behind the door I should see—Bozevsky! I had the irremovable conviction that he was standing, motionless and expectant, behind every door that confronted me. All the doors of our apartment had to be kept wide open. If it ever happened that I found myself alone in a room of which the door was closed, instead of opening it I rang the bell, I called, I cried for help; and if it chanced that every one was out, or no one heard me, I stood riveted to the spot, rigid with fear, staring at the terrifying mystery of that closed door before me. Perchance, with a great effort of will, holding my breath while the beads of cold perspiration started on my brow, I ventured to put out my hand towards the handle—but in an instant I found myself pushing the door to again, leaning desperately with all my strength against the frail barrier which concealed—oh, I knew it did!—Bozevsky, standing upright and terrible, with the yellow gauze round his neck.

This notion, horrible as it was in the daytime, became an unbearable fear after nightfall. Tioka went upstairs to bed, accompanied by Elise, at about eight o'clock. Twice it happened that, when they were both asleep, a draught caught the open door of the drawing-room in which I was sitting, and shut it. With chattering teeth, and shivers running over me like chilly water, I remained there, motionless, through all the hours of the night, knowing that Bozevsky was there, separated from me only by that slender wooden partition.

In the morning Elise found me lying on the floor in a faint.

One day Elise was summoned to Neuchâtel. Her father was at the point of death, and wished to give his last embrace and blessing to his only daughter. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the telegram for Elise arrived; at eight o'clock, distracted and weeping, she was in the train.

Tioka and I, who had accompanied her to the station, returned homeward feeling sad and lonely. We felt doubly lonely that day, as Donat Prilukoff had been obliged to leave Moscow on account of a lawsuit, and was not to return until the following evening.

We had, it is true, another serving-woman, a cook; but she left us every evening to go and sleep at her own home.

We entered our dark and silent apartment nervously. I hastily turned on all the lights and then carried Tioka, who was cross and already half asleep, up the inner staircase leading to our bedrooms.

I undressed him and put him to bed, tucking him up warmly and comfortably.

“Oh, dear,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes; “do you think the wolves will come and eat me if I don't say my prayers to-night?”

“No, no, dearest. I will say them for you. Go to sleep.”

I kissed him and turned out the light; then I went downstairs to get a book from the library, intending to return to my room at once. I felt nervous and restless. I was afraid I should not be able to sleep.

How did it happen? Perhaps it was an instant's forgetfulness that caused me to draw the door of the library after me. It closed with a heavy thud. The long, dark-red curtain turned on its rod and fell in front of the doorway.

I was imprisoned!

XXII

I should never dare to leave that room.

Suddenly I thought that Tioka might call me. But between him and me, standing outside on the threshold of that draped door, was there not the man whom I had seen die in Yalta? Horrifying memory! For a long time I did not venture to stir. I turned my head and looked behind me, then fixed my eyes afresh on the red curtain. Suddenly I thought I heard a cry.

Yes; it was Tioka calling me, Tioka all alone upstairs, who was frightened too, frightened even as I was. With shivers swathing me from head to foot as with an icy sheet, I listened to those cries which every moment grew shriller and wilder. Then, in answer to him, I screamed too.

Oh, those shrieks ringing through the empty house—shrieks which only that silent ghost behind the door could hear!

Suddenly another thrill ran through me; the electric bell had sounded. Some one was ringing at our door; some one was coming to save us. Tioka still screamed, and the bell continued to ring. I could also hear blows on the door and then a voice—Prilukoff's voice—calling: “It is I. Open the door!”

With a sob of mingled terror and joy I thrust back the curtain and flung open the dreaded door. Stumbling blindly through the passage I reached the hall door and drew back the latch. Prilukoff stood on the threshold; he was pale as death.

“What has happened?” he cried. “What is the matter?” And he gripped my arm.

I was sobbing with joy and relief. “Tioka, Tioka!” I called out. “Don't cry any more. Donat has come! We are here, we are near you!”

Tioka's cries ceased at once.

But Prilukoff still held me fast. “What has happened!” he asked, clenching his teeth.

“I was afraid, I was afraid—” I gasped.

“Of whom?”

A fresh outburst of tears shook me. “Of the dead,” I sobbed.

“Leave the dead to me,” said Prilukoff.

He entered and shut the door.

········

Thus, unconscious and unwilling, I descended yet another step down the ladder of infamy.

Shrinking and reluctant I trailed my white garments into defilement, sinking with every step deeper into the mire which was soon to engulf me; the mire which was to reach my proud heart, my pearl-encircled throat, my exalted brow on which nobility had set its seal in vain.

It was about that time, I remember, that Delphinus, a renowned fortune-teller, came to Moscow. One morning, having nothing else to do, I went with the smiling, skeptical Elise to consult him in his luxurious apartments.

He took both my hands and gazed for a long time at a crystal ball which was before him. Then he said: “Woman, your life is a tragedy.”

I smiled, incredulous yet disturbed. “Pray say rather a comedy, if you can.”

He shook his head. “A tragedy,” he repeated gloomily. Then he uttered several commonplaces which might apply to any other woman as well as to me. Finally, with knitted brows, he looked still more closely into the crystal. “Two men,” he said, speaking slowly, “have yet to enter into your life. One will bring salvation, the other ruin. Choose the one, and you will attain happiness; choose the other and you will perish.”

He paused. “You will choose the other,” he said, and released my hand.