Witold returned only yesterday. He was at a great shooting party in
Klosow, where he was obliged to go, as a proof of his friendly relations
with Janusz, and so put a stop to rumours rife among the neighbouring
gentry that Martha and he were separated. Once I forbade Janusz to shoot
hares; all that has long ago been forgotten, and now he astonishes
everybody by his skill as a marksman. The Past—is the Past!
These few last years, which have not told at all upon Witold, have
changed Janusz beyond recognition. He has married “a young lady from the
country,” and grown fat and rubicund and common; he has four sons, of
whom he is excessively proud: Witold brings me news that he is expecting
a fifth shortly. The former wild primitiveness of his nature only shows
itself now on his occasional visits to town, when he carouses and revels
furiously, in company with Witold.
As to his sister Martha, she has been in Germany for about six months,
staying at a sanatorium for nervous patients. She is allowed neither to
receive any letters nor to write any. We only now and then get news from
the doctor, saying that she is better, and will soon be able to return
to her home. She is, as the kindly German has the politeness to add,
always pining after her husband and her son. The latter is being brought
up with Janusz’s boys, and the country air must have a very salutary
influence upon his system.
I took but a very short leave this summer, spending nearly all the time
in town with Witold, and leading something like a domestic life; for he
shows himself in my case very particular about keeping up appearances. I
wonder why, in his former relations with Mme. Wildenhoff, he never cared
a fig for them! Perhaps he means, by taking such care, to show how much
he esteems me.
He read my letter through, but made no comments on it; he suddenly
remembered some incident at the shooting party, telling it to me. And
then he set about caressing and kissing me: he had been wanting me so
very, very badly!
“But answer my question, Witold,” I said.
“How can I? I don’t know,” was his answer, as he ardently kissed my
inquisitorial eyes.
“Janka, is not this the best answer of all?”
He is always like that. My looks set us apart, his kisses unite us
together.
But I am wrestling, held in the grip of my love, as a kite that soars
above the clouds wrestles with the string held by a boy at play!
Idalia is not averse to having company at her lodgings, where I have met
several characters in the artistic world.
Wiazewski cannot hear “Bohemianism.” Yet in spite of this he not
unwillingly comes, too, to see us, and to “observe.”
“Look well at all those men,” he says. “For the most part ill-shaped,
ill-favoured, sitting in corners and smoking cigarettes, and paying no
attention whether ladies are present or not. All of them sceptical and
pessimistic, taking no interest in any but exaggerated views, and in
most deadly earnest about all their convictions. That is the type of men
I most abhor. If intelligent, they grow narrow-minded; and, if dull,
utterly impossible in society. You have surely noticed that the greatest
fool, so long as he has no convictions of his own, may be a very nice
gentlemanly fellow.”
“And what about the women?”
“They are less unendurable. They don’t talk of feminism, they don’t
approve of women’s emancipation, and (best of all) they practise it very
effectively indeed. They have a great deal of intuition, but for all
that—and luckily so—not a grain of conscious experience.”
“Whom do you like best of all?”
“Miss Janina Dernowicz.”
“I was asking about artists; I am not one.”
“Ah, I see.—Artists? The prettiest is Miss Wartoslawska, whom I have
known for a good long space of time. But just now she is far from
looking as well as usual.—Why does not Owinski come here with her now?”
“Owinski?” I hesitated for a moment. Then: “Well, the engagement has
been broken off for a month,” I said.
“Has it? Yes, I had heard something about his being affianced to some
one, but fancied it was only gossip.... Why, he seemed to be a very
passive sort of fellow, and bore the yoke meekly enough.”
“I don’t know who is responsible for what has taken place.”
“Oh, you have but to look at her, and you can’t help guessing....
Besides, women always love longer and more deeply. It is through love
that they attain their highest degree of culture; and I must acknowledge
that, so far as culture goes, they have outstripped men; a woman’s
instinct stands higher than the wisdom of a man.”
“Why, Stephen, from where have you got this attitude of benevolent
optimism towards woman?”
“Of tragical pessimism, I should say,” he answered, gayly, but then was
lost in a brown study.
How am I to know? Very likely this also is love. And a good thing, too,
that it came to me: I was so lonely then and so crushed with longing!
Now and then I enjoy emotions of superhuman delight, of ecstatic
bewilderment. And then again there flutter about me, like black moths,
certain bitter self-reproaches for the past, and maddening apprehensions
as to the future,—Really, it is too ridiculous!... As if there could be
anything worse than the sepulchral monotony of my life, as it formerly
was!
And yet I know—I _know_!—that this is not happiness: that this romantic
adventure of mine will have no morrow.
Put an end to it? I cannot; for just now the man is as necessary to me
as the air I breathe. But some time or other I shall not love him any
more; and then I shall hold it as a sacred duty to pay him for his deeds
in the past by my future conduct.
And she, this my poor love! stands here, gazing with eyes full of
frantic terror at her end, that will and must come some day!
The keynote in the tragedy of woman’s life is the fact that her need for
permanent love stands in contradiction with men’s instincts and with
their interests. Wiazewski calls this her “higher culture.” I think that
Schopenhauer’s justification of this need as simply a case of design in
nature is far more convincing. For how can we see any superiority in an
instinct that we find equally developed in the most refined _inamorata_
with her deep emotions, and in the average middle-class woman, all given
up to passivity and routine?
After Owinski had engaged himself to a new _fiancée_, he would still, in
the beginning, come at times and call upon Gina.
She would receive him with a smiling face and serene looks, and
endeavour to delude him into thinking that no change had taken place,
and that, if he said he had come back to her, she would be neither
surprised nor dismayed.... She would talk about things which had
interested them both; about her paintings and his poems. Together they
read books, treating of the Beautiful, and Life, and Love. Once he said
that he could not come to see her the next day, as his intended was to
arrive in town; she took it as quietly as if he had announced his
mother’s or his sister’s arrival. But, though they still called each
other by their Christian names, they no longer kissed, not even at
parting.
On one occasion, she asked him to read her one of his poems; a thing he
was always willing to do. She listened, adapting to each changing phrase
of his mind as she had used to do, and following every flash of his
eye.—Now, there were many works of his with which she was not
acquainted: formerly, she had been the first to read anything he wrote
With a composed and tranquil mien, she listened even to the love-song,
written for “the other.” Of course, they were the output of the reaction
which had set in: the magic power of innocence; the first confession of
love from the untouched lips of one ignorant of life; the return of his
springtime, of his youth, of his ideals.... Gina had great self-control.
At the end of one such poem, she handed him a love-song of the old
times, written three years before, and under her enchantment. And this
too he read aloud as he had read the others; and, roused to enthusiasm
by the very music of the lines, showed a fire too evidently, alas! out
of all connection with the object which had once inspired them.
Like a tune sunk deep in memory in bygone days, the words at once
brought all the past before her: it rose up, plainly visible to her
mind’s eye. The vision was agonizing, and the dismay of it made her
raise her hands to her throat, as if to prevent the outburst of
lamentation that now tore her bosom, as if she had been a feeble child,
long and unjustly ill-treated. For she knew not how long, she wept like
one distraught, even forgetting that he was present and only aware that
all her universe had given way, was broken to pieces, crumbled to dust,
annihilated.
Some one took her tenderly in his arms, smoothed her hair, kissed those
moist, red, tear-swollen eyes of hers.
She felt it, and this act, meant to comfort her, seemed to her harder
than all to bear. It was a kiss of pure sympathy for suffering, of mere
humanity, a last farewell kiss.
The anguish she felt stifled her; she could not breathe,—till her pain
tore its way out of her breast in a tempest of weeping.
Then, as in a nightmare, she heard his steps farther, farther away, and
the sound of the door closing upon him. She knew it was closing upon him
for ever; she knew that he would not return.
And then there came a time when she crept to his feet, like some poor
beast that its master has driven away; and when, no longer admitted to
his house, she loitered about for him in coffee-houses and in the
street, and importuned him with letters incessantly. Whichever way he
went, he was doomed to behold that face, pale as a spectre, and those
eyes, so reproachful and so full of entreaty!
At present Owinski salutes her distantly, as he would salute some slight
acquaintance; but he gives no answer at all to any of her letters. Nor
does he any longer call on people at whose houses there is any chance of
meeting her.
When I look at Gina, Martha recurs to my mind directly.
Once I thought I had eaten of the fruit of the knowledge that there is
neither good nor evil.
And nevertheless, there is a feeling here, in my heart,—a silly
persistent feeling,—that all that has happened is evil, most evil,
whereas it might just as well have been good.—An adventitious otherness;
circumstances, or possibly dispositions, make all the difference....
Yes, but I constantly see those eyes,—those pure dark-blue eyes, which
had not merited for her such pangs as she has suffered—and the curve of
that mouth, her tiny crimson mouth, set hard with pain, and always ready
to burst out into lamentations.
She sometimes appears to me as a fiend, whom I hate for her obstinate
will to suffer, for the childish and insensate whim of posing as a
victim, for her attitudes and her love to gloat over herself. She comes
with black wings and fluttering white hands; with a beggar’s impudence,
she opens out her mourning weeds and shows me her bosom; beneath her
white transparent flesh, I can see her purple-coloured heart. And she
points to it. It is misery that has stained it so deep a red, filling it
with red fire; for there is not a single drop of blood in it any more.
And she strokes that heart with dainty relish, and smiles on me
malignantly.
I—am suffering remorse!
To differentiate between good and evil is far from wise. This is why my
ethical principles are of such primitive simplicity. All my culture
exists only in my brain; what is emotional in me remains elemental and
primitive, full of stupid sentiment and of scruples.
And therefore it is that I am so unlike other women, whose great
characteristic is that their feelings are cultured.
At times, when I see him afar, standing out from amongst the crowd,
splendid in shape and wonderful in beauty, I have a sense of pride that
he is mine—my own! Neither a pet cat nor a dog, neither a parrot nor a
canary: a man of the world, tall, refined, in life’s prime. And this
marvellous creature belongs to me. It is truly hard to realize this; and
my brain whirls with pleasure at the very thought of such a possession.
When sitting by my side, he loses that charm of his, so extremely rare
and of no less value,—the charm of aloofness. He is mine assuredly, my
Witold. I know him well, I know him by heart. Never anything but by fits
and starts; incorrigible in his defects, which are exceedingly hard to
bear; obstinate and childish; his mind consisting of two or at most
three strata, the uppermost of which alone contains a little gold; and
under this you may root and dig all your life long, and never find
anything but sand, and sand, and sand for ever!—But why do I always want
to find things out, and go deeper and deeper?
When he kisses, it is as if he were drinking the blood out of me. I turn
pale, and am weak and inert—ever more and more inert. In his arms I
melt, or am like a flower drooping and dying in the sunbeams. I have not
the strength even to raise my eyelids; it is as though the lashes had
grown together.
But—and this is an odd thing—I never yield beyond a certain point, not
determined by any resolve or will of mine, but by instinct and instinct
alone. A moment comes when there surges up within me as it were a cold
and ironically smiling energy; with one gesture, I repulse that creature
full of intemperate desire, enchanting though he is in his thoughtless
waywardness.
He always goes away humbled, vanquished, and concealing under the hearty
kindness of a farewell kiss the gathering hostility of an everlasting
antagonism.
For indeed I have never yet been his “paramour,” in any sense of the
word used by Martha, when she questioned me.
Yet, when victorious, I at times wish that I had been defeated. Truly, I
cannot understand myself. But I do not so much as attempt to strive
against this something within me that can even overcome the natural bent
of my temperament.
It is conceivably the instinct of self-preservation, which has in woman,
through the immemorial working of heredity, been turned in one and only
one special direction, antagonistic to unchastity. The ideal woman would
prefer death to what is called _shame_, would she not?
And I also possess this involuntary and automatic tendency, instinctive
yet purposeful; and in me it is only very partially blunted by the force
of sober reason. But this explains well why my bias towards emancipation
has its source and finds its scope chiefly in the intellectual sphere.
Last evening I spent some time in Gina’s studio. I was glad she had
asked me to come, for last night there was something or other on at
Witold’s club, and I do not like to pass my evenings alone now. I fear
my own thoughts, which are never so profound as in solitude and by
night. This activity of my mind sometimes exceeds my limited strength to
bear it. And when I note that there is in this some resemblance between
myself and Martha, I again hear her prediction of vengeance ringing in
my ears.—There are moments when oh, how weak, how very weak I feel!
Although I have known Gina for a long time, our relations are always on
a strictly formal footing. When we meet at a common friend’s, her
behaviour is almost distant; when she is playing the part of hostess,
she is not only courteous, but eager to show courtesy; and this
difference in her bearing is very marked. At home, she is seldom gloomy,
will not let the conversation flag for an instant, shows me her
paintings, her albums, new periodicals and books; makes me most
delicious black coffee; and is incessantly moving about, light-footed
and supple, with lithe and snake-like motion, dressed in a long dark
gown with trailing skirts, glittering with her gold ear-rings and her
metallic belt, amid the easels and canvasses and stools of every shape,
and all the admired disorder of her studio. And she tactfully avoids
talking about herself, as she does not wish the least shade of gloom to
enter our conversation.
“Are you quite comfortable?” she inquires, kindly. “Please don’t stand
on ceremony, but sit down on this ottoman: very cosy, believe me. Let me
put this skin under your head—the softest fur; as soft as silk. Now
isn’t it nice to rest on?”
She fetches me a tiny stand, and places a cup of coffee upon its lower
shelf, with teacakes and a tiny glass, so that I have everything close
at hand.
“Now, a little drop of liqueur; that will do nicely, won’t it?”
In her studio a beautiful soft red twilight prevails. The lamp, well
shaded, glows in a corner upon a low table. The easels throw black
lines, long-drawn, big and grotesque, upon the upper parts of the walls.
A glazed roof, which forms the greater part of the ceiling, looks like
black velvet, framed in white with pink flowers along the frames.
Gina is to some extent an imitator of Costenoble. The last sketch made
by her for a very large painting represents a man, with head thrown back
in a pose of fatuous triumph, while at his feet a woman, instinct with
subtle delicacy, suggests by her attitude the coils of a writhing
serpent.
The sketch, as a whole, is melodramatic, and not very convincing. I
prefer Gina as Gina to Gina as an artist.
I love to look at her, sitting close to me, reclining in that big
easy-chair, with her long white hands carelessly dangling from the arms
of her chair, forming as beautiful and as dainty a picture as any artist
could create.
“Won’t you come with me to a concert on Thursday next?” she asks.
“Ileska is to recite a poem by my ex-fiancé. He will certainly be
there—and she too. I have not yet seen her, and should like to do so.
There will also be piano and vocal music. Not a bad programme.”
“Of course I shall be much pleased, but—have you considered...?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I shall manage all right.... It can surely make no
great impression upon me.”
She smiled.
“I should not have forced myself on you; but since Lola Wildenhoff’s
departure, I have no one but you to do me this service. I am now so very
easy to upset; and any want of tact jars upon me so!”
“I fancied that you were on pretty intimate terms with Idalia.”
“Not at present. True, she is still, as she always was, as discreet as
can possibly be. But she has too much sentiment and sympathy—far too
much; and that is annoying and mortifying. You, so tranquil, so quiet,
so entirely unmoved, act on my nerves as a sedative. I can talk with you
even more openly than with Lola.”
“Oh, have you heard from her?”
“Yes; I received one letter. She has left the Riviera, and is in Paris
now, where she intends to winter along with her husband. Wildenhoff has
won a good deal of money, playing at Monte Carlo; and both of them are
now spending it, each of them apart.”
“And her nerves, how are they?”
“In perfect condition. She has left all her tears in the sea behind
her.... That woman has an uncommonly happy disposition——”
Here followed a short but mournful pause, broken by the entrance of
Radlowski, a painter who had been her fellow-student in Munich.
He noticed that my complexion was strikingly out of the common, and
begged I would sit for my portrait.
Witold thinks that, of all the women he ever knew, I am the most
intelligent. Before he made my acquaintance, he had been climbing up a
regular ladder of emotions, of which Martha had formed the topmost rung.
I, it appears, form a sort of synthesis of all his loves; I am at the
same time the most beloved humanly speaking, and as a woman the most
desired of all. He would not have me other than I am in any way.—As to
this last, I wish I could say the same of him.
And yet I would not exactly have him changed—rather transformed and
become another person. It seems that to be as lack-brained as an animal
is not sufficient: one must besides have some primitive instincts, one
must have some vigour.... What I need now, perforce and irresistibly, is
matchless _strength_—the strength of a hurricane, of a cyclone, of some
great natural force let loose.
He loves to talk with me on intellectual matters. “No one can understand
his soul so well as I.”
Silent and with eyes cast down, I listen for some time to his
commonplaces, uttered indeed in elaborately chosen words, and in a
manner not commonplace. And I ponder. I gaze on him—on that mouth so
perfectly shaped, so intensely sweet, just a little faded, it seems; and
on those eyes which, beneath the tawny lashes that shade them, are so
bright with the fever and the melancholy of lassitude, so full of the
irresistible charm which surrounds all that is coming to an end, though
you would have it remain as beautiful as only youth’s dream can be. And
it is then—when he has not the slightest inkling of what I feel—that I
love him most of all.
To-day I was sorry for him—sorry for all those desires of his, doomed to
burn themselves out, never any more to be kindled.
Acting on an impulse, I went up to him, knelt with one knee upon his,
put my hands round his head, wonderfully soft and velvet-like to feel,
and then, turning his face up, I gazed into those enchanting, nebulous
eyes, and said laughingly:
“Oh! in Heaven’s name, Witold, why must you talk about everything? You
know well enough that this is not what you were made for, don’t you?
Pray remember that your one strong point is love.”
And then, for the first time, I kissed him upon the lips, not waiting to
be kissed by him.
He kissed me back again, but the kiss was cool, brotherly.
“I regret,” he observed, “that you show me so little of your beautiful
soul, and refuse to acknowledge mine to be of a kindred nature. Yet I
understand so well your dreams of the Arctic plains that you possess, of
your grottoes, glimmering green in the Northern Lights; of your
boundless and ever peacefully slumbering ocean! I am for ever very near
to you....”
“That may be; but I am always very far away from you,” I retorted, with
an attempt at pleasantry. Then I whispered in his ear:
“Love my snows: for there are volcanoes seething beneath them.”
At the words, his mouth fastened on to my neck, and he bit into my flesh
with a kiss that gave me exquisite pain together with maddening delight.
My eyelids closed, my lips parted; I was about to faint. And I felt his
mouth upon mine, and it was most sweet, with the savour of withered
roses. And I drank of the crimson wine of his kisses, and it was strong
as death.
And the crimson wine inebriated me.
But there came an evil moment. Was it Death, or was it Life, that then
laid its cold hand upon my heart, and looked upon me with the eyes of
wisdom?
The revulsion frees me, tearing me from his close embrace.—And I hated
him, for he did not understand, and was unwilling to leave me. Yet, had
he indeed left me thus, I should have resented it and longed for him!
No, never I shall be won by the graces of a young page with tawny
eye-lashes, nor by the refined softness and subtlety of any art
whatever. Strength alone can win me. As the cat carries off its little
ones in its jaws, so let Him carry me away; and whithersoever he may
take me, thither I shall go.
When we entered the concert-hall, it was already full. Gina was looking
like a ghost.
We saw a good many people we knew, and several gentlemen came to present
their respects. They were rather surprised to see Gina there, looked at
her not without some tender interest, and seemed to scent a quarry.
Czolhanski, who as representative of his paper was sitting in the first
row, also perceived us.
“Where is Mr. Witold?” he asked, looking round the hall. “I have been
waiting for him, but he does not come.”
“Unfortunately,” I answered in a rather dry tone, “I am not in a
position to enlighten you. However, if he has made an appointment with
you, he may be expected to come.”
In reality, however, I was quite sure that Witold would be absent. He
had even advised me not to go to the concert, for he particularly wished
me to be at home and with him. But I would not disappoint Gina.
“He has promised to be here for sure,” repeated Czolhanski, as he went
away.
I soon perceived Owinski walking up the central passage by the side of a
lady in black attire, and no longer young. He was holding some tickets
and endeavouring (in vain, shortsighted as he was) to find the
corresponding numbers of the chairs. A pretty girl walked by the side of
the lady in black; her dark eyes sparkled, and she was evidently much
impressed by the important nature of the present performance. She spoke
in a low tone to her fiancé, seeming to banter him on his embarrassment,
and found the seats herself. They sat down at no great distance from us,
on the farther side of the central passage.
Owinski left the ladies by themselves, and was returning to seek for
something or other, when he happened to perceive us, as he passed by.
He changed colour slightly, and then approached to present his respects,
kissing Gina’s hand in silence. She, too, neither spoke a word nor
lifted her eyes.
I congratulated him on having got so first-rate an artiste as Ileska to
recite his poem; he answered in a few polite words, and withdrew.
There was a pause.
From his shapely tapering fingers, a tall young musician shook some
heavy drops of mingled sounds, then sprinkled them about, and they grew
ever more and more beautiful; now daintily rounded off—musical pearls,
as it were—now broken and hard and angular like stones. Now thunder was
heard; the hail pattered and rattled; and someone set up a low murmured
wailing, and Gina hung down her head; then sunrise was triumphantly
ushered in to the pealing of bells. And the slender artist in black
evening dress went on, as before, slowly, drowsily, letting his
blossom-like hands fall dropping upon the piano keys, soft as velvet
under their touch, and suddenly, with a gesture too rapid to be seen, he
shed a perfect shower of pearls round us, from the inexhaustible
treasury of his kingly munificence.
Never yet have I at any concert been able to fall under the spell of
music.
I listen, and I look. I may even feel dazzled. But, to be spell-bound!
That requires seclusion, concentration.... There are times when I prefer
a barrel-organ to a concert!
I coldly admired the astonishing technique of the young virtuoso, now
playing in public for the first time, and the extraordinary charm he
possessed, which was like hypnotism or magic. Gina sat enthralled and
following each motion of his hands. She no longer cast any glances in
the direction of her victorious rival; but sombre clouds were passing
over her face, and she knit her golden brows and frowned heavily.
I glanced towards Owinski; but on the way my glance and a look from two
black and most observant eyes crossed each other. So! _She_ was
scrutinizing Gina!
Silence came; and then a clapping of hands: the first-rate actress, who
was thin and unattractive, had appeared upon the platform. She bent her
head slightly in a formal bow, and looked round the hall from under
gloomy brows. The audience waited, expectant and agitated.
A clear, distinct, cold voice was heard vibrating through the
brilliantly lighted hall.
Then, as if preparing for a surprise, it gradually grew mysterious,
soft, and low. You thought of marble terraces, leading to subterranean
vaults. The words seemed to take a sculptured form from her diction and
utterance; their tones went lower, lower, lower still, became the
muttering of a hushed lamentation, the rumbling sounds of a scarce
audible curse, and the profoundest depths of the agony of death.
At intervals, Ileska would pause to cast her eyes down, and—in an
ecstatic concentration of self-suggested rapture—wait while her
wonderful voice, reverberated from the white and lofty walls, would echo
back and fill her attentive ears....
And then she would again open her great sombre eyes, and continue her
recitation, inspired as it were by the sound of that strange voice of
hers.
Indeed, she gave so much of her own special individuality to the poem
she was so admirably reciting, that I did not at first recognize it as
the work of Owinski. Gina, wrung with anguish, cast up her eyes and
threw back her head, looking steadfastly into the glare of the electric
candelabra, and blinking now and then, while a couple of tears were
sparkling in each outer corner of her eyes. She was trying to force them
back into her heart by that means. Ah, yes; I know that trick, I do, how
well!... But it was unsuccessful: indeed, it does fail from time to
time. Once two translucent pearls trickled slowly on to her temples, and
were lost in the tresses of her brown hair.
After Ileska, Mlle. Iseult Lermeaux, a singer who would, according to
Czolhanski, be the great attraction of the concert, came forward on the
platform. Her figure, as soon as I saw it, struck me as like some person
strangely familiar. Could it—could it be?... No, the thing was
incredible. I drew my brows together, that I might concentrate my
attention and make sure. No, no; only a fearful unaccountable pain had
taken possession of me for an instant. It was Gina’s own pain that I
felt, reflected within myself.—An inexplicable bewitchment, that perhaps
has its reason in the drawn-out, lazy, lascivious, dreamy notes of that
song of a Southern land, which she is singing: yes, it may be that.
No. No. NO.—It is she, none but she ... she beyond all doubt. Now I
_know_; and my knowledge is hell to me. Yes, I know all.
Ah! but she is fair, divinely fair! All the potency of the senses, all
the exquisite refinements of art have come together to create this
irresistible glamour that she spreads around her. No, no,—not a word!
Those eyes, so amazing in their fairy-like beauty, and the long lashes
that fringe them—those drowsy yet unfathomable eyes, like those of her
whom King Cophetua loved so well! Yes, and it is her mouth, too—that
wondrous, wondrous mouth, now pale and wan through excess of delights,
either felt or known in dreams only.—But, Heavens! I can see this mouth
pressed close to that other mouth, sweet beyond all sweetness,—that
mouth fragrant with its terrible death-bringing scent, its scent as of
withered roses!...
This—this is death!
Not so. Oh, no, it is not death: this is Life! Understand the truth.—It
is life; behold it now: life in very deed.
You see now?—All is clear. It was for that reason that Czolhanski was
awaiting him here. It was for that reason that he wished you not to
come, and that, because you came, he stayed away.
Is—is not this yet Death?
No. It is Life: Life that, out of the accents of that voice, supremely
melodious, drowsy, sleepy, yet replete with fire from an unfathomable
abyss, out of the lazy, lascivious snaky curves of those limbs of hers;
out of those glossy shoulders, so shapely, so slenderly fashioned, and
of those outstretched naked arms, in hue like pale dead gold, has come
forth towards you in all its hostile might!
Gina, lost in dreary amazement, was staring at me.
“What ails you?... Had we not better get away from here?”
We were both of us presently standing, frantic with pain, in the street
which, lit up by the flaring windows of the great hall, was as bright as
day.
“Let us go away—away!—Home? On no account.—Get drunk somewhere—lose my
senses—shed some one’s blood....”