In the beginning of February, the news of the death of Sergei
Alexandrovitch Assanow arrived in Paris. Early in March Nikolai
returned to Paris as a wealthy young man wholly independent of his
father. His uncle had provided for him brilliantly in his will. Anna
Jeliagin and Mascha were wholly excluded. Anna was in despair. Mascha
cared nothing about it. She no longer cared about anything--poor little
Mascha!
"What have you done with my little bird?" Nikolai had exclaimed when he
saw her again for the first time after his return to Paris. Instead of
the round-faced child whom he had looked forward to seeing, a weary,
sad person had come to meet him, who did not fall jubilantly on his
neck, as he was accustomed to from his little sister, but only wearily,
quite vexatiously gave him her cheek to kiss. When he wished to fathom
the cause of her sadness, she grew angry, quite wild, so that, offended
and at the same time frightened, he turned from her, and then--it was
perhaps half an hour later, at twilight, and he did not know she was in
the room--she crept softly up to him and kissed his hand silently and
humbly. That went to his heart more than her rudeness. He wished to
take her in his arms and caress her, but she escaped and left the room,
with a soft, whimpering cry of pain. He inquired of his relatives
whether they suspected the cause of the great change. Madame Jeliagin
was silent, troubled. But Anna, with a scornful shrug of her shoulders,
told him "Mascha had certainly set her hopes on Count Baerenburg, for
her lack of spirits dated from his betrothal to Sylvia Anthropos, which
really showed a great imagination, for she could boast of no remarkable
attentions on his part."
At first Nikolai was relieved by Anna's explanation. "Such a heartache,
which is really no heartache, but an imagined affliction, can be cured
with a little distraction and much loving patience," he thought. But
whatever he tried to amuse his sister failed.
The child grew daily more pale and miserable; her breath was short, she
dragged her feet along. Nikolai consulted a physician. After a few
superficial questions he prescribed iron and quinine. She took the
medicine patiently, without attaining a favorable result, but when
Nikolai proposed to her to consult another learned man, she grew
painfully excited, and said: "Wait till father comes." So everything
was postponed until then. They expected the virtuoso back early in
June.
If he had not been so occupied and self-absorbed, the child's condition
would have caused Nikolai more anxiety. But like all lovers, he had
grown selfish, and his sharp sight was obscured by passion. The only
reality in life, the fixed point about which everything revolved, was
Nita. Everything else was of secondary consideration to him.
Had he approached his aim? On the whole he was contented. Nita had
greeted him cordially when he appeared in her studio for the first time
after his return, and since then had daily been more friendly to him.
He came frequently to the studio, was a kind of privileged guest. He
did commissions for the ladies at the color dealers, grew very learned
in all technical expressions of the trade. He brought them models from
places where respectable women can scarcely go. He soon knew all the
models by name; they smiled at him on the streets, and spoke to him
when they met him.
At first he had often gone for Mascha before he went to the Avenue
Frochot, but it became ever more difficult for him to induce the girl
to accompany him. Mascha grew daily more gloomy and reserved. She ate
nothing, she neglected her dress. Day by day she sat in the library and
read--read everything that she could find, she, who formerly, as a
thoroughly well brought up girl, had read only what Nikolai had
proposed.
She slept badly, and never without being tormented by fearful dreams,
from which she awoke always with the same cry for help on her lips
which rang out into vacancy, and was always the same tender word,
"Mother!"
That was an old custom. She had suffered from bad dreams from
childhood, and had then always called her mother. As long as she had
been able, Natalie had risen and gone to the child's bed and petted
her, told her all sorts of foolish trifles, until at length she had
calmly fallen asleep.
But now all that was over. "Oh, if you had only been with me, mother!
Why must you leave me?" sobbed Maschenka often. It was the only
reproach she uttered during the long, inconsolable months.
And Nikolai, formerly the tenderest brother, now contented himself with
from time to time giving his pale little sister a compassionate caress,
and had something more important to do than incessantly to ponder
whether unfortunate love for a man whom she had only slightly known
could really suffice to so completely change his gay little sister. The
only one who thought much about the strange change in her little
favorite was Nita. But however she tried, by caresses and persuasion,
to win Mascha's confidence, all failed. Maschenka even opposed her with
a certain hostility; at least, Nita could ascribe her manner to nothing
else, so violently and with such gloomy, irritable obstinacy did she
repulse all advances.
And at length Nita also grew weary of knocking at a heart which would
not open to her. All went its way. The sun shone, spring blossomed, and
Nikolai went oftener and oftener to the Avenue Frochot, just as if a
poor little girl were not tormenting herself into despair.
Yes, the world went its way, and Nita and Sophie had all sorts of
things to do, for it was an important time for artists, the time for
sending to the Salon. Nikolai shared the excitement.
Nita was really an unusual being, and about this time others beside
those belonging to her intimate circle began to find it out. The
picture which she had prepared for the exhibition had not only received
the congratulations of all her colleagues, but had induced M. Sylvain
to bring to Nita's studio the best-known art lovers and most famous
artists in Paris to pass judgment on her picture.
All were surprised at the young Austrian's achievement. But she shook
her head quite vexedly at their extravagant praise. It seemed to her
that they were mocking her. It was such a simple picture.
Nikolai was there at the studio when a messenger brought Nita, one
afternoon, a note from M. Sylvain, which, having scarcely opened, she
handed to Sophie, who read it aloud:
"_Vous etes recue avec acclamation No_. 1. _Espere une medaille_.
Sylvain."
Nita grew very pale; she trembled in her whole frame, and began
suddenly to cry. This triumph, which he had been the first to prophesy,
and which made him proud and happy for her, at the same time made
Nikolai's heart very heavy. "She is through and through an artist
nature," said he to himself as he observed her great excitement; "much
more than she herself knows." And in that he was not mistaken.
Naturally, on varnishing day he was at the Palais de l'Industrie. Not
without a certain excitement, he wandered up the great steps between
painters, journalists, models, and curious ones. Three times he made
the rounds through all the rooms seeking her picture, and as yet he had
not found it. But there! Was not that the picture almost concealed by a
crowd of admirers and critics? Nikolai found his way through and gazed
at the picture. It hung on the middle of the wall, on the line.
For Nikolai naturally the whole Salon was a mere trifle to her picture,
and if the admiration of others was of no such large dimension, the
success of the picture was still great, decisive.
And Nikolai sat down opposite the picture, listened to every word,
every enthusiastic expression, and imprinted them upon his memory so as
to tell them to her. He waited for her. She would surely come in the
course of the day to see her work. The crowd had not diminished. A
critic took notes of it, a painter, with nose close to the canvas, made
gestures expressive of his delight at the drawing.
Then Nikolai heard a step, looked round--yes, there she was,
tall, slender, with the proud carriage of her head, and her
never-to-be-forgotten eyes. The gloomy shadow was still in her eyes,
the shadow which never left them. Nevertheless, she enjoyed her
triumph, and it became her. She bore it modestly, but still as if it
were perfectly natural.
Nikolai had never seen her so charming. She wore a simple, soft,
clinging woollen dress, a little bonnet fastened under her chin.
He sprang up. "An immense success," cried he to her. She laid her
finger on her lips.
"Please hush, I have no wish to assemble a court of journalists and
colleagues about me!" said she in Russian. She spoke in Russian
sometimes, and it always pleased Colia to hear her attempt his dearly
loved mother tongue.
Then one of the men turned round from her picture. He was a famous
critic who knew her. "_C'est elle_," whispered he to the others. Bowing
deeply, he stepped up to her and asked if he might introduce several of
her particular admirers.
She could not refuse. She was surrounded. Nikolai remained respectfully
in the background and watched her. At length she freed herself. He came
up to her again.
"Why are you laughing?" she asked him, quite vexedly.
"You look so unhappy," he replied. "I have never seen any one who could
have received an ovation with such an expression of mere tolerance."
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "H-m! And you perhaps think that
I am above such flatteries, that they are wearisome to me?" she asked.
"It had that appearance."
"How appearances deceive!" sighed she, humorously. "No one is more
susceptible to flattery than I; but, quite aside from the fact that
many of these men said coarse things which they considered compliments
to me, the expressions of merely two or three of them were agreeable to
me. Men artists with us women artists completely ignore that thus far
and no further, that atmosphere of apartness, which forms a convenient
barrier between a modest woman and a man. What _sans gener_ their
conversation requires; they treat us as men, and that is unbearable."
Nikolai smiled still more. He was indescribably pleased at her
unvanquishable maidenly sensitiveness.
She thrust her hands thoughtfully in the pockets of her jacket. "Do not
ridicule me," sighed she; "but how agreeable it is to associate with a
really well-bred man like you, for instance. One feels that first when
one is an artist."
"You are a droll artist," said he, and laughed quite heartily.
She shrugged her shoulders comically, and said: "It seems so to me
sometimes."
His heart was in his mouth. Was not that the moment? But before he
could have said a word, she turned away her head and said: "Ah! there
is Sonia."
Sonia perceived her friend. "Ah! there you are at last," cried she,
gayly. "I have sought you for an hour. Your picture is splendid; your
success indescribable. You cannot imagine how proud I am of you."
Her true, unselfish enthusiasm became her so well that Nikolai could
not help pressing heartily her cordially outstretched hand.
"They are closing," said Nita, and they turned to the entrance.
"A true success, a great success," repeated Sophie to her friend as
they went out. "Are you not a little glad, you pale sphinx?"
"Certainly," replied Nita, "certainly I am glad; but I cannot
understand it. I would like to give myself a treat after all this past
anxiety. Suppose we make an excursion to some of the Paris suburbs. Are
you of the party, Monsieur Nikolas?"
And Nikolai's head swam with happiness.