"Adieu, Nikolai! Adieu, Mascha! Thank you many times. I have enjoyed
myself wonderfully, splendidly! Good-night."
It is Sonia's voice on the steps of the house in the Avenue Murillo.
She had gone to the theatre with Nikolai and his sister. A month has
passed since the opening of the Salon, the whole wonderful month of
May.
On the stair landing stands Nita, who, on account of great weariness,
had refused to go with them--a lamp in her hand. Nikolai sees her white
face, surrounded with light, over an abyss of blackness. "Good-night,
Fraeulein," calls he. "Good-night," repeats a hoarse, weary little
voice--Mascha's.
Then brother and sister depart, and Sonia hurries up the stairs.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" asks Nita, in her sympathetic, motherly way,
while she embraces her friend.
"Splendidly; it was charming," says Sonia, enthusiastically.
"What was the play?"
Sonia is silent a moment, confusedly. "'_Les deux Orphelines_,'"
murmured she, hesitatingly, ponderingly. Then she corrects herself.
"No, no; how stupid I am! '_Les Pilules du Diable_.'"
And Nita strokes her flushed cheeks laughingly, and kisses her on her
eyes. "How pretty you are; you grow prettier every day," she whispers
to her.
"Nikolai said that to me to-day also," says Sonia, proudly, and blushes
deeply.
"So! And did he not say something more significant?" laughs Nita.
"What should he say?" stammers Sonia. "I do not know."
"What droll people you two are!" says Nita, shaking her head. "To think
that this moonlight-twilight has lasted since December. Pardon me,
Sonia, but Nikolai is a riddle to me. How can one be so nice, so
clever, and at the same time so slow and awkward? How can one need so
long a time to bring something from the heart to the lips?"
"How do you know what he has in his heart?" replies Sonia, with a
frown, but with only half-repressed joy in her voice. "And now, tell
me, have you nothing for me to eat? I am fearfully hungry."
"I was prepared for that; come in our cosey corner."
The cosey corner is a little three-cornered room off of the
drawing-room. A piano, a chair almost breaking under its load of music,
a single sofa, a large arm-chair, and a little Japanese table, all
grouped about a Parisian fire-place, form the furniture.
On the miniature table stands a little repast prepared--a dish of
strawberries, sandwiches, little cakes, and, amongst all these
delicacies, a sensible silver tea-pot.
"Ah, how nice you are!" says Sonia, pleased. "A mother could not care
for me better; I cannot bear to think how horrible it was before I was
with you! I live as if in Paradise with you!"
"Did poor little Mascha become at all gayer in the course of the
evening?" asked Nita, as she poured tea for her friend.
"No; I am sorry for the child. She looks badly, pale, her face so
lengthened and aged. I do not understand how she can take the affair so
to heart. She scarcely knew Baerenburg. His wedding must be soon."
"Poor midget!" murmurs Nita.
"Nikolai is very anxious about her," goes on Sonia. "It is touching to
see her with him. At every funny part of the piece his eyes rested on
her face to see if she would laugh, but she never did."
Nita hands her friend a letter. "From Berlin; it is your father's
writing," says she.
Sonia opens it. "Yes, from papa. He is coming here in a day or two; he
may be here tomorrow."
"And then you will be untrue to me," says Nita, smilingly. "Have you
finished your supper? Do you not wish to retire?"
"No, no; I am not sleepy, and it is so nice to talk," replies Sonia.
"Come out on the terrace for a little."
Silently Nita follows. The heavens are cloudless. It is bright
moonlight.
"Only think whom I saw in the theatre this evening," begins Sonia. "As
you do not know the person, my communication will, alas! lack the
impressive effect."
"Well?"
"The most singular woman--a certain Njikitjin."
"Marie Petrovna Njikitjin?" says Nita, who until then has been dreamily
looking over the terrace railing. "Is she in Paris?"
"Yes. Do you know her?"
"A little," murmurs Nita.
"I know her well," sighs Sonia.
"How so?" asks Nita shortly, quite cuttingly.
"Papa left me with her before he left Paris."
"That is incredible," says Nita, shocked. "He certainly must know--"
She hesitates.
"Naturally, I also wondered at this choice of a protector," says Sonia,
evenly.
"At first it was all very well; she only seemed a little peculiar and
very untidy. She passed the whole morning in a wrapper, nibbling now at
_pate de foie gras_, now at bonbons. In the afternoon she slept, and in
the evening she by turns wrote letters and played the piano, especially
Beethoven's sonatas. But at the full moon she became terribly abnormal.
The whole night long she rushed here and there, wringing her hands,
threw herself on my bed, demanded promises of friendship from me, which
she returned with the most fiery kisses, and finally--you will not
believe it, Nita, and you are the first to whom I tell it, but I still
remember the petrified horror which seized me at that time--she
confessed to me, minutely, it was in vain to wish to restrain her, her
love affair with Lensky!"
"Shameless woman!" murmured Nita, angrily.
"Think of my position," continued Sonia. "How could I free myself? I
could not repeat her confession. Then she herself helped me out of the
difficulty--in what a manner! Three days after the moonlight scene, she
told me, in the greatest excitement, Lensky was to give a concert in
Berlin, and asked me to travel after him with her. When I refused, she
travelled alone. Heavens! how pale you are! My story has angered you.
No wonder; I know what an effect the thing had on me! And only think,
Njikitjin had the shamelessness to speak to me this evening as we left
the theatre. She wishes to visit me; what do you say to that?"
"She dare not cross my threshold," burst out Nita, with flashing eyes.
"That is what I say."
"When did you, then, learn to know her?" asks Sonia, confidentially.
"I? As a very young girl in Vienna. I visited her then for a short
time," says Nita, tonelessly.
"And have you never met Lensky at her house?"
"Yes, certainly."
"You never told me that," says Sonia astonished. "Why should I?" says
Nita, very harshly. "It is no pleasant recollection."
When Sonia again looks round for Nita, she has vanished. She is
about to hurry after her. Then she hears a voice from below call:
"Good-night, good, good-night!"
"Good-night, Colia," says Sonia, joyfully, as answer.
"Is it you?" calls Nikolai, slowly, disappointedly.
"Whom else should it be?" asks she, frightened, fearfully. And softly
whispering, she repeats: "Who--who----"
Yes, it is Nikolai, haunting the Pare Monceau at midnight. After he had
taken his sister home, he had returned to the park to look up at Nita's
windows.
He stands before a decisive point in his life. The sudden illness of
the Russian diplomat in Washington has caused him to be sent there. He
is advanced from attache to second secretary.
Time presses. Affairs must be quickly decided; before his departure he
must have spoken to Nita.
But if his happiness should escape him now, at the last moment; if he
frightens it away by some foolish, violent word!
On the other hand, if she says yes! His heart beats high. He builds the
most fantastic air castles, and, charmed by his own fancies, he says to
himself: "How beautiful, ah, how beautiful!"
And around him the spring dies and the blossoms fall--fall--they all
fall!