The evening was already far advanced. Lensky sat alone in his
sitting-room, a prey to all sorts of feelings. A kind of rage chokes
him. "Why did I tell him all that?" he asked himself. Yes, why? Because
he has a hatred for all falseness, which amounts to exaggeration;
because it seemed to him as if he expiated some of the disgracefulness
of his behavior to Nita by the exposure of his own shame.
When he had so suddenly looked into Nita's pure eyes, it had seemed to
him as if it had all at once grown unbearably light around him. He saw
his whole life so plainly as he had never before seen it, and it was
repulsive to him. A short time ago he had sent the waiter to announce
to Nikolai that dinner was served. Nikolai had excused himself.
Then Lensky had not even taken his place at the table. As if he were
capable of forcing down anything!
The waiter had asked if he should light the lamps, but Lensky had only
impatiently motioned him away. What need had he of more light? He saw
plainly enough.
A great uneasiness overcame him. If Nikolai should really leave, there
was not much more time to delay. He heard Nikolai's trunk carried
downstairs. "He will not even come to take leave of me! But I cannot
let him go thus," he cried out, "not thus!" He went up to Nikolai's
room. Nikolai stood before the fire-place and busied himself with
tearing and burning some letters. A new, harsh, stiff expression
hardens his features. When he perceives his father, his face expresses
uneasiness and astonishment, so that Lensky's heart grows cold. For one
moment they stand silently opposite each other. "Colia!" Lensky at
length manages to say in an unrecognizable, half-suffocated voice:
"You--surely would not leave without having said farewell to me!"
"No; naturally not," replies Colia, mechanically, while he continues to
tear up letters.
"Colia!" The artist's voice trembles, he lays his hand on his son's
sleeve, he notices that he shrinks at his touch. Then he clutches his
temples and stamps on the ground. "That is not to be borne," cries he.
"Have you, then, no penetration? Do you not understand how all this
torments me--me, who would have brought down the stars from heaven for
you? And now that I should be the obstacle to your happiness! What,
obstacle! Be sensible, there is no obstacle at all. Nothing has
happened. You need not give her up. And if she is at all afraid of
meeting me again, I swear to you that she shall never meet me, that I
will never burden you with my presence. I will bear everything, only
not the thought of having disturbed your existence. Colia--do you not
hear me, then?--Colia!" He shakes his son's shoulder; Nikolai turns
toward him. His father is frightened at the dull, uninterested glance
which falls on him from the eyes formerly so brilliant with enthusiasm
of his child.
The waiter enters to announce that the carriage has arrived. Nikolai
takes his hat, Lensky holds him back, and at the same time motions to
the waiter to leave the room.
"You will write when you have arrived there?" he says.
"As soon as I am settled," replies Nikolai, with the same weary, dull
voice.
"Why was not the boy angry, rough even to rudeness, repellent to him?"
Lensky asked himself. A violent feeling would have yielded to time, but
for what he saw before him there was no more cure. He understood that
something in this young man was dead forever; the elasticity of his
nature was gone, the sacred fire was extinguished.
"Farewell, Colia!" murmured Lensky, hoarsely. He took his son in his
arms, held him convulsively to his breast, kissed him three times in
accordance with the Russian custom. He might as well have embraced a
corpse, so perfectly irresponsive did Colia remain to his tenderness.
Only once before had his lips touched anything so cold, stiff, and that
was--when he kissed Natalie in her coffin.
Then Nikolai went down-stairs. Lensky slunk after him to the house
door, looked after the carriage which rolled away with him until it was
lost in the crowd, whereupon he turned, and with heavy steps returned
to his sitting-room.
Perhaps an hour had passed since Nikolai's departure, when there was a
knock at Lensky's door. At first he did not hear it; the knocks grew
louder, more urgent. Angrily he raised his head; he had left word
down-stairs that he wished to receive no one.
"What is it?" he called out, angrily.
"A messenger from Madame Jeliagin."
"Come in! What is it?"
"He left this note for monsieur," said the waiter.
Lensky tore it open.
"A carriage!" he called out to the waiter, who had waited for an
answer. "But quickly!"
The waiter left the room; Lensky once more glanced at the note.
"Come at once. Barbara."
Nothing further. What could have happened? He took his hat, followed
quite on the waiter's heels, and sprang in the carriage.
"Avenue Wagram, No. ----," he called to the driver, "as fast as you
can."
The cab stops, Lensky plunges out, the house door was open. An
unpleasant smell of mire met him.
From the entrance, along the hall, he saw great drops of mud. He
noticed it without thinking particularly of it. A feeling of painful
discomfort grows in him with every step which he takes, and yet he
could not have said what he feared.
He found no one to announce him, to tell him where his sister-in-law,
where any one could be found. The whole household is in commotion.
Uncertainly he stands still for a moment. Then he notices that these
same large, black mud-drops which he has seen in the vestibule had
soiled the linen stair-covering.
And suddenly he remembers how he had already seen such a train of muddy
spots--in Moscow, on a hot summer night, when they carried a drowned
person through the streets. He followed the drops, went up the stairs,
still following them to one door; he knew in which room the door
opened.
For one moment he hesitates, as if he could not face the horror which
awaited him. Then he bursts open the door. The room is dimly lighted. A
single candle flickers near the bed, from which the white curtains are
remorselessly pushed back, and there on the bed lies something--he
cannot exactly decide it. Trembling in her whole frame, Madame Jeliagin
stands before it. Great, wet, black drops are on her dress, as if she
had handled a mud-covered body.
"Mascha!" he groans, beside himself, seizing his sister-in-law by her
thin arm and pushing her away from the bed.
Yes, there lies Mascha, waxy pale, with closed eyes and wet hair
clinging to her cheeks.
"She is dead!" he gasps.
"No, no; she lives," assures Madame Jeliagin, but there is no joy in
her voice, but uneasiness and discomfort.
Mascha opens her eyes, turns them away from her father, and shudders.
Lensky has seated himself on the edge of the bed near her. One of her
little hands lies on the counterpane; he takes it in his, kisses and
strokes it.
"How did it happen?" he asks, bent over the child.
"When I came home she was not here," declares Madame Jeliagin, hastily.
There is something flattering, dog-like, whining in her tone, as if she
feared being blamed. "She had left word with the maid that she would
not return to dinner, as she was to dine with you and Nikolai. I sat
calmly down to dinner--alone, Anna dines with friends--about half-past
ten. I had just sent the servant for Anna; a carriage stopped before
the door. I heard a heavy stamping in the vestibule; voices speaking
together. The maid said they desired madame. I rush out; then I see two
men who carry in the child. They told me--from a steamer--somewhere
near Passy--a girl had been seen to fall into the water--Mascha--only
at the right time they plunged after her--saved her. Fortunately, there
was some one among the passengers who knew her, a servant who sometimes
assists here, who brought her here, or else they would have taken her
to the police station. It is fearful--an accident, a terrible accident,
an imprudence--the gate of the steamer was badly secured she leaned
against it--and----"
With deeply bent head Lensky has listened to the simple report. He
still rubs and strokes his daughter's little hand. "What, accident!"
murmured he. "How did she come on the ship? She wished to kill herself
from grief. Poor little dove! What grief can one have at seventeen? Oh,
my petulant, gay darling, my tender, defiant little curly head, who has
grieved you so?" Then, again turning to his sister-in-law: "Have you,
at least, sent for a physician?" he says, imperiously.
"I did not know," murmurs she, confusedly.
Mascha trembles from head to foot, and drawing her hand away from her
father, she hides her face in the pillows and groans: "No--no--no
doctor!"
Lensky looks at her more attentively; he has understood! It is no human
sound; it is the cry of a wild animal which now escapes his breast;
then he rushes upon his daughter, seizes her by the throat, strikes her
in the face. "Shameless one!" he screams.
"_Pas de violence_, for God's sake!" stammers Madame Jeliagin,
anxiously.
But he does not listen to her.
"Who was it?" he gasps. "Who was it?" he thunders at his sister-in-law.
"I do not know--I had no suspicion--I never noticed the slightest,"
stammers she.
"So! You never noticed anything," he repeats after her. "Noticed
nothing! So! Did you, perhaps, pick up a lover on the streets?" he
sneers at Mascha.
Then she opens her eyes, rests them on him with a touchingly sad,
supplicating, humble, reproachful glance. It seems to him that
something has snapped within him. The anger is gone; only a great pity
yet lives in him, and he bends over the child and takes her in his
arms, clasps her to his breast, sobs and covers her pale little face
with kisses and tears. Meanwhile he notices that Madame Jeliagin still
stands near him, that she watches him. He stands up. "What have you to
do here now, you--you who did not know how to guard my child? Go!" And
imperiously he points to the door.
Still murmuring, explaining, excusing herself, she vanishes.
The door has closed behind her.
"Mascha, how was it possible?" he asks, softly.
She is silent.
"Mascha, for God's sake, say it, or else I shall go mad," he implores.
"There must be something which excuses you. How did it happen? who was
it?"
"I will not say; it is no use. You will harm him; I do not wish that
any harm should happen to him."
In vain does he urge her further; she gives him no answer. Her little
face turned to the wall, she lies there motionless and silent, like a
corpse. And at length he is weary of questioning her, and sits by her,
weary, relaxed, with the confused expression of a man who has been
struck on the head. His thoughts wander to indifferent things. He asks
himself if he has taken the key out of his trunk; whether the waiter
will post the letter which lies on his desk. Then he hears the
house-door open, hears the rustle of a silk dress. Anna has returned.
Cold shivers run down his back. Now she will hear it, the arrogant
creature who has always looked down upon his darling. He would like to
go out and close old Jeliagin's mouth, forbid her to speak.
Can he, indeed, close the mouth of all Paris? To-morrow the gossips
will tell it to each other before the house-doors in the half light--it
will be in all the newspapers.
And he sits there as if petrified, and does not move; listens--listens
as if he could hear up-stairs what they say to each other. Sweat is on
his brow, the blood burns in his cheeks, and now he really hears
something, Anna's thin, icy voice, which cries out: "_Quelle honte,
quelle horreur!_"
Mascha holds her hands over her ears. Lensky springs up, hurries to the
door which Madame Jeliagin has neglected to close tight behind her. He
closes it carefully, draws the portiere over it, only that Mascha may
not hear anything else offensive. Then he goes up to her bed again, and
notices that she is glowing with fever. He passes his hand over her
cheeks; she clutches his hand, presses it first to her mouth, and then
holds it before her eyes.
"Shall I put out the light?" he asks, gently.
She nods. Then he sits by her in the dark. Ever stronger he has the
feeling as if the despotic yoke of a misfortune to which he must bow
because he is powerless against it, were weighing down upon him. In all
his nerves trembles the fearful shock. It seems to him that he has seen
something fall together before him--all that he clung to, the future of
his child!
He thinks of his ambitious dreams; of the money he has saved for
her--he, who formerly squandered everything. A boundless shame torments
him; it is all over--all.
The whole night long, restless, without peace, he seeks only a
hand-breadth of blue sky for his child, seeks no great, brilliant
happiness such as he has dreamed of for Mascha; no, the most moderate,
only a tolerable life--seeks a salvation--in vain--nothing--nothing!
His mind is like a captive bird which wounds itself at every beat of
its wings against the bars of a too small cage. And yet he is not weary
of seeking, of tormenting himself.
The longest night has an end, and the nights in early June are not
long. Morning dawns. In ruthlessly plain outlines, all the objects in
Mascha's room meet Lensky's eyes. All looks soiled, everywhere the dark
spots of mud; there the shawl in which the men had wrapped the suicide
after they drew her from the water, there a heap of soiled, wet
clothes. It goes to his heart. On that morning when he took leave of
his darling, on the same spot lay a dress also, but as white, as pure,
as fresh as spring blossoms.
The picture of the light, fragrant room, the dear picture which he had
continually carried about in his heart during his last journey, rises
in his mind. It is indeed the same room, the same girl. She sleeps as
also at that time--no, not as at that time. Her cheeks are flushed with
fever, her limbs twitch incessantly. Softly he draws the covers up over
her uncovered shoulders. She murmurs something in her sleep; he
listens; always the same word: "Mother--mother!"