LOVE WILL FIND A WAY
We crossed to the window together, and stood looking through it upon
the snow clad streets of the city. The storm of the preceding day and
night had entirely cleared away, leaving only the inevitable traces of
its violence.
As we stood there, Zara pulled the lace curtains between us and the
window, so that we were screened from view, while we were enabled,
ourselves, to see with perfect distinctness, up and down the
thoroughfare against which her home was fronted.
It might have been a Sunday morning, so peaceful and quiet was the
scene, and so purely white was everything, in its covering of snow,
while the crisp atmosphere of that cold but brilliant Winter day,
sparkled and glinted in the sunshine as if thousands of microscopic
diamonds were glistening there.
A solitary policeman passed into our view and out of it again, a
_britzska_ rushed past an adjacent corner with the horse at galloping
speed; a child played with its father for a moment, within our range
of vision, and then disappeared; a fur clad pedestrian ran up the steps
of a nearby residence, and passed inside of it; all these trivial
incidents of observation, came and went, while we stood there, leaving
behind them no impression save one of peace, quiet and security. Yet
they impressed themselves upon my memory indelibly, and I can see
before me even now, the vision of that afternoon in St. Petersburg,
with the clinging right hand of my beloved one resting upon my
shoulder, with my left arm about her warm and pulsing body, with love,
in all its transcendent qualities, dominating all things real and
unreal, and filling my heart, and soul, and my intelligence, with a
perfection of blissful content which words cannot describe, and which
may never be understood save by him who has experienced it.
What terror had Zara seen through that window, that had startled her
so, just before we discovered and confessed our mutual love? Whatever
it may have been, no evidence of it remained, to suggest disquiet in my
own present sense of security. There was nothing there to menace me,
and even though Zara's brother Ivan, and others of his kind, fanatics
all, in their nihilistic tendencies, wild beasts in their blood lusts,
fiends in their methods, as they were--whatever they might threaten,
seemed small indeed to me, in that moment of ecstasy. For it was a
moment of ecstasy; the word "moment" being measured by the rule of
space, limitless and unconfined.
Zara did not know who and what I was, save only that I was a man, and
her lover. Beyond that, her imagination had not travelled, and her
desires had not sought.
She did not understand that I was at the head of a great fraternity,
organized and established by myself, and that I had under my control,
if not obedient to my direct command, several hundred individuals
within the limit of that city, who would serve me instantly, and who
would fight to the death for me if there were need.
It was to be regretted that I had gone to the home of the Princess Zara
to keep my appointment that day, with so little thought of the dangers
I might have to encounter before I should leave it again. It would have
been so easy to arrange for adequate protection, and to have had at
that very moment, when I was gazing through the lace curtained window,
assistance ready at hand in the shape of men prepared to answer to any
signal I might have agreed upon. A word dropped to O'Malley at his
café, a sign made to big Tom Coyle, a note in cipher to Canfield, an
indication to anyone of my trusted lieutenants, would have placed about
me at that very moment, an environment of protection adequate to cope
with any difficulty that might arise.
But I had not foreseen the present circumstance sufficiently to be
prepared for it in that manner.
Zara and I were practically alone in that great house, save for the
servants it contained; and they were not to be counted upon in any
case, no matter what form individual effort against us might take.
I was conscious, too, while we stood there so silently together, of the
new responsibility I had taken upon myself during the love scene that
had just passed; and I was suddenly aware of the danger which
threatened my beloved, through me.
I did not realize it until that instant. I had thought, selfishly
enough, only of what she had said about my own peril. I had remembered
only that I was the object of a planned assassination, because some one
whom I had not discovered at the time, had overheard the interview in
the garden to which I had been a witness the preceding night, and had
also listened to the one that followed it, between Zara and me.
The thrill of alarm that convulsed me, when the full realization of
this aspect of the affair came home to me, was startling and
paralyzing. Whatever the friends of nihilism might do to me now, would
have its crushing effect upon her, also. Nothing could touch me, that
would not injure her. We had become one, indeed, in the sense of being
so absorbed in each other, so blended in soul and in thought, that
whatever affected one, must act with redoubled power upon the other.
Judged from the standpoint of the nihilists themselves, there was no
doubt that they were logical enough in their determination to kill
_me_. From their view of the case, I was merely a spy, or at least
a prospective one, who had overheard a confidence delivered by the
Princess Zara de Echeveria, which placed her so absolutely in my power
that I held her life, as the saying goes, in the hollow of my hand; and
they could not know, would never guess, that now we had learned to love
each other, and that she was dearer and sweeter to me than all else in
the world.
They would regard me--they must now regard me, as being like other men
of their knowledge, who would see in Zara only a beautiful and
attractive woman, young and gorgeous, who was suddenly fallen into my
power, almost as absolutely as if she were made my slave. What personal
sacrifices could I not demand of her, if I were indeed like those other
men I have mentioned? What indignities could I not visit upon her,
claiming my right to do so as the possessor of her secret, and
threatening, not alone her own undoing, but the death of her cause, if
she should dare to deny me?
Somewhere out there in the snow, Zara's brother Ivan was waiting and
watching, and although I did not now feel that his affection for her
included many of the self sacrificing qualities that a brother should
have for a sister, he was nevertheless her blood kin, and without doubt
he had loaded his pistol with a bullet for the man whom he believed
would have it in his power to crush that beautiful sister to the earth,
even to the point of literal seduction. For judged from the nihilists'
standpoint again, they understood Zara to be one who would not hesitate
at any sacrifice, in defense of the cause she served.
"It does not look as if danger, and even death, lurked somewhere yonder
in the bright sunshine, Dubravnik," she said to me in a low tone, after
we had stood for a long time in utter silence, together.
"No," I replied.
"It is a peaceful scene," she went on in a dreamy sort of manner,
staring into the street, and with a half smile upon her lips. "It looks
as if we might put on our furs and wraps, and go abroad together,
without the least thought of danger, does it not?"
"Yes, Zara."
"And yet----" she raised one hand and pointed--"probably just around
that corner, yonder, or behind one of the others, there are waiting
men, who are intent upon your destruction, no matter what the
consequences to themselves may be. It is awful to contemplate." She
shuddered. "I cannot bring myself to believe that it is really true;
and yet I know it to be so."
She turned to me with a swift gesture, and continued.
"Oh, Dubravnik, what shall we do? What shall be done to escape the
death that threatens you and me? Tell me! Tell me what can be done? The
condition is not the same, now, as it was. Everything is different
since you kissed me. This world in which we live, is a new world, but
we must nevertheless face the conditions of that old one we have
deserted. What shall we do? What shall be done?"
I was silent, not because I hesitated to answer her, not because I
really at that moment had no answer to give her, but because I was,
myself, intently thinking upon the very problem she had suggested.
"What shall be done?"
Presently, with a slow and methodical motion, she withdrew from me
again, and returned to the divan, which had been the scene of our
awakening love, calling upon me to follow her as she went; and I stood
before her, looking down into her eyes up-turned to mine, waiting for
her to speak. I knew that she had hit upon some solution of the
difficulty, and was about to present it to me. I don't think that it
occurred to me to consider seriously whatever she might suggest, even
then, for I had not for a moment lost confidence in my entire ability
to free both of us from the dangerous environment; but I delighted to
hear the sound of her voice. I loved to drink in her words, as she
uttered them. I was enthralled in watching the play of expression upon
her features while she talked; if she had rendered me a dissertation
upon any theme which absorbed her, my interest would have been the
same; I was overwhelmed in love.
"There is only one way; only one," she said, unconsciously repeating
words she had used once before.
"Yes?" I replied, mindful only of the fact that she had spoken;
unmindful of the import of what she said.
"Only one way," Zara repeated. "You must join the nihilists. You must
take the oath."
I shook my head with emphasis, brought back suddenly to the intent of
her words.
"It is impossible, Zara," I said.
"You must do it, Dubravnik."
"No."
"I say that you must do it. You must take the oath. You must become a
nihilist. It is the only way. I will send a servant from the house,
with a message which will bring two or three of the leaders here, and
you shall take the oath."
She started to her feet again, reaching toward the bellcord, and I had
to spring after her, and seize her arm, in order to restrain the act
she was about to commit.
"No, Zara," I said, and forced her gently back to the couch, compelling
her to be seated, and this time dropping down beside her, and putting
my arm around her. "No, Zara, not that. I cannot take the oath. It is
utterly impossible. It is much more impossible now, than it was
before."
"Why?" she asked, in surprise.
"Because I love you, dear."
"Ah," she said smiling, "as if that were not a greater reason for your
taking it, instead of denying it."
"No, Zara," I said again. "I cannot take the oath of nihilism. I have
already taken an oath which thoroughly obviates such a possibility."
"Another oath, Dubravnik?"
"Yes."
"To whom?"
"To the czar."
"Oh," she exclaimed, and she shuddered. "I had forgotten that you were
in the service of his majesty." I thought that she drew away from me at
that, but the motion was so slight as to be almost imperceptible. "I
had forgotten all that about you, Dubravnik." Again there was a
shudder, now more visible than before. "You are under oath to the czar;
to the man, who, because he permits so many wrongs to happen I have
learned to hate." She straightened her body. "And Dubravnik I can hate
quite as forcibly as I can love."
"I do not doubt it," I said.
"You must take the oath. You must take it. You shall repudiate that
other one to the czar."
"It cannot be, Zara."
"It must be! It shall be!"
"No," I said; and there was such calm finality, such forcible emphasis
in the monosyllable I used, that she drew still farther away from me,
shuddering again as she did so, and I saw her face grow colder in its
expression, although I did not believe that it was caused by any change
in her attitude toward me.
"Can nothing move you, Dubravnik? Can nothing change you from this
purpose of yours? Must you, because you have given your word to a
tyrant, remain loyal to him? Must you, in spite of the great love you
have for me, remain true to him who is my enemy?"
"I must; for your sake as well as for mine."
"For my sake!" she laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh to hear,
especially at that moment, and following as it did upon all the
tenderness that had passed between us. "For my sake! Why Dubravnik, it
is for my sake that I ask you to take the oath."
"Zara," I said, choosing my words deliberately, "last night in the
glass covered garden, where the colored lights were glowing, I heard
you utter words which I can never forget, and which I have thought upon
many times since I heard them. You repudiated, with all the intensity
of your soul, the methods which these nihilists employ to attain their
ends. You called them murderers, assassins, scoundrels, cutthroats,
defamers of character, and many other things which I need not name.
What you did not accuse them of, in words, you charged them with, by
implication; and now you ask me to become one with them; and not only
that, to deny my manhood and my honor by repudiating my oath to
another."
"I asked you to protect yourself and me," she said, simply, but with a
coldness and a suggestion of hardness in her tone, that had been
entirely absent from it until that instant.
"I will do that, Zara. I will save you, and I will save myself. I will
save you from yourself. There will be a way. I have not yet determined
upon what it will be, but I will find a means."
Suddenly she slipped to the floor, upon her knees before me, and with
clasped hands upraised, in an attitude of supplication, she cried aloud
in a very agony of intensity.
"Oh, my love, do as I ask you to do. Take the oath of nihilism."