After dinner the visitors were assembled again in the wing, and the
young Princess came out to them. The whole company was present, in full
force, as on that first evening, never to be forgotten by me: even
Nirmátzky had dragged himself thither. Maidánoff had arrived earlier
than all the rest; he had brought some new verses. The game of forfeits
began again, but this time without the strange sallies, without pranks
and uproar; the gipsy element had vanished. Zinaída gave a new mood to
our gathering. I sat beside her, as a page should. Among other things,
she proposed that the one whose forfeit was drawn should narrate his
dream; but this was not a success. The dreams turned out to be either
uninteresting (Byelovzóroff had dreamed that he had fed his horse on
carp, and that it had a wooden head), or unnatural, fictitious.
Maidánoff regaled us with a complete novel; there were sepulchres and
angels with harps, and burning lights and sounds wafted from afar.
Zinaída did not allow him to finish. “If it is a question of
invention,”--said she,--“then let each one relate something which is
positively made up.”--Byelovzóroff had to speak first.
The young hussar became confused.--“I cannot invent anything!”--he
exclaimed.
“What nonsense!”--interposed Zinaída.--“Come, imagine, for instance,
that you are married, and tell us how you would pass the time with your
wife. Would you lock her up?”
“I would.”
“And would you sit with her yourself?”
“I certainly would sit with her myself.”
“Very good. Well, and what if that bored her, and she betrayed you?”
“I would kill her.”
“Just so. Well, now supposing that I were your wife, what would you do
then?”
Byelovzóroff made no answer for a while.--“I would kill myself....”
Zinaída burst out laughing.--“I see that there’s not much to be got out
of you.”
The second forfeit fell to Zinaída’s share. She raised her eyes to the
ceiling and meditated.--“See here,”--she began at last,--“this is what I
have devised.... Imagine to yourselves a magnificent palace, a summer
night, and a marvellous ball. This ball is given by the young Queen.
Everywhere there are gold, marble, silk, lights, diamonds, flowers, the
smoke of incense--all the whims of luxury.”
“Do you love luxury?”--interrupted Lúshin.
“Luxury is beautiful,”--she returned;--“I love everything that is
beautiful.”
“More than what is fine?”--he asked.
“That is difficult; somehow I don’t understand. Don’t bother me. So
then, there is a magnificent ball. There are many guests, they are all
young, very handsome, brave; all are desperately in love with the
Queen.”
“Are there no women among the guests?”--inquired Malévsky.
“No--or stay--yes, there are.”
“Also very handsome?”
“Charming. But the men are all in love with the Queen. She is tall and
slender; she wears a small gold diadem on her black hair.”
I looked at Zinaída--and at that moment she seemed so far above us, her
white forehead and her impassive eyebrows exhaled so much clear
intelligence and such sovereignty, that I said to myself: “Thou thyself
art that Queen!”
“All throng around her,”--pursued Zinaída;--“all lavish the most
flattering speeches on her.”
“And is she fond of flattery?”--asked Lúshin.
“How intolerable! He is continually interrupting.... Who does not like
flattery?”
“One more final question,”--remarked Malévsky:--“Has the Queen a
husband?”
“I have not thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?”
“Of course,”--assented Malévsky;--“why should she have a husband?”
“Silence!”--exclaimed, in English, Maidánoff, who spoke French badly.
“_Merci_,”--said Zinaída to him.--“So then, the Queen listens to those
speeches, listens to the music, but does not look at a single one of the
guests. Six windows are open from top to bottom, from ceiling to floor,
and behind them are the dark sky with great stars and the dark garden
with huge trees. The Queen gazes into the garden. There, near the trees
is a fountain: it gleams white athwart the gloom--long, as long as a
spectre. The Queen hears the quiet plashing of its waters in the midst
of the conversation and the music. She gazes and thinks: ‘All of you
gentlemen are noble, clever, wealthy; you are all ready to die at my
feet, I rule over you; ... but yonder, by the side of the fountain, by
the side of that plashing water, there is standing and waiting for me
the man whom I love, who rules over me. He wears no rich garments, nor
precious jewels; no one knows him; but he is waiting for me, and is
convinced that I shall come--and I shall come, and there is no power in
existence which can stop me when I wish to go to him and remain with
him and lose myself with him yonder, in the gloom of the park, beneath
the rustling of the trees, beneath the plashing of the fountain....’”
Zinaída ceased speaking.
“Is that an invention?”--asked Malévsky slyly.
Zinaída did not even glance at him.
“But what should we do, gentlemen,”--suddenly spoke up Lúshin,--“if we
were among the guests and knew about that lucky man by the fountain?”
“Stay, stay,”--interposed Zinaída:--“I myself will tell you what each
one of you would do. You, Byelovzóroff, would challenge him to a duel;
you, Maidánoff, would write an epigram on him.... But no--you do not
know how to write epigrams; you would compose a long iambic poem on him,
after the style of Barbier, and would insert your production in the
_Telegraph_. You, Nirmátzky, would borrow from him ... no, you would
lend him money on interest; you, doctor....” She paused.... “I really do
not know about you,--what you would do.”
“In my capacity of Court-physician,” replied Lúshin, “I would advise the
Queen not to give balls when she did not feel in the mood for
guests....”
“Perhaps you would be in the right. And you, Count?”
“And I?”--repeated Malévsky, with an evil smile.
“And you would offer him some poisoned sugar-plums.”
Malévsky’s face writhed a little and assumed for a moment a Jewish
expression; but he immediately burst into a guffaw.
“As for you, M’sieu Voldemar....” went on Zinaída,--“but enough of this;
let us play at some other game.”
“M’sieu Voldemar, in his capacity of page to the Queen, would hold up
her train when she ran off into the park,”--remarked Malévsky viciously.
I flared up, but Zinaída swiftly laid her hand on my shoulder and
rising, said in a slightly tremulous voice:--“I have never given Your
Radiance the right to be insolent, and therefore I beg that you will
withdraw.”--She pointed him to the door.
“Have mercy, Princess,”--mumbled Malévsky, turning pale all over.
“The Princess is right,”--exclaimed Byelovzóroff, rising to his feet
also.
“By God! I never in the least expected this,”--went on Malévsky:--“I
think there was nothing in my words which.... I had no intention of
offending you.... Forgive me.”
Zinaída surveyed him with a cold glance, and smiled coldly.--“Remain, if
you like,”--she said, with a careless wave of her hand.--“M’sieu
Voldemar and I have taken offence without cause. You find it merry to
jest.... I wish you well.”
“Forgive me,”--repeated Malévsky once more; and I, recalling Zinaída’s
movement, thought again that a real queen could not have ordered an
insolent man out of the room with more majesty.
The game of forfeits did not continue long after this little scene; all
felt somewhat awkward, not so much in consequence of the scene itself as
from another, not entirely defined, but oppressive sensation. No one
alluded to it, but each one was conscious of its existence within
himself and in his neighbour. Maidánoff recited to us all his poems--and
Malévsky lauded them with exaggerated warmth.
“How hard he is trying to appear amiable now,”--Lúshin whispered to me.
We soon dispersed. Zinaída had suddenly grown pensive; the old Princess
sent word that she had a headache; Nirmátzky began to complain of his
rheumatism....
For a long time I could not get to sleep; Zinaída’s narrative had
impressed me.--“Is it possible that it contains a hint?”--I asked
myself:--“and at whom was she hinting? And if there really is some one
to hint about ... what must I decide to do? No, no, it cannot be,”--I
whispered, turning over from one burning cheek to the other.... But I
called to mind the expression of Zinaída’s face during her narration....
I called to mind the exclamation which had broken from Lúshin in the
Neskútchny Park, the sudden changes in her treatment of me--and lost
myself in conjectures. “Who is he?” Those three words seemed to stand in
front of my eyes, outlined in the darkness; a low-lying, ominous cloud
seemed to be hanging over me--and I felt its pressure--and waited every
moment for it to burst. I had grown used to many things of late; I had
seen many things at the Zasyékins’; their disorderliness, tallow
candle-ends, broken knives and forks, gloomy Vonifáty, the shabby maids,
the manners of the old Princess herself,--all that strange life no
longer surprised me.... But to that which I now dimly felt in Zinaída I
could not get used.... “An adventuress,”--my mother had one day said
concerning her. An adventuress--she, my idol, my divinity! That
appellation seared me; I tried to escape from it by burrowing into my
pillow; I raged--and at the same time, to what would not I have agreed,
what would not I have given, if only I might be that happy mortal by the
fountain!...
My blood grew hot and seethed within me. “A garden ... a fountain,” ...
I thought.... “I will go into the garden.” I dressed myself quickly and
slipped out of the house. The night was dark, the trees were barely
whispering; a quiet chill was descending from the sky, an odour of
fennel was wafted from the vegetable-garden. I made the round of all the
alleys; the light sound of my footsteps both disconcerted me and gave me
courage; I halted, waiting and listening to hear how my heart was
beating quickly and violently. At last I approached the fence and leaned
against a slender post. All at once--or was it only my imagination?--a
woman’s figure flitted past a few paces distant from me.... I strained
my eyes intently on the darkness; I held my breath. What was this? Was
it footsteps that I heard or was it the thumping of my heart
again?--“Who is here?”--I stammered in barely audible tones. What was
that again? A suppressed laugh?... or a rustling in the leaves?... or a
sigh close to my very ear? I was terrified.... “Who is here?”--I
repeated, in a still lower voice.
The breeze began to flutter for a moment; a fiery band flashed across
the sky; a star shot down.--“Is it Zinaída?”--I tried to ask, but the
sound died on my lips. And suddenly everything became profoundly silent
all around, as often happens in the middle of the night.... Even the
katydids ceased to shrill in the trees; only a window rattled somewhere.
I stood and stood, then returned to my chamber, to my cold bed. I felt a
strange agitation--exactly as though I had gone to a tryst, and had
remained alone, and had passed by some one else’s happiness.