I see the ensuing days as through a vague blue mist. I see myself
reclining in an armchair, and my mother sitting beside me with her
crochet-work. She is crocheting something of yellow wool. It is strange
how the sight of that yellow wool hurts and repels me, but I cannot find
words in which to express it, I seem unable to speak; and mother
crochets on calmly, with quick white hands. I am conscious of a dull
pain in the nape of my neck. Then I see Vassili come in; he is carrying
an enormous cage in his hand; and Olga follows him, laughing and
radiant. "Here he is! here he is!" cries Vassili triumphantly, putting
the cage down beside me; and in it, to my horror, I see a parrot, a huge
gray and scarlet creature, twisting a hard black tongue round and round
as he clambers about the cage. I cry out in terror: "Why--why do they
bring me things that frighten me?" And I burst into tears. Every one
gazes at me in amazement; my mother bends tenderly over me: "But, my own
darling, yesterday you said you wanted to have a parrot. Vassili has
been all the way to Moscow to buy it for you."
"No, no! it is not true! I never said I wanted a parrot! Take it away!
It frightens me. And so does the yellow wool." I hear myself weeping
loudly; then everything is blotted out and vanishes--parrot, Vassili,
yellow wool, Olga--nothing remains but my mother's sad and anxious face
bending above me, dim and constant as the light of a lamp in a shadowy
chapel.
When I was able to come down to breakfast for the first time, my father
stood waiting for me, straight and solemn at the foot of the great
staircase. He gave me his arm with much ceremony and led me to my place,
where flowers lay in fragrant heaps round my plate. Every one embraced
and complimented me and I was very happy.
"I feel as if I were a princess!" I cried, clapping my hands; and they
all laughed except my father, who answered gravely:
"If it is your wish, you may become one. Prince Ivan has asked for your
hand."
"Ivan? Ivan Troubetzkoi?" All the gladness went out of my heart.
"Yes. And so has Katerinowitch," exclaimed Olga, with a bitter smile;
and I noticed that she looked pale and sad.
"Both Ivan and Katerinowitch? How extraordinary!" Then glancing at my
mother, whose eyes were fixed upon her plate, I added jestingly, "Is
that all? No one else?"
My pleasantry fell flat, for no one answered, and I saw my father
knitting his brows. But my mother lifted her eyes for an instant and
looked at me. In the blue light of that dear gaze I read my happiness!
But Olga was speaking. "Yes," she said, "there is some one else. Vassili
Tarnowsky has asked to marry you." And she added, with a touch of
bitterness: "I wonder what has possessed all three of them!"
Vassili! Vassili! Vassili! The name rang like a clarion in my ears. I
should be Vassili's wife! I should be the Countess Tarnowska--the
happiest woman in all this happy world. Every other girl on earth--poor
luckless girls who could not marry Vassili--would envy me. On his arm I
should pass proudly and serenely through life, rejoicing in his beauty,
protected by his strength. Sheltered on his breast the storms would pass
over my head, nor could sorrow ever touch me.
[Illustration: COUNT O'ROURKE]
"I trust that your choice will fall on Troubetzkoi," said my father.
"Or on Vassili," cried Olga quickly.
I jumped up and embraced her. "It shall not be Katerinowitch, that I
promise," I whispered, kissing the little pink ear that nestled under
her fair curls. "He is to be for you!"
Time was to fulfil this prophecy.
As I went round the table, and passed my mother--poor little nervous
mother!--I laid my hand on her arm. I noticed that she was trembling all
over. Then I summoned up courage and approached my father.
"Father, dear, if you want your little Mura to be happy, you must let
her marry Vassili."
"Never," cried my father, striking the table with his fist. The soul of
the ancient O'Rourke--a demoniacal Irish ancestor of ours whose memory
always struck terror to our souls--had awakened in him. I saw Olga and my
mother turn pale. Nevertheless I laughed and kissed him again. "If I do
not marry Vassili, I shall die! And please, father, do not be the
Terrible O'Rourke, for you are frightening mother!"
But papa, dominated by the atavistic influence of the O'Rourke, grew
even more terrible; and mother was greatly frightened. She sat white and
rigid, with scarcely fluttering breath; suddenly in her transparent eyes
the pupils floated upward like two misty pale-blue half-moons; she was
in the throes of one of her dreaded epileptic seizures.
Then they were all around her, helping her, loosening her dress, fanning
her; while I stood aside trembling and woebegone, and the pains in the
nape of my neck racked me anew.
I said to myself that my father was hard and wicked, that I should marry
Vassili and carry mother off with me, ever so far away!
As for papa, he should only be allowed to see us once a year. At
Christmas.