So we stayed on in Kieff and Bozevsky came to see us every day. He
brought me flowers--wonderful orchids the color of amethyst, tenuous
contorted blossoms that looked as if they had bloomed in some garden of
dreams. He brought me books; books of nebulous German poetry; Spanish
plays by Echegaray all heroism and fire; and disquieting, neurotic
French novels. Then he brought me English books which filled me with
pleasant surprise. How far removed from our Slav souls were those limpid
Anglo-Saxon minds! How child-like and simple was their wit, how bland
and practical their outlook on life. That was the literature I liked
best of all; perhaps because it was so different from everything in
myself. I felt that I was a strange, ambiguous, complicated creature
compared with those candid elemental natures.
Bozevsky liked to find me reading. He would arrive in the
evening--usually after Vassili had gone out, alone or with friends--and
enter the drawing-room with bright and cheerful greeting. He always
smiled when he found me with one of his books in my hand, sitting beside
Aunt Sonia placidly knitting in her armchair.
"I like your thoughts to be far away from here," he would say, kissing
my hand. "I like to know that your soul is far from the frivolous
society you live in, far from the petty preoccupations, the compliments
and the flattery which surround you. Let me read with you; let me join
you in the purer realm of fancy, far away from the world." And he would
sit down beside me, with an air of protecting fraternal affection.
One evening he found me nervous and agitated.
"What has happened?" he asked.
"I have been reading a ghastly book," I told him with a shudder. "The
story of a mysterious plant, a sort of huge octopus that feeds on human
flesh--"
"Ugh!" laughed Bozevsky, "how gruesome!" and he bent his sunny head over
the page.
"Just imagine," I continued, "its branches are long moving tentacles,
its thick leaves are quite black and hard; they glitter and move like
living scorpions...."
"Horrid, horrid," said Bozevsky with his shining smile as he took the
book out of my hand. "Forget the scorpions. To-night I shall read you
some Italian poetry. I want you to make friends with Carducci."
He opened a plainly bound volume at random, and read to me.
"_Oh favolosi prati d'Eliseo_..."
I forgot the tree of scorpions. I forgot Bozevsky. I forgot Aunt Sonia
and the world. The unknown poet had wrapped my spirit in his giant wings
and was bearing me far away.
It was about this time that Vassili took me to Moscow. There, one
evening, our friends the Maximoffs brought a stranger to see us. They
introduced him as an estimable Moscow lawyer of high repute. I was
surrounded by other friends and I greeted him absently, without hearing
his name. I remember casually noticing that he was neither young nor
old, neither ugly nor handsome. His wife, a timid, fair-haired woman,
was with him.
At Vassili's suggestion we all went to the "Strelna," a famous
night-restaurant. I remember that there was a great deal of laughter at
the grotesque jokes which Vassili and Maximoff and also the estimable
lawyer played on the pretty dark-faced tziganes.
I noticed that the lawyer's wife did not laugh. She passed her hand
across her wistful Madonna-like brow, and listened only to the music.
Like her I felt out of tune with the merriment around me. My thoughts
wandered back to the silent drawing-room at Kieff: I thought of Aunt
Sonia and her peaceful knitting, of Bozevsky and the books he had
brought me. I seemed to hear his voice saying, "Ugh! a tree of
scorpions"--and at that very instant something cold and claw-like
clutched my bare shoulder. I uttered a piercing shriek, which seemed to
turn every one--including myself--cold with terror. But it was only the
estimable lawyer, who, having drunk rather too much, had playfully
climbed upon the sofa behind me and, to save himself from falling off,
had laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"What on earth has happened?" exclaimed Vassili. "What made you scream
like that?"
"I don't know," I stammered, taken aback, "I thought--I thought it was a
scorpion!"
Every one laughed and for the rest of the evening the lawyer was
nicknamed "the Scorpion." Perhaps this name added to the unreasoning
fear I felt of him, or perhaps I was merely nervous, but he seemed to be
always close behind me, and during the whole of that evening I kept on
turning round, with little shivers running down my spine, to see what he
was doing.
Suddenly he had disappeared. Vassili laughed loudly. "Hullo! Where's the
Scorpion?" And amidst the laughter of the guests he set himself to count
the flippant tziganes one by one to see if any were missing. But they
were all there--and I was glad for the sake of the Scorpion's poor little
Madonna-wife.
It was three in the morning when we went back to our sleighs. It was
very cold; the clear deep-blue sky was powdered with stars. Assisted by
Maximoff I was about to step into the sleigh, when, with another cry, I
drew back; my foot had touched something soft and shapeless that was
lying huddled up beneath the rug.
"What is the matter now?" cried Vassili. "Another scorpion?"
No, it was the same one. It was the estimable lawyer very drunk and fast
asleep at the bottom of the sleigh.
On our way back to the hotel, driving through the keen night air, I
asked Vassili:
"Who was that man?"
"What man?" said Vassili, who sat opposite to us and was pressing the
small feet of Maximoff's wife.
"You know--the man who frightened me."
"Oh, the Scorpion?" laughed Vassili. "That was Donat Prilukoff."
When we returned to Kieff I told Bozevsky the adventure of our evening
at the Strelna, and described the Scorpion to him with as much humor as
I could. But Bozevsky did not laugh. My absence had embittered and
exasperated him. He no longer sat beside me with an air of protective
fraternal affection. He would not speak of literature or poetry any
more. He spent entire evenings making mute scenes of jealousy and
despair, while dear Aunt Sonia, instinctively feeling the atmosphere
around her charged with electricity, dropped many stitches in her
knitting and became sour and irritable.
"My child, this must not go on any longer. Either Alexis Bozevsky must
be forbidden the house or we ourselves must go away. I cannot understand
how Vassili--" Her honest cheeks kindled with indignation. "Enough. I
shall speak to him about it myself."
She did so: and Vassili, with his usual brief comment that we all bored
him to death, expressed the hope that wild beasts might devour Bozevsky,
and ordered us to pack up and leave for the country at once.