So we all left for the country--to the great delight of Aunt Sonia and
the children.
Let my mind linger for an instant on those springtide days--the last for
me, though I did not know it, of unalloyed serenity. The children and I
used to rise at dawn and go into the vast garden all a-shimmer with dew.
On the glittering lawn, among the flower-beds, down the shady avenues of
the park the two little elfin figures flitted before me, calling to me,
eluding me, darting to and fro like twin will-o'-the-wisps; then turned
and ran towards me with wind-light steps and gilt locks afloat, to
shelter in my outstretched arms. Oh! my children, my little boy and
girl, when you remember your mother I pray that God may lead your
memories back to those clear morning hours, and may the rest be blotted
out and dark.
Vassili was inexpressibly bored with rural solitude and sought new means
of diversion. His latest fad was target-shooting. He filled the house
with rifles and revolvers and invited every one in the neighboring
country houses to take part in shooting matches in our grounds. From
morning to night, in the garden, in the courtyard, even from the windows
of the house, there was a ceaseless crackling of firearms.
One afternoon when the house was filled with guests, Dr. Stahl and
Bozevsky arrived in their troika from the neighboring castle of the
Grigorievskys, where they had been staying. To my astonishment, Vassili
received them jubilantly and embraced them both. He had quite forgotten
the reasons which had led to our departure from Kieff.
Bozevsky came to greet me at once, and for the rest of the day never
left my side. He enveloped me in a whirlwind of ecstatic tenderness. His
infatuation, which he sought neither to conceal nor to control,
disquieted me deeply.
I noticed that his friend Dr. Stahl watched us continually. I had not
seen the doctor for many months, and he struck me as strangely altered.
His very light eyes, in which the pupils were contracted until they
seemed mere pin-points, followed me continuously.
"Doctor," I said to him, "what strange eyes you have! Just like the eyes
of a cat when it looks at the sun!"
"I do not look at the sun," he answered slowly, speaking with great
stress. "I look into an abyss, the abyss of annihilation and oblivion.
Some day, if ever you are irremediably unhappy, come to me and I will
open to you, also, the doors of my unearthly paradise--of this chasm of
deadly joy which engulfs me."
"Shame on you, Stahl! How dare you suggest such a thing!" exclaimed
Bozevsky, casting a look almost of hatred upon the morphinomaniac. "Why
must you and your kind always seek to drag others down into your own
gehenna?"
Stahl sighed. "It is terrible, I know. But it is a characteristic of our
malady."
I listened without comprehending. I did not then know of Stahl's
enslavement to the drug. "What are you speaking of? What malady? I do
not understand."
"It is better not to understand," murmured Bozevsky with knitted brows.
"Stahl is distraught; he is ill. Pay no attention to him. And never
follow either his advice nor his example. But pray," he added, "do not
worry your head over anything we have said; the shooting match will soon
begin. I think your husband is looking for you."
But Vassili was far from troubling himself about me. He was rushing to
and fro setting up rows of bottles that were to serve as targets, and
distributing guns and cartridges to all our guests. Then he hurried
towards us. "There," he said to Dr. Stahl and to Bozevsky, giving them
each a Flobert rifle, "these are for you."
"And what about the Countess?" asked Stahl in his hollow voice. "Is she
not going to compete in the shooting?"
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "I am much too frightened."
"Nonsense!" cried Vassili, pushing a gun into my unwilling hands. "Of
course you must shoot with the rest. And I warn you that if you are not
brave I shall play William Tell with an apple on your head!" He passed
on laughing, with Madame Grigorievskaja armed with a Browning by his
side.
I was not at all brave; I held the rifle at arm's length, trembling with
fear lest it should explode by itself. Stahl was amused by my terror,
while Bozevsky sought to encourage and comfort me.
"Poor timid birdling," he murmured, "do not be frightened. See, I will
teach you. It is done like this"--and he lifted the gun to my shoulder,
placed my hands in position, and with his glowing face quite close to
mine, showed me how I was to take aim. What with my terror of the gun
and the fragrance of his fair hair near my cheek I felt quite dizzy.
"There, that's it. Now press the trigger."
"No! no! Don't say that! don't let me!" I screamed, incoherent with
terror while Stahl and Bozevsky laughed.
Vassili from a distance caught sight of me: "Bravo, Mura!" he cried.
"That's right. Go on. Shoot!"
"No! no!" I cried with my eyes shut and standing rigid in the position
in which Bozevsky had placed me, for I dared not move a muscle.