Still motionless, I gasped:
"Perhaps--I might dare--if some one were to cover my ears."
Amidst great amusement Bozevsky came behind me and placed his two hands
over my ears.
"Come now!" cried Stahl. "Do not be frightened."
"Mind you hit the third bottle," shouted Vassili from the distance.
Bozevsky standing behind me was clasping my head as though in a vice and
whispering into my hair: "Darling, darling, darling! I love you."
"Don't," I cried, almost in tears under the stress of different
emotions, "and don't hold my ears so tight."
The warm clasp relaxed at once.
"Oh, no, no!" I cried. "I can hear everything. I don't want to hear--,"
but even as I spoke the gun went off. I felt a blow near my shoulder,
and thought I was wounded; but it was only the recoil of the weapon.
Everybody was laughing and applauding.
"What have I killed?" I asked, cautiously opening my eyes.
"The third bottle!" cried Vassili, and he was so delighted with my
exploit that he ran up and embraced me. But the pistol he was holding in
his hand and Bozevsky's glance of jealous wrath filled me afresh with
twofold terror.
The afternoon passed as if in a dream. Vassili became very much excited
and drank a great deal of vodka. Then Madame Grigorievskaja, who had
once visited the United States, concocted strange American drinks which
we had never tasted before--cocktails, mint-juleps, pousse-cafés and
gin-slings. They were much approved of by every one.
I remember vaguely that half way through the afternoon some one let down
my hair and set me among the shattered bottles with an apple on my head.
I seem to see Vassili standing in front of me with a rifle and taking
aim at me while the others utter cries of protest. Suddenly Bozevsky
snatches the weapon from my husband's hands, and there is a brief
struggle between them. Soon they are laughing again, and shaking
hands--then Bozevsky joins me among the shattered bottles, and stands in
front of me; he is so tall that I can see nothing but his broad
shoulders and his fair hair. And Vassili is shooting--the bullets whirr
over my head and all around me, but I have no sense of fear; Bozevsky
stands before me, straight and motionless as a rampart.
We go in to dinner; gipsy musicians arrive and play for us. Late at
night when the garden is quite dark we go out again to the targets;
instead of the bottles Vassili has ordered a row of lighted candles to
be set up, and we are to extinguish them with our shots without knocking
them down. There is much noise around me; Vassili is dancing a
tarantelle with Ivan Grigorievsky on the lawn. Dr. Stahl and Bozevsky
are always by my side. I keep on shooting at the candles, but they spin
round before my confused eyes like catharine-wheels; and Stahl laughs,
and Bozevsky sighs, and the gipsies play....
Suddenly Tioka's nurse comes hurriedly down the pathway towards me.
"May I speak to your ladyship for a moment?"
"Yes, Elise. What is it?"
"Master Tioka cannot go to sleep. He says you have forgotten to bid him
good-night."
I put down my rifle and follow the straight small figure of Elise
Perrier through the garden. I hasten after her into the house and
upstairs to the nursery.
Little Tania is already fast asleep, with scarlet lips parted and silken
hair scattered on her pillow. But Tioka is sitting up in his cot
awaiting me. His bright soft eyes wander over my face, my hair, my
dress; his innocent gaze seems to pierce me like a fiery sword. He holds
out his arms to me and I hide my flushed face on his childish breast.
"Good-night, mother dear," he whispers, kissing me and patting my face
with his small hand. Then he adds, with a funny little sniff at my
cheeks and hair: "You smell of many things--of perfume and powder and
cigarettes and wine...."
This sequence of gay words on the childish lips strikes at my heart like
so many daggers.
"Hush, darling," I whisper, taking refuge in those frail arms as in a
haven of safety. "Forgive--forgive your mother."
But he does not know what there is to forgive; and he laughs and yawns
and then nestles down in his pillow, still holding tightly to my hand.
"Must you go away?" he sighs, in a sleepy, endearing voice.
"No, darling, no. I will stay with you."
"Then tell me the poetry about the Virgin Mary coming down to see us in
the night."
Holding my child's hand in my own, I begin softly:
"When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon..."
But already Tioka is in the land of dreams.