Suddenly, almost from one day to another, Vassili grew jealous. When I
had adored him he had neglected and forsaken me. Now that he feared to
lose me he was inconsolable.
"You and Tioka are very much alike," I said to him one day when we were
all at luncheon.
"Do you think so?" said Vassili, patting his little son's fair head and
contemplating the small face, which at that moment was making a terrible
grimace over its food. "What makes you say so?"
"You shall see." I leaned over to the child. "Tioka, my darling, won't
you eat your nice dinner?"
"No!" said Tioka with great decision.
"Come, now, darling, eat your nice soup," and I held a spoonful to his
lips.
"No," said Tioka, turning his face away.
"Why not, dear? Don't you like it?"
"No. It's nasty."
"Well, then," I said, putting down the spoon, "we will give it to the
farmer's little boy."
"No! no!" cried Tioka, and he quickly devoured the soup in large
spoonfuls.
Vassili laughed. "He is quite right. His soup is not for the farmer's
little boy. To each one his own soup, isn't that so, Tioka!"
"No," said Tioka.
"Why 'no'? You should say 'yes.'"
"No," declared Tioka doggedly. "This is my 'no' day."
"Your _what_?" exclaimed his father.
"My day for saying 'no,'" announced Tioka with great decision.
His father was much amused. "I also shall have my 'no' days," he
declared. "And I shall begin at once. To-day, Mura, we shall receive no
visitors."
"But, Vassili," I protested, "we must see the Grigorievskys; we have
invited them to dinner."
"No," said my husband.
"And Semenzoff. And Bozevsky."
"No," he repeated.
"Do you really mean that we are not to receive them?"
"No," he reiterated. "This is my 'no' day." And the reception for that
evening was actually put off. The jest seemed highly entertaining to
Vassili. I heard him laughing to himself as he went downstairs; and in
the days that followed he frequently repeated it.
Shortly afterwards he took us all back to Kieff and there he had many
"no" days. In particular he would not let Bozevsky visit us; and more
than a month passed without my seeing him.
At last it happened that the Stahls invited us to a ball, and Vassili,
who chanced to be in a good temper, accepted. I knew I should meet
Bozevsky there, and at the mere thought of seeing him again I trembled
with joy and fear.
Elise Perrier dressed me in a filmy gossamer gown of soft opalescent
tints, and fastened round my neck the famous O'Rourke pearls--those
pearls which, according to family traditions, had once decorated the
slender neck of Mary Stuart.
As Vassili put me into the troika he was all kindness and amiability; he
wrapped me closely in the furs, and then took his seat beside me,
muffling himself up to his nose in the bearskins. The horses started and
we were off like the wind.
During the drive tender and kindly feelings towards Vassili filled my
heart. I said to myself that perhaps he was after all not wholly to
blame for his faults and follies. He, too, was so young; perhaps if I
had been less of a child at the time of my marriage I should have known
how to make him love me more. And, after all, were we not still in time
to reshape our lives? What if we were to go far away from Kieff, far
from St. Petersburg, and try to take up the thread of our broken idyll
again? My hand sought his. He grasped it and held it warmly clasped
under the rug without turning towards me; I could see his eyes shining
under his fur cap as he gazed straight before him, while we sped over
the silent snow. During that drive, from the bottom of my heart, I
forgave him all his transgressions and silently craved forgiveness for
mine. Already I seemed to see myself with him and the children and Aunt
Sonia happily secluded in some smiling rose-clad mansion in Italy. He
would take up the study of his music again, perhaps he would compose, as
he had often spoken of doing--while I, seated at his feet, would read the
Italian poets that I loved, raising my eyes now and then to contemplate
the motionless blue wave of the distant Apennines....
But the troika had stopped, and Vassili sprang out upon the snow.
Through the illuminated windows the tzigane music poured forth its waves
of sensuous melody--and alas! the rhythmic swing of it swept away, as in
a whirlwind, the peaceful dreams of Italy, of the rose-clad mansion and
the Italian poets.
While the servants were taking our cloaks and snowshoes from us I
whispered hurriedly to Vassili: "Dearest, be good to-night. Do not drink
much."
"Why not? What a strange idea!" he said; and we passed into the
overheated, overlighted rooms.
At the far end of the ballroom some thirty tziganes, women and men, in
their picturesque costumes were making music. The men played and the
women sang. The dancing couples whirled round in the scent-laden air.
Doctor Stahl's wife, a kindly German woman, received us with amiable
smiles; Stahl himself greeted us with excited effusiveness. He was quite
pale with two red spots on the summit of his cheeks. I was struck anew
by his strange air of intoxication, for I knew he never touched wine.
Immediately, from the end of the room Bozevsky came hastening to meet
us, superb in his full uniform--blue tunic and scarlet belt.
"Hail _Fata Morgana_!" he cried. "Give me this dance," and he put his
arm round my waist. But I drew back.
"Alas, Prince Charming, I dare not."
He turned pale; then he bowed, twirled on his heels and moved away. He
did not come near me again until late in the evening. I saw him
surrounded by women, who danced with him, smiling into his face,
floating with languid grace in his arms.
I shrank into a corner of the vast room where tall plants and flowers
screened me from the dancers.
"Why, what are you doing hidden here?" cried Stahl, coming up to me. His
pupils were narrower than ever and his breath came and went in short
gasps. He bent over me and scanned my face. "What are your thoughts,
Countess Marie?"
"I have no thoughts," I replied sadly.
"Then I will give you one," said he laughing; "a blithe and comforting
thought--think that a hundred years hence we shall all be dead!"
"True," I answered, and a wave of unspeakable melancholy invaded my
soul. "We may, perhaps, be dead even fifty years hence."
"Or thirty," laughed Stahl.
"Or twenty," I sighed, in even deeper despondency.
"Oh, no," said Stahl. "Twenty years hence you will still be a charming
matron getting on towards middle-age." And, as some one was calling him,
he turned away and left me.
His words sank into my heart, heavy and searing as molten lead. How
short, how short was life! How the years flew past! How brief were the
wings of youth and happiness! I raised my eyes--doubtless they were full
of sadness--and I saw that Bozevsky at the far end of the room was
looking at me. Several brilliantly attired women were laughing and
talking to him, but abruptly, without excuse or explanation, he left
them and crossed the room to where I sat.
The tziganes were playing a wild, nerve-thrilling czarda. Without a word
Bozevsky put his arm round me and drew me into the dance.
The music went faster and faster, wilder and ever more wild.
Light as air I swung round in Bozevsky's arm. I could have wished to
dance thus forever--dance, dance to the very brink of life and, still
dancing, to plunge over into the abyss of death.
As we whirled round I perceived that Vassili was watching us. He was
drinking champagne with vodka in it and was laughing loudly while he
spoke to Stahl; but his eyes never left me as I swept round the ballroom
with Bozevsky. His gaze alarmed me. I was dizzy and out of breath, but I
did not dare to stop dancing for fear of Vassili. I danced and danced,
breathless and distraught; I felt my heart beating furiously, pulsing
with the mad rapidity, the battering throb of a motor-cycle at full
speed--and still I danced and danced on, while the ballroom, the guests,
the tziganes spun round and round before my blurred eyes....
Vassili's gaze still followed me.