_Facilis descensus Averni._
My downfall was rapid and irretrievable.
I soon became familiar with expedients and intrigues, I trod the
tortuous paths that lead down into the valley of dishonor. For the
outside world I might still appear a person of distinction, I might
still call myself the Countess Tarnowska, but I had ceased to be that
simple, ordinary, peerless being--an honest woman. I seemed to be
surrounded by that peculiar atmosphere which envelops the adventuress as
in an invisible mist--that imperceptible emanation by which persons of
repute are instinctively repelled, and which draws within its ambit the
idler and adventurer, the depredator and outcast of society.
I had accepted money to which I had no claim. From this want of dignity
to the want of rectitude how brief is the step! Between indiscretion and
transgression how uncertain is the boundary! And suddenly there comes a
day when one awakes to find oneself--a criminal!
Ah, then we stop short in horror. We look back and see the abyss, the
impassable gulf that henceforward separates us from the distant, candid
summits of innocence. How has it been possible for us to travel along
that vertiginous road which knows no return? What evil spirits have
bandaged our eyes, have placed for our feet bridges and stepping stones
so that almost without noticing it we have crossed ravines and
precipices which never in this life we may traverse again? We can but go
forward and downward: we can turn back no more.
Not at this period did I realize the irrevocable character of the fate I
had chosen. Rather did I seem to perceive a new life opening out before
me, leading me back once more to rectitude and honor, a return to that
peaceful, conventional existence so often scorned by those who lead it,
so bitterly regretted and desired by those who have forfeited and
forsaken it.
Prilukoff still held me bound to him by the triple bonds of gratitude,
of affection and of complicity. But Count Kamarowsky was swaying me
towards a brighter and securer future. My marriage with Vassili, so long
merely an empty and nominal tie, was about to be dissolved by a decree
from the Holy Synod, and Kamarowsky implored me to marry him. His
sadness and the loneliness of his little son moved me deeply; the
thought of bringing light and joy into their lives was unspeakably sweet
to me, while for my part I rejoiced to think that by the side of a
worthy and honorable man I might take my place in the world once more,
rehabilitated and redeemed. With Prilukoff, as I could see, downfall and
ruin were imminent. He had left Moscow for a few days; but he would
return, and alas! he would resume his dominion over me. I knew that with
him the ultimate plunge into dishonor was inevitable.
And so with bitter tears of repentance, clasping the two fair heads of
Tioka and Grania to my breast, I vowed to Heaven that I would be to them
both a tender and a faithful mother, worthy of the lofty duty that by
Divine grace was to be once more assigned to me.
Count Kamarowsky's gratitude and joy were boundless.
"You are giving back life to me," he said, his kind eyes shining with
emotion. "I do not feel worthy of so much happiness."
"Don't, don't!" I said, turning away my face and flushing deeply at the
thought of my recent unprincipled life. "It is I, I who am unworthy--"
But Kamarowsky interrupted me.
"Hush, Marie, hush. I know that you have suffered much and that you have
been led astray. But let the dead past bury the past. All I ask of you
is the pure white page of the future."
"You are generous, you are kind," I said, and tears burned in my eyes.
"But let me tell you, let me tell you all--"
"Mura," he said, calling me by the tender pet-name of my childhood, "do
not raise impassable barriers between us. What I have no knowledge of
does not exist so far as I am concerned. The unknown is but a shadow;
and I am not afraid of shadows. But if to that shadow you give a living
shape and a name, it will rise between you and me, and I shall not be
able to clasp you in my arms until I have destroyed it. Speak if you
must. But, for our happiness, it were far better for you to keep
silence--and to forget."
"Ah, you are right! Let there be no more sorrow, no more tragedies
around me. Take me away from Moscow, away from all who know me. I will
keep silence, and forget."
Our departure from Moscow was like a flight. I left a letter for
Prilukoff, entreating him to forgive and forget me, begging him not to
debar me from taking my way again towards safety and rehabilitation. I
expressed to him my sympathy, my gratitude and regret; and I implored
him in the name of all that he still held dear or sacred to return to
his family and to his career, to the lofty and straightforward course of
honor from which I, unhappy creature that I was, had unwittingly,
unwillingly turned him aside.
Kamarowsky took us to the Riviera--from the snows of the north to the
fragrant orange-groves of Nice and Hyères. The tinkling of sleighs
gliding through the blue-cold streets of Moscow still seemed to ring in
my ears when, lo! the lazy, sun-warm silence of the south enwrapped my
senses in its languorous sweetness. The two children, dazed with the
heat and the blueness around them, stood in amazement, with hands
clasped and mouths open, at the sight of the golden oranges and the huge
foliage of cacti and aloes, thinking that by some wonder-working charm
they had been carried into fairyland.
The distant sails, aslant on the radiant indigo of the sea, looked like
white butterflies poised on a stupendous flower of lapis lazuli....
For three brief days I thought that fate had not overtaken me, and that
my sins would not find me out.
My sins! As in the old German fable the children are led into the depths
of a forest, and left there to be lost and forgotten--even so did I think
that my sins would be lost and forgotten, even so did I think that they
would never issue again from the shade in which I had hidden them.
Smiling, I moved forward to meet the future, exalted by the affection of
an honorable man, purified by the love of two innocent children.
And I said in my heart: "Fate is pitiful and God has shown mercy. He has
suspended His judgment and has allowed me one last chance. I shall not
be found wanting; I shall be worthy of His clemency."
Then lo! at a turning in my pathway, the forgotten avengers stand before
me; my sins, like spectral furies, have found me out!
We were finishing dinner on the terrace of the Bellevue at Hyères, my
betrothed and I. The children had said good night, had kissed and
embraced us and run off, chattering and twittering with Elise, to their
rooms. Kamarowsky had just lit a cigarette, and was leaning over to me
with a word of tenderness, when I perceived immediately behind him at a
neighboring table--a face, a grinning, fiendish face.
My heart bounded. It was the Scorpion!
Why was it that name that first rushed to my mind? Why was my primitive
sense of fear and repulsion renewed at the sight of him?
Ah, that man staring and grimacing at me over Kamarowsky's shoulder was
not the friend, the lover, the knight of the heroic Saga whom I had
known and trusted in my days of desolation; no, he was the terrifying
and truculent monster of the octopus story; he was the Scorpion who
years ago had filled my soul with dread.
When had he come? How long had he been sitting at that table, watching
my garrulous gladness, my timorous, reawakened happiness?