"No, I am not, I assure you."
"Still, do it, dear Sister."
It was one of the general's wife's principles on commencing the
conversation to speak with deference to her friend, though she was the
younger of the two.
"These matins, these vespers, these masses! ... It will indeed be well
with you up there." And she lifted her large green eyes to the ceiling.
This time also she did not omit the inevitable comedy, and taking
Helene's arm, she drew her to her boudoir, where the sound of several
voices was audible.
"Come, dear, I have absolute confidence in you."
The "lady bountiful," a friend of General Khlobestovsky, was already
seated in the boudoir. Her goggle eyes and projecting jaws well adapted
to frighten poor people, opened wide at Helene's arrival, and in a
high-pitched voice, imitating a famous actress, she exclaimed with a
sigh, "How happy I am! How delighted! Holy woman!" and then turning
towards a young girl very simply dressed who was also smiling at the
nun, said, "Ah, Sacha, how long have you been here?"
Sacha was a niece of the general, and had been taking a course of music
lessons at Petrograd. When she saw her, Helene's face lighted up.
"My course was over a fortnight ago, and I took advantage of it to come
home again."
"You would do much better," said the "benefactress," looking at Helene,
"to follow her example than to follow your course; I tell her so in your
presence, Sister, because I tell her so when you are not there to hear.
To think that at your age, with your beauty, you have been able to go
through such severe tests in order to overcome sin!"
"Why did you send for me?" Helene asked.
"Because, dear, we have decided to make a blue altar-cloth embroidered
with gold and silk for your convent. Without your advice we do not know
how to set about it; it is impossible for us to choose the design and
the colours."
The table was already covered with the velvet cloth in question which
reached down to the ground; on it were lying skeins of silk, fringes and
gold thread. As soon as Helene had taken her seat the ladies began an
earnest discussion on the question whether they should embroider the
flowers flame-colour, the stalks white, the leaves red, and at the top
in gold a border of moss-roses.
"But would it look natural?" said the nun.
"Then what are we to do?" answered the "benefactress" in an agitated
way. "Enlighten us, dear Sister; without you we are in darkness."
When the consultation was over, Sacha, who had waited impatiently,
approached Helene, took her arm, and led her to the drawing-room.
"I have been to your church to-day," she said. "I have looked for you
everywhere without seeing you."
"I generally stand on the right in a corner."
"In the shadow?"
"Yes; one feels more comfortable out of observation."
"It is a pity; I was looking forward so much to meeting you again, and
did not succeed."
"Why regret it?"
"Ah well! As a devotee you are simply superb; one would say you had
stepped out of the frame of a holy picture. And how they sing at your
convent! You have a magnificent voice."
"Who says so?"
"My aunt in the first place. At school it seems that you already held
every one under a spell."
"Your aunt is too kind."
"Not at all; she is only just. But tell me why do you not take part in
the convent choirs?"
"I do not wish to," said Helene, and a shadow passed over her face.
"Pardon me," murmured Sacha, taking her hand. "I have perhaps vexed you;
I am so foolish."
"Not at all," answered Helene. "It is not that. But you see, I ought not
to sing. Doubtless, you do not understand me. Anna Petrovna declares in
her kindness that I have overcome all sins, but it is not so. A nun
ought to seek before all things to forget the world where she has lived.
It ought not to attract her any more. No one knows anything of our
struggles and our mental distresses. If I recommenced to sing, the past
would rise again at once. Ah! I have experienced it already; one day I
was singing a church chant in my room; all the past came up in my heart,
and I nearly choked. That which I had fled from, that which I believed
dead and buried, returned. You see a spiritual victory is not won so
easily. Till one is 'dead to the world' one has many trials to pass
through. It is only outsiders who imagine that peace reigns in a
convent. If people could glance into our souls, they would see troubles
and storms at the bottom of each. But these are only words! Come and see
me, won't you?"
"Yes, certainly!" answered Sacha, stretching out her hand.
"I love you much, Sacha; you are honest. Au revoir. God be with you."
"Where are you going?" exclaimed the general's wife. "What! Without
taking tea. I won't let you go. After tea they will put up for you a
basket of preserves to take to the abbess, that good soul. She prefers
quince-preserve. As for you, I don't offer you any; you have renounced
all these luxuries; you no longer belong to this world!"
And once more her cheeks began to quiver and her green eyes grew moist.
"How charming you were at school! Tall, well-shaped, like a figure in
Dresden china. Do you ever remember the school, Sister Helene?"
"Yes, of course," said Helene, with an abstracted air, only
half-attending to her.
"I remember they had brought you from far away--the Caucasus, wasn't it?
They had written to me, I remember."
The nun bent her head in order to hide her disturbance of mind. When she
raised it again, she had grown still paler, and her sad eyes showed
physical pain controlled with difficulty. But the general's wife, who
never paused to notice anything, did not guess at her trouble. She had
risen, and stuttering very fast, said, "This evening we will give you a
musical treat. I know you love music, Helene, and that is not a sin. I
think there was a saint--what was her name?"
"Saint Cecilia," said the governess.
"Yes, precisely. She was a musician, and yet she has been canonized; you
will find it in books."
Helene remained. She felt an irresistible desire to hear
music--something besides the human voice or the voice of her heart.
"Is it you who will play?" she said, approaching Sacha.
"Yes; tell me what you prefer; I only warn you that I don't play
anything very serious."
"Play something that I have not yet heard; all that calls up
associations of the past makes me feel poorly. During the four years
that I have been at the convent you must have learnt many things which I
don't know. You know, perhaps, Beethoven's Sonata 'Quasi una fantasia.'"
"Certainly. Would you like to hear it? 'It is an old piece that is
always new,' our musical professor used to say."
"Yes. To-day I feel drawn to it, though I know it will make me suffer."
"Do you know that it is a little alarming to see you as a nun? Why
should it be? Our family has been always given to religion; my
grandmother entered a convent at the close of her days; and my mother
spent her days in visiting the Holy Places."
Sacha went to the piano and the general's wife came and sat by Helene.
She took her hands and said to her in a sentimental tone, "Do you
remember how often we used to play duets at school?"
"We must confess that we played very badly," answered Helene with a
smile.
"Yes, but the recollection is a delightful one. Do you remember the
venerable Father who used to come to listen to us? Do you know I was
quite in love with him! But pardon me; I forgot that before you.... Ah,
you are quite removed from all that to-day, happy woman!"
"But are not you happy?"
"Non. Life is not what it appeared to us through the rose-coloured
curtains of the school. I do not complain of my husband, but he is quite
incapable of letting himself go or of becoming enthusiastic."
For a moment or two she shed tears, which she wiped away as Sacha struck
her first notes.
Helene listened as though in a trance. God only knew how much the music
recalled to her of that past which she thought had been blotted out. She
saw once more her country, whose soil she would never tread again; she
heard the murmurs of the plane-trees, the low warbling of the brooks; a
more brilliant sun glowed in a deeper sky; she closed her eyes and would
have liked to withdraw into herself, and see no more of her
surroundings. The unutterable yearning and burning passion of the sonata
struck painfully and without cessation on her suffering heart. For a
long time she had believed that a day would come when the old story
which she had confided to no one would be finally forgotten, when she
would be able to look at her past with the same indifference with which
one contemplates the mists of autumn or the snows of winter; then she
would return to her own people content and serene; they would receive
her with joy, not guessing what she had sacrificed for them. To-day,
alas! she understood that it would be vain to seek to bury that past; it
would always rise again as vivid and sad as ever. No, she would never be
able to see her country again. Moreover time, solitude and mental
sufferings would not be long in putting an end to her physical life. A
few more years, and she would rest in her coffin with a visage as
immovable as that of the Sister dead yesterday in the convent, who also
had known suffering. But those happy people down there, happy in the
country she loved so well, did they still remember her? Perhaps they
had forgotten her or thought her already dead.
Under the stress of these thoughts her heavy black garb became
insupportable, and her head-dress weighed upon her like lead. She rose
suddenly, before the sonata was finished.
"I will see you to-morrow," said the general's wife without attempting
to detain her; "the carriage is there. This large packet is for the
abbess, and the one wrapped up in a newspaper is for you."
"For me?" asked Helene in a reproachful tone. "You know that I do not
like...."
"Well, give it from me to poor Olia."
"Thanks. God be with you!"
After warmly embracing Sacha, Helene took her leave. When she had
settled herself in a corner of the carriage, she felt an inexpressible
depression overwhelm her. She would have liked to open the
carriage-door, to plunge into the cold fog, and to run into the infinite
darkness, far away for ever.